In our group of three, we set out in deciding what music genre we would be interested to make a music video. We thought of many tracks and finally decided on using the band, Coldplay. The track’s name was “Viva La Vida”. The genre of this track was something new to us. As we are a group that were born in the “hip hop” and “RnB” era, we couldn’t decide how “pop” music should be illustrated. We finally decided to change our track into something that we were both confident and something we knew about. We changed our piece of music to “Heartless” by Kanye West. This piece of music was in our niche and everyone in the group felt comfortable. What also was relieving was that the work we did for our first piece of music did come in hand as the pictures we took of some locations, were eventually used as the scenes we needed in the video. The shot list had to only change slightly which was not a problem and didn’t take that much long; and the filming we started of the skyline view of the city came to its use as you can see in the video itself.
The type of video we thought we were going to make and made was a narrative and performance based type, this is because the song itself is almost a story and the audience can see this with our video. What makes it a performance video is that the fact we built around a character who looked very emotionally distressed by what has occurred, this added a sense of realism for the audience. Which again made is very believable. We were influenced by many artists in particular Kanye West as this is his song. Even though we didn’t copy any of his videos were try to follow the trend he has set in his different music videos. The structure of this video is very unique as it has dynamism which edges it away from the typical “hip hop” music video, yet it the audience can see what we tried in making it a “hip hop” music video.
Tuesday 6/10/2009
On this day the group started planning a shot list (the improved version) which you can see below:
View of the city- Panning shot
High shot
Medium shot
Over shoulder shot
Medium shot
Side close up
Low angle medium shot
Long shot
Two shot
Green screen medium shot
Long shot
Low angle medium shot
High angle over shoulder shot
Close up shot-phone
Medium shot
Two shot
Over shoulder shot
Two shot
Low angle close up
Medium shot
Green screen medium shot
Long shot
Medium shot
Close up
Low angle medium
Close up
Medium shot
Long shot
View of city- Panning shot
The group also decided to take a still camera, for taking pictures of location that were possible to use, which we could see next lesson.
Thursday 8/10/2009
The group came together and examined which location should be used; the following images show the pictures we thought would be idealistic locations.
The type of video we thought we were going to make and made was a narrative and performance based type, this is because the song itself is almost a story and the audience can see this with our video. What makes it a performance video is that the fact we built around a character who looked very emotionally distressed by what has occurred, this added a sense of realism for the audience. Which again made is very believable. We were influenced by many artists in particular Kanye West as this is his song. Even though we didn’t copy any of his videos were try to follow the trend he has set in his different music videos. The structure of this video is very unique as it has dynamism which edges it away from the typical “hip hop” music video, yet it the audience can see what we tried in making it a “hip hop” music video.
Tuesday 6/10/2009
On this day the group started planning a shot list (the improved version) which you can see below:
View of the city- Panning shot
High shot
Medium shot
Over shoulder shot
Medium shot
Side close up
Low angle medium shot
Long shot
Two shot
Green screen medium shot
Long shot
Low angle medium shot
High angle over shoulder shot
Close up shot-phone
Medium shot
Two shot
Over shoulder shot
Two shot
Low angle close up
Medium shot
Green screen medium shot
Long shot
Medium shot
Close up
Low angle medium
Close up
Medium shot
Long shot
View of city- Panning shot
The group also decided to take a still camera, for taking pictures of location that were possible to use, which we could see next lesson.
Thursday 8/10/2009
The group came together and examined which location should be used; the following images show the pictures we thought would be idealistic locations.
After looking at these pictures, the group then decided which theme should be used to create the music video. (i.e. romance, freedom or isolation), all these themes can be used for the piece of music we chose. We than began a storyboard of our video. We eventually created a new storyboard for the new piece of music used, (“Heartless” by Kanye West).
Tuesday 13/10/2009
On this day, we finally took the camera out to the locations we needed for the video and started our first recording. After doing this we made and opened a new file on “Final Cut Pro” programme and captured it into the timeline.
Thursday 15/10/2009
We again took the camera to get some raw footage and get the shots we needed for the music video. The main recording done today was the first opening scene of the city skyline which we thought we could use at the beginning and the end of the video. The reason why we did this is because we felt it would look appropriate and keep the audience engaged with the video till the end. We also created an improved shot list with only differences on the 9th, 5th and 3rd verses, these verses needed to be improved due to the change of song and this didn’t take long as both of these song represent isolation and romance in one form or another.
Tuesday 20/10/2009
After making the choice of choosing a different piece of music we gathered our equipment needed and went out to record the following 11th and 12th verses. The pictures below show the beginning of the 11th and 12th verses on “Final Cut Pro” as we “log and captured” the recordings.
Thursday 22/10/2009
On this day we went out again to bring back some raw footage of the 2nd and 4th verses we recorded to use in our video. We had to go in to town to get the footage and decided in a group that the verses would be appropriate in the location chosen. The pictures below show the two locations we chose for each verse.
Tuesday 27/10/2009
This day we made progress by putting all the recordings we did on the “Final Cut Pro” in order of the verses. We linked all of the raw footage to lip sync with the piece of music chosen. The picture below shows one of the members doing this at that time.
Thursday 29/10/2009
Today the entire group had a meeting to discuss what further needed to be done of the video. The filming of verses 5 and 9 were done using green screen. The picture below shows how we used green screen and put a dark night scene of a city.
Tuesday 2/11/2009
On this day, the group captured raw footage for half of the 6th verse and the full 8th verse; again we put this on the software “Final Cut Pro” and placed it on the time line, so the lip syncing could be at the same places.
Thursday 5/11/2009
We started on the CD cover; we all decided that the front case was the easiest to do as we could work around that for the inner parts of the cover and the back. The front case is also quite logical to start with as it’s the first thing an audience will see. This is the earliest picture of our cover. . We also did some further research by looking at other artists and pictures of their CD case. The pictures below also show this. The audience can see that most of Kanye West albums are of one character that is central to the picture; we attempted to replicate this on our cover.
Tuesday 10/11/2009
Today we went back to our music video and finished the other half of verse 6, 7 and 3. We recorded these verses in our own time; on Saturday and Sunday. We then added these verses on to the time line and corrected the lip syncing of them all. After doing this we started to add effects where they were needed (i.e/ quick dissolve effect on some verses and finalising the image we were going to use on the green screen).
Thursday 12/11/2009
We continued with the music video today due to timing issues, we didn’t want to rush it at the end and spoil the work we have produced so far. Verses 1, 10 and 13 were the last filming that needed to be recorded and this was done today. We also recorded some extra footage that we could add so the audience would not get bored; this included shots of cars going past in fast motion. The fast motion was done using the “Final Cut Pro” programme.
Tuesday 17/11/2009
On this day we put the footage that we recorded into the time line and made sure it was in time with the lip syncing. We started to edit the whole video for the first time as all the raw footage was complete and everyone in the group was satisfied with the quality of filming. We went through verses 1, 2, 3 and 4 and finished editing these verses.
Thursday 19/11/2009
We decided to make our back cover for the CD case. We took a still picture of the one of the members (the picture is shown below). We designed this, so it stood out from different CD case and the picture is quite clear and crisp. As written before, the research that we did of the cover album showed that Kanye West who is the artist of our piece of music uses one main character and we try to use that theory for the back case as well.
Tuesday 24/11/2009
We continued to edit the video; verses 5, 6, 7 and 8 were fully edited and were ready. We also created ideas in creating the magazine advert for the music video. We wanted one of the members to be in the shot on the side and have large text covering the rest of the page. The picture below was our final image we decided to use as we did research which showed us that in magazine adverts the main text is the focus as it provides information when the album is coming out and what format it is coming out on. (i.e. CD, DVD, LP, available on download).
Thursday 26/11/2009
We finally completed the music video today as all the editing was done and we were satisfied with this. We also finished the CD front cover today. There was a real focus on the two inner covers as well and the images below show what we had in mind. These images are the final images we decided to use. We wanted to use the brick walls for the inner covers because we thought the continuity of using the same theme would suit the case and look better.
Tuesday 1/12/2009
Our focus today was to finish the back cover, we used this effect as it made the whole piece stand out and look as if it is a “hip hop” album case. In the front cover we also used the same effect, so to continue the scheme we thought it would be better to follow this on the back cover.
Thursday 3/12/2009
As we had to finish of the magazine advert, we finalised what effect we needed to add on today. The effect we did use was very similar to the cover of the album case. Again we thought of the continuity idea of the audience remembering what style we used, so we kept this throughout the print based files. We added reviews from big media corporations NME, to make it more realistic.
