Finished Music Video

Final Products

CD Cover Ideas

Here are five ideas I have come up with so far for our CD Cover:

Music Video First Draft

Video Log 2

Fighting Rehearsals

Video Log 1

Filming Process

The filming process was quite a long one in comparison to last year, however this was expected because with a music video everything has to be very well thought out and planned, and I think the storyboard helped us a lot more while filming too than it did last year. It was split into two Fridays, with a one week break in between. We firstly filmed all the performance parts, and this went very well especially because of the camera we had access to. The training sequence was actually done inside one of our lessons, and for this we again used the same camera, however for the actual fights themselves we had two different cameras that were used.
For the performance we had to take all the instruments and equipment to the place we were filming, and the whole process was quite timely, especially because of a few teachers not allowing us to take some instruments until a certain time, however in the meantime we got all the rest of the props and lighting ready, whilst also connecting one of our phone's to the speakers so the band could hear it from where they were, and also to help whilst editing with the lip-syncing.
The training sequence was filmed during our lesson times on Friday, and this went quite smoothly as it was really just random things being done, and it still looked quite good on camera. After that we all met up after school, and we were using the drama halls, which was also the place we used for the performance part involving the band only. We brought the mats over to the rooms, and this time we were restricted to one room because of the other being used by some other students. Next we gathered quite a few people and got everyone to surround the area we would be fighting, but as it was after school many people left after only a few fights, which is why we filmed the main and most important fights (the last two) first, as this was predicted by the group. We finished late again that day, but after this nothing had been reshot, meaning we did it well the first time, and overall I think filming was a success.
The group did have a few issues with the camera though, as we had to switch to one with less quality, and after a while that stopped working so we had to switch to a handy-cam, and this took down our quality quite a bit. Another thing was that the settings on the handy-cam were different, so we had to export the files separately, and this just added to the time we had to wait before we could start editing. But by the next Friday the group had started editing, whilst also having a lot of behind the scenes shot too, and some of these might even feature in the digipak, which we will hopefully start soon enough as well.

Music Video Basic Plot

After discussing several ideas for the music video, and acting upon the information we received from the audience research, the group have finally agreed on a final idea, and I think if it is filmed as the way I myself imagine it, it should turn out very well.

The basic concept involves the lead singer (star persona) being a fighter at the top of his game, however after going into drugs and drinking he accepts bribes from another fighter, but eventually he decides to stop cheating for money, and this comes with a great cost, as he gets beaten up by the briber in a fight. After this event happens, a trainer approaches him and offers to help him and overcome the person who bribed him. The whole training process is then shown, and he eventually gets better and better until he goes on to beat the person who beat him before. The struggle will be shown in the video in the way the sequence of fights are shown. The group have also decided to make the video more narrative based as the storyline is quite a complex one, and we will obviously need a lot of time to try and get our ideas fully across in it.
I think we have considered our audience a lot overall, and taken forward many of their ideas and tried to combine them as best as we can, and hopefully that will show in our final music video as well.

Learning the Basics

As a fight scene is something we haven't really touched upon since starting Media Studies, itis important my group and I know some of the basics just to make it a little bit easier while filming. This video is something that we all watched, and we did think it was beneficial:

I think the most important thing while filming is the camera angle in this scenario, as the camera shot itself will help push some of your points through and make it more appealing to the eye, but by being directly behind or in front of the contact will obstruct the viewer's eye from what is actually going on, so the hits will look real. Another thing is that there needs to be many cuts and the match on action needs to be done very well in the editing process. This is shown in a fight scene from the Bourne Supremacy involving Matt Damon. Another thing that I picked up on here was that there was a lot of camera shake, and this was to again make it harder for the viewer to see exactly what is going on, and to make everything look more realistic whilst adding a dramatic tone to it: