Filming.

More Filming- Nicola Giles

Today we continued to film as we realised we needed more continuous footage so that each frame flowed into one another as when we initially filmed the bedroom scene, although we were happy with the variety of camera shots we used, a lot of the camera movement was still which made the video look very static and not very natural which is one of the main ideas in our music video. Due to this we decided to re-shoot a lot of the bedroom scene, focusing not only on camera shots but also camera movement in order to allow the editing to fit and create a continuous video rather than lots of snapshot filming.

Overall we are much more impressed with this footage as we feel we edited our original mistakes and now have better footage to use and edit into our music video. We will then continue to film in our other chosen locations.

Artist Research: Taylor Swift

We chose to look at Taylor Swift as one of our main age and our video for Butterflies. Taylor Swift is an American country- pop singer songwriter, whos songs often include a theme of romance and a strong narrative which we wish to include in our own music video.Her star image and style is perfect on which to base our own as we want our own artist to be pretty, yet natural with a cute personality.Many of Taylor Swifts videos include extreme close ups of body parts, especially eyes and lips, which is a shot type which we want to use a lot of in our video to create a connection between our artist and the viewer.

Her videos often offer a strong contrast between her two personas, as a ordinary girl and as an artist. This idea is shown between the difference in how she dresses, her hair and make up, and by usually being seen in close up in a one shot when she is presented in a glamourous way rather than 'the normal girl'. By doing so, her star image is reinforced, creating the idea for the audience that anyone could become like her due to her 'ordinary girl' everyday image.

By watching several of Taylor Swift's videos, we have found that the locations used in them are easily accessable and would be good to base our own on. We watched the video for Taylor Swift's 'Mine' where Taylor is pictured outside in a forest with rows of photographs hanging from string. We found this really inspiring as the idea of personal memories is really important to the style of video we are creating and hope to achieve a simular final look.
After watching other videos, 'Teardrops on my guitar' and 'Whitehorse' in particular, we noticed how the bedroom is used as a main location. We really liked the idea of doing this in our own video as it is easily accessable and makes a strong connection between the artist and audience as it is a very personal location.

Moodboard- Nicola Giles

This moodboard shows the variety of themes in our song including love, excitement, romance and happiness. It emphasises the lyrics of our song and re-infornces the ongoing theme of love throughout the song. We also wanted to reflect a more positive and happy atmosphere by using a strong colour theme of red, pink, white and blue. We also used images that were close-up as these are examples of the images we want to create in our music video.

Pre-production:

Stop Motion - Research

Stop motion also known as stop action or frame-by-frame is an animation technique to make a physically manipulated object appear to move on its own. We have decided to experiment with stop motion and see if we can place it in our music video.

If we really want to make our animations special weve decided we should move the camera as you take a series of pictures and do this by either zooming in or out or panning from side to side. This moving of the camera is a great way to make our animations stand out. While the medium used for our animation is very important and can turn a plain animation into something special to look at we should consider puting some time and thought into the story of the animation. This is what can turn it into something incredible, can surprise our viewers and keep them guessing as to what will happen next. When thinking about doing some kind of animation we have to think outside the box and realize that just about anything at all will make a good subject And think about the fact that just about any medium will work well.

Here is an example of stop motion with bright lights, I really like this because its different and simple yet although incredibly time consuming, the outcome really shows its worth it. We can experiment with stop motion and create our own visual experiments with stop motion technique. Some ideas we have in mind are capturing a sunset, city streets of london and the party scene were going to create at the chosen bar.

Only Girl (In The World) - Rihanna

Rihanna's video for Only Girl (In The World) is a really good example of a music video which in some respects doesnt relate much to the lyrics but the video is very powerful and entertaining which keeps the audience engaged throughout. Rihanna is alone at all times but the effectiveness is shown within the props and location. She is surrounded by beautiful views of never ending fields, rocks and mountains. The props and locations used are what make the video really stand out from others, the clothes shes wearing in the picture above are simple but the sleeves are exaggerated allowing the wind to blow into it and as shown behind her it has created a beautiful redish yellow colour. All these small tricks make the music video look alot moew detailed than it actually is.

Here Rihanna is posing with a giant flower which again has no relation to specific lyrics in the song but is almost taking up the entire frame of the camera, there is nothing glamorous about the location in this specific shot but in contrast to that her clothes are very glamorous and shiny which make keeps the audience lock onto her. We need to take this into consideration when filming our music video so that it doesnt get boring and that theres something going on throughout to keep the audience engaged. This can be easily done using the right cuts like in Rihannas video alot of repeated shots are used within seconds of each other and slow motion aswell to emphasise her dancing within the beat of the song. We aim to create something like this where there is alot of detail to minor and unsual props or locations that is unique and fun but also in keeping with the theme of our song.

Location ideas

After futher discussion we decided we needed a variety of different locations and were lucky to find out that one of your group members uncles owned a resturant + bar. This is ideal for our music video as it has the right elements we need. A bright lively place so that we can get a group of people and our artist to dance, have a few cocktails and record them enjoy themselves. Preferably the footage we get will be used towards the peak of the song when she puts her feelings aside and decides to go out and have fun with her girls. It reflects a postivie image, the idea that life should be enjoyed, the bar just gives it that glamorous feel and also adds to the continous narrative throughout the video.

Other locations we considered were Richmond Park as it has beautiful surroundings and wil be great to capture in sunsent or sun rise. London nightlight is funky and glam, If we were to shoot some scenes with flashing lights from streets and cars would be really effective for our music video. Through further discussion we've decided on a new location were we can film at. Its a tunnel on Leake street near waterloo station, it is covered in graffiti and has just the right lighting for us to film as its not too dark or too light. All these locations are average and easy for us to access and be able to film for our music video. Such simple locations can create an effective storyline and black and white effects make it look more proffessional as we realised this effect is used many pop music videos we have studied. We are still working on these ideas trying to expand them and turn them into storyboards.