Music videos similar to ours

Our star's image

Comparing my artists star image

Account of shoot day

Account of shoot day

Timeline of music video

Call List

Shooting Schedule

14:30	Arrive at the location we’re filming at, set up camera, prepare set, sort costume, de-brief actress
15:00	Film bathroom mirror reflection shot, set up the lighting.
15:20	Film first line, medium close up against white wall- lip syncing.
15:35	Film extreme close-up of lips.
15:50	Film actress lip syncing and acting to chorus- Pointing and shouting at camera, close up.
16:00	Film actress at bar, wide shot
16:10	Film actress making movements- spinning head etc, to be used for editing.
16:20	Close up of mouth - ‘Did it frighten you’
16:30	Actress pulls hair, close up
16:45	Actress lip syncing pre-chorus, side shot
17:00	Costume change, pepper next set and lighting. Snack break
17:10	Actress warm up/ stretching for dance routine
17:40	Film wide shot of actress dance routine, different angles, against the white wall.
17:50	Costume change and quick break for actress after dancing, we prepare new set.
18:00	Close up of actress lying down
18:05	Close up of actress smiling/ laughing
18:15	Close up of actress lip syncing pre-chorus
18:35	Close up of actress lip syncing chorus, different angles and positions.
18:45	Medium close up of movements in front of white wall.
19:00	Dinner break.
19:30	Costume change, prepare next set
19:40	Actress now in sparkly top. wide shot of actress on stairs lip syncing
19:50	Actress lip syncing by lit up tree
20:00	Actress dancing in from of/ next to lit up tree
20:20	Close up of actress walking down stairs next to lit up tree
20:30	Costume change, set up green screen on TV
20:40	Medium close up of actress dancing by green screen
20:50	Medium close up of actress lip synching the full song in front of green screen
21:10	Set up dark room for the UV scene
21:20	Apply UV paint to actress, costume change
21:30	Actress close up on lips singing last few verse
21:40	Extreme close up of biting lips with UV paint
21:50	Wash paint off, costume change
22:00	Film actress medium close up lip syncing full song
22:10	Prepare sugar glass, lighting and cameras for the smashing glass shot.
22:30	Go upstairs, film actress in front of crocodile, lip syncing 4th verse.
22:40	Go outside, stand at the top of the stairs, pan shot of actress walking down the stairs to the tree.
22:55	Wide shot of actress lip syncing pre-chorus outside.
23:00	Tidy up, clear up, pack away equipment
23:30	Finish

Significance of outdoor shots

As mentions in previous posts, we opted for a mixture of indoor and outdoor shots. We thought that outdoor shots were particularly important as they could signify something important to our audience.

Significance

Our music video's narrative as about getting over a relationship and how Eleanor, our star, can handle her emotions. One reasons we wanted to use outdoor shots is because it could connote the idea of freedom. The final few shots will include Eleanor outside with the tree walking down steps. This could be interpreted as Eleanor is finally free from her toxic relationship and can do her own thing. The beginning of the video shows Eleanor inside the house. This can connote that she feels trapped but by the end of the song she has expressed herself through dance and now feels free.

Set design

Risk Assessment

A risk assessment is a systematic process of evaluating the potential risks that may be involved in a projected activity or undertaking. I made a risk assessment prior to our filming day in order to insure that we were aware of the dangers there may be and how to avoid them as well as what should be done if they occur.

Before we started filming, there were a number of risks that i would have to consider with the possibility of them happening under different circumstances. There were different types of risks that i had to consider, due to the mixture of our filming being both indoors and outdoors.

Breaking the glass-
This risk was probably the one that had the most thought put into it. In our music video, there is a shot where we smash a glass bottle. We have to be extremely careful with this because glass is very sharp and can be very dangerous, especially with our actress, Eleanor, having some shots with no shoes on. Therefore we tried to find the safest  glass to break, and that was sugar glass. This can still be sharp but when smashed, it can break into very tiny fragments, and being that it was clear and we were filming at night, it could be hard to find to clear up. When smashing the glass, myself and my group members stayed as far back as possible, and we told Eleanor to stand and hold the glass in a particular way so that when she smashed it, she would be as safe as possible. Further to this, because we only had one sugar glass bottle, we needed to get a good shot of the glass breaking, so we filmed on the camera and on all of our phones in different positions from different angles. We will also be using a decoy glass that looks the same as the sugar glass bottle, so that when we film Eleanor holding, it doesn't break, due to it being extremely fragile and we only had one sugar glass bottle. As well as this, there was another risk that we have to consider, and that is to make sure that we cleared up the glass fragments completely. To do this we need to all need to help brush the fragments away as quickly as possible. We also had to plan to shoot this scene at the very end of the day, this was so that we cleared the whole set up at the same time.

Holding the camera-
For a few of our shots, we have to take the camera off the secure stand, and hold it, this is because if the camera is on a stand we will be unable to achieve the shots that we want as the stand restricts us. One of these scenes is when i have i to stand on table in order to get high enough to film Eleanor lying down, to make it a wide shot as well. I had to be extremely careful when doing this as i had to hold the camera still and lie it on my shoulder, in order to record this scene. Another scene that has a high risk, is when i film Eleanor walking down the stairs outside, again i have to put the camera on my shoulder to record it, but this time i need to hang the camera over the glass panel which is the banister for the staircase. This is extremely risky as i could easily drop the camera down the stone staircase, so i will get my group to stand by make sure the camera is secure in this scene.

The lights-
We need to be careful in the scenes where we use the key lights provided by the school. This is because there are some scenes where one of us will have to hold the light with our hands, so that we can position it at the angle we want and need. This can be risky because firstly, the lights are very heavy to hold, and once they've been switched on for a while, they warm up, making the surrounding metal incredibly hot. If this happens, we will have to break for a few minutes, turn the light off and let it cool down before turning it back on and resume filming.
As well as this, the lights had wires attached to it to plug in, these wires will have be left on the floor and we have to make sure that firstly none of us fall over them and that if we accidentally wheel the camera over it.

The UV paint-
Another risk that we will incur is the UV paint. We will be applying it onto Eleanor's lips, because this is on her skin, we have to be careful that she doesn't get a reaction to this, therefore we will test it on her with a little swab, before applying it fully. As well as this, we want to make sure that it is on her for the least amount of time to avoid any irritation or discomfort. We will also have to make sure that this doesn't drip onto our clothes, as the UV paint can stain, and we want to avoid that risk as well.

The staircase-
We have to be very aware that the staircase that we are filming on is outside, and can be slippery if it has rained prior to our film day. We will also have to make sure that Eleanor is careful walking down the staircase whilst trying to lip sync and dance. This is because she will be trying to different things at once, and may loose concentration of the stairs and could easily trip or fall.

And of course, a risk we have to be aware of is that the equipment that we're using (the camera, lights etc) has been loaned to us by the school, and we need to return the equipment exactly how we received it. Therefore we need to all be very careful of the equipment.
Another minor risk is that we need to make sure Eleanor can actually make our filming day, so we had 2 possible days and we shaped it around her plans.

Lighting in Music Videos

Location for our music video

Props

Rehearsals for our shoot day

Before our shoot day, we wanted to make sure that Eleanor was fully aware of what she was doing. We waned to make sure she knew the lyrics to our chosen song 'Green Light', so that we didn't have to waste time of our shoot day to let Eleanor learn the lyrics as we had to spend our time well as it was limited.
We rehearsed the lyrics with her, then she showed us the dance moves that had been pre- choreographed, again so we didn't waste time rehearsing on the shoot day.

Moodboard

I created a mood board of all our ideas to help us understand what we're aiming for. This mood board is supposed to visually help us by letting us know what direction we're heading in for our music video. The images are a mixture os where we ant to film, the emotions we want to portray and the effects we want to use in order to make the most effective music video. This will loosely help us get an even greater idea for our music video.

Filming our Animatic

After creating our storyboard, we wanted to give ourselves a clear outline of how our music video would look along with our chosen song playing. So we made and animatic to show us the exact plan of our music video. We created this on iMovie, and simply videoed our storyboard and added our chosen song 'Green Light'.

We found this relatively easy to make as our original storyboard had lyrics attached to each shot, so knew where the song fit to each lyric, and we edited our storyboard to explain our narrative and our idea for our music video even more.

One key issue with our animatic was that we discovered we had to include more shot choices as some of them had too long a duration, and therefore we incorporated more of the dance routine. We thought this would also reflect the star image as we thought she should be bright, youthful and vibrant. And the dance routine would also reflect the song title 'Green Light' as she would be dancing against the flashing green light.

Analysis of our storyboard

The purpose of creating a storyboard, is to give the directors of a film, programme, music video etc. what they're filming and when they're filming it. It enables them to understand what goes where, so that everything is filmed. As well as this, it helps to create a replica of what you're filming but on paper. This way all ideas are drawn and written out, and are made sure that it corresponds with that is going on e.g. actions that go with lyrics in a music video.

Our storyboard really helped us understand what we will be filming, and we will follow it shot by shot on our filming day. For our storyboard, we made it digitally, and incorporated any inspiration we got from other shots in different and similar music videos. As well as this, we used photos of the set that we would be using so we knew the location for each shot. The lyrics of the song being separated into lines and parts helped us understand how we're filming different shots and when to stop it.

By creating a storyboard, we had planned the day in terms of shooting, so we would spend as little time faffing around by not knowing what to do. We will then have time to film any additional shots that we feel could work well if we think so at the time. This is highly important and where a storyboard plays a vital part of our music video, is because our time shooting and with the camera is limited, so we needed to get everything done in the allocated time.

We found when creating a storyboard both easy tasks and challenges. Within our group it was my job to create the storyboard and so i faced many issues and also many things i could easily overcome.

One thing i found very easy was ideas. Once we had an idea and similar videos we could gain inspiration from i found it easy to decided what shots we could use. For example our opening shots will be close ups of Eleanor which is a similar concept to the song wrecking ball. I was therefore able to take screenshots from that music video and use the for our storyboard.

Another aspect of the music video i found to be easy was the fact our song has a some form of repetition and so we could use similar ideas throughout the video. For example for the chorus we will be using a dancing scene and because we decided on that early on during planning we know for sure thats what we will use on the storyboard.

One aspect i found challenging however was timing our shots with the music and beats of the song. We originally started writing the storyboard with no lyrics underneath and just planning the shots whilst listening to the song. This meant it was difficult to visualise the shots. However once we added the lyrics it became much easier and a faster process. 

Overall, our storyboard includes exactly what we need in order to be able to film our music video, this is helped by having pictures and photos of the shot examples, with lyrics attached to each shot, of which i feel will be very helpful on our filming day.