Blog 10 - Mise-en-scene

Setting/Location

For Setting/Location we wanted to have a mixture of urban locations to compliant our music video. We have decided that Brighton would be a good location for this because there is the famous graffiti walls around the back street of the North Lanes which we would use as a backdrop to our video. Other street like Station Street and Cheapside would be great for tracking shots where our actors could walk down the street performing with the graffiti in the back ground, like in Hip-Hop and Rap music video we researched, (for example; third picture)

Another location we thought of was Lewes skate park because the people that hangout there would be good as background because of the way they dress and attitudes. Also we have lots of friends that can drive so we could have a few shots where the actors are in the car whether it would be stationary or moving depends on the actual ability to shoot and if it is possible to do so.

Props

In our music video we will be focusing more on costume then props because you wanted to keep to the terdition of other rap videos, where the rapper is the main focus so the costumes are very detailed to that perticula style so we aren't using that many props. The few props we are using are inspired but other artists rap videos which will create a glamourus and wealth, high life style that the artists in the rap music give across. We are using cigarettes or cigars as they are seen as a 'cool' and 'bad' which could add to our performers urban credit. I think we should have cigars more then cigarettes as cigarettes even though now a days are thought of a being a 'cool'/'bad' thing also are seen to be something that everyone does. Cigars on the other hand are seen as something that the upper class would smoke and in urban culture it is seen as the wealthy and also cigars are seen in music video such as 'Snoop Dogs' videos as something that wealthy pimps would smoke. To keep with the theme of wealth you thought that money would be a good idea as a prop. The money will be in the form of dollor bills in big bunches that will problity been thrown at the camera. The last prop we thought of was a car which was metioned in the 'setting' above. This is what the peroformer can sit in and drive around in. This will what up the status of our performer in the urban culture.

Colour

To give off a urban affect to our music video we decided that from the costumes to the setting the colours would be bright and vibrant. These loud and contasting colours will stand and give of the urban culture that we want to present.

Costume

The costumes we are going to use will be mixture of typical urban clothing that is shown in many rap musics. The typical costumes will be using will be thing like big over sized hoodies, puffy jackets, flat caps, jeans, and big cunky jewlery. Some explains are below.

Make Up

We arent really doing much make up for our video because the female and being males in the video and because we want the lifestyle and setting of the video to stand out more then the make up so we will have to use minimalistic make up so that the performers dont look rough on camera so only brings out figures in there face but with them still looking natural.

Blog 9 - Pitch

This is a link was my group and I's powerpoint and pitch to the group Wu Tang Clan about our ideas for our music video going over the target audience, genre and hey points .

https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0BzZJHu90cgnLOWU1ZjNmZWItZjAwZi00MjY1LWJhMzgtZTVkOWFhN2M1NGUz&hl=en_GB

These are outlining our research and main ideas for our own music video

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B4-5YKV5LgbpY2E4ZmZhNDgtMmJkZi00OThkLWIyODEtZmRkN2QwNzY5OWIx&hl=en

Blog 8 - Initals Ideals

As a group our ideas are to challenge sterotypes and conservsy of rap videos. We thought we should do this by using the oppsite gender and race to a normal rap vdieo. The merjority of rap videos are dominanted by males with the women are used as sexual objects as the men have power over them and dominate them. We decided that we would switch the gender's around so that the audinece would watching the video and see that woman are more pwoerful and dominanting characters. We found that it would also be funny this the females in the video would be lip sinking to a male voice. What also will add humour is that we are putting the women in as men doing the same movement and expressions as them to kinda of take the mic out of how males act in rap videos.

We feel that Wu-tang Clan suits this type of vdieo as they are very none for using women for the male gaze in their videos. They also add humour into their videos talking about sex, getting high and money. This gives them a big following and fan base.

A good example of this is in their video 'Gravel Pit' - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGS7I8_UXhM

In this video they are set in the stone age which bring humour to the video as it is getting all the funny aspects of that age period. The song Gravel Pit is actually about a casnio and in the video they give a interpitation that it was a actual gravel pit with a casnio in it which adds to the humour. The thing you notice the somein this music video is how women are protrayed shaking there boobs and bums for the gaze of a man. This is a big reason

We have an idea to use a fish eye kens effect as it is typical in videos for a rap/hip hop genre. An example of this is the song 'Mo Money Mo Problems' by Notorious B.I.G

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twkh0YiInPM















Another example of this effect is from the Beastie Boy , Intergalactic.















The actors will be dressed in urban clothing that bring out the culture, for example over sized jackets, hoodies, hats and chains which are also tyically worn by Wu Tang. Because it will be females dressing this way it will add humour to our video making the costume add to our overall aim.
These are a few examples of what stuff of the costumes will be. The poses the actors doing are silimar to how they will be in the music video which they will be doing towards the camera and engaging the audience are like the poses they do in Wu Tang Clan's videos.

We think that our ideas are aimed at our target audience and protray the genre really well. We havnt gone to far from the conventional pattern of Wu tang Clan's videos except that we are challenging the gender and racial stereotypes.

Blog 7 - Coping an existing Video

For coping an existing video, as a class, we had to do 'Teenage Dirtybag' by a early 2000 band called 'Wheatus'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jJVRcCdvyY
We were only doing the first part of the music video. Before we started filming we look at the orginal video over and over again storyboarding it. I didnt really realise how much detail you had to put in when you analysed just one shot. In the first 10 seconds there are 5 different shots which in each of these shots we had to included; shot type, shot number and description of action etc... see pictures below.

As a group when we first started filming we had to fill in a shooting script, this included the image of the shot, the shot number, shot type, description of action, camera movement/direction and how many takes it took. I found having all of these things here useful because it kept everything in order and made it easier for everyone involved. I thought we were good because we got everyone involved and everyone in the group was doing something to contribued; which could be acting in the video or using the camera etc.
We were also shown how to use a clapperboard, this was so we could log each take on film. It is a simple written note placed at the front of the camera and filmed. Being a easy way when editing to find the right shoot quickly without going through the whole tape, ie Shot 6, Take 9.

I have contributed to the video by being in the videos alot and there doing a bit of behind the camera work like filming with the camera on the tripot. The camera (which is a Canon XM2) is mounted to the camera to give it stability when filming. This helps zooming, panning and tilting of the camera because it keeps it stable and not shaky. The tripot we used at college have a spirit level on it which enables you to position the camera to an exact horizontal. I also learnt that you cant be nerve infront of the camera or it will just look unbelievable, I also learnt that when using the camera on the trypot I had to keep a legs wide apart so I could keep the camera steady.

There was more to set up just then the tripot. We had to set the white balance of the camera to suit the conditions of which you are filming in wheather it is outside or inside. This is because the camera reacts differently to different light conditions. For example; if you are filming outside the white balance should be set to "Daytime Filming," all of the setting are based on the colour temperture. If you didn't use the "Daytime Filming" setting while you were outside then the footage would have a blue tint to it. I also learn that this counts for inside, where the setting should be artificial light. With the white balance I came to learn about how to ajust the expsure and not to let the camera run on auto. This is using the manual setting which gives you control over how light and dark the fottage is. You change the exposure using a conbination of the shutter speed, aperture and gain.

After adjusting the exposure we had to change the frame size to be like a widescreen. This is called a 16:9 ratio. Normally the camera we used were set to a standard frame side of a ratio of 4:3. To understand any ratio we had to apply a rule of thirds. Now that our frame size was to the right ratio we could do the focal range of our camera. We had to think about the use of depth of field to centre of the audience attention on a particular part of the frame by having it in focus while the brest of the shot was blurred. This is called a "Shallow or Narrow Depth of Field". We did this in the Hallway shot, in this shot we also shifted the focus from one part of the frame to the another, this is called "Pull Focus"

Apart from the techquical stuff I found that being infront of the camera quite hard because of the fact that everyone is the room is looking at you and you have to make what your doing believeable which on your own, I thought, was a bit of a cringe.I had to pay attention to what the director was telling me and to try and stay in the position I had been given while miming infront of the camera. I didnt really get to direct the group that much which I thought was ashame because I didnt get to influence a pericurlly shot but I did try and put in as much in put as I could of where thing should go and the best way to do thing like in the shot where I have to sing to the camera I thought it would be a good idea if the music was cut to the point we wanted then played over again so we could get as many shots as possiable.
I have found that being perspefic and paying attention to detail about things in the shot very useful because when you are filming at every aspect because it helps you understand what is going on as a team more, making the team effective.
I didnt get to be the director but in our exercise the director worked with the camera opertor to set each shot. They the positioned the actors and extras in position. After checking the composition of the shot they call to the actors to be ready, the the camera operator who set up the camera recording. The clapperboard was then placed in the front of the camera and show shot was called. The director then called action to start the shot and cut to close it.

We also leant how to edit our film very basically using the Apple programme - Final Cut Pro.
First we had to attach the firewire cable from the camera we used to a slot in the computer and then open Final Cut Pro.
Then we had to 'capture' our footage. We did this by loading our footage onto the computer and saving it.
We had to set the 'capture' to the pixel aspect ratio of (PAL-24FPS)
Using Final Cut Pro allows us to edit in a non linear way, which is very helpful if we wanted to edit a certain part of the film first for example the middle. This creates a greater flexibility than editing film.
We had to select a piece of footage using the 'selector tool' and then cut it between each take using the 'razor tool'.
While editing we have had to follow the editing process- step one called an 'assembly edit' where you have to cut out all the footage we don't want to use and assemble to footage we do want to use on the timeline and putting it in order, step two is called 'rough draft/edit' where we have to aim to create a seamless flow to the sequence and finally step three 'Final edit' where we finally tweak the cuts made in the sequence and sync the music and effects to the sequence which can take some time.

Here is the time-lapse filming I took part in..
http://blackboard.sussexdowns.ac.uk/@@0e9d8669165c33ab1a32f48240738bb7/courses/1/A3MEDA-new/content/_281963_1/A2%20Media%20Test%20film%203.mov

This is the footage I took part in filming, directing and acting in for the 'Wheatus' video.

http://blackboard.sussexdowns.ac.uk/@@0e9d8669165c33ab1a32f48240738bb7/courses/1/A3MEDA-new/content/_281964_1/A2%20Media%20test%20film%204.mov