Casting

Originally we wanted to act in our own video but we decided that to achieve the best possible outcome that be needed an actor. First of all we wanted a male who could sing and play the guitar as we wanted the whole video to be performance based. It was hard to find someone who would suit this role and we tried hard to find the right person but in the end we thought we could just use someone who can act. All the singing can be mimed. The actor had to be fashionable to suit this indie song and of young age. So in the end we went with Nathan Randall who has a passion for acting. We contacted him and he agreed to be the actor. But because we couldn't fit all the filming on one day, it was hard to rearrange as he wasn't always free. In the end I thought that he was perfect for our video.
Bellow is a image of him taken on filming day along with his guitar:

On site pictures

 This one was taken when we were trying to film the moving shot of the sun through the trees. This shot proved hard to handle because trying to keep the camera steady was mission impossible. But after 11 shots we finally managed to get a acceptable one.

This one was taken when we were filming the performance part of this video. This location meant we can use the light as an advantage because everything else in the background rather dark. This location was also where we decided to take use as one of our options for an album cover.

Props

For our props we used a guitar as this is the main instrument in our song, this helps with the performance part of the video as it matches the song. We chose to actually use a instrument because other videos that were in the same genre used instrument to emphasize the performance. As our actor is going for a walk in the forest, it wouldn't of made sense if he was carrying too many things.

As well as the guitar, the singer is carrying a mobile phone, this is used to show that he is in a relationship. By having a mobile phone we can show that he is in a relationship without having to use an actual partner in the video. This meant that there were less hassle on the filming day.
We also used flowers in our video to help with the narrative part of the video showing that after he discovers the flowers, he realizes that he has mad a mistake my ending the relationship. Without the flowers, the narrative part would of been harder to show.

Generic Conventions of a Music Video

Types of music Video:

·         Illustrative: This type of music video tells a story and is often performance based. These type of music videos are typically about love or romance.

·         Amplification: Amplification is where a director interprets a music video in their own way using creative ideas that they have. These videos will still have a direct link to the song.

·         Conceptual: This type of music video may not have anything to do with the lyrics of the song and are known to be very abstract. An example of one of these videos is Daft Punk – Technologic.

        

Camera:

·         Camera shots usually jump a lot from Long shots to close ups and extreme close ups. The close ups are usually on the lead singer and the band and the extreme close ups are usually of the singer lip synching.

·         Camera Movement: Whip pans, fast dolly tracks and fast overhead crane shots to follow the running, walking or dancing of performers.

Editing:

·         Editing: various terms: jump cutting, montage editing. Creating the visually de-centred experience of ‘jumping’ from location to person to instrument without any normal narrative continuity. Instead it is often the beat or the rhythm of the track which provides the organising principle for editing movement. The editing moves so fast it creates the need for viewing ‘repeatedly’. There are exceptions though. Some ‘continuity editing’ used such as atmospheric ‘dissolve shots’ such as in Sinead O’Connor’s ‘Nothing Compare to You’ 

 Lighting:

·         Lighting: Expressive lighting a key feature of music videos. Extreme artificial light to create the ‘bleaching’ effect on pop stars faces (making them seem ageless). Also the use of switching from colour to black & white or sepia to indicate a shift from chorus to verse. Also lighting effects such as strobes or flashing needs to be identified. 

·         CGI is also a popular use in music videos to create futuristic sets and brightly coloured backgrounds which is mainly used in mainstream music as they have the big budgets for their videos.

          Mise en Scene:

·         What to look for in a video. Is there a theme such as the historical period e.g. the sixties (Madonna’s ‘Beautiful Stranger’ with its intertextual link to the Austin Powers film) or the seventies (The Beastie Boys ‘Sabotage’ video which parodies the ‘Starsky & Hutch’ 70s TV Cop genre...also an intertextual link). Does the video’s mise en scene follow the need for authenticity in performance videos by using the concert hall or rehearsal studio setting. Or is there an intentional ‘parodic’ setting to exaggerate star image as in many rap and r&b videos with a focus on glamourous icons such as exotic locations, beautiful cocktail bars and stunning beachside houses with infinity pools (see MC Lantau’s video set in Discovery Bay).

Permission

Permission for Location:
With regards permission, we contacted the Look Out management team. This was done through a telephone call on the 21st September 2012, we asked about permission to film and take pictures. They said 'It is fine as long as you don't included any member of the public without their permission'. So whilst filming we made sure we were out of the way at the quiet parts of the woods. So far we have deleted the films where there are members of the public. We wouldn't want to interfere into someone's privacy.
Also they mentioned the standard rules which are, no fires, smoking or damaging of any habitat. We followed these guidelines.

Permission for song:
To ask the artist if we can use his song, we decided to use a social network site (twitter). Below is a screen print of the message that I directly sent to Jose Gonzales. I chose twitter because it allowed us to directly contact the artist, whereas other sites such as facebook doesn't. Jose Gonzalez would of definitely seen this message but weather he chooses to reply is his choice.

Location Research

For our research, we watched various other videos which were filmed in the woods/forest. All these music videos were in the same genre as our song so this really helped when it came to picking the right place to film.

We looked at 2 different places which were Black Park Country Park which is the biggest country parks in Buckinghamshire and the Look Out in Bracknell forest. Black Park has over 10 miles of well surfaced flat track ways and paths set in 535 acres of woodland and heathland. It also has a cafe which means it is a perfect place for a family to spend their day, not only does it have a cafe and play park, it also has a huge lake which can be used for fishing. This meant that this park is always busy all day so finding a quiet place to film would be hard.

Thus why we found our second and final location which is the Look Out in Bracknell; this connects to Swinley forest which means there were many places to go and film as it is nearly double the size of Black Park. If you were near the main trails, it is busy but we went off trail and found places that no one would walk past. This is why we picked this location to film (The most recent Harry Potter Movie was also filmed here). Some parts of the woods we couldn't use as we found out there was a huge fire that happened there in 2011 which destroyed a massive chunk of the woods. The advantages of this place was that we could get many interesting walking shots and when it came to the performance shots, there were branches or tree stumps the actor can sit on and sing. We could also film dark or light shots depending on where we were.

We also went out with a camera so we could take pictures of the location. This one below is the lookout.

Costume

Costume

The costume was chosen to match the song, we wanted a modern dressed character otherwise it wouldn’t make any sense. The character had to suit the role and the props have to match. This is why we dressed the character in a fashionable denim shirt, skinny black jeans with ‘vans’ shoes which is very popular at the moment. 

We’ve done research into other music videos that are a similar genre to ours and we found that if the music is mostly listened by the younger generation (15-15), the artist tends to up to date clothes. These artist influence the flow of fashion, if theres a new style that the artist wears in the videos, the audience will copy it therefore starting the new fashion trend.   

Most artists wear clothes matching their genre of music so that is why we have chosen to go along that route as well. Our genre is indie so these clothing below suited the role. If we were doing a rap video, we might have chosen different clothing with a lot more jewellery/chains etc. 

Shooting Schedule

Thursday, 28th September	Friday, 29th September	Saturday, 30th September	Sunday, 31st September	Monday, 1st October	Tuesday, 2nd October	Friday, 5th October	Monday, 8th October	Tuesday, 9th October
Check how to get to acquired location (Bracknell, The Lookout	Prepare camera for shooting day	spend the whole day at the lookout to shoot.	Review footage	upload footage to final cut and start editing	Think of more shots we could do and sots we need to re shoot	Second shoot to film more of the music video and redo bad shots.	Review footage and upload to final cut	Edit footage and discuss if we need to do another shoot

Risk Assessment

Date	Location	Potential Hazards	Level Of Risk (L/M/H)	Actions needed to minimize Risk
29/09/2012	The Lookout Bracknell	Uneven Ground Tripping over	H	wear sensible footwear for terrain
29/09/2012	The Lookout Bracknell	Falling branches	L	Make sure we film around tree’s that are in good condition
29/09/2012	The Lookout Bracknell	Getting lost	H	Take a map
29/09/2012	The Lookout Bracknell	Bad weather damaging equipment	M	take water proof sheets to cover the equipment
29/09/2012	The Lookout Bracknell	Tripping over wires	M	keep wires taped down or out the way

Jose Gonzalez - Heartbeats (Lyrics + Official Video)

One night to be confused 
one night to speed up truth 
we had a promise made 
four hands and then away 

both under influense 
we had devine scent 
to know what to say 
mind is a razorblade 

to call for hands of above 
to lean on 
wouldn't be good enough 
for me, no 

one night of magic rush 
the start a simple touch 
one night to push and scream 
and then releaf 

ten days of perfect tunes 
the colors red and blue 
we had a promise made 
we were in love 

to call for hands of above 
to lean on 
wouldn't be good enough 
for me, no 

to call for hands of above 
to lean on 
wouldn't be good enough 

and you, you knew the hands of the devil 
and you, kept us awake with wolf teeths 
sharing different heartbeats 
in one night 

to call for hands of above 
to lean on 
wouldn't be good enough 
for me, no 

to call for hands of above 
to lean on 
wouldn't be good enough 
for me, no

Initial Ideas

Initial Idea’s

Chosen Song: Jose Gonzalez - Heartbeats

Idea 1

Our first Idea for the song was conceptual and it was going to be all in slow motion. Our idea was to get paint and throw it on people and when editing we would slow it down to suit the slow tempo of the song. We also wanted to use different coloured paint to make the video more interesting and unique. The reason why we did not choose this idea because we would need to purchase a video camera which would take a lot of fps. Also we realized that this idea would be very difficult to do and it would get boring after a while. If we just kept doing the same shots in slow motion for a 4 minute long song it would bore the audience. We also knew that we couldn't get a good grade for this video as we wouldn't have many different or interesting shots. We wanted to make our video similar to the image you can see below:

Idea 2

Our second idea was to have a man cycling through a town or city chasing after a girl that he admires. This video would have taken you through many scenic routes and would have been slightly comic as he would always miss her but at the end of the video he finally catches her to talk. We initial was happy with this idea but then we started to storyboard and found out that it is going to be difficult to film at the place we wanted to film in. We wanted to film this in London so we could include different landmarks such as Tower of London etc. But it would of been impossible to film a scene there because it is always filled with tourists. 

Chosen Idea

Our chosen idea is where a man has had a fight with his girlfriend and after he goes to the woods to reflect on what has just happened, he realizes that he has made a mistake after he finds a flower. After he has found the flower, he then decides to try and get back with her. Our video is a mixture between narrative and performance. The song we chose to use is Heartbeats which is sung by Jose Gonzales.