SHOOTING SCHEDULE aw

Shooting Schedule (+ Prop list) 

(I have altered this post from Alice's POV to mine) 

 Alice concluded a shooting schedule for our group, which lists all the shots our music video needs in the order we film them in. All of the shooting days require the same actors, crew, props, costumes and transport. This is because our music video only involves 2 actors (2 members of our group) and the events within it happen in one day, so the actors are wearing the same costumes for every shooting schedule.

Prop List

• ·      SLR Camera
• ·      Tripod
• ·      Mask

For the final shooting day (Additional):

• ·      Photo Frame
• ·      Photo of the two actors (for the photo frame)
• ·      Glass of water
• ·      Drug (Beroca vitamin sup.)

Despite that our prop list is very short, it means that there is less to remember when it comes to shooting the footage. I like it how our idea for our music video is creative and unique, yet it only displays the use of one prop – the mask – which behold significance in the video.

The last shooting day requires 4 additional props as it is when we are filming the introduction of our music video/narrative. Because the setting of this is based in a house, it is easy to access a photo frame, glass of water and a drug. The picture for the photo frame can be printed off at our school by connecting the mobile to a computer using a USB cable. Therefore, all of our props are essential to create the narrative, yet they are easy to access.

Our group was also planning  to use a GoPro camera to film some hand-held shots, as we thought these would add realism to our music video so the audience can see from the actors’ perspectives.  We experimented with Katy’s tripod but the footage was blurry and lacked good quality. Therefore, we decided not to use a GoPro for our video.

Shooting day 1

Location: Market Place, Norwich

Date : -

Start/end times: -

Transport: I can easily access a bus to Norwich due to frequent bus timetable and a bus pass. Katy and Ben can either get a bus or a lift to the city and Cody can cycle into the centre.

Actors Required: Cody and Katy

Crew required: Ben and Alice

Equipment needed: SLR Camera, Tripod

Costume, Set dressing:  Our actors are required to wear all black. The set does not to be decorated as we are filming the actors walking through and around the Norwich market.

Shot numbers (from storyboards): -

Shooting day 2

Location: The abandoned prison and the top floor of St Andrews car park, both in Norwich

Date : -

Start/end times: -

Transport: Bus, car lifts and cycling (Cody)

Actors Required: Cody and Katy

Crew required: Ben and Alice

Equipment needed: SLR Camera, Tripod

Costume, Set dressing:  Our actors are required to wear all black. The set does not need to be decorated as we are filming in a public area.

Shot numbers (from storyboards): -

Notes (things to remember): This is the time to film shots that have different angles e.g. high angle shot, close up

Shooting day 3

Location: St Andrews car park, Norwich (and the Norwich market to film transition shots)

Date : -

Start/end times: -

Transport:  Bus, car lifts and cycling (Cody)

Actors Required: Cody and Katy

Crew required: Ben and Alice

Equipment needed: SLR Camera, Tripod

Costume, Set dressing:  Our actors are required to wear all black. The set does not need to be decorated as we are filming in a public area.

Shot numbers (from storyboards): -

Notes (things to remember): Consider the possible reflection of the camera being shown on the door (whilst filming the shot of Cody opening the door), and give plenty of time for filming this scene as time will be wasted waiting for people to walk through the camera shots.

 Shooting day 4 

Location: Ben’s house, Poringland

Date : November 9^th

Start/end times: 3.30 – 4.00

Transport: Bus, car lifts and cycling (Cody)

Actors Required: Cody and Katy

Crew required: Ben – Alice is not required for this scene as Ben knows how to use her camera and it will take less than 30 minutes to film. Poringland is a long car journey from where Alice lives.

Equipment needed: SLR Camera, Tripod (as well as the additional props)

Costume, Set dressing:  Our actors are required to wear all black. More consideration needs to be taken with the set than the other shooting days because it is inside a bedroom – therefore, it is important that the bedroom suits the character it belongs to.  

edited:REPRESENTATION CASE STUDY: BRUNO MARS -24K MAGIC

24k Magic is by american singer songwriter, Bruno Mars, who rose to fame in 2010 after the release of his first solo album, 'Doo-wops & Hooligans' which featured singles like 'Grenade' and 'Just The Way You Are.' He released his second album in 2012 called 'Unorthodox Jukebox,' which went to number 1 in America. This album featured singles like 'Locked out of Heaven' and 'When I Was Your Man.' In 2014, Bruno lent his vocals to producer Mark Ronson for his track 'Uptown Funk' which lead to him landing six number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100 since his career launched in 2010.

24K Magic was released on the 7th of October, 2016. 24K Magic is a synth-heavy funk, disco and contemporary R&B song. The song debuted at number 5 on the Billboard Charts, with 101,000 downloads and 12.8 million streams, as well as topping the French SNEP chart and featuring in top 10 charts globally. 

Bruno Mars tend to release music videos that aren't consistent and many of his songs vary concerning genre. For example, the video for 'Just The Way You Are' is a much slower song so has a much more calm, toned down and romantic style narrative. His more recent music creates more of a motif for his music, for example, looking at the video for 'Uptown Funk,' it is a more similar 'old school' kind of video which features a performance with women that don't seem to be wearing much clothing. The clothing/costume featured in his videos changes consistently. For example, in this video he is wearing more 'vintage' style clothing.

His older videos feature more of a smart style that consists mainly of suits and simple, monochrome costume. 

OBJECTIFICATION OF WOMEN.

fig.1

As an artist, Bruno Mars releases videos that tend to include a performance. Many of his videos include a female character, whether it's a 'ballad' that is aimed at the single character of a variety of females who are used as a prop or as backing dancers for the video.

In the video for '24K Magic' the latter is more present. Figure 1 shows an image of the artist surrounded by dancing females. This gives the impression of the, being used as a prop. This links with Laura Mulvey's theory of 'Male Gaze.' This is essentially where a media text is created in a way that reflects the viewing pleasures of a hetero-sexual male. This is evident in the sense that these women are wearing a costume that is seemingly skimpy in order to please the male characters in the video. 

fig.2

Figure 2 shows an image that highlights male gaze in it's most obvious form, the video cuts from a group of girls dancing to the song, which in itself reinforces the objectification of women as they are dancing to his song in a way he likes. Figure 2 highlights male gaze in the sense that they have chosen a body that is what could be considered perfectly formed as it is more pleasing, rather than picking something that is unappealing and may decrease the sale-ability of the video. In this it is evident there is a notable absences when it comes to the age of the people featured in the video. For example, there are no people of which you could consider middle aged or older than Bruno Mars himself. 

fig 3.

Figure 3 shows the people featured in the video subverting stereotypes in the sense that it shows 5 perfectly capable men using mobility scooters as a method of transport. This combined with their age, ability and the fact that they're throwing money from the basket, flips the stereo typical use of mobility scooters on it's heads. The idea of subverting stereotypes and stereotypical behaviour can also be seen in this video in figure 4. Figure 4 shows the characters in the video wearing pyjamas and robes that would not necessarily be linked with conventional videos in the genre. 

fig. 4

The video for 24 Magic is extremely hedonistic. This is the idea that the video is essentially self indulgent. Figure 5 shows a shot of a, what looks like, private jet along side multiple expensive looking cars. This also links with the images that show the female characters flaunting their bodies. Throughout the video, people can be seen at an extravagant party drinking what looks like champagne. They can also be seen to be spending money in a casino.

fig 5.

. This gives the impression of an extremely glamorised lifestyle.

In terms of being misogynistic, this video doesn’t specifically fit that category. The video shows what could be considered as inappropriate images of women, this however is not a misogynistic representation but more of one that links to the idea of male gaze and putting that in place to please the hetero sexual male.

In respect of hegemony, the dominant culture in this video seems to be that of almost gang culture with an expensive fast paced lifestyle. You could also say that this video shows males as dominant over females, making them the dominant culture. The shots of the male characters in the video are much more flattering than that of the females. The shots of the women are much more objectifying, when the shots of the men are flattering and make them seem like they’re in a position that is to be desired.

Regarding hegemony, in this video, the power is held by the male characters. Looking at the video in a more indepth fashion, it could be said that the female characters are holding control in the video by using their bodies as objects to hold the focus of the male characters, but, my imediate reaction would be that the male characters hold the power and the female characters are either 'performing' in a way that they believe would capture male attention or have been manipulated in a way that makes them feel like it is needed for them to dress and act in a certain way. 
Personally, I believe that the representation is constructed by the framing and shooting of the male characters. This is done in a much more flattering sense than that of the female characters. The male characters in this video are shot in a way that makes them seem dominant, for example, the use of high angle shots places the men above the camera, meaning they hold control over the camera, what the audience see's and anyone else who is involved in the video. 

CROSS REFERENCING

With regards to cross referencing with this video, Bruno Mars doesn’t necessarily have much of a motif going on. He tends to use female characters in many of his videos but tends to change the representation of them in each video. For example, in his video for ‘Just The Way You Are,’ he flatters the woman in the video rather than completely objectifying her and using her as something for men to look at.

The video for ‘Gorilla’ is one that is extremely sexualised. This links to the video for 24k but is even more so. The video features several images of women wearing very little and acting in a way that is also highly sexualised. This video is extremely voyeuristic. This video has women acting in a sexualised manner which may give others pleasures from watching it. Again in this video, the women are objectified for the pleasure of Bruno Mars or the viewer of the video.

The video for 24k magic represents hetero sexual relationships in a very obvious way. It shows men objectifying woman and watching them ‘perform’ for them.  It doesn’t challenge any stereo typical representations. It also identifies all the characters, or doesn’t identify the women with any sexuality at all. It puts them in place as an object to please the hereto sexual males of the video. This is similar in a lot of currently music videos in the sense that many women are objectified as something th please the men. For example, Rihanna’s video for ‘Work’ shows her dancing and entertaining multiple men in a seductive way, implying the men have power over her and she is just performing in that way for the sake of the men watching her.

ACTORS: TIDAL WAVE ka

ACTORS

When it came to choosing who we wanted to act in our video, we decided to keep the actors in our group as we thought this would be easier as we knew, as a group, what we wanted to achieve, so instead of having to relay our ideas to other people who may not understand the kind of things we wanted do with our video, we decided to use myself and Cody for the main actors for our video.

In a similar sense, we decided not to ask people to be extras for our video as all the locations we are using are city centre locations that are always highly populated with people which works well with the distorting concept of our video.

We chose to cast people of our age in the video is essentially about two teenagers, ones who is fixated on the thought of being in love with a certain girl, who may be a figure of his imagination. 

MALE CHARACTER

Our male character is a seemingly secretive and closed off person. Cody can easily achieve this, with his costume; it’s extremely easy to create the representations we wanted.

Cody isn’t a drama student which we thought, for both characters, could cause issues, but we realised our roles are simple enough that it will be easy to create the images we wanted to, regardless of whether we are drama students.

 FEMALE CHARACTER 

I am taking the role of the female character. This is a fairly simple role, and as I'm not a drama student, it is easy for me to carry out.

Our female character is a very illusive and, in a sense, mysterious character in that we, as the audience don't know if she actually exists.  
Although, I’m 17 and Cody is 18, we felt this would fit perfectly with what we were trying to achieve with our portrayal of our characters, as like many teenagers, we are showing them to be extremely closed off and secretive people who are extremely susceptible to ‘love’ even when it doesn’t really exist.

LOCATIONS: TIDAL WAVE cd

edited:COSTUMES: TIDAL WAVE ka

edited: PITCH: TIDAL WAVE

PITCH

My video is a love story. 
I features 2 characters one of which is more fixated in their relationship that the other. This video follows their relationship struggles as it shows the boy being fixated on the girl. He follows her through several city locations in an effort to find her and remove her mask. 

edited:CASE STUDY: HOW ARE NARRATIVE TECHNIQUES EMPLOYED IN THE 1975'S 'A CHANGE OF HEART'

 HOW ARE NARRATIVE TECHNIQUES EMPLOYED IN THE 1975'S 'A CHANGE OF HEART'

'A Change Of Heart' was released on the 21st of April 2016 by The 1975 on their second album entitled 'I Like It When You Sleep For You Are So Beautiful yet So Unaware Of It.' With over 6 million views online, it is one of the most popular and successful songs from the second album.

The 1975 are an English 'rock' band originating from Wilmslow, Cheshire. They have been together since 2002 until they were signed by Dirty Hit records in 2012. Since then they have released multiple EP's and 2 UK chart and US billboard topping albums and have headlined multiple successful festivals like Reading in the UK and Cochella in the US. 
The song 'A change of heart' falls under the genres of indie rock. As a band as a whole they're considered as a rock band but some of their songs are much less mainstream, adding the indie element. 

Videos with a strong narrative are extremely popular when it comes to The 1975. They have released Robbers, which is arguably their most popular song, The Sound, Settle Down and Chocolate which all have videos of a similar style. 

A Change Of Heart can be said to closely relate to Robbers in the sense that they have used many similar narrative ideas in both videos.

The video for A Change Of Heart is less of a generic rock video. It contains a performance but not in typical sense. This video see's front man Matty Healy performing in a mine like fashion. He appears to be dancing instead of generically performing as you would expect in a rock video.

Healy references Michel Jackson as Charlie Chaplin and 'Felini's - The Clown' in published notes regarding the planning of the video. He talks about using the face paint of a clown to give his character one simple, constant emotion.

Perhaps his strongest references are to Gene Kelly and Bob Fosse, both widely recognised for dancing, Kelly in 'Singing in the rain.' He took this well rounded idea and created part of a persona surrounding this but in less 'smooth' and less 'confident' way. 

Perhaps the most dominant reference is to another of the bands most popular videos, 'Robbers.' Healy states in his notes that he wants to make intertexual references to the video and does so in a particularly obvious way. Many of the shots are identical if not slightly altered to show the same thing in a different 'light.'

For example, both videos show distinct shots of guns being used in a light hearted manner. 

The video for A change of heart can be linked to the ideas of Tzvetan Todorov and his theory of narrative structures in the sense that he talks about the idea of equilibrium, disruption, recognition, repair and equilibrium. 

In the video it's clear to see, in the narrative style beginning, it is almost as though there is an equilibrium and everything is settled. This could be challenged by the character’s body language as it does not imply there is an equilibrium. As soon as we see the two clown like characters together, the first disruption comes to light. This is where we see the use of the gun in a threatening way from one of the characters to the other. As the narrative of the video unfolds, we see the first recognition of the disruption. The female character withdraws from the male and begins to seem irritated and fed up. As the video continues, it is obvious that it fits with Todorov's ideas as we then see that an attempt is made to repair the damage made by the disruption, where the male character attempts to ‘win over’ the female character to encourage a newly found equilibrium. Towards the end of the video, it is clear a new equilibrium is reached as the two characters become closer together and it's almost as if they go back to exactly they were before there was disruption. This links with Todorov’s idea of circular narratives as the video seems to end in the same state in which it began, almost following a cycle.

  

This video shows, in a sense, a circular narrative. It starts with the characters dancing romantically and closely, there is turmoil in the middle which is then resurrected and the characters go back into a similar position to how they were before.

Having a story like this makes the video much more engaging for the audience. 

In a sense, this video can be easily applied with Andrew Goodwin's theories of music videos. Goodwin states that there can be a connection between lyrics and visuals. As much as this isn't entirely a performance video, there are still some subtle links which help to amplify the video. For example, when we see a disequilibrium between the characters and we see the female character turn her back on the male, this could be seen as having ‘a change of heart.’ This idea is repeated when the video reaches the equilibrium and we see the couple refer back to how they were earlier on in the video, again reinforcing the idea of having a change of heart.

In a similar sense, Goodwin says there is a link between the visuals and the music. In that sense, there are strong links. For example, the chorus repeated the line 'I just had a change of heart.' When these lyrics are sung, things in the video seem to happen, like the use of the gun, that may cause someone to have a change of heart.

Goodwin also talks about the way close-ups and certain shots that can create a motif. As Matt Healy is the front man of The 1975, his appearance is already as type of motif as it is. By focusing on only him in the video, it makes him a selling point for the band and creates a motif in the sense that in all of their videos he either play a main character or is the main focus of a more 'band' style video. In a more literal sense, many of the shots used of both character’s faces create a motif as although they are wearing face paint, they are focussed on in a way that creates a motif as we see similar facial expressions throughout the video.

Barthes discusses the way that a media text can be like a tangled ball of string that need to be separated in order to see the different threads. this applies to media texts in the sense that we need to unravel a text to encounter a plurality of potential meanings. This means you can look at a text in one way and understand one meaning of the text, look at the texts from another angle and find another meaning which can be done again and again, essentially pulling out the metaphorical string and revealing the different threads. He decided that these strings were called narrative codes that could be categorised in 5 ways, 2 of which are very important for music videos.

1- An enigma, potentially making you ask why something happened. This allows the audience to enjoy the story line and make their own assumptions about the storyline which can be manipulated by plot twists.

2- The action, for example, if someone is put into an ambulance, we assume they’re going to hospital. This means the audience is inferring the details this allows for the removal of ‘boring’ details.

These can be applied to the video for A Change of Heart as at the beginning we are forced to ask why the male character is in a clown costume and why he enters the room looking so depressed. We also question the background sounds for example when we hear a laugh track when he looks in the mirror, this can leave the audience questioning. This allows the audience to make assumptions on what the character is in the costume and how they think the video will look.

When we see the couple dancing, we assume they are in a relationship, or at least want to be, there is no need for us to see the life story of these characters to understand that. We also don’t need details like why they are dancing together or at a fair ground, we just assume they are there for a reason.

Levi-Strauss talked about the theory of binary opposites and subordinate groups. This is essentially applying representations on binary opposites to make sure dominant culture is maintained and subordinate groups and representations are marginalised. This could be lightly applied to this music video as we see the male character take the lead in all elements of the video itself, for example, in the dancing scenes it seems as though he takes the lead role. Similarly, if the two characters reach a personal disequilibrium, it is blamed on the male character and the female takes a generic reaction of turning her back to him, thus reinforcing binary opposites.

As a video, A change of heart fits many conventions of the genre of rock. In a similar sense, it doesn't. For example, it doesn't have a generic performance element. Rock videos generically feature at least the main singer in the video which is true with this. Similarly, rock videos tend to have a story or meaning to them. in A change of heart, we see the story follows a relationship which creates meaning.
The song has a strong instrumental section which is another element of rock videos.

The 1975 as a band tend to stick to particular colour schemes as whole, they either tend to use blacks, whites and greys or on the complete opposite end of the scale, use pink and white.

In terms of costume, again, as a band, they use similar costumes throughout their videos and performances which again creates a motif. They tend to stick to dark colours which fit well with the use of a both of their colour schemes.