Editing!

During lunchtime today, I did some more editing.
We had a lot of gaps at the end of first period, and that really worried me! So I've worked a lot more on making it flow more evenly and come together more.
You can see that our footage has gone from:

to:

• The gap at the beginning is of the split screen, which we are going to do tomorrow's lesson
• The second gap is Dj giving me the necklace, which I will film this weekend
• The third, very small gap I think should be of a shot that follows Dj from behind as he runs up to me (as this is just before the 'just crash' bit). We don't actually have this shot, so I am going to have to go to Needham Lake and hopefully film it this weekend if we have the right weather!
• The final big gap, is another flashback which we haven't filmed yet, but shall film this weekend

So, the footage that we are hopefully going to get this weekend will be:

• The big argument scene, which results in Dj walking off to meet Sophie (my house)
• A shot from behind of Dj running up to me (Needham lake)
• I also think we need to go to Needham Lake again to get some more shots for the next 'just crash' bit. We need some more shots of us both really upset, and crying and stuff like that. It needs to be really dramatic as the song is really dramatic at the ending. We also need some more shots of us walking away from each other for our montage at the end as I don't think we have enough footage for this at the moment.

Hopefully we will be able to get this completed this weekend though. It is definitely possible, it just depends on the weather. So, fingers crossed the weather is good this weekend!

Filming

Unfortunately, we were unable to film the scene where Dj gives me the necklace, as the Christmas tree lights have not been turned on yet and seeing as we're going to film it in the dark, we need the lights to be on!
Fortunately, the lights are being switched on on the 30th, so Dj will come over next weekend so we can film the scene then! :) we will also film the argument scene then too!

Filming!

Filming hasn't quite gone to plan this weekend :(
I am over Dj's at the moment, and we have filmed his half of the split screen and him laughing on his phone. However, we were going to go outside and film the flashback where we are supposed to be young, happy and in love but the weather has been awful! It's been raining loads and the weather won't exactly mirror the emotions the characters are supposed to feel. I believe this will really affect our audience, as ultimately the message of them being happy and in love, will not be received.

So, next weekend. I have already checked, and it's supposed to be nice weather. So, I will film that flaskback then. I will also film the flashback where we have an argument at my house, and Dj goes off to meet Sophie. So, by next weekend all our filming shall be complete!!!!!!!!!!!

As you can see, Saturday is supposed to be sunny, which means we will be able to film the happy flashback scenes then :) and Sunday is not supposed to be sunny, which means we can film the inside scenes, where we have the argument then as the weather won't matter! :)

During next weeks lessons, we will have to perfect the split screen opening scenes, we will follow a youtube tutorial to acheive this as it may be challenging!
I've been looking online, and these videos seem like really helpful tutorials:

During next weeks lessons, I also think that we should really concentrate on the look we want our video to have. We already edited every image to make it appear 'softer' as some of the lighting was quite harsh, and we felt that the situation our chracters were dealing with was very delicate and sensitive, so we altered the brightness and the contrast to create this look. However, we haven't done anything with the cheating scenes other than made them black and white. I feel we could do something to all of the scenes we have to make them look better and have more of an impact on our audience. Hopefully we will receive some helpful feeback concerning this from our classmates who will hopefully comment on our draft that we uploaded in our previous blog post :)

Today's lesson!

In today's lesson Amy was absent so I didn't really want to do any editing without her in case she didn't approve. So I went through what we have done so far and created another table of what needs to be filmed and how long the scenes need to last at minimum. I also showed some of our music video to Ms Mullen who pointed out how when Amy goes to kiss Dj she is already close to him, but in the next shot she is far away. I edited this until I could see that they were at the same point in each of the two shots. I also put in a transition between Dj cheating and Amy crying, which we were trying to do yesterday.

This table is mostly the same as the last one, except that I have included the shots that need to be filmed in more detail, and haven't included the song lyrics as with what we have already edited into our music video we more or less know where things are meant to be place. I think the next time we film it is more important that we pay attention to how much filming is needed for each part, as we would rather have to many shots than to little.

If you open the image in a new tab / window, you will clearly be able to read it.

Filming tomorrow!

After looking through my shot list and Caroline's table she made, I have noted down all the shots I need to get tomorrow; with clear instructions, so that I can get all our filming done accurately and so that we don't have to re-do anything!
So far, weather shouldn't be a problem either! :)

Hopefully I will be able to film some flashbacks tomorrow as well, but as you can see, sunset is extremely early tomorrow and by the time I finish the Needham Lake scenes, it could be dark, and this may be a problem! Although I will have to wait and see but I will try and get as much done as possible!

Filming we have left to do

These are all the parts we have left to film in our music video, in today's lesson Amy and I estimated the time and lyrics in the song where shots would take place, and on average how long they need to last to be in time with what we have done so far. From the notes we made I created this table so that we can easily see what we need to do, and by including the costume option we are able to see what costumes the characters need to be wearing when we are filming as there are 3 types needed. I also named the characters by there actual names because it makes it so much easier to distinguish between 'girl' and 'other girl'. We also need to re film the introduction of the music video, but I have not included that as Amy already knows exactly what needs to be filmed for that. Hopefully, most of the 'cheating flashbacks' will be filmed on Monday night, as we will be able to go to our friend Sophie's house and she can be the character that Dj cheats with. Over the weekend (if the weather improves), Amy is hopeing to be able to re-film the introduction and maybe even some of the 'present day' or 'young flashback' shots. We have yet to decide the actual costumes of the the different flashbacks.

The colours represent the different costuming and shots that need to be filmed, and it just helps us to read this just that litle bit easier. Green stands for the 'present day', red stands for the 'cheating flashbacks', and black stands for the 'young flashbacks'. If you open the image in a new tab, you will be able to clearly read it.

Filming this weekend!

As our footage uploaded, we were able to see what shots were okay, and what shots were missing/needed re-doing.

• We feel there is an issue with the wind at times, and so we are probably going to film the bench scene again. We also need to remember to have the camera pan in to girl already sat on the bench and boy entering the frame. And then to have the camera pan down/up to them on the bench after flashback.
• Shot of boy wiping away tear, and girl pushing him off and then walking off and leaving him alone on bench.
• Close-up shot of boys sad face watching after his girlfriend, camera moves in closer to focus on his eye.
• Tracking shot of girl walking off, out of frame, crying.
• We also forgot to film the necklace scene, so we will need to do that - close-up of girl holding necklace, extreme close-up of necklace and mid shot of girl throwing it on the ground.
• More close-up reaction shots of the boy - to make our audience empathise more with our characters.
• We need a shot of the couple in the embrace, before she pushes him away.
• Close-up reaction shot of boy crying as girlfriend walks away.

If the weather is really different this weekend, we may have to re-do the scene where the boy runs after his girlfriend and hugs her as she cries. And the ending, where they sit on separate benches.

We will also film some of the flashback scenes this weekend. And we hope to go to our friends house one day after school to film the scenes where the boy cheats on his girlfriend.

Filming tomorrow as well!

Tomorrow, I think Dj and I will try and film some of the flashback scenes just so that we have less to film next week.
I think that in order to make the love the Girlfriend and the Boyfriend characters felt for one another, is to have many intimate close-up shots of the two together. I feel that the Miss Dior Le Parfum advert starring Natalie Portman shows the sort of intimacy I want to capture:

There are many intimate extreme close-up shots of the couple in this advert; they are very simple and quick shots yet they have a very lasting impression on the audience:

After watching the advert/seeing these stills; the audience can easily identify that this couple are happy and in love. Seeing as this is the impression we want our audience to have during the happy flashbacks in our music video, I think it would be in our favour to use similar shots in our music video as it would result in a stronger narrative and a stronger connection between our audience and our characters. Therefore, Dj and I shall film some shots similar to this tomorrow! The shots will either be used as an actual flashback scene, or possibly at the end during the montage scene where there is just a montage of present day and flashback scenes.

Filming this weekend, hopefully!

I text Caroline today trying to arrange some more time for filming this week. She said she would let me know Friday whether she could film this weekend or not. I finish work at one on Saturday, so hopefully we should have Saturday afternoon and potentially all of Sunday to do some more filming! Fingers crossed Caroline isn't busy! :)

Final Present Day Costumes!

Seeing as I have filmed the opening sequences to our music video, the Girlfriend and Boyfriend's characters final costumes have been decided, and here they are:

I decided to go with a plain white shirt so that in the first few shots he can be wearing just the shirt, and then he puts his black coat on. Indicating that he used to be a good and pure character but he has since done things to change this. There are many other, more in-depth reasons for this costume, but they can be seen in my other post!

As I wrote in another post, with the help of my parents, I decided to keep a red top to imply the love the Girlfriend character has for her boyfriend, but instead of just wearing jeans, we decided to dress the character up a bit, with a skirt and tights! Implying that she wants to impress her boyfriend. The coat she is wearing is purely because it was really cold, and it is obvious it is cold in our footage, so we wanted to keep it realistic and therefore more believable for our audience!

No filming again! :(

Unfortunately, we were unable to film the scenes at Needham Lake today as it was raining loads! I did meet up with Caroline though, and she gave me the camera so that I could film some scenes of Dj this weekend!
So hopefully, after this weekend I will be able to post  about our filming :)

Girlfriends Costume Changes

Today I explained to my parents what mise en scene was and I asked them what they thought would be best for the Girlfriend character in our music video. They thought both ideas were appropriate (a red top and to be dressed up) and agreed that a mixture of both would not only connote the characters love and hope for her boyfriend and their relationship; but also they thought it would make the opening sequence more effective; seeing that she's tried to dress to impress her boyfriend, and then they thought the audience would feel more empathy when they realised he had cheated on her.

Tomorrow, after we have filmed, I will upload pictures of the Boyfriends character and the Girlfriends characters final present day costumes! :)
Additionally, obviously due to weather conditions, both of our characters will have to be dressed in coats, although we will try to keep it as effective as possible; connoting the intended meanings.

Weather conditions!

Tomorrow we are filming, and thankfully it isn't supposed to rain until three considering we are meeting at one, we should hopefully get everything we need to shoot at Needham Lake in two hours!

Locations!

We have a few locations set for filming tomorrow :) the first being Needham Lake:

Although we will not be filming at this hour, I think it is important to show that this is quite a romantic place, implying that the couple have met here before and that they are in love and that it is a meaningful place to them.

Hopefully, it will look something like this tomorrow, and it won't be raining! 

Other places we are going to film, will be in my bedroom, Dj's bedroom and several other places during the flashback scenes, including our houses and possibly outside areas so long as it's not raining.

Costumes!

As we are filming this weekend, I am going to do a blog post on costumes. None of the costumes are definite just yet, these are just some ideas.

We have three characters in our music video, the Girlfriend, the Boyfriend and the Cheat.
All of our costumes will be seen as 'normal' clothing, and will fit in with the weather etc, to add realism to our video e.g. if it's a visibly cold day, they will be dressed in coats etc. Although, there will be some clothing to connote a particular meaning.

The Girlfriend will have a costume that she wears during the present day scenes. This will consist of a red top to show that she is in love with the Boyfriend character and to show that she is desperate (initially) for them to sort things out. This will probably just be paired with jeans to represent her age; as teenagers are often wearing jeans. Although we may decide to dress this character up a bit more to show that she is dressing up to impress her boyfriend.

If the weather is bad, the Girlfriend character could wear a blue coat, with a small bit of pink/red on it. The pink/red will represent the hope she has for her relationship, yet it is surrounded by blue which connotes sadness, therefore her relationship is doomed. This is the coat I am referring to:

There will be quite a few flashback scenes, and depending on what is happening in the scene depends on what the Girlfriend will be wearing. For example, there is one flashback where the characters first get together and are a bit younger. In this scene, she will be dressed in brighter clothing - to imply that she is energetic and happy; like young people are when they are in a new relationship.
There will be another flashback, where her and the Boyfriend character's relationship is falling apart; here she will be dressed in clothing to show that she is exhausted of their arguments etc. Perhaps like what Jennifer Anistons character wears in Marley and Me in the scene where she is tired of Marley, John and her screaming children:

Another scene where the Girlfriend character will need another costume will be during the scenes where the Boyfriend character will imagine the Cheat being his girlfriend. In these scenes, the Girlfriend will be dressed in white clothing to imply that she is innocent in this whole situation. Also to add contrast as the Cheat will be dressed in black clothing.
There will be several other flashback scenes where the Girlfriend character will be dressed in different clothings to enhance the on-screen action. However this is yet to be decided.

The Boyfriend character will also have a costume during the present day scenes. Here I thought it would be appropriate for him to wear a white top, hidden beneath something black. Either a coat, hoodie or a jumper. This would highlight the fact that he is a good person, yet it is 'hidden' beneath the bad he has done. Again this could just be paired with dark jeans to highlight his youth, and perhaps his foolishness in being young and cheating. Notably, these jeans will be dark to create contrast with his costume in the flashback scenes.

The Boyfriend will also need a few different costumes in the flashback scenes. During the flashback where the couple are younger, happy and in love I thought he could wear a colourful top, a red hoodie and light coloured jeans. The colourful top will highlight his energy as a young, happy boy. The red hoodie will evoke his love for his girlfriend. And the light jeans will create a contrast with his darker jeans in the present day scenes.

During the flashback scenes where he argues with his girlfriend and then cheats on her, I think he should wear a top that has many different colours in it; to show his confusion and the fact that he is feeling many different emotions. Or perhaps just a black top to show that he is doing something bad. I think a shirt with buttons is essential in this scene as you will see him doing the buttons back up after he has cheated with his girlfriend.

Perhaps a shirt like this:

Or this:

The blue could represent his sadness and regret

Again there will be several other flashback scenes where he will possibly need other costumes. Yet we will simply just use clothing that matches the on-screen action. For example if it's a sad scene, dress him in blue etc.

The final character is the Cheat. This character is only in one scene, so she will only have one costume. She is a negative character and so she will just be dressed in dark clothing; perhaps a skirt to highlight the fact that she is going to cheat with the Boyfriend character.

Maybe a skirt like this:

No filming :(

Yesterday, Dj told me that he was getting his haircut in the half term, so due to continuity issues, we were unable to film anything this weekend.

However, I think we could just make the things I was going to film today, the last things we film in the half term. I kind of feel this has worked out for the best, as this way we will know what we have and what we don't have and we will definitely know what we need to film! Also, Dj's said that he will now get his haircut on the first Saturday of the half term, so after that we can do all out filming! :)

Detailed plans for editing!

In one of my previous blog posts, I wrote about all the micro elements that we were considering for our video, but I didn't really talk that much about editing.
Since then Caroline and I have discussed editing in more detail and so we have a bit more of an idea as to how we are going to edit our video!
We knew we wanted to use split screen for definite at the end, but now we are considering using it at the beginning too. Instead of cutting between the boy and the girl both getting ready, we are going to have the entire intro as a split screen so you see the girl getting ready in one half and the boy getting ready in the other half. We think this will work really well, as it will show the contrast between the two. The girl will be very happy as she thinks she is meeting her boyfriend to sort out their argument, and the boy will be completely miserable! He will be dreading meeting his girlfriend to tell her he cheated on her after their argument. We think it will look really good as we could colour manipulate the girls half to be really bright and colourful and positive and then colour manipulate the boys half to be really sad, depressing grey/black colours or perhaps even black and white, to portray just how miserable he is.
Our inspiration behind this is from the film 500 Days of Summer!

This was the clip that has the biggest influence on us:

(Ignore the subtitles, and the bad quality, it's just the only one I could find of the whole scene)

Although there seems to be no colour manipulation in these two clips, really similar things are happening in both situations which is how we want ours to look so that we can create a huge contrast. The main contrast and focus is on Tom's different emotions. I really like the way this makes the audience feel, it makes the situation even more sad because you see that he could have been really happy! Hopefully, this will make our audience sympathise more with our female's character as they see how happy she was prior to her boyfriend's revelation. I also really like the way the expectation half takes over the reality part, I think that is something we could use in our video. If the boy's black and white half took over the girl's half, I think that would be really effective as it could sybolise that her world is now going to turn bad (black and white). 

So far, we think we will only use the split screen technique during the intro and as the final shot. However, in the final shot there will be no split down the screen as the two images will be joined together in the middle, making it look like they are sat on the same bench, but they are actually not. Symbolising that they are in 'the same boat'; loving each other, but being unable to be together.

Throughout the rest of the song, there are many present day moments and flashbacks. We really want to use colour manipulation (as I earlier stated) not only in the opening sequence but at other points throughout the rest of the song. So far, we have considered these particular moments to include colour manipulation:

• Throughout the opening; brightening up the girls side of the split screen and darkening or making the boys side black and white
• We are considering making everything that is from the boys perspective black and white, sybolising that now that he has cheated on his girlfriend, he has no good in his life. Therefore, his side of the split screen would be black and white and the cheating scenes would be black and white
• Another alternative would be to have all the flashback scenes in black and white, so that the audience can recognise when the times change. Although, the problem with this would be that as we have so many different flashbacks, it may seem like he cheated on her when they were happy, as there are happy flashbacks and cheating flashbacks
• A similar alternative was just to have the cheating scenes in black and white, to highlight that what he is doing is bad
• A different option, would be just to have the flashback scenes when they are young in black and white, though that was a time when they were happy, so it may not be very fitting with the connotations that are associated with the black and white effect
• And finally, the last option was to have the whole thing in black and white, except the girls half of the split screen at the start and the flashbacks when they were together. Therefore, every moment in our video where we want our audience to feel sadness, will be in black and white

We can't decide which of these to use yet, so we think we are just going to decide when it comes to editing so we can physically see which option looks best :)

Camera booked and filming this weekend - 20th October

This weekend I am going to take a camera home, and film some scenes! We are currently working on our formal production schedule so when that is uploaded, it will have the scenes that I am going to film this weekend on it :)

Although, the scenes I think I will be filming, will be some flashback scenes and some little clips for the montage at the end; just showing the couple happy and in love. We have decided that I should do these scenes now, so that we have less to film in the half term, therefore if we don't get the camera for the whole of the half term, we won't be as pressured to film everything.

The storyboard!!!

Here are our storyboards!

Towards the end there are a few gaps as we were unsure how to draw the montage that we plan to include...

Storyboards are completed! But not yet uploaded...

In todays lesson we completed our storyboard! It is twelve pages in total, but unfortunately, when we took a picture of them on the school macs webcam, they came up backwards. So, when I get home, I will take a picture of them on my laptops webcam :)