Wednesday, 13 July 2011

Planning



The two sheets above are the lyrics to the song. I thought it would be appropiate if we annatated at the side what footage would be on (if not each) every line. This gives us a way of looking back at the song and establishing what we need to film at what areas.


These two sheets are something we constructed at the end, I decided that when we are walking to and from different locations, we don't want to be holding all of the planning sheets along with all the filming equipment. I concluded that if we section the song into verses and choruses we can write what props, cast, part of the song and location all together.


This is something I created at the beginning of our planning. A cast list which has changed quite a bit due to people leaving the school, but mainly realiability. I tried to cast people who I thought looked right for the part as they don't require a high acting ability. E.g. The "shoulder barge" guy has a stocky figure, making him look the part to play a hard, aggressive character.

Once again, this is something I decided to make early on in the process. I wrote next to the props who would be bringing/buying what prop, ensuring us that we instantly know and don't have to rush and get something just before that resultingly, won't be as good! All of the costumes I either had and brought in (as they were mainly for Ashley wearing womens clothes) or the cast themselves said they can bring the outfit in.


In the first verse of the song, there are plenty of close up's shown as the performer is waking up. We chose this so the audience will understand straight away that the video is quite energetic, "in your face". 


The second storyboard leads onto the chorus where the lead in the narrative as well as the performance, is walking down the high street. The genre is comical and so we have lots of random occurrences, for example, a "pigeon" falls to the ground dead.


Following on, a male actor is playing a secretary. There is a panning on one shot which hand-held to create the feeling that someone has abruptly noticed the secretary as the camera does a double glance. I thought that typing a line of the lyrics would be a creative thing to have in the video and relates to the secretary being at a computer. Once again, we chose a male to play the female for commical purposes.  


Continuing with having lots of random elements to the video, there is a "old lady" that falls to the fall and someone trips over her through an establishing shot. However, it's clear to see that the person is a young man which sways away from the fall being hurtful to humorous.


On the last storyboard, the man falls over and there is a close-up on his head. CGI is then used to create a heaven feeling with all of his favourite things hovering around him, this makes the audience then believe he is died. However, he wakes up and there is a two shot on himself and the guitarist which has been following him through out the video. He opens up his jacket to reveal a bomber vest which explodes, it then dips to black. I have been aware that it wouldn't be appropiate to show violence, this hasn't been portrayed in the video. 

Wednesday, 6 July 2011

Casting

Our video contains a lot of extras as well as characters. All characters don't say anything but they have something funny about them as our genre of the music video is comedy.
Here is a list I constructed on paper stating who is playing what parts:
Singer: George Cooper
Guitarist: Thomas Manson
Shoulder Barge: Nick Nesterburgerman
Pigeon Nabber: Ashley Scott
Secretary: Ashley Scott
Guy Screaming: Guy Williams
Grandma: Ashley Scott
Tripping over Grandma: Emma Snowman
Taxi Driver: Zoe Cawte
Security Guards: William Reynold and Julian Walker
Guy standing infront of the camera (blocking the singer) - Sadie Richardson

All of these people have either had camera experience before or suit the funny personality which we want for these characters. The reason why "Ashley Scott" has been given 3 different characters is because I wanted him to do all of the characters in order of making the video funnier and also choosing him because his humour in real life would relate to people watching the music video. In the end we found this difficult to film and do but we still kept him doing a few to bring in this element of humour. I thought that having a female trip over Grandma would eleminate this stereotype of men being the more violent, making the video slightly more interesting. The security guards are holding hands as they are a couple and we choose them two because they are best friends and so this friendship would make them more comfortable for them to act, therefore, making it more realistic for the audience.