Group Meeting (Six) Montage

On Friday 19th November our group had a meeting to discuss our new narrative ideas, locations, costumes and camera shots. We had the meeting after school in Emily's house which made us feel calm as in the class room it is very noisy. We used the lyrics to Teenage Dream to inspire us and we knew that we wanted the challenge the aspects of a pop genre, we decided to include a bigger twist at the end which was inspired by Kids in Glass Houses- Matters At All. We have edited some footage from the meeting to Delphic- Counterpoint I felt that the song suited our vibe. The video introduces our group and the people at the meetings. Some shots show us working and re-in acting some shots that we want to do in our music video, however most of the shots in the montage are of us eating biscuits and laughing.
This is a montage of our meeting.

Teenage Dream Ideas (Four)

In Rihanna's new music video Only Girl (In The World) there are particularly noticeable and brilliant editing techniques which I feel would suit our music video.
Below is the music video to Rihanna- Only Girl (In The World).

In the beginning of Teenage Dreams there are seventeen beats and we wanted to have a different shot for each beat, we thought we could have seventeen different shots of the couple with out showing the couple so the love would be through symbols for example, a couple holding hands, feet entangled with one another and a shadow of the couple hugging each other or holding hands and walking. In Rihanna- Only Girl (In The World) quick and fast face shots are used to match the beat (2.49-2.58), there are three shots which are repeated in this editing technique and the pace slows down, there are a wide shot of Rihanna standing on a pillar which symbolises her power, a mid shot of Rihanna on the pillar singing to the camera and a close up shot of Rihannas face looking down to represent her vulnerability. The repetitive shots make the audience want to know what are the shots which gains interest in the music video. The quick shots portrays Rihannas different emotions such as innocence which is shown in the close up shot when she is looking down, power in the wide shot when she is standing on a pillar with a long dress and promiscuosness which is portrayed in the mid shot because she is wearing a tight corset and her posture.
I think the use of the quick shots for our music video would be interesting because we can still show symbolisms of the love that the couple share and the audience will have time to see the shots instead of the seventeen shots which will be too quick.

Teenage Dream Ideas (Three)

We are filming in December and we expect that there will be bad weather when we are filming, so we have to prepare for the rain and wind because we are filming in Brighton which is far from where we live.

If there is rain when we are filming we shall have rain coats and umbrellas protecting the camera equipment the actors will only have coats and umbrellas when we are not filming, in case of continuity the actors will have to be wet when we are filming. Umbrellas may ruin the shots for example, we want to see the couples face looking at one another to portray their love and longing.

When we are editing I think we should have slow motion pace which is inspired by Labrinth- Let the Sunshine, I really liked the shot where Labrinth turns around which is in slow motion to show the rain dripping on his face and then the editing is fast when he faces the audience. Even though, in this still shot there is sun which represent the song lyrics "Let the sunshine, let the sunshine baby" however this shot is mostly rain. In Let the Sunshine I really like the close up shot which shows the side of Labrinths face which is a dark shadowed siluet, I really like this shot and I would like to replicate it however we may have to film in a studio to use the variety of lighting that we have in photography and then using Imovie we could green screen the location.

The rain could be used as pathetic fallacy which is used in Labrinth- Let the Sunshine, so we could use the rain towards the end of our music video to symbolise the girls heart break.

This is the video for Labrinth- Let the Sunshine which has the slow motion editing in the rain and a variety in weather and lighting.

However, if there is sunny or windy weather we will still film and edit the way we wanted our shots originally.

Group Meeting (Four)

Log 4

Teenage Dreams Ideas (Two)

We have decided that one of our locations will be at Brighton Beach because we wanted to have some shots of the couple walking hand in hand along the beach at night.
We want to film at Brighton Pier because we thought we could have an over the shoulder shot of the boy playing a game to win the girl a toy and then he could give the girl a toy, we liked this idea because it seemed like an American teen programme and most girls find that romantic. The photograph on the right is an example of the game where you can win toys, we would want something like this instead of the crane picking up a toy.

If we film at the pier there are many rides so we thought we could film close up shots of the rides and the couple on the ride.
This idea was inspired by Pink- Who Knew video were the couple are on the ride.

This video is filmed in a fun fair with the couple looking happy when they are walking together, although when they are on rides together the boy looks unhappy and the girl is trying to comfort him. Filming on a ride will be very difficult because we will worry about lighting so we will film in the day but it may ruin our continuity because we wanted to film at late afternoon or night, we are going to be using a hand held camera on a fast ride so the camera may not completely focus on the couple and we will have to go on the ride about four times to try different angles and distances. However, if filming on the ride does not work we could film shots of the rides and have the couple standing in front of the camera.

We have been discussing some of our camera shots that we think we should have. We liked the idea of filming at the beach and placing the camera on the ground among the pebbles and rocks and having them in focus and gradually getting blurry and the couple will be in the background, we thought this will be a good shot because we do not want all of our shots just to be about the couple even though it is a love song but in this shot they will still be in it but less noticeable so we will still be conforming to the lyrics. On the left side is an example of the shot although the rocks nearest to the camera will be in focus.

We have been thinking about the lighting as well because when we were deciding what song we wanted to do the group really liked Beyonce-Halo and when we watched the video we all loved the lighting in the video because it was really bright and it seemed like a fantasy.

This is Beyonce- Halo music video were the bright lighting is mainly used.

I really love the use of the bright lighting in the video because it makes the relationship seem like an hallucination or a dream and it defiantly conforms to the lyrics "I can see your halo" the lighting could represent a deeper meaning to the song as it could be interpretted that the man died. When I watched Kate Nash- Foundations I noticed that the same bright lighting was in a close up shot of the couples hands (photo on the right), it seems like the bright lighting is used in more female artists videos when the lyrics are about love for example, Beyonce- Halo, Kate Nash- Foundations and Katy Perry- Teenage Dream. The bright lighting could symbolise womens 'dream' relationship so I think we should try and include it in our music video, although we will have to research how to do it because we may not have the resources.

For the narrative in our video we have decided to have a girl dreaming about what is happening in the video rather than it happening but we want the audience not to notice it so we will have to make it flow, although we shall include some subtle changes like the lighting. Also, we want the video to make it to have a 'love at first sight' vibe so we thought we could have a split screen of the couple looking at eachother. There is an example of an high angle shot showing the couple looking at each other in Paramore- That's What You Get.

We really liked the idea of a split screen to show both the girl and boy point of view looking at each other and we will include the theme of 'love at first sight' in this shot which was inspired by the photograph on the left or we could have a high angle shot of the boy and girl looking at each other and the split screen could be seen as a barrier to reality and her dream which was inspired by the screen shot on the right. I love the emotions of love, peace and mellow in the photo on the right side and the idea of 'love at first sight' in the photo on the left.

We should film both shots and edit both shots to a split screen to see which shot suits our video best, although we are going to have to research how to do split screen on Imovie.

For our music video we have thought of three possible endings and we have decided to film all three and then when it comes to editing our video we will decide which ending we prefer.

The first ending is the girl coming out of her fantasy and the boy will walk towards her and then the camera will cut, this will leave the audience wanting more because it is cliff hanger and the audience can make their own minds up about what happened.

The second ending will be a split screen of the boy and the girl point of view shots looking at each other and then the boys girlfriend will come, this may make the audience disappointed or it could make the audience want more.

Finally, the third ending will be the boy walking towards the girl and then we may have a close up shot of the girl looking happy but then we will show the boy walking past her, this challanges the usual pop genres 'happy ending'.

In our performance part of the music video we were considering having Valentines day cards scattered on the floor with the girl laying on the ground or standing up and singing.

When we thought of the idea we realised that Paramore- The Only Exception had a similar setting however we can not embed the video to our blog so this is the link to the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-J7J_IWUhls&ob=av2e, but the screen shots on the right and left side are from the video. We thought of having heart shapped confetti, love letters and valentines day cards which symbolises the lyrics in our chosen song Katy Perry- Teenage Dream "Now every February you'll be my valentine", though we could have a high angle shot of the girl laying down we could have the girl standing up and spinning around throwing the confetti and cards in the girl we could film this in our schools photography room because we could use the studio and we could use a high tripod on a table and film her dancing which conforms to the pop genre.

Also, we have decided that we want to have our main performance of the girl singing and dancing around in her bedroom like Taylor Swift- You Belong With Me.

We all really liked the idea of the girl dancing and singing in her bedroom because we feel that it represents our song (Katy Perry-Teenage Dream) really well because the main theme to the song is really like a teenager in love and we want our video to be romantic and 'cheesy'. We wanted the girl to be performing to her self in the mirror and lip syncing to the song, so this does not portray her as Katy Perry it just shows her as a normal teenager, we could even have a close up shot of the girl turning on the radio but we ruin the continuity if we keep on going back to the girl singing in her room.

In the screenshot on the left we really liked the idea of the girl singing in to a hair brush because it reminds us of many romantic films. . We thought of adding the performance scene one quarter of the way through the video so the girl can be wearing different outfits when singing in the mirror to show she is getting ready for her date.

In the beginning of Adentures of Babysitting the lead girl is singing and dancing to a love song in the mirror whilst getting ready and she jumps on her bed and she starts singing. This is the opening to Adventures in Babysitting from 0.11 to 1.48 is the dancing and singing in the girls bedroom.

I really like that the dance moves all relate to the song which is The Crystals- Then he Kissed Me for example, the screen shot on the right shows the girl dancing to the lyric "then he asked me to be his bride" the girl put her curtain on top of her head for it to represent a brides veil and she walks like she is walking down the aisle. I love that all of the dancing is all high energy and jumping around, I think we should resemble this dancing in our music video because I think the energy and spirit will work well in our video. Also, I really like her 'girly' bedroom which is portrayed by the baby pink and pink furniture, carpet and decoration this reinforces her feminity. We should also have many pink objects in the bedroom that we will be filming in because it will show it is the girls bedroom and I think we should have a photograph of the boy or the couple in her bedroom.

Finally, for our performance shots we want to have a shot in a shape of a key hole to make the audience feel like they are intruding on the girl and we want to make the audience feel like they know the girl. The screen shot on the left which is from Paramore- That's What You Get gave us inspiration for this shot and we were thinking about having an over the shoulder shot of a young girl or a boy looking in the key hole and then having a point of view shot in the eyes of the child seeing the girl dancing and singing. In our group we were trying to think of ways of how we could create this shot, I thought we could create this shot by placing a black piece of cardboard over the lense of the camera. However, we are going to have to experiment and research on how to create this shot.

Group Meeting Log (Three)

Log 3

Teenage Dreams Ideas

Originally we had two ideas of where we could film we thought about Brighton or Bournemouth, the majority of the shots will be filmed at the beaches so we wanted to find a beach that we thought will suit our video. In the end we decided to film in Brighton,the picture on the right is of Brighton Beach. We liked that Brighton had pebbles instead of sand so the rough contrast and scale of the pebbles would we very interesting. We think that Brightons club scene would suit our 'pop' genre as club lighting is usually very bright and if we go to Brighton on a weekend the clubs will be busy. We really liked the architecture in Brighton as there is a contrast of modern buildings, old buildings like the Royal Pavillion and vintage shops. Plus, Brighton will be better for us to go there as it takes 1 hour and 45 minutes whilst driving and 45-1 hour on a overground train.
We believe that the song is about a girl feeling like she is a teenager again because she feels like this man is her first love, first kiss and she wants everything with him hence the title 'Teenage Dreams', we want our narrative to be about a couple and portraying their love for one another.
When reading the lyrics and peoples opinions about the song we became aware that this song was controversial as a lyric is "Let's go all the way tonight, No regrets, just love" which could be interpreted that the couple are going to have sex. It is controversial because the song is about teenagers in love and people think the song it promoting teen sex because there was an implied sex scene in the music video. However, many people do not agree including our group, this is an opinion from some one on Song Meanings http://www.songmeanings.net/songs/view/3530822107858836257/ "She's not promoting teenage sex. The song is about two adults. She's singing about how her boyfriend makes her feel like a teenager" This could be interesting for us to get other peoples opinions about the song who are a range of ages. This could be a limitation for us because people may disagree with the lyrics and we do not want to imply a sex scene.

We thought about having an old couple who was in their 60s-70s reversing time to when they were younger, our inspiration was Jason DeRulo- What If

We really liked the shot of the clock reversing which is at 0.56, we thought we could do a close up shot of the clock rewinding time and then a wide shot or a mid shot zooming out to show the girl getting ready for there date. Also, we liked that the end was at the beginning and the music video matches the lyrics.

We liked the idea of showing the couples life together, this is inspired by John Lewis advert.

I loved that the advert shows the womans life as a baby, toddler, child, teenager, adult and an old women. I love the emotions portrayed in the advert because it is happy and the audience see the process of aging and the process of the couples relationship, though with our music video we would reverse time. However, a limitation of showing the reverse of time is the time period because we would have to have a location which did not seem modern and because we want to film in Brighton which is a large populated place we cannot control what people in the background would be wearing.

For the lyric "You are my missing puzzle piece" we wanted a puzzle of the couple and for the pieces to come together to represent that the couple is 'one'. On the right side is an example of a custom made jigsaw pieces, we could purchase the puzzle from http://www.jigsaw2order.com/. We would shoot this scene by a high angle shot and leaving the camera rolling and match the pieces together, we would have to edit this to make it seem like it flows instead of jumping. I really liked the idea of the puzzle piece because the lyrics match the idea, this may look a little bit animated however we do not have the computer software to make animations.
Although, we are using Kate Nash- Foundations as inspiration to make this scene seem animated.

We really love the socks curling in to eachother at 1 minute and 10 seconds because it symbolises love or the man is over powering in the relationship because his sock dominates. Also, the toothbrushes moving away from eachother symbolises the seperation. Also, I really like the bright light shining on the couples hands at 1 minute and 2 seconds, I think we should try and shoot this scene because our location is on a beach and it would make our video seem more like a 'dream'.

To gain inspiration for our video or to include in our video I think we should film many couples talking about how they met, most of these couples would be middle aged or older to talk about their life together. Also, we should ask people who are teenagers in love before we storyboard so we could get inspiration or to know how we should portray the love story. Our inspiration for this is the movie Paper Heart (2009) it is a film about a girl who does not believe in love and she travels asking people how she met their partner.

The peoples whose story I loved the most in the film is from 3 minutes and 37 seconds till 7 minutes and 57 seconds. I found this story really romantic and interesting because in the beginning they both talk about divorce, the scene later talks about the women meeting her future husband on her first day of work, her boss forced her to go on a date with him and a week or two later there it was heavy raining the women bought new Gucci shoes which cost a lot and the man told her to wait under shelter and he drove his Jeep on the steps under the porch and he told her to "Get in" and he drove her to her car. Also, I think the puppets which are re-creating the story is a brilliant idea because it reinforces their youthfulness when they fell in love. I think we should use this as inspiration to find a romantic story and we could film a couple talking about how they met or the girl watching this part of the film in her living room and then go in to the narrative.

Group Meeting Log (Two)

Log 2

Pop Genre Research

Pop Genre comes from the term popular, it is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented towards a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple love songs.

This is taken from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop_music

"Musicologists often identify the following characteristics as typical of the pop music genre:
an aim of appealing to a general audience, rather than to a particular sub-culture or ideology
an emphasis on craftsmanship rather than formal "artistic" qualities
an emphasis on recording, production, and technology, over live performance
a tendency to reflect existing trends rather than progressive developments
much pop music is intended to encourage dancing, or it uses dance-oriented beats or rhythms
The main medium of pop music is the song, often between two and a half and three and a half minutes in length, generally marked by a consistent and noticeable rhythmic element, a mainstream style and a simple traditional structure. Common variants include the verse-chorus form and the thirty-two-bar form, with a focus on melodies and catchy hooks, and a chorus that contrasts melodically, rhythmically and harmonically with the verse. The beat and the melodies tend to be simple, with limited harmonic accompaniment. The lyrics of modern pop songs typically focus on simple themes – often love and romantic relationships – although there are notable exceptions.
Harmony in pop music is often "that of classical European tonality, only more simple-minded." Clichés include the barbershop harmony (i.e. moving from a secondary dominant harmony to a dominant harmony, and then to the tonic) and blues scale-influenced harmony. "The influence of the circle-of-fifths paradigm has declined since the mid-1950s. The harmonic languages of rock and soul have moved away from the all-encompassing influence of the dominant function. ...There are other tendencies (perhaps also traceable to the use of a guitar as a composing instrument) – pedal- point harmonies, root motion by diatonic step, modal harmonic and melodic organization – that point away from functional tonality and toward a tonal sense that is less directional, more free-floating."

On the right hand side there is a photograph of Madonna who is known as the 'Queen of Pop' and Michael Jackson whos the 'King of Pop'.

Brighton Secondary Research

These secondary sources are from search engines such as Google and Yahoo. The images portray the Brighton nightlife and the atmosphere at night in Brighton for example, there are raves, hen
dos, stag do's and I was interested to see the Brighton Pier and the Royal Pavillion at night to make sure that the lighting was bright enough because we wanted to film at night in different places located in Brighton.
The photos of people in a club with there hands in the air represents the fast beat of the music which enables the audience to relate the song to dance. There are many people who are dancing together which shows the closeness of everyone and the feeling that Brighton is a close community, we could include this in our video to create a feeling of a nice and close community.
Emotions of happiness and love is portrayed in the photographs which are shot in a club, as the use of pink, purple and navy lighting conforms to the club and pop genre as it represents the crowds feelings of happiness and it gives a joyful feeling to the photographs. In the club photographs and the poster of Hat Trick people are wearing red and 'Komedia' club and the restaurant has red lighting, this could be very useful in our video as red symbolises love.
The bright lighting shows the upbeat and fast tempo of the song as people are dancing and the bright colours make the club seem fun.
The images from hen and stag parties are used to show the 'type' of people who go there on holiday because there are many special deals for stag and hen parties to go to Brighton which could portray the target audience.
Also, Brighton is very well known for its gig arena Brighton Dome where Katy Perry in 2009 had performed, I thought it was relevant to include a photograph of Katy Perry performing in Brighton as we are going to film our music video to Katy Perry- Teenage Dream there. In Brighton there are many raves with 'underground' DJs which is regularly promoted in University and on traffic lights, however Brighton has DJ festivals where well known DJs perform like Fat Boy Slim.
The images of the pier, royal pavillion and the street represents another side to Brighton which is very quiet, we could film in a quiet street if we wanted the characters to speak or to focus mainly on the couple and the location. I think we should film a low angle shot of the Brighton Pier title as I think it is very interesting and it tells the viewer where we had filmed.
Secondary Source Brighton Nightlife

Brighton Primary Research

This is my primary research of Brighton where we have decided to film as we feel that it will fit our 'quirky' and 'happy' vibe. I took these photographs during the day time so this mood board represents day time in Brighton. I have used my Photography AS Coursework because I went to Brighton and I am using these photographs as cross curriculum.
We could use these photographs to help us decide where we want to use as a location for our music video for example, the beach, brighton pier, royal pavilion or the brighton fountain.
In these photographs I have mainly used close ups to focus on one object at a time to draw attention to the subject, also Brighton is such a busy place it was hard to take photographs where people were not in the photograph, this is something that our group will have to decide if we will want people in it or if we want a quiet location.
I have made these photographs all in focus because I wanted to make Brighton recognisable to the viewer. However, if we want to film in focus depends on our target audience if we decide that we will want to attract an English audience we may film long shots and in focus so the viewer could recognise Brighton or we could make our music video seem American and use a variety of close up shots and blur the background so the viewer will think that the video was not filmed in England.
I think we should use a wide shot of Brighton Pier because the couple could walk in to Brighton Pier because originally we thought of filming the couple at a fun fair and the boyfriend winning the girlfriend a toy, this is romantic and very typical in the romance genre.
However, with my photographs I used photoshop and I zoomed in to focus on the subject and many of the places where I took photographs had fences because you had to pay to get in such as the Royal Pavilion and the rides.
This is my Primary Source Mood Board of Brighton.
Primary Source Brighton Location

Group Meeting Log (One)

In our group we have created a meeting log using Microsoft Excel, during these meetings we will discuss the ideas we have for our music video, inspiration and organising when we will record. I will colour co-ordinate each week with different colours so we can look back at how our ideas have changed and developed throughout the construction and production. In the table we have labelled date of the meeting, time of the meeting, venue of the meeting, attendees and the minutes (what we had done in the meeting) and actions (what we are going to do before our next meeting). We will try and meet up each week in side and out side of school so we are prepared for when we will make our video.

This is our group's meeting log:

Meeting Log 1