Our first shoot was at evening/night shoot at Merri Park which aimed to capture our lead singers/characters running through the woods. In terms of equiptment we hired a Canon 5D w/ 50m & 24-105mm , Tripod, 3 portable LED light pannels and had on hand a Canon 70D, some torches and a homemade reflector.

While we waiting for the lead singers to arrive and for the sun to go down we decided to get some nature shots that we could use for projections later on. As planned we shot trees, branches, leaves and the sky. Probably the best projection shot we got was of a branch partially lit with a torch which would dart around the frame.

               

Once the actresses arrived and there make up was complete we started to gather shots of them running through the bush. Many these shots were shot with a large aperture creating a shallow depth of field. I thought this was a mistake seeing the characters were constantly moving and reviewing the footage, a lot of it is out of focus. Of course it can help having a open aperture when shooting in low-light but we could have easily of closed the aperture and lit the scene with the LED light panels. I was assigned to lighting but no one else thought it was necessary to light the scene at all untill it was actually ‘dark’.

We all had roles of sorts, which worked out well. Andrea directed, Ella filmed, I did lighting and Jenny was in charge of getting the projection shots . We did follow the shot list roughly although we seemed to go off path a bit as the night progressed. All in the all the shoot went OK, it was a long night but we did it. I think the footage will be best used in fast cuts between the studio footage to distract the viewer from the lack of focus.

 

This is a sample of our shot list that we used for first shoot in Merri Park.

Remember to adjust white balance accordingly.

Description	Shot	Camera, Lens	Frame rate
Face close ups stumbling	CU	Canon 5D, 50mm	25fps    Shutter- 50
Hand close ups	ECU	Canon 5D	25
Feet close ups From foot level, locked off shot.	CU CU	Canon 5D Canon 70D	25 50fps   shutter – 100
Running away, shot from behind	WS	Canon 5D	25
Running away, looking over there shoulder	CU	Canon 5D	25
Feet tripping over tree root	CU, MS	Canon 5D Canon 70D	25 50fps   Shutter – 100
Torch light waving around trees.	LS	Canon 5D	25
Torch light moving around actors faces	CU, ECU	Canon 5D, 50mm	25
Standing shot, lit and angled from below	MS	Canon 5D, 25-105mm	25
Camera panning in a circle, following actress running in a circle	CU	Canon 5D	25
Cast enlarged silhouettes of the leads by high intensity lighting close to them, from a low angle.	WS	Canon 50, 24-105mm	25fps,

 

Tree line against the sky	ELS	Canon 70D	25fps, shutter -50
Leaves, trunks, rock etc	CU	Canon 70D	25fps
Swaying branches	CU	Canon 70D	25fps
Forest floor	CU	Canon 70D	25fps
Silhouette of trees	WS	Canon 70D	25fps

Heart-Shaped Box – Nirvana (Directed by Anton Corbijn)

In September 1993 Nirvana released In Utero, an album in which at the time people said defined the generation. To support the record they release a single music video directed by Anton Corbijn for the song Heart Shaped Box. The album itself already had controversial artwork and controversial language for instance the song ‘rape me’, therefore it needed a perfect video to match. Although visually colourful the video is disturbing and the assumed meanings within this video are dark.  

Majority of the ideas for the video actually came from front-man Kurt Cobain himself and not Anton Corbijn. Influenced by themes already explored in Nirvana’s music previously. The video features the old man on the cross, a fat woman in an anatomic body suit, a young Ku Klux Klan girl supported by mechanical birds, fields of poppies and butterflies. In other words the video is absolutely mental. There are lots of interpretations of what both the song and the music video are about.

It’s a common belief that the song is about Kurt Cobain’s intimate relationship with Courtney love. Others say it’s about child cancer.

Some believe the video slamming the Catholic Church’s teaching on abortion. This is shown through the old man wearing the Santa hat and then later the catholic mitre aka. The Pope hat. Furthermore, the little girl is dressed like the KKK but also like the pope comparing the two. She is even jumping to save to save the hanging foetus.

There’s also a lot of surreal Wizard of Oz imagery for instance the poppy fields and crows, the witches hat, the cross may be the scarecrow. Maybe Cobain is trying to compare Christianity to a popular fantasy. None of this would be surprising as Cobain was once religious before turning away from the church.

I don’t think anyone knows except Cobain exactly what everything in this video means and how it all comes to together. He was famous for having multiple meanings to a song and other times no meaning at all. However, there are a lot of elements in which you could guess the subtextual meanings. For instance, the poppy fields most likely represent his heroin addiction.

What makes this video amazing to me is the process it went under post-production. Cobain wanted the video to be shot in Technicolor but for some reason this wasn’t possible.  Coribjin shot the original video in colour, transferred it to black and then sent it to Mexico where each single frame was hand painted in a style that mimicked Technicolor. The process took weeks. This colouring style was influenced by old school Hollywood film such as Wizard of Oz.

    In the book Experience Music Video, Carol Vernaliss explores the idea that music video is primarily anti-narrative. Heart-Shaped Box definitely seems to gain energy from defying narrative conventions. The video holds back information, confronting the viewer with ambiguous unclear depictions. And that’s part of the reason why this video clip is so appealing to me. Even though I struggle to make sense of it, the lyrics, music and image all seem to combine seamlessly to create an interesting piece of media.

 

It was great to see a variety of Anton Corbijn’s work in both his music videos and the feature film Control. He has intriguing creative stylings and it was worthwhile to just sit there and soak it all in for inspiration. I feel as if Corbijn has a unique ability to fully represent the band’s sound through his images.

It’s interesting to note the difference between a lot of his work comprised the iconic black and white imagery and his video for Nirvana’s Heart-Shaped Box which in contrast is crazy, bright and colourful. I was reading that Kurt Cobain actually asked Corbijn to direct a music video for pennyroyal tea and Corbijn refused stating that he couldn’t make it better than the first one. Cobain said that is Corbijn wouldn’t direct it then they would never make another video and they didn’t. I guess that this shows how respected Anton Corbijn is in his field. 

I loved how well he conveyed the tortuous pain of Ian Curtis from Joy Division in Control and how aesthetically pleasing every single shot was. I think this may derive from his photography as it’s like every scene is composed carefully and artistically like an individual photograph. His work has inspired me to think carefully and creatively when composing each shot for our music video. It’s also made me consider that our work could potentially be black and white. Although I think as a group we are pretty set on color but with a minimal color scheme.

Over and out,

Luke

On the first day of class we assigned ourselves into production groups.  I’m in a group with Andrea, Ella and Rohan’s favourite name… Jenny. Andrea and Ella both had a band in mind to create a video for but we ended up going with Andrea’s friends Mollusc and their song A1 Anxiety. I’m not entirely sure what genre you’d classify them but I’m guessing its something like ‘darkwave/electronic/punk’. It’s not the kind of music I personally listen to but I think the track gives of lots of creative possiblitys in terms of a music video. After hearing the track we all decided the video has have a dark and creepy vibe. Rather than trying to plan a narrative out we started to think of locations we could use to as a creepy backdrop. We came up with the idea of an abandoned warehouse and/or forest. Although both locations would come with the difficulty of having to use portable power and the last I heard Andrea was unable to loan a generator and hiring one would be expensive. We also walked around the University and realised there were some greats buildings amongst RMIT that would look great at night if lit correctly. Although it is probably too late to get permission to film. So we currently we are trying to work out the location of our shoot.

We have forumlated a cult-like theme for a video, with extras all dressed alike in a creepy manner. Andreas idea to recruit lots of extras would make for an epic video although I hope we aren’t bitting off more than we can chew as it has made a production alot bigger and therefore more difficult.

Something I need to think about is how are we going to light the scene in order to get that creepy vibe. By using harsh light we can create dark ambigious shadows. For some close ups we may choose to only light one half of the singers face to give them a mysterious dramtic look. Furthermore by moving the barndoors on the lights while shooting we can create an effect of moving shadows.

 
      Over and out,

Luke

After failing my Media 3 studio I wasn’t thrilled about the aspect of doing a summer semester. Although I was pleased when I heard that we would be focusing on music video production. Creating a music video is one of those things that I’ve always thought would be enjoyable to do but have never got around to doing. This course will give me some experience through experimentation and practice. I’m sure many mistakes will be made along the way but this means next time I’ll know what not to do. It’ll good to gain some more practical experience and have a quality piece of work to display. I look forward to working with a group in where we can all bring individual skills and perspective to the table. Furthermore, working with a group will improve organisational skills and my ability to communicate my ideas with others confidently, which is an area I believe I sometimes lack in. Personally I am confident with editing and decent with a DSLR camera though I hope to improve my camera skills with the creation of the music video. 

We will be creating the music video with limited resources therefore its great practice if I wish to create a music video independently. I appreciate low-budget music videos that still manage to memorise the audience such as iconic treadmill one take ‘Here It Goes Again’ by OK Go or even Bob Dylan’s ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’ where Dylan simply flips through lyrical cue cards.

        

A big budget isn’t essential for a successful music video so we have no excuse not to creative a quality piece of work. Sometimes all that’s needed is a simple creative idea that is a little different to everything else out there. The beauty of music videos is that you really can do whatever you want. It’s a world where the weird is appreciated.

Over and Out,

Luke