Green Screen Tests

Here are the green screen test shots I attempted alongside another group. For the Green screen shot I am working with Dan, Jake and Emma to arrange our schedules together. This is done so that we can both film what we want on the same day and set up the green screen in a shorter amount of time.


Here is a tutorial I have found on Chroma Key for Final Cut:



Here is a really good article I found on how to light a green screen:
Full Green Screen Lighting Article

Here is a step-by-step summary from the article:

1. Light your screen for it's hue and not just to make it bright. It doesn't take much to make a screen glow evenly. 

2. Light your screen as evenly as possible. (first hand experience trying to cut a key in post will make that skill more of a skill and less of a guess). 

3. Make sure your talent is far enough from the screen as not to have any reflections on his cloths or face from the screen. 

4. After lighting the screen, turn it off and light your talent. 

5. Light your talent not to make him look good in the moment but as if he was standing in whatever the background plate is going to be.

6. Back lights are dependent on nothing more than taste and how they work into your background.  Sometimes hair is shiny to the point where the background color might reflect a bit. Try a color to help eliminate the color cast from the background. For example, a straw gel on blonde hair might help eliminate some of the green tinge if it's a problem. 

7. Color on anything in front of the screen can be what you want it to be as long as it's not too near the hue of the background color. 


Tests.
For these tests I worked with another group in my class to set this up. It went really well considering it was our first time using green screen. Prior to testing the green screen I had read lots of articles and seen many tutorials on how to light a green screen. As the article above says, you have to experience it first hand before you know what to do.
Mr.Phillips showed us a couple tricks on how to light the green screen.
First of all seeing the screen had not been folded away properly it had creases and therefore would cause shadow on the screen. This would prove  to make it harder in post as it introduces more variety's of greens and harder to get a perfect background.

The trick was to put green gels on the filler lights so that green light would "iron" out the creases.

This worked extremely well however seeing we had little DOF the green light seemed to leak on to actor and would cause parts of them to vanish too.

As you can see, the filler lights are pointed towards the screen left and right giving a nice even spread. However we had problems with the top part of the screen. We tried to have the back light half on the actor and half on the screen but as you can see it causes high levels of light in the top right hand corner. This is also due to the fact we were using a flood light and couldn't narrow the light that well.

We used a camera with a monitor set up because in the view finder it looks fine, but as soon as it has been moved on to a bigger screen you can see creases and different light levels.

For our next shoot I am going to iron the green screen and make sure my actor is wearing dark clothing as it is important to have a strong contrast as it makes it easier in post to cut the green out. 

I wanted my actor to be a cave man but I am concerned that the light will spill on to his skin as skin absorbs light better than clothing. 

Audience Feedback

Here is the feedback which I received after I conducted my audience research:

Are you Male or Female?
Male - 7
Female - 7

What age group are you in?
10-15 : 1
16-21 : 4
22-29 : 3
30-40 : 3
40-50 : 2
60-70 : 1
70+    :

Material Status?
Single                : 7
Married            :: 4
Divorced           : 2
Widowed          :
Common Law   : 1
Civil Partnership:
Separated         :

What is your average household income?
£0-10,000              :
£11,000 - £20,000 : 1
£21,000 - £30,000 : 2
£31,000 - £40,000 : 2
£41,000 - £50,000 : 3
£51,000 - £60,000 : 1
£61,000 - £70,000 : 2
£71,000 - £80,000 : 2
£90,000+               :

What is your current occupation? (Tick all that apply)
Full-time Education       : 3
Part-time Education      : 1
Full-time Employment   : 7
Part-time Employment  : 1
Self-employed             :  1
Unemployed                : 1
Retired

If from top 5, where is it based and what do you do?
Thurston Community College - A levels - Drama , Media and English
Bury St. Edmunds - Manager
London - Intern Banker
Thurston Community College - A levels
Thetford - Landlord
Bury St.Edmunds - GP at Surgery
London - Marketing Manager
Suffolk - Teacher
King Edwards School - GCSE's
Bury St,Edmunds - Office
Thetford - Lifeguard

What is your normal way of attaining music (tick all that apply)
Buy Album on CD: 5
Buy Singles on CD: 2
Buy Singles by Downloading: 4
Buy Albums by Downloading: 7
Sharing Program's (e.g. Bittorent): 4
Other (state): 1
Ripping from Internet

What is you favorite music genre? (tick all that apply)
Alternative : 10
indie : 5
Rap :  2
R'n'B : 2
Rock : 5
Latin : 1
Blues : 1
Synth : 3
Classical : 3
Dance :
Electronic : 3
Gospel : 1
World :
Other (state) : 1
Anything, Im not fussy

Who is your facourte Band or Artist at the moment?
The XX
Coldplay
Kind Blues
The Cribs
Beethoven
Charlotte Church
Coldplay
Ellie Goulding
The Raconteurs
Black eyed Peas
Ellie Goulding
Tiao Cruz
Pixies
Do you watch music videos?
Yes            : 6
No             : 4
Sometimes : 4

What is your favourite music video and why?
Foutains of Wayne - Stacy's mom - Funny
The Beatles - Help - Original and I love the film
Lady Gaga - Bad Romance - She is interesting to watch
Blood Hound Gang - Bad Touch - ITS HILARIOUS!
OKGO - This too shall pass - Really clever
Elton John - If it wasnt for Bad - Cool style
Westlife - Home - Its happy and sweet
Coldplay - Strawberry Swing
Black Eyed Peas - I've gotta feeling
Gorilla's - It's coming on

When watching a music video what do you like to see? (tick all that apply)
A narrative : 12
A Performance : 7
A symbolic short film : 1
The Artist or Band : 3
A clever concept : 8
Other (state) : 0

Do you go to Concerts or Gigs to see your favourite Artists/Bands Perform?


Yes: 7
No: 3
Sometimes: 4

What is your ideal night out? (Tick all that apply)

Club : 4
Pub : 4
Bar : 3
Cinema : 4
Art House Cinema : 3
Night in : 5
Gig : 8
Restaurant: 5

Ancillary Task

Webpage.

I have chosen to analyse this website as Esser has been described as a British version of Beck. This website can be considered to be conventional but I would argue that it doesn’t follow convention as its layout is set out as blog with everything on the same page scrolling downwards.


It does have a conventional navigation bar which is clearly seen across the top of the webpage. However the navigation options are not what you usually expect with features such as “Record Club” and Mix compilations”. This is a great simple technique to stand out from other sites. It also sets a certain band image as the use of language will appeal to its target audience.

Another unconventional twist is that Becks Facebook fan page is advertised in the top right hand corner. I like this feature and may incorporate it in my own work.

Other features which I want to use in my own work is the blog style website and alternative language in its navigation bar. I also like the use of colour on this page as it certainly engages the user.

Ancillary Task

Webpage.


For my ancillary task I am going to make a Webpage alongside a Digi-pak. Two key ingredients to help promote and generate revenue for the band (and Label.)

I am going to analyse "The Mystery Jets" official webpage, there genre of music is very similar to the one which I have chosen for my music video.

The Mystery Jets Website is at first glance very conventional. It has the standard separate links across the top ; Home , Tour Dates , Video , Store etc. etc. 

Across the top is has pictures of the band which change every few seconds. The one on the screen snap shot it is direct from the album cover of their new album "Serotonin". This is a great way of showing the band were ever possible and creating an image for themselves. It also will increase sales as it makes the image of the band familiar and more likely to be bought on a spontaneous purchase.

However what is more unconventional is whats below it. It has a sort of news feed which has links to other pages which involve the band. 

News feeds are conventional however this one continues down the page and dates right back to september 2007. Its also used more as blog as you can see the band just post significant events that have happened during that day.

For my own webpage I like the scrolling images at the top. I could include them inside the digi-pak as well.

Inspiration

Ray Harryhausen. 
For my Dinosaur world I have been greatly influenced by the work of Ray Harryhausen after watching the film "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad". His animation which is combined with real footage and its interaction with real characters fascinates me. Especially the fight scene with the sabre tooth tiger in the cave! Or the skeleton fight!
This is something which I am trying to introduce into my own work. I am going to animate a toy dinosaur and make it fight with my protagonist. If I had the time I would definitely try to make it out of clay however its a long and intricate process which would take longer than four weeks to produce.

Schedule

Below is the Gantt Chart which shows when each task is to begin and the time in which it is taken to complete each task. As you may see on the chart by the 14th I want to be uploading all my footage and have all my filming done. I have also budgeted in time for re-shoots by extending the amount of time needed to film the sequences.

I have already done test shots on green screen which will be an up coming feature on this blog and the making of my underwater camera will follow.

Planning

Story Boards.

Here are my rough story boards. I am in the process of having these redrawn, but these are the essential shots to make the narrative of my music video make sense. Please excuse the terrible sketches. 

Shot Lists. 

Here is every shot needed and how it needs to be done. I am more than certain I will have more than 18 different shots but as I am filming "on set" more shots will be added in.

Final Idea.

Finally I now have the idea for my music video!

I am going to go with my 3rd and last idea.
I have decided to shelve my other two ideas as I really like them. My Rubik's cube idea is (in my opinion) a great IDEA, the practicality of achieving it on my own is very difficult. As its heavily based on green screen and on stop-motion animation. If I was to go through with this idea I would split it up to have two directors, one for green screen and live footage while the other does the stop-motion with the cubes.

My second idea, I did start the planning, story boarding and shot lists but the actor I had, has had drop out due to a broken ankle. I decided that I would go with my third idea because I couldn't find any other actor willing to take the part. To be honest when thinking of the idea he was the actor in mind and I can't see anybody else fitting the criteria. 

Since I have gone into the planning stages of my third Idea I have really started to like it more than the others. My inspiration has come from "The Science Of Sleep" (Michel Gondry, 2006)
The music Video I am going to do is : Esser - Work It Out.
I have two actors confirmed in my film:
J.Mcghee - To be the main character/singer and supporting actress: E.Wotherspoon - The girlfriend.

On my next post I will upload my Story Boards and shot Lists.

Previous Students Work

Long Road Media - Group 6.


This music video conforms to Goodwin's six and surprisingly uses vouyrism in a student music video. Conventional but perhaps should try again when he has the stereotypical body of a modern "rockstar". This is something I am definitely going to avoid, also the fact that I don't want my music video to conform exactly to Goodwin's six as it will make it another standard music video.
This music video at first seems to work OK, then it seems a bit messy. However it does seem to be organised chaos, the style in which it is shot is stereotypical to the style of song - little/no narrative. The fact that its shot in a woodland makes it very conventional - I like the balloons, its a nice touch.
I am definitely going to avoid filming in a wood.

Previous Students Work

Bat For Lashes - What's A Girl To Do.


This performance based video is very well constructed and has many strengths such as the fast edits and a good choice in locations.
The Lighting within the church is natural and suits it well. However I would say the other shots seem to lack light and aren't as strong.
The choice of actress suits the song and style of which the band would normally portray.

Things I would avoid after watching this, is if I have a any performance in my video I would try and get my actors to actually sing the song. The lips do move to the music however its not enough, in a way it needs to be exaggerated when they sing. 

Textual Analysis

Goldfrapp - Happiness (Dir. Dougal Wilson).


This music video is a mixture of performance, concept and narrative. It follows a linear narrative start to finish with a happy conclusion. The concept behind it is that its a one shot video with the same guy continuously jumping and being happy. If you watch out for it you can tell that the video has three breaks in it so its not actually a one take video, but to be honest if your not looking for it, its pretty seamless. It follows Goodwin's six apart from Voyeurism.
It contains performance from Goldfrapp at the choruses where she appears further down the street each time, dressed in a different way. A very interesting and fun concept. 

What I particularly like about this music video is the way the film is over-saturated to give it that "happy" aesthetic. This is defiantly another feature I would love to incorporate into my music video if I go for my most recent idea as the character goes from being in reality which is sad, to his happy place, under his bed which I want to be really colourful 

Textual Analysis

Fireflies - Owl City (Dir.Steve Hoover).


This music video is a mixture of performance and concept. It does conform to Goodwin's six in a variety of ways. Such as "the link between lyrics and visuals", In this case it amplifies what it the song says by showing the certain item mentioned in the lyrics. For example "disco ball hanging by a thread" (1:25).

There is not much of a narrative as its mainly a performance music video. I would say this would be its only downfall as it can get a bit old. However it is really well constructed. It has lots of fast cuts and a wide range of different framing's and angles to keep the same room interesting for 3 + minuets. This is something I should really learn for my music video.
The concept which I really like from this video is the idea of all the toys which come alive. This would really fit in well with my last idea on an older blog post.
I would say its a very succesful music video in the way that it can capture an audience easily. The youtube hit rates only proves that; 18,000,000 + views.

Textual Analysis

Coldplay - Strawberry Hill (Dir.Shynola)




This music video is a mixture of concept, performance and narrative. It challenges Goodwin's six in the way that it only really conforms to three of them. The first two of which every video conforms to because its either along side the lyrics or not. However it does feature the lead singer of Coldplay (Chris Martin) but with not close ups.

The concept behind the video is very clever and simple, however! That's the concept, the production of this music video was a lot harder. The concept is that Chris Martin stays laying down on this "road" while artists draw the background on with chalk around him and take one picture at a time. It creates an amazing effect, especially when he interacts with a chalk drawing towards the end of the video.

The narrative is simple yet effective, Chris Martin sees a damsel in distress and goes to save her. He fights through several problems such as a giant squirrel shooting arrows, being eaten by a giant cat fish, skulls with stilettos and more of the sort.

I love the effect of the chalk and the purity of the concept. Its nice to see something actually created by stop-animation rather than another load of CGI. This has inspired me to create some of my own stop-animation work.

Audience Research

Primary Research - Questionnaire.
I have designed this questionnaire to find my target audience and learn what they would like to see in a music video.

(RESULTS YET TO BE UPLOADED)

Digi-Pak

History + Initial Ideas.

Digi-Paks were originally a trade mark of AGI media, since then other versions have been released.  Digi-Paks typically consist of a gatefold (book-style) paperboard or card stock outer binding, with one or more plastic trays capable of holding a CD or DVD attached to the inside. Bigger versions are made to fit DVDs because they normally consist of more discs.

Digi-Paks started to become popular within the early 2000’s and in today’s market they are very common for special, collectors or limited edition discs.

More recently a new model has been created which is made from 100% recycled materials. This is how I plan my Digi-Paks to be made as in today’s eco-conscious market I believe that it would attract more sales. 

Ideas for music video.

Intial Ideas.

I have had several ideas as to what music video I would like to do.
My most recent idea was quite complex in its editing techniques as its very heavily dependent on green screen and chroma key effects.

I want to film several sequences in the style of the Ipod adverts



I then wanted to use these squences and project them on the different sides of a rubiks cube. I also wanted to film the Rubiks cube in stop-animation so that I could bring in other rubiks cubes and animate them while having the videos projected on each of the rubiks cubes by using the chroma key effect on final cut.
This video will be mainly concept with a mixture of performance.At the moment I am not sure if I will go for this idea yet as I need a bigger budget to play with and the fact I cant choose a song that will fit the concept.

The Cat Empire - Hello.


My second idea is to the song by The Empire- Hello. The song talks about a man checking out women he likes and his catchphrase line "..well hello hello". This line keeps getting repeated throughout the song as it links the start of the chorus and the start to the next verse. I want to pick up on this line and make something happen as soon as he says it.
This Music video would be mainly performance and concept however it would include a underlining narrative to keep it interesting.
My idea is that the video starts off in black and white, and I start to introduce colour. Each colour will be introduced by a different women. So for example, when he is walking down the street he might see a women in a red dress, when he touches her dress everything that is red comes out as red on top of the black and white footage. This is the "Sin city" effect, as it is one of the signature aesthetics to the film and I would love to incorporate in my film. Here are some video tutorials I found on how to achieve this:




Esser - Work It Out.
This song talks about how he wants to "work it out" with his girlfriend. When thinking of this idea I was massively influenced by the work of Michel Gondry, particularly his film "The Science Of Sleep". I love the idea that people have their own special place in their imagination. I thought that the character in this song would most probably want some escapism so the idea is that after the argument with his girlfriend he goes to his "happy place".
In this case under his bed. I want the character to travel through his bed into a happy world with weird singing characters and in the corner a time machine so that he can go back to whatever time he wants.
This music video would be a narrative with a combination of performance at bits.

Some brainstormed Ideas:
Dinosaurs - for this I am very much influenced by the work of Ray Harryhausen.
Underwater - I really want to try filming underwater, its an ambition which I would love to achieve.
Parallel backwards universe - basically everything is backwards and a bit confusing.
Victorian era - Quite easy to manipulate on an old street with a top hat and a waistcoat.
The moment he screwed up with his girlfriend - thought this could be a sweet conclusion.


                              

Andrew Goodwin's Theory

Goodwin's six.
He says that "...Music videos are often constructed by the link between the visuals and the song plus the artist. Relationships are built between these in the video, and the close-ups of the artists gives them the representation and publicity they require. Voyeurism is used to increase the video’s attractiveness, particularly to males, whilst intertextuality is often employed in humorous videos."


His six features to a music video are:
-A relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the lyrics.
-A relationship between the music and visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the music.
-Genre-related style and iconography present.
-Multiple close ups of the main artist or vocalist.
-Voyeurism often plays a major part, ecspecially in relation to females.
-Intertextual references to other media texts may be present.


In my own work I plan to use these conventions which Goodwin has identified while also inverting them so that my own work isn't seen as a cliché.

Music Video History

The History Of Music Video.


The first form of music video that came on the scene was "The Illustrated song". This was first started by George Thomas when he was hired by Joe Stern and Edward B. to help promote their song "The little lost child". Thomas projected a series of still images on a screen simultaneously to live performances. 




Not long after this the "talkies" were introduced, these were essentially short films with music over the top, which could perhaps be known as the narrative music video today.

Warner Brothers created in the 1930s the nearest thing to today's model of a music video, "The Spooney Melodies". They were about six minutes long and featured art deco style animations combined with film of the performer.


In 1964 "The Animals" with "House Of The Rising Sun" created one of the biggest steps in Music video form, It was a high-quality color clip was filmed in a studio on a specially-built set; with the group lip-synching.


The Beatles.


In the same year "The Beatles" starred in a film named after their album "A Hard Days Night". It was directed by Richard Lester. Robert Ebert praises Lester in creating a new format, the music video.

 "...he influenced many other films. Today when we watch TV and see quick cutting, hand-held cameras, interviews conducted on the run with moving targets, quickly intercut snatches of dialogue, music under documentary action and all the other trademarks of the modern style, we are looking at the children of A Hard Day's Night"




In 1965, The Beatles began making promotional clips (then known as "filmed inserts") for distribution and broadcast in other countries—primarily the USA—so they could promote their record releases without having to make in-person appearances.


The Beatles were the band who revolutionised the world of music videos and by the 1970's Britain started airing music videos on the BBC through Top Of The Pops. 


Music Video's Moving To The Present.

In 1981 MTV was released and aired "Video Killed The Radio Star" starting the new age of 24-hour muisc


In 1983 Michel Jackson went the extra mile and filmed his 14 minuet long music video to "Thriller" setting the standard of music videos for it day. Costing a impressive $500,000 to film.
Jackson later topped this by the video he filmed with his sister, Janet Jackson in 1995, Scream, which cost a MASSIVE $7 million to produce!!!


In 1992 MTV started to name the Director of the music video's alongside the artist reflecting the fact that the director is an Artist too.


2005-Present - The internet became Video friendly :)

2005 saw the launch of the website YouTube, which made the viewing of online video faster and easier; MySpace's video functionality, which uses similar technology, launched in 2007. Such websites had a profound effect on the viewing of music videos; some artists began to see success as a result of videos seen mostly or entirely online. The band OKGO may exemplify this trend, having achieved fame through the videos for two of their songs, "A Million Ways" in 2005 and "Here It Goes Again" in 2006.

Directors Study - New moduel

Directors Study.

I have chosen to study the work of one the most innovate french directors of our time.
 Michel Gondry.

He started his career by creating music videos for his own band oui oui. His style of work attracted the attention of the artist Bjork who asked him to direct her video for "Human Behavior" after this he went on to direct another six videos for her. From this it launched his career in directing and went on to direct music videos for the likes of :

 Daft Punk, The White Stripes, The Chemical Brothers, The Vines, Steriogram, Radiohead, and Beck.





His innovate imagination has led him to create some of modern cinemas latest techniques such as the "bullet time" technique. This has been used in some of Hollywoods famous action films such as "The Matrix".

His work has also moved into commercials and has directed for major companys such as: Smirnoff Vodka, GAP inc, Levi 501 Jeans.



He also moved in to art insterlations and more recently feature length films.

Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (2004)

 

This film was nominated for an Oscar, BAFTA, Austin and an Empire Award of which it won them all.

The Science Of Sleep (2006)

Be Kind Rewind (2008)