28.12.11 - Filming

So today was our first day of shooting our video! Unfortunately, the weather was not on our side and it was extremely windy and rainy, however this did not deter us from working. As a group we decided to meet early in the morning, however as mentioned, this time was negotiated to become later due to the weather conditions. Also as a result of this, our initial location (Greenwich Park) was changed, and we met at Abbey Ruins, a scenic picturesque site, ideally close and perhaps even more fitting than our first chosen location for the video.

Feedback from the day, by the other group members and myself, along with the actors and other people who were on set who voluntarily helped were:

• Shots were very simplistic- story boarding perhaps was not as evident as it could have been
•  The location fit the genre of the song (romantic scenery)
• The acting and lip syncing was initially very good, but could have been tighter- will be worked on in the next shooting
•  There was a variety of camera work (steadicam, crane etc) - must continue to do this!!
• The day went well, despite the weather conditions

    Here are some still photographs of our first day:

Narrative theory

Whilst producing storyboards for our music video, it became apparent that narrative theory would coincide with our work.

Narrative theory examines the way storytelling frames the content and meaning of media messages, and is used in fictional and factual media, in this case, fictional. Storytelling is at the heart of all human interaction, and we use these stories to explain an event to an audience, and perhaps even our internal thoughts. The aim for our video is to portray the spontaneous love between a couple, and therefore storytelling will become almost second nature within this media text. The narrative depth within the video gives objective character identification, therefore the viewer is given unique access to a chacrater's point of view such as seeing things from their mind, dreams or memories.

The narrative begins with the couple, and although does not have a direct story, it explains of their struggles (wedding planning, parents getting involved) to their highs and delights in their relationship (park scenes etc).

This theory also includes the proposition of character functions by Vladamir Propp, and the cycle of equilibrium by Todorov. In terms of this video, the character functions are not all that clear as there are few characters seen within the video, however if we were to allocate roles, they would be as following:
- Bruno Mars: hero
- Love interest: the princess
- Mum/Dad: Villians or those who interrupt the equilibrium
The equilibrium is established at the beginning of the video, interrupted throughout the planning scenes however settled towards the end of the video.

Storyboards

Above are some storyboards that my group and I have produced, containing each camera shot type, the location and the lyrics to show where in the song these shots will be. I believe that by having storyboards to work along side whilst filming helps to keep the group organised, and allows there to be no time wasted. Naturally there may be a few changes when the filming begins due to perhaps weather, change in location or simply a change in the shot ideas; there may also be aspects where we add in certain shots to improvise with the time/locations available, however the majority of the filming will be created using these storyboards.

Lyrics

This is a short blog post showing the lyrics of our chosen song. Over the next few days, our group will be producing storyboards that will accompany these lyrics, which will lead us in the right direction for our video. The lyrics will help to decide the mise-en-scene of the video, and other factors e.g. location scouting.

It's a beautiful night,
We're looking for something dumb to do.
Hey baby,
I think I wanna marry you.

Is it the look in your eyes,
Or is it this dancing juice?
Who cares baby,
I think I wanna marry you.

Well I know this little chapel on the boulevard we can go,
No one will know,
Oh, come on, girl.
Who cares if we're trashed got a pocket full of cash we can blow,
Shots of patron,
And it's on, girl.

Don't say no, no, no, no-no;
Just say yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah-yeah;
And we'll go, go, go, go-go.
If you're ready, like I'm ready.

Cause it's a beautiful night,
We're looking for something dumb to do.
Hey baby,
I think I wanna marry you.

Is it the look in your eyes,
Or is it this dancing juice?
Who cares baby,
I think I wanna marry you.

I'll go get a ring let the choir bells sing like oooh,
So what you wanna do?
Let's just run girl.

If we wake up and you wanna break up that's cool.
No, I won't blame you;
It was fun, girl.

Don't say no, no, no, no-no;
Just say yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah-yeah;
And we'll go, go, go, go-go.
If you're ready, like I'm ready.

Cause it's a beautiful night,
We're looking for something dumb to do.
Hey baby,
I think I wanna marry you.

Is it the look in your eyes,
Or is it this dancing juice?
Who cares baby,
I think I wanna marry you.

[x2]
Just say I do,
Tell me right now baby,
Tell me right now baby, baby.

Oh, it's a beautiful night,
We're looking for something dumb to do.
Hey baby,
I think I wanna marry you.

Is it the look in your eyes,
Or is it this dancing juice?
Who cares baby,
I think I wanna marry you.

Colour schemes

Through conducting existing research, it is evident that Bruno Mars' promotional packages all consist of the same colours, yellow/cream. This consistency must also be reflected in our own individual work, therefore as a group we decided on two colours that we each liked.

Nick: Black and white

Me: Gold and white

Hannah: Red and white

The logos that we created reflected these colours, and we chose what we thought were the most appropriate and proffessional colours: black and white. We did not however dismiss the colour yellow, which may be used in an alternative way throughout our tasks.

Logos!

As part of our ancillary tasks, whilst evaluating the codes and conventions of other products, a logo is an essential. Initially, we had created a “Glee” logo; however, as our song consists of the one vocal, the Bruno Mars original vocals, our logo must also accompany this.  We continued to draft various logos using Adobe Photoshop, changing aspects which we feel would appear better, always taking our audience into consideration.

Here are two of our Glee logo’s:

The Bruno Mars logo for his album cover is a simple black silhouette, with an aeroplane going off into the background, with the title again, very simplistic.

Bruno Mars' Album Cover



One can connote from this that, the aeroplane, perhaps symbolises his journey for his music career as an artist. This small but iconic object is now very well known as being attached to Bruno Mars’ persona and this concept was used when creating our own logo. As our song is “Marry You” we felt that rings would be fitting. A black and white outline is simple in itself, and the title or background could differentiate with each logo draft.

Here are the drafts, which show the logo progressing:

 

As a group, we have decided to use the first Bruno Mars logo as our final one, due to the fact that after researching Bruno Mars as an artist, his work is very simple. He doesn't generally use a lot of colour, and if he does, it is usually of a pale tone e.g. yellow. To ensure we didn't mirror the original logo, we have decided to use a plain black and white, but to incorporate an animated image of two rings, therefore one can connote from these rings the song title "Marry You." 







Second pitch!

As a group, we felt that our first pitch for our project was poor, slightly rushed and not to the standards we wanted and knew we could have achieved, therefore as a team we regrouped, and began to produce a new pitch. Our biggest change for this pitch was to finalise our song choice. Once this had been achieved, we began to focus on the requirements of our ancillary tasks, for example the digipak. We have decided to do CD covers and a CD-ROM, and have divided the tasks between us. Research will also be undertook to focus on the codes and conventions of typical posters/CDs to ensure that our house style throughout the tasks remains the same, and the mise-en-scene of principal photography is correct.
Feedback from our second pitch was that as a group we worked well in reorganizing our project, and now have a clear path in which we can work.

Pitches

As part of our research and planning, as a group we were told to pitch our original ideas, showing that we had carefully deliberated our choice, and that we had researched the codes and conventions of our music genre.

Our first pitch, on the 12th October, was very basic, and we agreed alongside our teacher that we were to return to the drawing board, and re-pitch on the 20th. We did this, and this decision worked extremely well. Our second pitch included much more thorough research of the genre we were working with (Pop) and we were able to describe our ideas for the video more so with the help of storyboards for each individual shot we had envisioned. We also produced drafts of our ancillary tasks, which we decided were going to be a DVD cover and insert, incorporating a marriage invitation to provide consistency through our product, and following the genre of marriage. It will also have the conventions of a normal DVD cover for example title, a logo, and other aspects such as ratings and reviews. As well as this, we acquired a great deal of background information of the original Glee "Marry You" cover video from the episode, which we are able to portray similarly, although obviously changing aspects and making it our own.

Here are some of our original Glee drafts, excluding the invitation idea, for our DVD cover:

Production Schedule

Targets have been set for our group for when deadlines should be met, ensuring that we're organised and on task with what should be done. This has been helped by the formation of a production schedule. By using this, our music video will be created by following a timeline of specific dates, therefore staying on track with what needs to be finished at what time, for example planning and research, story boards, filming and editing.

Style Guide

Throughout my years of doing Media Studies, I have grasped that it is important to create a style guide when creating a media product, therefore insuring consistency, including things such as font and writing style, colour schemes and the layout of products. By the the use a style guide, it's easier to look back and refer to, and also follow the same style elements of overall product, allowing the media product to turn into a brand.

Here are some possible fonts that we've researched, that we feel fit into the genre of our music video and ancillary tasks.

The fonts that particularly stand out to me, in the "Glee" Style Guide, is 'Freestyle Script.' Reasons for this are simply that the serif italic writing seems to flow, and to me as an audience, reflects the genre Glee as a programme, in that it is not overly complicated; instead, is simple and sophisticated. The curves on the letter G and L seem to be fun, and the font is written with ease.

In the "Bruno Mars" Style Guide, I am drawn to two different fonts: 'Impossible' and 'Nueva STD Cond.' They are both also serif fonts, and bold, be that the size or colour, and each are different in that Impossible, although containing a strike through the words, it is still easy to read, and I feel the strike through adds a edgy touch to the wording. Nueva STD Cond appears to be quite a dull font, however the serif touches it contains such as the curving on the end of the letters is very appealing, and I feel would be beneficial in our music video.

Glee or Bruno Mars?

There have been various conversations about whether as a group we should do the original Bruno Mars vocals, consisting of only one male singer, or the Glee vocals, consisting of around 8 different singers. We acknowledge that perhaps using the Glee edition will be quite a challenge, in organising a cast of eight different people, who fit our genre and our target audience. As part of our production process, we will research both songs and vocals, whilst also drafting as we go along, to then finally compare and contrast the two to decide which to proceed with.

The main characters, and the eight vocals that we will need are the ones around the outer frame of the image, therefore ignoring the two characters in the centre.

Song Change!

The original song choice was Human League's "Don't You Want Me?" However, this song choice has changed and the new decision is the Glee edition of Bruno Mars "Marry You"
Reasons for this song change is simply because Human League was an incredibly difficult genre to work with. The genre was "New-Wave;" something which was foreign to the group, which would therefore be foreign to the audience. The codes and conventions in the original Human League video were also hard to grasp. However Bruno Mars' song is a new up to date vocal, with an easily adaptable genre, making it easier to portray, and as Glee is a very popular programme, this song choice conforms better to our understanding.

Song Decided!

Finally, after a long consideration, the Music Minions and myself have finally come to a song decision! The original song consists of just one male vocal, however the glee edition has a female vocal too.
BRUNO MARS - MARRY YOU (GLEE EDITION)
http://www.brunomars.com/video/bruno-mars-marry-you/
Below is a link of the music video; enjoy!
http://vimeo.com/25027563 - Glee Version

28.09.11

WELCOME BLOGGERS!
This is my Advanced Portfolio blog for our group music video. My group consists of Hannah Mills, Lauren Bearsby and Nick Porter.
- Song choice: undecided.
- Genre: undecided.
- Group name: Music Minions