Thursday 8 December 2011

Shooting Schedule

Day of the Shoot: Saturday 28th January 2012, 11am - 4pm

We haven't got an exact plan, as it's difficult to predict how long each part of the day will take. but here's the order in which we're going to do things:

Briefing the Cast - Show the whole cast the draft video and explain exactly what they're going to be doing. They already have an idea of what's expected, but it will be more definite.

Costume and Make-up Checks - The cast have already been informed about their costume etc. as I've been keeping in touch via Facebook and Twitter. However, we'll still need to check on the day to make sure that they all look how we want them to!

Filming the Outdoor Scenes - There are two scenes that are outside; when the group of friends get into the car (which includes Neighbour Bob's appearance)and then out again. We've decided to shoot them first because it needs to be light and that should be the lightest  part of the day.

Filming the Crowd/Performance Scenes - This will be the longest part of the day as we have to get a lot of different shots. so this means we'll be filming the same thing again and again but from different angles. Doing this earlier on means the cast won't get so bored and once we've finished, they'll be able to leave. It's difficult to manage a large group of people on set, so the less time we have to do it, the better.

Filming the Narrative Scenes - This makes up the majority of the video and only includes six members of cast, so should be easier to manage. We don't have a particular order, but we'll film scenes that are similar together. For example; scenes that include 'The Parents', scenes that include 'The Friends' and scenes that are just the main character.


  These are three pages of our storyboard; we sat and discussed the shots we wanted and I did the sketches. We plan to use our storyboard as a sort of checklist on the day of the shoot, in order to make sure we get the shots we need.

Director's Pitch

Props
A Guitar, a Bass, a Drumkit, Amplifiers, Microphones and stands, Mobile Phones, House Phone, Beer Bottles, Forest's car.

Locations
Forest's Grandma's house - Living room, kitchen, hallway, front of the house.
Forest's house - Forest's bedroom.


Cast














We decided that we wanted three boys that looked similar and that were already musicians, so that they could mime convincingly. Jake, Tom and Taliesin are aged 18, 17 and 16 respectively and all dress in a similar style, which also suits the style of music as well. Therefore, all three are quite well cast, as they already fit the bill without having to change much.
More importantly, Tom and Taliesin are also very willing to dress up as the characters of 'Mom and Dad'.

We then have a large group of friends who will randomly be assigned roles on the day to being part of the Protagonist's small group of friends, or just part of the larger crowd.


Pitch
*Video begins with performance footage.
The narrative begins on a shot of the main character (band frontman Jake) sitting around with a group of three friends in a living room. One friend is passed out on the floor. Then there's a shot of the character Mom (who is also the band's drummer, Taliesin) walking in through the back door and calling out. The Protagonist hears her enter and panics. He and his friends run out of the room, returning to pick up the passed out friend. they run outside to their car, the Mom following close behind. Neighbour Bob appears from behind a garden fence and watches the group of friends run to the car. Then there is a flashback to the Protag sitting on his bed. He receives a text from a girl, thanking him for 'last night'. The scene fades back to 'the present', as the kids drive off, Bob waving and the Mom shaking her fists.
* Cut to performance footage.
Next, the Protag and his friends walk into the house, looking kind of rough. The parents look angry. The camera zooms in on a lipstick stain on one of the friends' cheeks and the parents shout at the kids.
* Performance footage.
At another time, the Protag walks into the house alone and faces his parents in the kitchen. There is then a shot reverse shot sequence of the parents shouting at him, and his reaction.
* Performance footage.
The parents bang on the wall of what the audience should assume is an adjacent room to where the band are performing. They eventually give up and walk away.
*Performance footage.
The video ends with cameo/outtakes material, adding an informal element to the video. The following, all videos of the same genre, include this technique:
Nice Guys Finish Last by Green Day
Fat Lip by Sum 41
The Rock Show by Blink 182
The very end of the video is a shot of the band finishing their performance.
Here is our basic plan; we made notes on what would happen in each verse/chorus. It also includes a plan of locations, characters and props.




































Justification 
How does this video reflect the genre you have chosen and the brand image of your artist?
My music video reflects the punk rock genre as it represents the modern and American attitude of punk, which involves casual hedonism and personal rebellion against figures of authority - not as intense and political as the first punk movement of the 70s and 80s.
The song itself is about teenage angst versus parents and we've tried to create a video that shows exactly that.
We've decided to dress our band in the style of Blink 182 and the concept for the video is very Blink too - the band have been known to dress up in their videos (see First Date and All The Small Things) so it was an obvious choice to have the band play the parents, and the party/crowd atmosphere appears a lot as well. In fact, these two are common factors in videos by bands like Blink, Sum 41, The Offspring etc. 

Target Audience Feedback: Digipack, Advert and Video

Digipack and Advert Feedback
In order to get some feedback on our draft of the digipack and advert, we simply took my illustrations and asked our friends and peers what they generally thought.
Most people worked out straight away what genre the album is, or which other albums/artists it was similar to. These people liked both the digipack and the advert, saying they thought it fitted the genre well - they also liked the logo we'd created. But the few people that didn't guess the genre straight away didn't like the digipack on first look. When we told them more about the band, they were less negative, and although they still felt like they probably wouldn't pick up the album if they saw it, it fit in with the genre well.

Video Feedback
In order to collect feedback for the video, we got six people to sit in front of the Mac and watch the draft.
To make it clearer what we were trying to show them, Tom and I added extra narration to the video.
At the end, we asked them what they thought of it generally and they seemed positive overall. They all said they liked the storyline and they thought it was funny. They also liked the idea of the band performing in a living room, as it followed conventions of existing music videos of the same genre.
However, two of the audience weren't sure if the idea of having two of the band dress up as the parents would work. They said that the idea was good, and it could be really funny, but they were explained that if we didn't make it obvious enough the parents and band members were different 'characters', then the video could be a little confusing for some viewers.
The group also expressed concern about the idea of having a crowd in the performance shots - they argued that if we didn't have the right space, it could look over-crowded and uncomfortable, and that if not all of the crowd acted well enough, there'd be no atmosphere and it wouldn't be as effective as we would want.

Overall, we're very happy about the feedback and have only decided to make a few changes:
1. After the audience of the video mentioned over-crowding, we decided to leave out the crowd in the video. As well as avoiding the problems that the audience pointed out, it will also be easier for us a Directors, as we'll have less people to try and manage , and to rely on.
2. In light of this change, we will also have to change the design of the back panel of the digipack. Originally, it was going to have a photo of the band from the back of the crowd, but I have drawn up a rough sketch of just the track listing and the band logo.
3. Finally, the band logo will also appear on the front of the digipack rather than a photo of the band, as the general consensus of those we asked, was that just the logo was more like other albums of the genre and would look less tacky.

Draft Video



Here is our draft video - it gives an impression of what the actual video will be like.
We originally planned to do it as stop motion, but then realised that would take too long, so I made the decision to use stills, or just move the figures.