Diary Post #4

Date: 30th March 2014

Time: 1.00-2.00pm. We got the filming done in an hour, as there weren't a lot of shots we had to do and the protagonist was already in bed.

Location: Protagonist's bedroom. This was the final scene we had to shoot. We'd considered the bedroom scene to include a natural kind of mise en scene, one in which it was obvious it was a girl's bedroom, and to amplify the message of our music video which relates to the theme of identity.

What did we achieve in the shoot?
We managed to get the shots we planned to do in this scene with the props and the costumes we had organised for this shoot.

What actors/props/costumes did you use?

We used Halimah, as she is the main protagonist in our music video.
The props consisted of the red heart, the dark coloured ball, a jewellery stand and a pink hued stone. The mise en scene of one of the shots in the bedroom scene include two teddy bears, a stereo and an extra bed. The extra bed wasn't supposed to be there, as it suggests that there is someone else who sleeps in the room with the protagonist. This is an error we are hoping to fix soon.
The protagonist's outfit is a light grey top with short sleeves and bottoms to reflect how neutral she is, as it is a colour between black and white. Light grey is a colour which gives the viewer a sense of control, stability and intelligence signalling that this is the end of our music video.

How did we set up our equipment?
It was a bit of a challenge to film Halimah in bed, as it didn't provide a steady surface from which the tripod could stand. Instead, we tried to film from her bedroom floor. We also had to charge the camera's batteries in the middle of the shoot.

What went well?
The quality of the shots turned out to be very good, as we had drawn open the curtains to let in the sun's rays. Despite it being afternoon, the sun was still beaming out in the sky. This upped the level of lighting we had in the shots.

What went wrong?
The only thing that went wrong was that we didn't realise that we had filmed the extra bed in the same room. We could crop this out, but it would affect the quality and make this shot unclear.

What we need to achieve next time:
If there is a next time, whether it be refilming shots or in the long term, we have to pay attention to what we are filming, what's in the frame and correct the mise en scene if possible.

Diary Post #3

Friday 21st February, 12:30am-14:45pm, Town

We decided the earlier, the better as it'd be around the same time of day we filmed last to provide similar lighting. It also was a suitable time for our protagonist to film with us. We wanted our video not to include people gawking at the camera in the background, as it would ruin the 'feel' and atmosphere of the song even though it is guaranteed this would happen when we do some shots in town, so what we did was film when there wasn't that many people and informed them in advance that we were filming.

What did we achieve in the shoot?We focused on filming the protagonist at town with a variety of shots like low angles, mid shots and high angles with the props we had.

What actors/props/costumes did we use?
The protagonist was one of our friend's sister. She is the main actress who will star in our music video.
We used a bag, a withered rose, a dark coloured ball and a red heart for this shoot.
For the protagonist, we had her clothed in a tight colourful dress with black leggings and wedges, like the costume we had for her when we filmed on the Bridge.

How did we set up our equipment?
We used a tripod and our friend's camera to film.

What went well?
We recorded some shots multiple times so that we could replace some shots if they were shaky or otherwise seemed unnatural.

What went wrong?
Something that went wrong was when we filmed at the Ashmolean. We tried doing a long shot, but there was a road in between which meant that cars and other vehicles would obstruct our view of the protagonist. We had difficulty filming from that distance, so we decided to film from the pavement, a couple of metres away.

What we need to achieve next time?
Our next filming shoot will be on Friday 7th March. For this shoot, we will focus on the shots we need for the next location, which will be in a bedroom and then in South Park.

Diary Post #2

Wednesday 19th February, 11:30am-12:45 am, Donnington Bridge

We decided the earlier, the better as it'd be around the same time of day we filmed last. However, it did look a little gloomy despite us having checked the weather forecast for the day, which told us it would be clear.

We thought that because we were filming in the morning, it wouldn't be that busy but there were some people exercising, cyclists, etc. that we let pass before actually filming. We wanted our video not to include people gawking at the camera in the background, as it would ruin the 'feel' and atmosphere of the song even though it is guaranteed this would happen when we do some shots in town.

What did we achieve in the shoot?

We focused on filming the protagonist at Donnington Bridge with a variety of shots like low angles, mid shots, high angles and we also attempted to do a match on match action shot.
The match on match action was challenging, but we took as many shots as we could so that when it comes to editing, we would be able to replace some shots in order for the match on match action to be believable.

What actors/props/costumes did we use?
The protagonist was one of our friend's sister. She is the main actress who will star in our music video. We used a bag and glassy-type pebbles for this shoot.
For the protagonist, we had her clothed in a tight colourful dress with black leggings and wedges. 

How did we set up our equipment?
We used a tripod and our friend's camera to film.

What went well?
The quality of the shots we filmed when the protagonist dropped the glassy pebbles into the water. We were quite satisfied with the range of shots we achieved, and so didn't need to refilm any clips.

What went wrong?
Sometimes we would forget that the protagonist needed to hold the bag, so we had to refilm the bits where she wasn't holding the bag. Another thing that was challenging was when people went by like cyclists and joggers. We had to wait for them to pass before filming. We also didn't notice that some of the shots we did were done the other way, from the opposite side. What we did to resolve this was use the flipped effect on iMovie so that our film played smoothly without any noticeable errors in the shots or angles.

What we need to achieve next time?
Our next filming shoot will be on Friday 21st February. For this shoot, we will focus on the shots we need for the next location.

Diary Post #1

Thursday 13th February 2014, 9:15am-10:30 am, South Park

What do you intend to achieve by the end of the shoot?

We wanted to shoot some shots meant for the location (South Park). These shots would be used at the start of our music video:

Shots of model with leafy background, at a close up, mid and side shot.

A long shot of model tiptoeing, jumping, walking on logs.

Blurred shot of sun in the sky

A close up/ mid shot of shoes walking along the logs.

What did you actually achieve by the end of the shoot?

All the shots mentioned in the previous answer, plus an additional shot of the landscape using a panning shot, to show what our protagonist could see.

We also managed to get some pictures with the camera to use on our blogs.

What does this mean for your next shoot?

That we should be moving on to our next location, to film the shots that are meant to be there. The change of location would be a wise decision, as it would provide a fresh new look on the video, to avoid our audience getting bored.

We also would need to go back to this location and film our model spinning on the spot to go with the panning of the landscape.

Protagonist For Our Music Video

Name: Halimah Ali

Age: 17 Years Old

Likes: Music, Studying, Make-up and going out with friends

Dislikes: Eating too much, people who upset her and not fitting in with society

Here is an image of our female protagonist for our music video. This is Halimah Ali who is 17 years old and goes to Cheney School. She is currently studying her AS Levels and takes Biology, Physics, Chemistry and Spanish. We chose Halimah, firstly because she fits in well with our target audience who are girls aged 16-25. Another reason was that she is one of my best friends sisters and she is easily available to film at any times because she goes to the same school as me. She is also very good at acting as she achieved and A* in performing arts at GCSE level and holds alot of experience on camera.

Lyric Analysis Of Iiris Tigerhead

Here I have created a wordle for the lyrics for our main task from Iiris-Tigerhead.

Wordle is a program which is designed to generate “word clouds” from text that you provide. This program then organise words to give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently. 

From the wordle that I have created we can see that the most frequent used phrase is "Keep Real,  You will not fade away". This is the main lyric that our main task is trying to portray through the narrative of our music video. In our music video we are portraying how girls in society should keep real and not follow stereotypical views of how girls should act and dress. Therefore in our music video we show and assure our target audience that they can keep real because they will not fade away in society but will be unique in their own way.

Possible Locations For Iiris Tigerhead

As part of planning before hand I have took pictures of the possible locations we will be shooting in for our Music Video.

Stereotypically the Dream Pop genre usually has mystical and unusual locations in music videos. Are music video is based on a girl who is influenced by today's mediated society, therefore our music video is portraying how girls should not follow society but "Keep real, you will not fade away", the main lyric of our video.

Location 1 (South Park):

This is the first location we chose for our music video. The reason for this was because south park is very big and has loads of greenery and a good view of the sky. In our music video in the beginning we need a shot of the sun with trees surrounding it and we thought this would be an ideal location to gain this type of shot. Also our protagonist was going to wake up in a bunch of leaves as part of her unusual dream she is having. The reason we chose this idea was because green leaves denote simplicity and nature and this relates to our protagonists narrative she is trying to portray.

Location 2 (Folly Bridge):

This is the second location we chose which was folly bridge. The reason we chose this location was because we wanted the mis en scence to seem like she is on a big journey and this bridge has a very good leading lines composition for our protagonist to walk on. Also we needed a river because our protagonist is going to drop a green stone into the river as part of her identity because emerald green stands for the Month May and that is her birthday.

Location 3 (City Center):

This is the third location we chose for our Main task. This is Oxford City center, the reasoning behind this choice is that it is a busy place compared to our last mis en scene. We need to have contrasting locations to keep the audience engaged in the music video. In this location our protagonist will leave another part of her identity which is a "heart light". This prop represents that love breaks her down therefore she is leaving this part of her away and keeping real.