Meeting with the set designer

Meeting with Tracy Ann, the set designer. 

We were introduced to Tracy Ann (TA, our set designer, by Luke. Initially, she questioned us about the name of our band and song- Lion the Weak with 'Wasted Words'. She then asked us the date of our shooting day, so that she could keep a record for when she needed to get our set prepared for. First of all to begin the discussion, we offered her our Wes Anderson Rushmoore colour palette that we have based all our set scheme on; she found this extremely helpful. In an ordily fashion, we showed her drawings of our ideas for our set design, presenting it room by room. To start, we described the room in which the performance (band) would be placed in. The most crucial part of all three rooms, is the wallpaper, as it is what distinguishes the different settings of the rooms (although we are using the same set for each). We showed her pictures of our desired burgundy/rouge patterned wallpaper, which we could buy from Very.co.uk or more expensively from HomeBase. We researched it with her, but the sale on Very.co.uk didn't inform on how many metres of roll was in one buy, so she suggested we email them to ask, which we have done. 

We then discussed the furniture, and how it all must be rustic, vintage and old looking. Our sofa we wanted preferably brown leather (Expensive looking, yet battered). She said she had some sofas stored away in a warehouse, that might be right- one she described being '50s' which intrigued me. After must discussion over the window, we decided to scrap it, as it would distract from our focus point of creating a the 'lion' logo with written words on the wall. We therefore had to stick with having two symmetrical standing lamps either side of the sofa in the 'living room' area, due to lighting issues. She said she could provide these, as well as a side table the vinyl record player could stand on. Overall it was a really good session, and my group seemed to bond with TA really well, which is always a good start, especially when we will be working in such close proximities and relying on her for a great deal of our music video's success. We now have a lot of trust in her to bring our ideas to life. 

Editing the animatics

Editing the animatic




We filmed our storyboard for our music video, following the guidelines of its timeline setting. For example filming the CU of the lead singer from 00:46 - 00:50, therefore we filmed the image for 4 seconds. Once all the film was shot on Sony NX5, the following day we took the footage to the editing suite and edited the film on Adobe Premier Pro in time to the rhythm of the music. The point of an animatic is to give a better idea of how the scene will look and feel with motion and timing.At its simplest, an animatic is a series of still images edited together and displayed in sequence with a rough dialogue and/or rough sound track added to the sequence of still images (usually taken from a storyboard) to test whether the sound and images are working effectively together. This allows the animators and directors to work out any screenplay camera positioning, shot list and timing issues that may exist with the current storyboard.

Meeting with George- Lighting guy

Meeting with George

George Smith

Lighting Director

Today we had a meeting with the lighting guy to discuss our idea...

• The first thing we told him was that we have different lengths of light bulbs hanging from the ceiling, his concern was that it was going to create lots of shadows so we will need to include other practical lights to add to the atmosphere.

• We have also decided we are going to pulsing lights for the first 7 seconds of the video during the opening synths, as a build up of introduction. With this in mind George gave us the advice to not show the audience the band during this 7 seconds
• We were thinking of adding a window at the back of the room to show that it is night time, and also to add to this idea we're in a room of a house. We need to finish our set design to make sure that we are giving the right image across of this room during the dance/ narrative element. The importance of the window will determine the time of day (night) and what sort of lighting is used at this time (house lights, practical lights) 

I was looking at possible images for a window if we do decide this is a good idea.

We have also decided, that the 'Wasted Words' written on the walls by the dancers, will finally zoom out by the end of the piece, to reveal a giant lion's head, relating to the band's star image, shown below:

Media shoot day confirmed- 24th Nov

We have been informed by Jason, that our Media Shoot for our Music Video 'Wasted Words' is set to take place on the:

24th November 2014

We must email and inform the people involved in our shoot (Oliva Morris, Harry Lawtey and the band members of 'Lion the Weak') to assure they will be available that day. 

Why do you need a set designer?

 

Why do you need a set designer?

To meet with a set designer, means to describe to them or provide them with an idea of the setting and style you desire for a video. It is an extremely crucial and important process of 'music video making' because it's what gives your video a genre and star image. We have drawn out a whole idea of the atmosphere and look of our music video's setting, and the set designer will take those ideas and bring them to life. He will put together each color, prop and piece of furniture in order to create the look we what. A set designer creates an environment in which a story tale takes place, whether it be naturalistic or completely abstract, forming something out of a stimulus provided.

Tomorrow at 3, my group will be meeting with a set designer to discuss our shoot. So today we have been finalizing everything we intend to discuss with the designer and Luke tomorrow. Last week during our meeting about sound, they warned us about how much attention to detail we will need to include on our designs. So since then we have been focusing on each image of all of our props, and now we know where we are getting a few of the props, which is great progress.

One of the many difficulties my group might face is by following a Wes Anderson colour palette, so we will need to discuss this tomorrow about these complications.

Letter to the band

 

 

To Lion The Weak

We are a group of A Level students working on an A Level project for a qualification in Media Studies. We are writing to request permission to use the following track as part of this project:

Wasted Words Lion The Weak

With your permission the track would be used as the accompaniment to a short form video that is made purely for assessment purposes and will have no commercial usage. The video will be viewed only by members of the school community and the assessor of the examination board.

The artist and the copyright holder will of course be fully recognised in the pre-production and evaluation material that accompanies the project. We can also include a full copyright notice if required both in the planning material and on the video itself.

Yours sincerely


Katie McLady, Beth Lane, Calum Goddard and Finbar Shepherd

Hurtwood House School

 

Props presentation- eMAZE

Presentation on 'eMAZE' on our 'Prop selection'

Another added element

 
Added Elements
After much discussion amongst the group, we decided that it would be a successful idea to add another stylistic element to the music video, adding on from the narrative. Having taken inspiration from a piece of art from The Tate Modern

After much discussion amongst the group, we have decided that we needed another stylistic element for our music video. We have the performance scenario and the dance element but we have also decided to add a 3rd element. This element will consist of an empty room with broken and unbroken vinyl records scattered along the floor, there will be a hazy atmosphere and the two actors/dancers used in the previous scene will be writing words on the wall (the lyrics) that eventually create a shape. This element links back to the title of the song 'wasted words'.

We took inspiration from this piece of artwork found in the 'Tate Modern' gallery in London. It shows lots of writing that eventually creates a thick line. The writing is in fact peoples heights. Members of the public were instructed to walk up to the wall a mark a line where they reach and then sign it off with their name. The majority of people have their height in a certain place so it therefore creates a certain pattern.

Dance element

Dance Elements
We have decided as a group, to have a chair duet (frantic assembly theatre dance) to take place in the room opposite. We have cast Harry Lawtey and Olivia Morris to have a narrative love scene, in a room next to the performers

Our inspiration for the dance element of our video came from two videos we had seen on Facebook. The first is the 'Carlton' dance that involves the romantic relationship element we wanted for our characters. Also the use of the sofa is what we need in our video, likewise to this example.

We loved the simplicity and effectiveness of the movements in this video, and have shown our dancers, that this is the dance look we desire.

Dance Rehearsal

REHEARSAL

We thought it would be a good idea to get on top of the routine before half term. So we emailed our two dancers on Sunday evening to have a rehearsal on the Monday. We spent 2 hours of our free activity time helping Liv and Harry choreograph their frantic movement dance. We need the dance to be a narrative of romance/break up, as well as choreography, because it must work around which elements we need for the music video: performance, dance and narrative. They were extremely patient, and the piece is still in flow with rehearsal.

StoryBoarding

Why is storyboarding key?







Storyboarding is key because while filming our music video, it can be used as a template for what shots we want. A storyboard is a chance to put thoughts of shots down to paper, and visualise them in drawings. It depicts a sequence of key scenes that can include setting, dialogue and action. They are labelled with the title, timeline digits, lighting, props etc. it helps to visualise a concept, and decide on whether to proceed with the final production. Storyboard often changes on the day, but it is a general structure to follow. Fin in our group,is an expert artist, and so we nominated him to do the majority of our drawings however, we also spread it out across the group too. For example I was directed to draw picture 1:52-2:24. It helped us all understand the direct concept of music video, and the plans we had, rather than staying in the background, and being clueless on the day. So, I now have ideas of the shots we'll record on the day. 

Our group used this video as a example of how to draw our storyboards in detail.

Finbar is a talented artist, and drew these storyboard pictures for us. We're extremely happy with how these pictures came out.

Focus on Colour Scheme.

WES ANDERSON COLOUR SCHEME

As a group we have taken inspiration from the extremely creative film-maker 'Wes Anderson'. 

A brief summary to Wes - IMDB

Anderson attended the University of Texas in Austin, where he majored in philosophy. It was there that he met Owen Wilson. They became friends and began making short films, some of which aired on a local cable-access station. One of their shorts was Bottle Rocket (1994), which starred Owen and his brother Luke Wilson. The short was screened at the Sundance Film Festival, where it was successfully received, so much so that they received funding to make a feature-length version. Bottle Rocket (1996) was not a commercial hit, but it gained a cult audience and high-profile fans, which included Martin Scorsese. 

In particular we have taken a massive liking to the colour palette used in all his films. He tends to stick to plain earthy colours that give his films a grainy quality which look superb in my opinion.

We have decided to follow a deep red/brown and orange colour scheme to give the video a classic and authentic look. These colour schemes will stay constant through-out.

A particular film of Wes' that we would like to base our colour scheme and style on is 'Library of Plays' this style (as shown below) uses the red/brown colours we are going to use for the set of our video. 

Ideas for wallpaper. We will use the school's money to fund this: http://www.homebase.co.uk/en/homebaseuk/holden-clara-wallpaper---red-208495

The music video 'Out of the Game' by artist Rufus Wainwright, represents the exact colour themes we had in mind for our video, and just the general indie feel. 

Music Video- Timeline

MUSIC VIDEO TIMELINE - Wasted Words                            SHEET NO: ___1__

TIME	LYRICS/MUSIC	WHAT DO WE SEE ON SCREEN
00.00-00.07	Synth Intro	- Lights coming up on the band to beat of synth.
00.07-00.12	Guitar starts	CU of lead sing playing guitar (CU of guitar)
00.12-00.16	‘’	MS of lead with drummer w/ drummer out of focus in background.
00.16-00.18	‘’	CU of bass guitar (shot down neck of guitar)
00.18-00.20	‘’	WS of band
00.20- 00.24	‘’	Tighter WS
00.24-00.28	Vocals start	HS of lead singer as vocals start
00.28-00.32		CU of drummer
00.32-00.36		WS band
00.36-00.38		CU of bass
00.38-00.42	Instrumental restarts	Zoom out to WS of band,
00.42-00.46		Dolly (track) left to room number 1, where couple are doing interpretive chair duet on a sofa.
00.46-00.50		CU of two faces, they turn and look at each other.
00.50-00.56		Shot zooms out to default wide shot
00.56-00.58	Vocals about to start	Dolly (track) right back to band in middle room.
00.58-01.02	Vocals start	WS to start then zoom in..
01.02-01.06		Zooms into CU of lead singer
01.06- 01.10		CU of Lead guitar
01.10-01.15		WS of band
01.15-01.18		Dolly (track) right to room 2
01.18-01.33	Breakdown	Shots involving another dance duet. To be decided.
01.33-01.37		Track left to band in middle room, zooms into MS of band
01.37- 01-40		CU of drummer
01.40-01.42		MC of Bass and Lead
01.42-0145		CU of Guitar lead
01.45- 01.47		WS of band
01.47-01.49		MS of bass
01.49-01.52	Vocals start	CU of singer
01.52- 01.56		WS of dancers (room 1)
01.56-01.58		CU two shot of dancers (room 1)

(Remember to aim for a change of shot every 2-3 seconds, which is a typical music video cutting rate)