Diary Entry 30th September

Today we have two lessons together. In the first lesson: Iona continued to finish the stoaryboard by completing the images whilst Alfie coninued to scan in the completed stoaryboard sheets, cropping them to use in the animatics. Laura has been continuing to gather audience research footage for the audience research mini film but moving onto looking towards our ideas of the stoaryboard and what our audience like. I have been struggling with technological issues with premiere however once the footage managed to load and I managed to edit and finalise all of the footage up until the band logo research. Then in our joined free I put all of the extra footage about stoaryboard and our ideas onto the hardrive, so I could add them to our mini film the next time we came to work on it. Once I had finished I went and helped Iona draw and colour a page of the stoaryboard. In our final lesson we all helped complete the stoaryboard whilst Alfie scanned the completed ones into the computer. By the end of the day we only had one page of the stoaryboard left to colour for Monday which Laura took home.

Time Plans

Long Term: until final music video deadline

      

Key:

•     Filming
•     Editing
•     Digipak and Advert

Short term time plan: until end of Rough cut

Diary Entry: Thursday 29th September

Recently we have been focusing our time in lessons to sort of audience research, storyboard planning, props and animatic before we start planning for filming. I have been gathering music video audience research by using the video camera to film our potential target audience. I have asked questions such as ‘which music videos stand out to you?’ and asked questions on narrative. I still have a lot more filming to do to get a good variety of answers that we can use to influence our media video. After I had taken the footage, I handed it over to Katie to create a video using the software ‘Premier’ to edit it with. This is the software we used during our preliminary task, and hopefully it will refresh Katie’s mind and give her a better feel for the software. I am hoping to have the same opportunity to try this soon.

Iona’s strength is art so we have encouraged her to take charge of the storyboard. So far she has done an excellent job of turning our raw ideas into something more lifelike. I can’t wait to see the finished piece.

Alfie has been starting to create the animatic for the video which uses the storyboard pictures, but replaces the written text with typed text and puts it to time with the lyrics of our song.

We are currently all playing up to our strengths so hopefully we will do role reversal and all have a go at things that will challenge us.

Diary Entry: Wednesday 28th September

The group has invented a conveyer belt system, where we all help with the story boards. I have been designated head writer, which is my strongest quality, and a drawing artist for the final half of the story boards. Laura has become our head colourer, whilst both Katie and Iona are putting drawings and colour onto the scenes which I have already wrote. This has helped immensely, and is an excellent way to get past our problem of a lack of progress. The storyboard was simply too detailed and complex for only two members of our group, now that everyone is chipping in we will begin to get back on schedule, and then all of this planning will pay off as we begin to actually film our video.

Narrative adaptation

We have changed our idea of the main story of our music video to a narrative we can do a real justice to . We found that the narrative was difficult to storyboard and would be very difficult to film, as we had multiple ideas for the transition of our Mr Hyde character. We decided that it could not be represented well, whilst still representing the music and band, so we simplified our ideas. Our main narrative is now three characters who lead un-extravagant lives travelling to a place where they can live out their fantasies. We will still be intertwining scenes with the band, as well as keeping the motifs of clocks, and tea parties.

song choice

We chose to use the song ‘sun goes down’ by the futureheads. This song has a variety of pace and tone within it; this will help us to create a varied and meaningful music video. The band themselves are an Indie post-punk band, with music video’s that are inventive and varied, we hope to replicate a music video with just as much power behind it.

Arcade Fire

I will be focusing on Arcade Fire’s fourth album called ‘The Suburbs’, released in August 2010. The indie/rock band, from Canada, have had great international success. The album debuted at number 1 on the Irish Albums Chart, the UK Albums Chart, the U.S. Billboard 200 chart, and the Canadian Albums Chart. It also received multiple awards including Album of the Year at the 2010 Grammy Awards and Best International Album at the 2011 BRIT Awards. The album itself has the theme of the ‘suburbs’ running through, along with adolescence and growing up and their personal and political feelings which is shown through their lyrics and videos.

‘The Suburbs’, directed by Spike Jonze.

The video is purely narrative and has no performance of the band, which subverts their genre identity as most indie rock tend to have a lot of performance to help band identity. However, in the case of this video I think the narrative is very strong and deeply moving, allowing the video to be memorable without needing performance.

The narrative is shown through a flashback a boy has from when he was younger, when him and his friends used to play on the streets safely in their protected suburban environment. The group joke around about the war outside their protected community, until the war they thought was a game ends up on their doorsteps and one of the blonde-haired boys gets taken away. The blonde-haired boy returns after serving, he’s more mature and angry about what has happened and blames another boy. The blonde haired boy goes after the other boy, despite his friends trying to stop the fight; the boy is beaten up at work. The video ends with the blonde boy crying after smashing chairs and the other boy is staring at the monster the war has created.

The camera is barely still throughout the video, particularly at the start demonstrating a fluid movement perhaps in a metaphorical sense meaning ‘fast paced life’ or ‘childhood’s being over too fast’. As the motif of the band in this album is generally based on the idea of growing up, I think this fits perfectly. I enjoyed watching this part of the video and thought that the disorientation of the camera made you feel apart of the group as they go on their journey. This movement of camera also fits well with the rhythm of the song, as the beat is constant, fluid and fairly relaxed at the start, setting the tone of the video. I would like to incorporate this into my own video, as I think it brings a reality and a sense of being involved.

I believe the colours in costume play a particularly important role in the video. At the start, the two main boys are seen mostly wearing white tops which I think portrays innocence and naivety. In the later scenes the blonde-haired boy is seen wearing a white top covered by black/blue jackets, this could be seen as a darkness casting over him, perhaps through his thoughts and feelings war, therefore shadowing over his innocence to give the impression of someone older and stronger. Since the jacket is just covering the white, it could still be portrayed as his maturity has been forced upon him and he’s still naïve inside. This idea would also link to the end of the video where he is crying on the floor after seeing what he’s done and what he’s become due to outside world.

The lighting in the video essentially relies of natural light from the sun for the outside shots. Because they have done this, the reflected light makes the children look more natural and youthful. I would also like to incorporate this into my own work, as I prefer natural light as opposed to artificial light. Again it will make it look sufficiently better in certain shots, providing it links with the narrative me and my group choose.

I personally love the shot of the broken bike outside of one of the boy’s work places. The shot focus’ on the bike from a high angle to make is seem insignificant and lost, as though it doesn’t fit into its surroundings. The boy is seen from a long angle shot, where he stares at bike looking blankly at it. This could work as a metaphor for his now broken and ruined childhood, and that nothing exists of his past. I would like to use this kind of symbolism in my group video, I think that the unspoken emotion is very affective in a video and makes it more haunting.

The video also plays with pathetic fallacy, which helps set the scene and emotion. In their childhood, there are clear skies all around, demonstrating security and everything being simplistic. Then, when they are threatened they are in the dark with the occasional flashing lights, giving the sense of entering the unknown, which to their suburban lives appears threatening.

The settings for the video aren’t too exciting or extraordinary. The use the stereotypes of a ‘American’ suburb, using houses that all look very similar with pristine lawned gardens at the front of the houses, streets that have very little traffic. They also use a desolate field which they cross a few times, again it is nothing spectacular, but sets a backdrop to the scene. I think the simplicity of the setting for the video makes it more appealing to the viewer as there is not too much to focus on.

The lyrics fit the narration very well, taking its own twist of the meaning. The difference between the rhythm and wording of the song, especially at the start is huge. They tend to keep it upbeat but relaxed as they talk about childhood in a derogatory way. For example:

• “And they told me we would never survive”
• “You always seemed so sure, that one day we would be fighting in this suburban war”
• “In my dreams we’re still running and screaming through the yard”
• “So can you understand, I want a daughter while I’m still young. I want to hold her hand and show her some beauty before the damage is done”
• “In my dreams we’re still screaming”

The video also demonstrates the bands political views on war. This is shown the through the moment they are by the fence, looking out on to the war zone. I think this is set to show two different worlds. One of the group turns their back to the other world, showing the uncaring nature of people, and getting across the meaning of not caring until it affects you.

There is also a small amount of foreshadowing in the video, where the group of friends are using BB guns and are shooting unsuspecting citizens. In this shot, we see the group of friends in an open stair, looking out and shooting at people. This is a close up shot to all of the children and we can see from their faces they are happy and uncaring about other people’s feelings or consequences. The man they shoot with the gun is shown running to tell them off from a high angle shot, making him again seeming insignificant to their fun. Even though they are only children when they do this, this is the reality of the blonde-haired boy.

The timing is done well, as it links the lyrics to the narrative but doesn’t take the literal meaning of the whole line. For example, when it talks of night it cuts to night but sticks to the narrative of their suburban paradise being threatened.

(got up to editing, add rest)