Ancillary Task - Stage One

As we have now completed our music video for 'Searching For The Sun In The Dark' by Lost In Colour it is important that we begin our ancillary tasks immediately. To begin with we looked at the Rolling Stones, 'Sticky Fingers' album.

We looked at how the Rolling Stones album was successful as a promotional pack. At the time it was published it could be considered as a new, unique cutting edge cover, at the time the term ‘sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll’ was being incorporated. The album cover was designed by the renowned Andy Warhol who is famous for his work in pop are. This can clearly be identified in this image, where there is emphasis on the male’s trousers, emphasising his ‘bulge.’ This highlights the connotations of sex appeal at the time. Also when looking at the back image of the album, thoughts of fluidity between imagery of the front and back sprung to mind.

Editing & Images

Over the last week we have been trying to get as much editing as possible done to ensure we meet the deadline tomorrow. Everything so far has been successful and we have not encountered any problems. Today we also filmed a few seconds of the 'isolation' and 'innocence' sign to overlap on our footage to enhance the connotations intended for the passive audience to perceive. We did this by just placing them on a black background.

Evidence of Editing

Here Rachel and I are editing the colour through using the technique of 'colour corrector.' Through this editing tool we reduced the saturation level, enabling us to make the footage of the band performance shots black and white.

Another example of how we edited the colour in our music video was by using 'Motion' - 'Parameters' and the 'Rotation' wheel to alienate one colour, this being red. This effect will be very significant in the final, underlying meaning of Lost In Colours music video.

This screen shot represents the modifications we made to our footage, in order to have multiple shots over the top of one another to create a specific meaning we went through the process of 'Modify' - 'Compsite Mode' - 'Overlay' resulting in the effect of overlaying images. In this case it is the sign of 'freedom' and 'break free,' and the actress in the white room, headbanging.

In order to show multiple footage in our music video that related and linked, for example scenes of the prostitute, we resized the scenes we took to a quarter of the orginal size. We did this with four clips and put these in a 2 by 2 format, resulting in the effect of the image below. We also did a 3 way horizontal split screen for the footage of the tramp, each segment showing the tramp doing a different action and from a different camera angle.

This shows a 6 way screen split of different sizes, however it also shows an overlay of 2 different scenes. One being stationary and the other (the facial close up) being moving.

To make this clip below fit with the rhythm and tempo of Lost In Colours, 'Searching For The Sun In The Dark' we reduced the footage, in order to make it look more "rock 'n' roll" and create emphasis of the footage. We slowed the footage down to 60 %.

Uploading, Filming & Uploading

This morning we quickly uploaded all the footage we filmed of the band on Saturday, we then quickly filmed some footage of a 'chav' scene which involved a punch up. The location we decided on for this was a standard car park, therefore we were able to use the car park at school which was very convenient. We also got some friends involved to dress up as the stereotypical persona of a chav, trackies, hoodies, caps, hoop earrings. The sign we used for this scene was 'hate.' We then uploaded this footage and began to edit it over lunch as our first full edit draft deadline of our product is on Friday!

The Boys In Action Yesterday

A total of 40 photos were taken, here are 5.

Band Footage

Today consisted of a lot of planning in advance due to getting four members together to play the different components of the band, singer, drummer and two guitarists. A great location was coincidentally down Rachel's street in Dunmow, this being a deserted lay by thing. Although the weather wasn't great we felt this would not be a problem as the footage we filmed is to have its saturation changed to make it black and white. To ensure we got all the footage filmed it was an early start which began with attempting to construct the drum kit borrowed from Rachel's cousin.

Thankfully a picture was available:

First attempt of construction began in the kitchen:

This then involved dismantling it and putting it in the car along with the guitars, camera, dolly, tripod etc. It was a bit of a squeeze.

Location location:

We spent about an hour and half filming with Lost In Colour on repeat full volume. Thankfully the boys were really enthusiastic even though it was freezing, so a big thank you to them.

White Room

As originally seen we are using signs to signify the narrative and emotion in the song therefore, we decided to get every "individual" character holding a different sign. The white room scene consisted of her holding a 'break free' sign. Unfortunately when we originally filmed we did not have this sign on us, therefore during our free periods today we managed to gain access to the stage where we originally filmed, to quickly take some footage of the girl holding the sign. Over the course of lunch we were then able to upload the footage and begin putting it on our timeline. During creating the 'break free' sign we also created a 'isolation' and 'innocence' sign much like the one the prostitute was seen holding.

Editing

Much like last Wednesday and Thursday we have been editing all week, during our lessons, lunchtimes and study periods to get our product to the highest standard possible. As of yet, everything is going well.

Editing

Basically Rachel and I have been trying to get onto the Apple Mac's as much as possible to ensure that we get all editing done by the deadline set. Therefore, we spent an hour yesterday and an hour today trying to out the footage onto the time line on Final Cut Express and fitting it with beat of the music. We also have continuously been adding effects, transitions and all sorts, experimenting to get the best result.

Upload & Editing

Rachel and I spent today uploading the footage we filmed on Friday which consisted of the 10 minute sequence of the tramp on a bench sleeping, eating and drinking. We also had enough time to import the footage onto Final Cut Express and start cutting footage to add onto the timeline and changing the saturation colour to black and white and also increase the speed of the footage.

Tramp, Hobo, Homeless Person?

Tramp and hobo are both probably derogatory terms/considered as slang so we will agree on homeless person. Today Rachel and I (as we both had a double free) to film the scene of a homeless person during school. We went back to my house, nabbed some clothes used for decorating and gardening and felt that I appeared good enough to be a stereotypical homeless person.

We originally planned to film in Audley End Park as there was a bench which would have been perfect but unfortunately it had been removed (probably stolen) so we went to our back up plan and used a standard street bench. We filmed for 10 minutes non stop as the purpose of this footage is to speed it up by at least 100 %. Looking back at the footage on the camera, Rachel and I both agree that it looks great and we will use it. During editing we will also make the scene black and white.

Uploading... Again

We uploaded the footage yet again, that is after we found our SD card as me and Rachel thought the other one had it but apparently not... However, when we went to begin editing we found that the 'letter boxing' was still there. (ANGER) We found that zooming in on the footage would remove the 'letter boxing' but it reduced the frame of the footage considerably. We purposely included my whole body using a long shot during filming so the audience would connote me being alone. As this proved unsuccessful we decided that we would not use the footage we filmed over the two days, although many people said it was good footage. We also felt that it did  not relate to the lyrics or genre of 'Searching For The Sun In The Dark' therefore will start filming immediately footage that appears more relevant, beginning tomorrow.

Editing

As our footage was now uploaded to the Mac we thought Rachel and I would straight away be able to starting editing. However, a dilemma that we were faced with was our footage being 'letter boxed' resulting in the clips being cut to a smaller size due to the border omitting the shots. We tried to overcome this through editing but were unsuccessful. We then deleted all our footage to re upload to see if it was a setting we may have selected.

Back To School - Uploading

We were back to school today so we pretty much spent our Media lesson uploading our footage we filmed over the Christmas Holiday to the Macs and converting the clips to DV files. From here we exported them into Final Cut Pro so we could begin adding them to our music timeline.