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Shoot Day in Review

Today was our first class back since the day of our music video shoot, and I still had not seen the rushes of our video. After the shoot I was so totally exhausted that I simply dumped the footage onto the Uni media server and went home. I was unable to review the footage at home because I dont have a CF card reader. However, on Monday morning I came in to return the equipment we borrowed, and I was able to copy the footage to my HDD. Which I still did not review.

However, when we arrived at class I expressed some of my concerns:
– Due to the desired look being a shallow depth of field, I had to push the shutter speed very high and I am concerned about a choppy look to the footage.

– There was lots of direct sunlight and this overexposed parts of our shot.

– The princesses do not look like princesses (Rohan you were right about the Princesses)

After class I went and looked at some of the footage – to my surprise the footage was not THAT badly over exposed, it seems that the LCD on the camera simply made it look worse than it was. Rohan also assured me that the blown out exposure was not beyond repair. As for the choppy shots, this was also not that noticeable – WOOHOO… Looks like we are going to be ok.

But, If i had my time again there are a few things I would have done differently:

– Used an ND filter to deal with the brightness of direct sunlight

– Used a VIDEO CAMERA for the wide angle shots where shallow depth of field was unnecessary. The sensors dynamic range would have been better for the over exposed parts. However, the closer shots we were able to get away using a diffuser.

– Not used a wig for our Rapunzel princess.

BUT I WOULD ALWAYS Like to have a hover board! It made carrying equipment a dream! AmtVoyO-5rz6RzTYJ6oqoE8Y3aeZIWFCgndr5sntaQtM

 

Scout! Wild Panic!

Tomorrow is the day! The Shoot!

So, when we did our original location scout we were still quite unsure about the treatment for the music video. We were still vaguely stuck on something to do with balloons and a guy with Elvis hair… Thus, when we did our original scout to the botanical gardens we did not have specific shots in mind. This caused me to panic today, because tomorrow is the shoot and I am meant to be shooting this music video with a camera I am not totally familiar with.

In order to calm my nerves I took a walk by myself into the botanic gardens today, I took my own camera and a 50mm lens, and decided that probably everything would be ok. Luckily now we have a good idea about the various scenes in our music video and the princesses that we want to have starring. Therefore, I was able to pick locations that would suit the scenes. The scout was quite a success as I enjoyed walking around the gardens at the same time. I talked to a few people and told them what we were going to do, which they found quite interesting.  Additionally, I was able to plan a few shots so that Im not totally surprised when it comes to shooting tomorrow.

Here is the current shotlist:

 

“HEY YOU THERE” by Aivy – Production Shot List

 

Shot Description TIME NOTE Location
1 Abby sitting on the bench absently strumming ukelele 0 – 0:20 85mm Aivy OpeningFurther around lake accross from Cinema
2 Reverse angle x x Original Location
3 Closeup of ukulele x
4 Distance shot from back near hill when suddenly balloons float into camera x 85mm or 24-105mm
5 Abby sees the shadow come over her?/ Sees baloons in the reaction in the water and turns around to see them x 85mm
6 Balloon reflection x 85mm
7 Abby perspective sees elvis hair from the back x 85mm
8 Balloons and elvis drift out of shot. Abbys eyes follow.
9 Abby gets up and runs after him FADE
Scene Change to Rapunzel
10 Rapunzel gets her hair caught on the bushes  Repunzels Struggle
11 Elvis hands her the brush tight shot
12 Abby asks for elvis through bushes shot
13 They walk off and they are having fun and talking about life FADE
Scene Change to Cinderella
14 She drops her stuff sits on the floor in distraught ness Do we wanna show the pathway?  Cinerlla Fall
15 Hands her thongs close shot
16 Abby Asks for Prince

reflection????

FADE
Scene Change to Sleeping Beauty
17 Trying to study Sleeping Beauty

Shouldnt this be rapunzel?

18 Hands coffee
19 Abby asks through the pillars
20 Rapunzel is busy trying to be beautiful on the tower and abby pulls her over / pulls her along Fade
Scene change to them looking for him
21 Crosses bridge and looks at map fade  Group Cofused Shot
Scene Change to Snow White
21 Scene plays out Screen Shot 2016-02-14 at 1.44.52 PM

Bench Near Mulans Pagola

22 He hands orrange to them
23 Abby and crew show up
Scene change to Travel
24 Walking shots of whole group  Group Travel Avengers shot
25 Wider shot of the travellers MAYBE GET THIS ONE? Or just with the trio?
NO FADE. Sorta suddenly shows mermaid
 Locked off Wide
Mermaid shot
26 Ariel on bench (With baloon) and they tell her to come with them

she says no

Undecided
27 Wide of Ariel 24-105
28 Elvis is finally found! 2:35 85mm Establishing Final Shot
29 Lots of angles and the couple shot  Arch for the Couple
Fade to post song scene
Couple runs off into sunset with castle behind  IMG_3751

 

Treatment for Presentation

Today we will be presenting our final treatments to Georgia fields, here is the final presentation for our Music Video:

Text

Presentation

 

 

The Day of Reckoning

Some could say that our Disney princesses idea has been in the ring for a few rounds, it has never been strongly favoured – but today was the day of reckoning.

Georgia Fields is a Melbourne musician who has collaborated on a number of music videos with Rohan. One of my favourites can be found below:

She came today to visit our class and give an artists perspective on our music video treatments.

After explaining the final treatment for our music video her feedback reflected the classes concern about the princesses; stating that making them convincing was going to be hard.

To respond to this we plan to make sure that they are in the correct costumes and potentially will have the names of the princesses appearing on screen.

Treatment 2.0

 

Today in class while discussing our original treatment with Rohan when he asked that we flesh out the idea. It needed something more. We then started to discuss the characters, one suggestion from Rohan was that we over exaggerate the characters to make them interesting. Throughout this discussion we came up with the idea of using Disney Princesses. The idea is that we focus on the struggles of Princesses living in todays world. For example, we have Sleeping Beauty trying to study but she keeps falling asleep.

We put this Idea of having all the characters as Princesses past Rohan and he said it would probably be better to stick with other characters that are easier to portray and more exciting to watch on screen. However, we figured that we could pull it off and wrote the following treatment:

 

Treatment Written by Maggie O’Shea:
The clip opens with our protagonist, ABBY, sitting on a bench in a large lawned space by a lake. She is dressed in feminine, retro-­style clothing and there is warm afternoon sunlight. She’s absent­mindedly strumming on a ukelele when something catches her eye. On a path nearby, a man with Elvis ­like hair walks along carrying a large bunch of helium balloons. As Abby watches, he happily gives the balloons out to passers­by. At this point, she begins singing as she remains seated and plays the ukulele. After a few lines, ELVIS HAIR disappears.

 

Abby (still singing) cranes her neck looking for him, and stands up to wander around and look for him further. She can’t spot him, so gets up to look around.

 

We cut to our first character, RAPUNZEL, a young woman with absurdly long hair. She is walking through some trees, but finds her hair is snagging repeatedly. She sits down to try to untangle the knots, and is approached by Elvis hair, although we don’t see his face, who hands her a hairbrush and a balloon, which she accepts thankfully. As he disappears, Abby arrives frantically, miming and pointing to the balloon to ask where Elvis Hair is. Rapunzel points and the two walk in that direction.

 

We then cut to our second character, CINDERELLA [ALAINE THOMPSON]. She is walking along a path carrying several shopping bags when her heel breaks and she stumbles. She sits down and begins to try on shoes from the bags. They are hilariously varied and she is increasingly desperate as none of them appear to fit. As she tries on something truly ridiculous (eg, a pair of flippers), Elvis Hair once again comes to the rescue (although we don’t see his face), offering a balloon and a pair of thongs which she puts on gratefully. Again, Abby arrives at the sight of the balloon with Rapunzel and Cinderella offers to join the search.

 

Our third characters are an older couple, SNOW WHITE and PRINCE CHARMING. They are having a picnic, and we watch them take food out of a hamper until Prince Charming pulls out an apple, causing Snow White to recoil in horror. A hand enters the shot behind them offering an orange instead and a balloon. Again, Abby arrives at the sight of the balloon with the other princesses in tow and the group move on.

 

Fourthly we have SLEEPING BEAUTY [CINDY NGUYEN], a uni student reading a text-book and making notes under a tree. She tries to concentrate, but repeatedly nods off. After about the third time, she falls asleep completely, and a hand from the side of the shot quietly places a red bull next to her with a balloon tied to it. Sleeping Beauty wakes only to see him leave, and is shaken fully awaking by the arriving Abby and is roped unwilling into the shot.

Finally, we have a quick shot of a woman at a bench reading a book. She has already received her balloon which she is holding. When Abby arrives to ask for her help, she shakes her head, and we cut to a wide shot where we see she is wearing a mermaid tail. There is a jump cut to

Abby wheeling THE LITTLE MERMAID along in a wheelchair.  

 

In the final scene, Abby sees the bunch of balloons over a hedge or tree, and the group eagerly runs to see Elvis Hair. Abby is at first too shy to approach, but the group encourages her, almost physically pushing her towards him. She taps Elvis Hair on the shoulder and he turns so they face each other. They introduce themselves, and he offers her a balloon. In our final shot the two walk off into the distance and we pan up to a shot of the balloon.”

Our Treatment

After developing a basic concept for the video of Hey you There it became evident that the idea of two people running around with some balloons was not going to be sufficient to make a three minute video engaging. We figured that we needed to include some other characters to enhance the story. After some discussion, Maggie was able to type up the following treatment:

 

The clip opens with our protagonist, ABBY, sitting on a bench in a large lawned space by a lake.

She is dressed in feminine, retro­style clothing and there is warm afternoon sunlight. She’s

absent­mindedly strumming on a ukelele when something catches her eye. On a path nearby, a

man with Elvis­like hair walks along carrying a large bunch of helium balloons. As Abby

watches, he happily gives the balloons out to passers­by. At this point, she begins singing as

she remains seated and plays the ukelele.

After a few lines, Elvis Hair disappears. Abby (still singing) cranes her neck looking for him, and

stands up to wander around and look for him further. She can’t spot him, but near the path he

was walking down she sees someone holding one of his balloons. She asks the person where

Elvis Hair might have gone. The person points, and follows Abby, and we see the two looking

about for him.

We see the two arrive at a new location, still searching for Elvis Hair, and they see a young

couple with balloons. Excitedly, they approach, and once again the balloon­holders join the

search, and they look around for Elvis Hair.

In a third location, we see a third person with a balloon, with headphones in. The existing

searchers approach, and this person is more reluctant. However, after some persuading from

the others, he too joins the search.

The final people with Elvis Hair balloons are an older couple, enjoying a romantic date. They are

very willing to join Abby’s search as she approaches.

Here we have a few humourous b­roll shots of the group’s search, such as them puzzling over a

map, looking under benches and up trees.

In the final scene, Abby sees the bunch of balloons over a hedge or tree, and the group eagerly

runs to see Elvis Hair. Abby is at first too shy to approach, but the group encourages her, almost

physically pushing her towards him.

She taps Elvis Hair on the shoulder and he turns so they face each other. They introduce

themselves, and he offers her a balloon. In our final shot the two walk off into the distance and

we pan up to a shot of the balloon.

 

 

Women in Music Video

This weeks reading was focused around a very interesting topic; namely the representation of women in music videos. Both readings were excerpts fromMusic Video and the Politics of Representation (2007) by Diane Railton and Paul Watson”. The first section was a study on Pinks “Stupid Girl” music video. The video aims to challenge many of the ‘Paris Hilton’ stereotypes of womens beauty and image. However, the discussion was if it was fair to both sexes or simply urged women to be more masculine. Personally, I have strong beliefs in the equality of men and women, thus this video was intriguing for me. Although it did challenge the image of women, it did little to provide an image for what a strong woman could be. In a way it was a critique without presenting a solution and therefore should not be taken too literally as a feminism text, and more of a satirical remark. 

The second reading was where most of my interest was sparked, the treatment of Black vs White women in music video. It compared the representation of Kylie Minogue in ‘Cant Get You Out of My Head’ versus Beyonce in ‘Baby Boy’ – and the results were shocking! I had not realized up until this point that black women are represented in a much more degrading way than white women. The reading suggested that they are portrayed as more ‘animalistic’ and ‘available’, where as white women are ‘untouchable’ and ‘idolized’. After this was brought to my attention I started to notice how often it happens, for example with Niki Minaj’s ‘Anaconda’.

It simply has given me headspace to be more conscious of how i portray women when i make my own music videos, and be more critical about the music videos i watch.

Shoot Day!

Phew!
Well, We survived. Today was the shoot day for “Hey You There” and lemme tell you – It was intense. The day was supposed to start at 9am which got moved to 12 because of the gloomy looking weather. We even considered cancelling the shoot and doing it tomorrow, but in the end we realised the weather would get better. Deciding to be there at 12 meant that in reality we all arrived by 1pm (nobody can find parking in the CBD during the Australian open) in a frenzy to start shooting. Once we had all arrived and met each other for the first time the shoot began – there was very little time to consider costume and makeup and we basically went with whatever people were wearing.

Now – if i could have just a quick second to complain here. I needed to pee. All Day! Arrived at the shoot – needed to pee. BUT I DIDNT GET TO PEE UNTIL 7PM. That. Is. How. Intense. It. Was.

The way the day ran was that we had the shotlist printed out and divided all the shots into location 1 and 2 as the shots were scattered across two distinct sides of the Botanic Gardens. First we did all the shots at location two which required all the extras to be present, then we moved base to location one and stayed there for the rest of the day. We shot in order of most people required to least, that way we were able to release the extras as soon as possible, until by the end of the day we were left only with our two leads.

Considering the pace of the day, we didn’t even have time to eat, but luckily had somebody on set to grab us some coffee (WHICH DID NOT HELP MY PEE SITUATION). However, by some miracle everybody was kept in a good mood in high spirits and we were able to complete the shoot! Here are a few photos from the day:

IMG_0161 IMG_0164 IMG_0207 IMG_0211 IMG_0233 IMG_0248

Location Scouting

Today, myself and the Crew from Ace Productions went out location scouting for the “Hey You There” music video. The suggested location was the royal Melbourne Botanical Gardens.

In order to make the scout as close to the actual conditions of the day we borrowed a Canon 5D and a 50mm capable lens from RMIT and set out to take photos.

Below are a few of the images gathered:

 

IMG_8012 IMG_8014 IMG_8015 IMG_8017 IMG_8021 IMG_8022 IMG_8031 IMG_8044 IMG_8047

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the scout i was quite content that the location will be appropriate as there is not much cityscape or industrial looking elements.

Another test that was carried out was the colour grading. The final piece is supposed to have a warm/vintage feel to it. Which we tried by editing a still image.

 

IMG_8028-2 IMG_8028

Here is the comparison of the two colours, Original on the left and the graded image to the right.

This might be a bit of a struggle when filmed with a DSLR, as there is less colour information. However if the exposure is kept correct it should be fine.

 

In conclusion the Botanical gardens seem to be the appropriate location for the shoot and we will not go about acquiring a permit.

Varnallis – Telling and not Telling

For this week we had to read an excerpt from “Experiencing Music Video” by Carol Varnallis. Personally I found this reading quite difficult to follow as it was quite dense and used an excessive amount of examples.

However, what I did gather was that it reflected on narrative and how some music videos are narrative while others are more abstract and almost void of story. For example Crazy by Aerosmith is a song which has a strong narrative throughout the music video and develops a plot. The audience follows two teen girls as they go on a wild adventure. Where instead in Madonnas Cherish the narrative simply comprises of various moments which are to be enjoyed by the viewer. However there is also a third type of video which is Non narrative, to see if I understood it correctly im going to use the example of Swagger by Sweets (Im basically putting my life on the line here, because the video was directed by my tutor Rohan). Basically in this video there are a series of different shots, without there actually being a story that flows through it. This could technically be considered a Non Narrative. There can be a theme, which could technically be considered an umbrella narrative, however there are no plots or subplots like in the above videos.

These are just some of my thoughts after reading the chapter. It really left me wondering if its possible to categorize the types of music videos. And if possible, what those categories would be:

  1. Narrative, clear – Crazy by Aerosmith
  2. Narrative abstract – Headhunter by Front 242
  3. Semi Narrative – Cherish by Madonna
  4. Non Narrative – Swagger by Sweets
  5. What Even is Life – Gangnam Style (I guess thats why it was so successful)
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