Week 12: Deadline & Thank-You's

After half term which, i assure you, did not consist of television, food as well as other pleasantries but instead, a Mac, final cut and combined sweat due to hard work by three young strapping gentlemen. 

The Music Video, in which we have spent many moons upon completing, is finally finished. Firstly, we would like to thank Ben's Neighbor Mark for letting him provide us with a set in which we could film, without his help the music video would not be completed, so we thank him very much for his generosity.

We would also personally like to thank the Media department for providing us with the equipment in which to film. The fact that the task was set by the department means very little, having them as a safety net was very re-assuring during this whole process, for advice, help and personal opinions on the creation of this project. 

"I personally would also like to thank Ben Brotherton and Adam Richardson for the partnership in this coursework. It has been a long trip, but i have enjoyed every minute of it; hopefully they feel the same."

This is not the last post on this blog but it is slowly coming to an end. The music video will be added on the following post, naturally, we have had uploading problems which will be rectified in the coming days. 

Thanks for following our journey through A-LEVEL Media; Music Video Coursework.

From the team, 

With Love,

Ben, Adam & Andy

Week 11: Half Term, 'a well deserved break!'

Half term is approaching and the music video is nearly completed. We are all half way through our critical evaluation and everything looks very promising. 

We will continue to work through the half term holidays to get that advantage on other groups and obtain the necessary standard for an A grade piece of coursework.

Until then, 

Andy, Adam & Ben!

Week 11: Critical Evaluation

 CRITICAL EVALUATION

 BEGINS FOR A LEVEL

 GROUP 4, AHEAD OF THE

 PACK!

Week 10: Editing is under-away!

We are half way through our editing sequence, we have also decided to re-film the narrative section for more shots, angles and generally more footage. This also gives some members of the group to get a chance at filming and expressing his ideas towards the project.

The Group has also each had his own time editing the footage. This is not only fair but gives an edge as well as an advantage. Different ideas compiled together will result in an carefully, very creative music video; note that we're editing it as a group together to monitor each others decisions. (Doesnt get out of hand)

I'd like to leave you with a taster of our music video, but i think its best that you wait for the full thing. 

Until then,

Andy, Ben & Adam.

Week 9: Mini Update (2)

Comments have been added to two videos of a possible four explaining why we've included them as visual research for our music video.

The update can be found HERE

More updates will continue next week as well as the possibility of uploading our genuine music video.

Andy, Adam & Ben.

Week 9: Change of Location

After being prevented from filming in our desired choice of location: hanger, we have had to change our place of filming to counteract this major restriction.

We would like to just assure you that our primary location had been booked in advance by two months, so it has been a big blow to our whole project to not being able to film in our desired location. However, as a good team does, we had a second option incase our first fell through as it has done.

The group, band, equipment and two cars will head towards Petton just outside shrewsbury this evening to film. We have arranged to be filming in a 'dingy' mess covered arena sized area, which fits nicely into what kind of 'mise-en-scene' we want to capture (more on that later).

The group in our own time have become very capable with the software provided to edit various film. This means that editing will, naturally, be easier and allowing us to obtain certain effects that we wouldn't normally have if we hadn't practiced. 

The music video will be finished before week 9 ends as 10 begins,

Until then...

Andy, Adam & Ben

Week 9: Mini Update

Just a small update for the start of the week. 

Click HERE to view the post.

Risk Assessment's have been added for viewing.

More updates will pursue throughout the week.

Ben, Andy & Adam

Week 8: Restrictions

Restrictions Pre-Film

As we are not currently in the employee of the Royal Air Force we do not have the authority to maintain our booked window of time. Therefore, we have been removed from thursday evening due to a officer's mess football game.

However, we have managed to secure a opening in the weekend, which

 is superb considering the mandatory time needed to book the hanger.  Adam has managed to obtain lighting equipment for the music video this weekend. Also we have the whole lights inside the hanger to control at our leisure, optimizing for the best lighting in this video

Being able to upload pictures and videos has been extremely hard via blogger.com It has consumed a lot of a precious 'class time' scanning, uploading and re-formatting video and pictures to upload to blogger. Blogger has been very limited on that specific area, no always wanting to upload our desired items.

The cameras are not of the best quality, they are very unreliable and require a lot of patience from the person operating it. The visual texture that it provides isn't great and we will need to rely on various editing software to bring it up to professional standard. We have used tripods to counteract the shoddy hand movement from the operator allowing us to get a smooth pan when needed for our music video. 

Week 8: Equipment

Equipment For this Weekend:

Xm1:

Large camera more maneuverable providing us with a better quality picture

Jib:

Crane; allowing the Xm1 to be attached giving us various different shots.

DV Camera:

Digital Video Camera which is handheld and is mobile.

Tripod:

Gives the DV  camera a smoother rotational shot and stability. 

Dolly:

Allows us to capture steady, controlled movable shots.

Lighting:

Self Explained

Week 8: Place of Filming Booked

We have managed to book a half mile long military hanger to ourselves. This is a huge advantage for our Music Video as we can control the light as well as having a large space for the band to play in.

We plan to film after college on tuesday. Yes this might be considered cutting it fine via time periods, however we have waited a long time to access this hanger and look forward to using it to our advantage. 

The group has also arranged to meet after college on the days leading up to the final deadline to make sure that our edited piece meets the satisfactory standards that we aim for. 

I am looking forward to what tuesday brings, it will be finished to a excellent standard on friday so please don't suggest otherwise.

The size of the hanger in which we have acquired for the evening.

Andy, Ben & Adam

Week 7: Animatic Storyboard Video UPLOADED! (Nearly)

As you see after weeks of drawing, scanning and editing our animatic is nearly finished! We are very proud of this piece of work and look forward to finalizing the movie, however, until then  your comments on the movie itself would be very welcome.

(Uploading, Please Wait...)

This post is Expanding, therefor it will continue to grow with information about the storyboard so STAY TUNED!

Week 6: Continued; The Men Behind The Project.

After consistently updating you throughout these pasts weeks, we thought it would be 'pucka' to show you the men... behind the project.

        Adam Thomas Richardson     Benjamin Lewis Brotherton

                                Andrew James Northway

WE ARE MEN!

We'll continue to keep you updated on how the music is progressing with the traditional three posts a week, until then folks!

Adam, Andy & Ben xxx

Week 6: Risk Assessment & Video Research.

Coming to the end of week 5 and the start of week 6, we all think its mandatory to upload our risk assessment made on the music video; as well as extra research.

Risk Assessment:

Visual Research:

All the tracks below have been taken from the site 'YouTube'. We have read their terms of use and are not planning to distribute these tracks in any commercial way, they are just an asset/example to our  coursework.

Tracks Beneath as follows:

• Bloc Party -Talons (Commented)
  
• The Strokes- Reptilla (Commented)
  
• Kings of Leon- Sex is on Fire (Not Commented)
  
• Bloc Party- Hunting For Witches (Not Commented) 
  

Bloc Party

Talons

The above video is our main inspiration as in what kind of effects and story we want to capture in our own.  The fast camera movement, colloquial shots throughout leaves the viewer un-easy and un-sure what is genuinely happening. The Neon Chrome colors makes us think that wherever these people they are, its futuristic or imprisonment. 

The foundation of our music video is based around this one. We will follow the same connotations and ideas of the above but with the flare of our own imagination as well as skills contributing to it. 

The Strokes

Reptilla

We have chosen to include this video in our visual research down to the way its filmed. The shoddy movement, extreme close ups, over the shoulder shots and high angle shots are used regularly giving the audience the feel that their up and amongst the band, close and personal.

Filming from within the crowd also gives the audience the feel of, while watching at home they can be within the crowd enjoying the live performance. Id like to include alot of these ideas in our music video; we have a story-line and its not live, regardless we will include the various ways its been shot, consistently.

Kings Of Leon

Sex On Fire

Bloc Party

Hunting For Witches

The lack of videos above is due to the update of youtube; their embedding program for each video has been disabled within the time window of updating this blog.

Links to the videos have been inputted to browse at your own leisure until the embedding has been inputted by the group, it will be completed shortly.

Andy, Ben & Adam.

Week 5: Updated.

As planned the current progress of the 'Music Video' is on schedule. We are in the midst of finishing our annotated storyboard via final cut with the inputted track underneath.

This has been very time consuming as we have had to scan, copy, paste, edit, modify, re-draw and re think the way in which the music video was heading. However, regardless of certain drawbacks amongst other challenging obstacles we, as a group, have had to overcome we are all very happy with the way in which the storyboard as turned out.

We need to continue to perform the way we are currently doing in and outside the classroom to insure that this music video is exceptional. I am very confident that we will be within the required time limit and meet all various deadlines set by our superior, for this week has really proved what we can do as a group.

I leave you with screenshots of our 'Final Cut: Editing Sequence' as a taster of what you can expect in the coming weeks.

Andy, Ben & Adam.

Screenshot 1:

Screenshot 2:

Week 4 Continued: Research

I've been doing a bit of research for our music video and came across another A level music video of the same song, which i thought was quite effective, using good use of different colour pallettes and blue screen tech. Although some idea's are similar, some are very different, and we have different ideas about camera and editing techniques.

so watch and see what you think.

Week 4: Welcome & Update.

Welcome, having only just signed on to blogspot, this is our first blog. After complications of the loss of past work we needed somewhere which is secure, reliable and provides a large amount of memory to store our work within. 

After being informed by our superior that there was such a place, we immediately signed up and created our blog as you can see here. This blog will be the place to check if there is ever a desire to look upon our work whenever needed; as it is updated weekly by myself (Adam), Ben and Andy.  

The next update will be research of other students music videos as well as the animatic of our storyboard completed on final cut, exciting stuff!

So until then, 

Adam, Ben & Andy.