Thinking about...Ancillary Tasks

Briefs

1. A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with two of the following three options:

• a website homepage for the band;
• a cover for its release as part of the digipak (CD/DVD package);
• a magazine advertisement for the digipak (CD/DVD package).

As our filming for the rough cut is at the halfway stage I've started to think about producing the two ancillary tasks. As you can see above we decided to eliminate the website homepage option for our band and go with the second two tasks. 


The digipak is very important for an artist because this is how they represent themselves and this is what listeners are going to picture in their head when they consider buying the CD. Also this gives the artist another chance to flaunt their style and genre. We must remember that all three parts of our promotion package must relate to one another in terms of things like fonts and colour scheme. The house style must be consistent in all three products.


The magazine advert is also vital because without advertisement the fans aren't going to know if the single is on sale or not. The advert must give fans a taster for the real digipak so they have an idea of what to expect. Significantly the advert is going to tell the public when the single is released and how much it's going to cost, without this the customer cannot be lured into buying it!

Introducing the Female Role

With our next filming date fast approaching, it's the first time the girlfriend character comes into the video and so I thought it would be an apt time to let you all know a bit about her...

Name: Sarah Brushett

Age: 18

Again we needed an actor who would be up for letting themself go a bit and show a wide range of emotions. The person needed to have a good sense of fashion and match the same style of our lead role Taylor. The main part of her role is going to be in an intense and heated argument with Taylor, not an easy part to fill. This is all an awful lot to ask, however, Ellis spoke to Sarah and ran through all the parts she's needed for and Sarah was really keen to get involved. Sarah has done some drama in her past and so she knows what to expect. The bonus is that she knows Taylor well and so they'll both enjoy acting out the scenes together. They've both already said they cannot wait to do the argument scene!

Editing: Final Cut Express HD

Now we've started filming we need to start converting the footage into a video. The programme we are going to use to edit is 'Final Cut Express HD'.

Before this school year none of us had used 'Final Cut' and so it's going to be a gradual process and there's bound to be many mistakes made. However, when we made our Animatics we used 'Final Cut' to put our pictures into a video and it gave us a bit of practice before doing the real thing.

'Final Cut' is going to allow us to add filters to our shots for effects and play around with the speed of the footage for fast forward or slow motion effects. Also if any of our footage is unneeded or poor quality we can always cut it out. The layout of the programme allows us to to view the timeline of our audio file at the same time as our visuals timeline, this helps us with timing and placing shots in time with the beat.

Firstly, we felt it was important to name each clip of our footage so it was easy for us to distinguish which bit was which when dragging clips into the timeline. After this we had to import our track 'Demons' into 'Final Cut' and then lock the audio layer. Locking the audio layer was important because without doing so the audio file would split when we started to drop clips into the timeline. After these preparation stages we were ready to start editing.

As shown in the image above, all our clips of footage were kept on the left hand side of the screen and the timeline of the video just below. If we needed to use a clip to add to our video you just simply drag the thumbnail down onto the timeline to add to the rest of the video. However, our clips were quite long and shots in music videos last seconds, not minutes. To overcome this we could simply cut out any unwanted footage. This was done by simply highlighting the section of footage we wanted to cut out from the clip and selecting delete. This is an important part of editing because it keeps the video flowing and stops it from becoming boring, I mean we don't need to show every single footstep the actor takes....it isn't necessary. Below is a photo showing how the length of a clip is trimmed/cut. The area of clip highlighted with the border is the part needed, the rest is cut away.

To the left is a grab shot from the drug-taking scene in our music video. This actually took a few minutes for Taylor to do because sniffing flour isn't the most pleasant thing to do! However, we managed to cut it down into about 4 quick cuts lasting a few seconds. This allows the viewer a chance to understand what is happening in this scene without showing every single tiny detail.

This technique is also used when Sarah shows Taylor out the door. When filming Taylor had to get up from the table, argue, make his way into the hall, get his coat and eventually exit the house, a lenghty process. So again, we split the footage into about 6 cuts by trimming away the parts we didn't need. 

We decided to film the majority of our video outside in the dark because darkness relates to the song title 'Demons'. Drugs and relationships breakdowns are quite upsetting topics so we decided to create a gloomy atmosphere about the video by filming in dark. However, when we began editing we noticed that some of the footage was unclear because of lighting issues, to overcome this we had to adjust the lighting and colouring using the tool below.

To make our video look professional and keep it flowing we added transitions inbetween shots. Rather than just using straight cuts in every transition we used properties like dissolve to more gradually take the viewer from one place to another. In our video Taylor keeps on having flashbacks of his argument with his girlfriend, so rather than just cutting from his face to the argument we used dissolves. This fades out Taylors face gradually and fades in their argument they had earlier that evening, the picture below gives you an idea of this.

Filming Schedule

After a busy christmas and fitting around people's outer school commitments we finally found a date and time slot to begin our filming process. Mainly our filming is going to be split into two parts, the filming in Brighton and the filming in Ellis' house. So in the saturday just gone we decided to use our time to conquer the most difficult part of our filming which were the Brighton scenes. Brighton is a fair distance away and is therefore difficult to organise a trip there which is convenient for everyone.

Our first challenge was getting there and so I volunteered myself to drive my team and actors down there. I picked everyone up after work and we headed down the M25 just as the sun went down (perfect timing as we needed the darkness).

Once we found a car parking space we didn't mess around but got straight to it. We started by filming Taylor walking down the dim lit streets of Brighton smoking cigarettes, then we moved onto filming on the pier. We made the most of the bright lights on the pier and the view over the sea. A favorite part of the evening for me was the filming of the text message shot where Taylor really stepped up to the mark in terms of his acting and expressing emotion.

On the journey home we planned when we're going to do the filming at Ellis' house. With the rough cut deadline nearing we decided to do it this weekend so we have all our footage ready to edit and cut together into a music video by the end of next week.

Risk Assessment

Before actually filming there are lots of risks and dangers which we need to consider. I've used 'Microsoft Word' to compose a table for our risk assessment:

Animatics

And here it is, we have managed to put our pictures together and place the audio file into the background to create our animatics.

Animatics

Team member Ellis took lead role in constructing our storyboard with the advise of myself and Bethan. We drew out pictures of every shot we believed we needed for the video to give ourselves a visual idea of what we' be viewing whilst listening to the music. Once we done this we drew over the pencil in black pen to enhance the clarity and definition of the pictures before taking photos of them. We next uploaded the photos onto the Apple Macs where we used photoshop to enhance the clarity further by adjusting the lighting and contrast of the pictures. Next we had to import the pictures into our editing programme Final Cut Pro where we placed each image into the timeline and cut the lengths of each shot. We then had to add our music 'Demons' into the audio timeline, here we had to match different parts of the song in time with different shots we drew to get a clear understanding of what our video may look like.

All that is left to do now is use a video uploading programme to complete the task and then finally embed the video onto our blogs.

Lead Role: Actor Found!

Name: Taylor Gorga
Age: 19 Years Old

We think we've found the perfect person for our role in the music video 'Demons'. My team member Ellis has asked her friend Taylor if he'd be willing to help us with our music video and star in it as the lead character, and the lead vocalist of our band (although there's no singing in the video!). Typical of his 'game for anything' personality he was more than up for it. He won't have a problem adapting to the type of character we're looking for in our video because he actually shows quite a lot of the character's personality in his own personality anyway. If you were to categorize Taylor regarding his fashion sense he would fit perfectly into the 'indie' category being quite extravagant in his clothing. Also he's a keen festival and gig-goer so he's familiar with the musical genre we're appealing to. As he's attended many musical events he can relate to the drug scene which is helpful because drugs is the main theme of our video. As a bonus he's also done plenty of acting and drama before so he isn't going to be phased or shocked at all at some of the scenes we're going to ask him to act. In the video he'll be dressed quite casual in a hoodie, graphic t-shirt and skinny jeans/chinos. He'll wear vans/desert boots/high-tops for footwear.

The Lead Role

This is arguably the hardest decision to make when producing a music video, without a good main character and actor it is going to be hard to class our music video as one of the best. So before just going out and plucking someone off of our Facebook friend's list we had to draw together what sort of person he is going to need to be. Regarding his own personal character he is going to need to be very willing and confident, past acting or drama experience would be great. The character is going to need to express a wide range of emotions, from getting high to crying, from anger to confusion. This is all going to be filmed in public as well so he's going to have to put up with confused onlookers whilst we do the filming.

In terms with the type of character he's going to be acting we're looking for a young and confused adult. He'll be dressed in an 'indie' fashion with a hoody on and skinny jeans/chinos, reflecting his rather careless outlook on life. Some viewers may start to sympathise with him because his drug addiction (or the Demons) has gotten the better of him leaving him homeless and without his girlfriend. The character is also going to be known as Fenech Soler's lead vocalist, although he is not singing in the video, just acting. His face will appear on some of our other products and so the target audience will be able to identify him as the lead singer in Fenech Soler. Here's a couple of images below of the sort of person we're looking for....