Britney Vodcast

As previously stated, behind the scenes videos were being made whilst filming our music video. Me and Connor were given the task of editing our group's vodcast, and here is the completed version of our behind the scenes video.



Untitled from Tom Wardman on Vimeo.

Britney Vid Update

W have completed filming, and are now editing our respective groups' final cuts and vodcasts for the behind the scenes footage. In my group, Becky was selected as Director, I was selected as Producer, and Connor as choreographer. For the first hour in the day we rehearsed our dancing scenes so we were prepared for the real shoot later in the day. We then had a short break before shooting the whole corridor scene from 12:00 -14:00 approximately, whilst throughout the day I was required as an extra in the School Entrance group.

In our group it was my task to create the call sheet, which I did by hand then copied for Becky, the director so we each had a copy. Connor managed to get a grip of the dance moves and managed to just about teach us them all extremely well, whilst the storyboard had previously been created in stages by each and every group member (in the whole day, not just the corridor group).

From 2pm-3pm, our group began to create the vodcast and began to edit our final cut.

Britney Vid

Our AS group are creating our own version of the Britney Spears video, 'Hit Me Baby One More Time' in which we will be lip syncing, dancing and filming throughout the day. We will also be making behind the scenes vodcasts to go with the final cut of the music video.

We will require a lengthy storyboard and call sheet containing shot info on all 162 separate shots of the original video, in order to maintain continuity with the original, and a choreographer, director and producer. We will also be splitting up into 4 different groups as trying to shoot the whole thing in one day is simply not going to be achievable. The four groups our filming shots seen in the corridor, car-park, gymnasium, and also school entrance grounds. My group (Me, Jem, Maddy, Connor, Becky, Katie and Ellie) are to be filming the corridor scenes. We will require a school type attire, and also some sports kit in case we are required as extras in the other scenes. We are scheduled to film on Tuesday 12th July and are aiming to get it completed all in the school day.

Inspirational Directors - Spike Jonze

Spike Jonze, born Adam Speigal, is an american director and producer who has seen successful work displayed in advertisements, music videos, film and also televison. He has collaborated with Charlie Kaufman to create the extremely well known, being John Malkovich and has also co-created and starred in Jackass. His music video filmography includes work with Kanye west, Weezer, The Beastie Boys, Fatboy Slim and most recently Arcade Fire. His work in music videos spans over 54 music videos in the space of 18 years from his last video (2010 - 'The Suburbs' - Arcade Fire) which is hugely impressive if you take into account the other work he has successfully completed in other aspects of producing in other areas of the media.

For more information visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spike_Jonze as it has a complete filmography of all his work and a hugely detailed overview of his career. 

Introduction To Fish Eye Lens

We recently covered a camera shot common in some music videos, most notably R&B videos, known as the Fish-Eye lens. This camera angle, as I stated previously in my introductory blogpost, is one which shows the shot in a panoramic broad angle. It has been used previously by last years A2 students, and can be seen used in many of Hype Williams' music videos.
Here is some information on the different variations of the fish-eye lens taken from wikipedia:

In a circular fisheye lens, the image circle is inscribed in the film or sensor area; in a full-frame fisheye lens the image circle is circumscribed around the film or sensor area.

Further, different fisheye lenses distort images differently, and the manner of distortion is referred to as their mapping function. A common type for consumer use is equisolid angle.

[edit]Circular

Image taken using a circular fisheye lens.

The first types of fisheye lenses to be developed were "circular fisheyes" — lenses which took in a 180° hemisphere and projected this as a circle within the film frame. Some circular fisheyes were available inorthographic projection models for scientific applications. These have a 180° vertical angle of view, and the horizontal and diagonal angle of view are also 180°. Most circular fisheye lenses cover a smaller image circle than rectilinear lenses, so the corners of the frame will be completely dark.

[edit]Full-frame

As fisheye lenses gained popularity in general photography, camera companies began manufacturing fisheye lenses that enlarged the image circle to cover the entire 35 mm film frame, and this is the type of fisheye most commonly used by photographers.

The picture angle produced by these lenses only measures 180 degrees when measured from corner to corner: these have a 180° diagonal angle of view, while the horizontal and vertical angles of view will be smaller; for an equisolid angle-type 15 mm full-frame fisheye, the horizontal FOV will be 147°, and the vertical FOV will be 94°.^[2]

The first full-frame fisheye lens to be mass-produced was a 16 mm lens made by Nikon in the early 1970s. Digital cameras with APS-C sized sensors require a 10.5 mm lens to get the same effect as a 16 mm lens on a camera with full-frame sensor.^[3]

With the kind of digital technology widely available, the full-frame fisheye effect can be obtained in-camera. Selected images can be digitally changed so as to become full-frame fisheye images without the need for special lenses.

Miniature fisheye lenses

Miniature fisheye lenses are designed for small-format CCD/CMOS imagers commonly used in consumer and security cameras.^[4] Popular format sizes are 1/4" (active area 3.6mmx2.7mm), 1/3" (active area 4.8mmx3.6mm) and 1/2" (active area 6.6mmx4.8mm). Depending on the imager active area, the same lens can form a circular image on one imager (e.g. 1/2"), and a full frame on the other (e.g. 1/4").

The fish eye lens is a camera angle I personally would strongly consider using, as along with the success it saw in last years A2 project and the rarity of it being used by A2 students on a whole, it could prove to create a niche music video which is easily recognised and noticed, not to mention hopefully popular, across the rest of the A2 students.

The Codes and Conventions of a Music Video

The conventions of a music video vary depending on genre of music. However, some general conventions are: The artist is shown performing, the lyrics of the song influence what is shown in the video, the pace of editing fits the pace of the music, and the codes of dress reflect the mood of the song. 

Other key conventions we picked up are the that, to begin with, there is a theory known as the 'male gaze' in which many females are used in the music videos, in order to attract a higher audience from the male gender. Also, we picked up on the fact that there is almost always either a sense of the band/artist performing, or of a clear narrative, or in some cases these two different aspects are fused together into one music video.

One most notable artist used as an example of clear us of narrative is Kanye West, who tends to use high budgets to create very film-like music videos, such as his 34minute music video to his song 'Runaway'. 

Special effects and mise en scene are also key factors, with the latter playing an important role in almost all videos, whether it be the band's logo on the drum kit or a stellar location playing significance to the music video itself, whilst another common convention known as the 'mode of address' in which the singer sings to directly to the camera, is key in many performance style music videos, however some of this is not as commonly used in the dual performance/narrative style video, as the lead singer commonly addresses an on screen character with song.

What We Have Done So Far For A2

So far in our A2 work, we have completed a quiz to show us an outline of the course, an introduction to the key software we will be using entitled Final Cut, which will help us edit our music videos, and also begun a preliminary task.

The quiz helped the group understand what we will be doing during this course, and even introduced us to important features we could incorporate into our video. One feature was the 'Fish-Eye lens' which displays the picture in a wide angle, broad panoramic view.

The software known as Final Cut, is a lot more intricate than the previous software, iMovie, which we used last year for our horror films. We are required to have a 20minute period with the technician, John Cockshaw who will show us how to work it. I am currently booked in awaiting the 20minute demo period and shall follow up the session with a blog post.

The preliminary task is to shoot a music video to one of three pre-selected tracks. Our group chose 'Too Many Broken Hearts' by Jason Donovan, however we are awaiting filming due to previous dates we set becoming inconvenient for the majority of the group/cast members. We are expecting to film by the end of the week at the utmost.