Photoshoot Of Alice

We are also using Alice for the artist in our ancillary tasks as they will link together with our music video. We have taken photographs of Alice and will edit these and prouce them into our group ancillary task. At first we were planning on making separate ancillary tasks however we have become increasingly aware of the time span we have left to create these digi packs and decided to all sit together and produce different parts of the CD cover.

We agreed after looking at photographs in black and white on CD covers that we wanted this in our own work. We also decided that Alice should be holding her hand in her hands or in a similar position to present her as distressed which link to the lyrics of the song.

Here are the photographs we took of Alice during the photoshoot:

Testing the lighting -

Mid Shot:

Close up touching hair:

Hand on face:

Smeared make up:

Head in hands before lighting:

After Lighting:

Overall we took 171 photographs of Alice, and I will be selecting the best ones in order to create and produce the best quality ancillary tasks.

Filming New Ideas 2

As the first set of filming lacked continuity we have organised to film the scenes again. We will film the whole music video start to end over two days and hopefully we will have completed our work by then and not have to re shoot anything else. We are sharing out our editing of the filming equally so that each member of our group gets a chance at making decisions with our work, and after we sit together as a group and watch them back whilst correcting each other to make sure that we have the best quality work possible.

Here are the shots we obtained whilst filming:

The Bench Scene:

This scene involves Alice walking down the road to a bench where she plans on meeting her friend. She holds her phone as she walks down the road to convey continuity within our work. The camera then has a close up shot of Alice's phone as her friend has replied to her text agreeing to meet her. Alice then sits on the bench and waits for her friend. Whilst she is waiting the camera has a sequence of close up shots of Alice's face which builds up tension in the video and allows the audience to become aware of how isolated and alone Alice feels at this time. Alice's friend, Jessie, then arrive and the camera will do a follow shot/over the shoulder shot of her so that Alice is still in view of the camera. As Jessie sits down Alice puts her head in her hands and Jessie comforts her. Alice then raises her head and tries to hold Jessie's hand/stroke her leg and this makes Jessie feel uncomfortable, we then have a reaction shot from Jessie. The camera then has an extreme close up of Alice's mouth as she says 'I Love You' to Jessie. Jessie then stands  up and walks away, rejecting Alice and leaving her sitting on the bench alone, in distress.

As you can see, we could not use these. Shown below is the clips of Alice touching Jessie's hand and Jessie's reaction.

Midshot:

Reaction from behind:

Jessie (Close up reaction):

The Bath Scene:

Throughout the whole video there will be cut aways in black and white of the bath scene to portray Alice's future within the video. Alice walks into the bathroom and immeadiatley runs the bath. She then turns to the mirror and looks at herself, whilst running the sink tap and rubbing her face with water, so that her make up is smeared and messy. The camera will convey close up of Alice's hands and face to the audience so that they are aware of her mental state. Alice will then turn to the bath and turn the taps off. She then steps into the bath fully clothed and lays down. After looking around warily and crying, Alice ducks her head under the water and tries to stay there however she ultimatley comes out of the water. The camera will show shots of Alice from close up, over the shoulder and eye level so that the audience are aware of her state.

Next, we wanted to do our first shooting of Alice in the bathroom. 

Coming in the door we shot her from all different angles:

From the front:

Follow shot:

The video above is not successful as Alice goes to the taps before going towards the bath. This did not maintain continuity. 

The one shown below was more successful: 

Shown below is close up and extreme close up shots of Alice when she is taking her make up off. We wanted these close ups to convey her emotions:

 

We also shot some videos through the mirror. One is shown above and one below: 

We then decided to take videos of the running taps. To set the scene.

Filming Alice getting into the bath was crucial as we could only do it once:

This was also the same with Alice going under the water as if she did it again the video would not have continuity.

Birds eye view:

Side view: 

We are happy so far with this filming however at some points Alice accidentally looks into the camera which is a problem and we will need to re shoot those shots. Overall filming is going well and we are on target to achieving a good music video.

Editing Bench Scene

I have started to edit the bench scene, however due to the constant cloudy weather some shots were brighter than others and the angle of the camera was lower than what we had expected so we will have to re shoot this scene for the continuity to be understandable.

The scene starts with Alice walking to a bench outside her school, she then sits and waits for her friend to turn up. The camera will focus closely in close up shots on Alice's face in this section to convey her inner turmoil and confusion within her life. Jessie then arrives and sits next to Alice, and Alice puts her head in her hands and Jessie comforts her. The camera will then show a two shot of the girls talking and Alice telling Jessie that she loves her, we then will see Jessie's reaction shot and then she walks away out of the cameras view, leaving Alice sitting alone on the bench.

Creating the bench scene:

I began by editing together the two or three shots we achieved of Alice walking past the cars along the road. I found this tricky as when one member of our group was filming the other two kept accidentally getting in the shot of the camera and so only a few seconds of each shot were usable.

The shots of Alice sitting on the bench were good however the cloud covered up the sun every few minutes so we had to film quickly in order for all of our shots to be in the shade, otherwise Alice had the sun in her eyes and the shadows were over taking the shots. We will have to re shoot this section of the scene as some shots are bright and some are dull.

The close up shots of Alice went well however we may need to re shoot them as she moves her head too quickly compared to when she was sitting still and the continuity does not work well. The camera angle is tilted down at her to convey her loss of control and inner turmoil.

The follow shot of Jessie walking towards Alice was quite successful however we were informed that it would look better if Alice was visible throughout the whole shot to convey her importance within the situation, and so we will have to re shoot this as well.

Jessie's reaction shot after Alice has revealed her feelings was quite good considering our short notice of changing the story line. We were planning on using a few extra close up shots of thigns such as Alice speaking, and Jessie's face as this would portray the story line to the audience in a clearer way.

The whole scene in SerifMovieX3 contains sections which need to be added which can be seen in this screen shot. We will continue to re shoot until the scene is complete without any dsifigurment of the light and dark.

Filming New Ideas 1

After deciding our new ideas we got together as a group with Alice and re shoot the main sections of the video again. We agreed that the new shots were better and more organised, here are the shots we obtained during filming:

Jessie walking to meet Alice:

Alice talking to Jessie:

Alice walking to the bench:

Taps running in Bathroom:

Shot of Alice texting Jessie:

Close up of Alice waiting:

Close up of Alice waiting 2: 

Extreme close up of Alice: 

Follow Shot of Jessie walking to meet Alice:

Jessie's point of view shot: 

 

Wide shot of Alice and Jessie talking:

These videos were quite successful however we will need to re shoot the scenes again in order to overcome the problems to do with shadows and lighting. We are now aware of which angles we need to use in order for this scene to be successful. 

Some of the shots have visible shadows of us filming the scene which we will need to sort out and we also need to achieve more shots of Alice in a tilted angle looking down on her, as although she is the main character in the video we need her to look inconvenient to match the feel of the music video.



Changes to Music Video

After making a rough cut of a music video, we have encountered a few major issues to do with filming and continuity within our music video. Our main character Alice, decided to dye her hair darker which seriously effects the continutity of our entire music video. We thought of a few different ideas of how to come across this problem, such as re-doing the whole music video with Lauren as the main actress, changing the story line to show Alice dying her hair and changing the whole video altogether.

We decided against these ideas as if we conveyed Alice dying her hair it could work however we still need to reshoot some begining scenes and so the continuity would not work. Ultimatley, we decided to change the story line however still using Alice as our main character. Our new story line is less complicated and does not involve as many scenes as it did at first because we do not have enough time to reshoot everything.

Our new storyline still contains an ellipses of time and Alice self harming, however we have reduced the amount of different dilemmas that happen to Alice, and have linked all of her depression to her confusion to do with her sexuality and the fact that she is in love with her best friend who rejects her. We thought that this story line would be more understandable for the audience and they would understand what was happening throughout the whole video.

New Story Line:

Scene 1 - Black and White
Close up shots of Alice in the bath, looking upset and with make up smeared all of her face

Scene 2 -
Alice in school in an empty classroom, close up of her text messaging Lauren to meet her.
Alice then gets up and walks out of the classroom

Cut Away -
Black and white shot of the bath running

Scene 3 -
Reshoot of the lane scene as Alice is walking to meet Lauren

Cut Away -
Black and white Alice rubbing her make up off  in the mirror

Scene 4 -
Alice sitting on a bench (outside school) holding her phone, Lauren arrives and sits next to Alice.
Alice puts her hand on Laurens leg, and close up of her mouth saying 'I love you'.
Lauren looks at Alice in disgust, gets up and walks away leaving Alice on the bench, with her head in her hands crying.

Scene 5 -
Alice in her house, angry in her room throwing things around the room. Maybe ripping up photos of her and Lauren.
Goes into bathroom and starts to run a bath. (Same shot as cut away but in colour)

Scene 6 -
Getting in the bath, same face close up shots from begining scene. Close up of Alices face, hands etc
Final shot of Alice's hand hanging over the side of the bath with blood dripping off of it.

Magazine Advert Research

As a secondary part of our ancillary task we have been asked to create a magazine advertisement to go with our music video and CD cover. We have all researched the magazine advert and discussed how we would like our advert to look, I will then go on to create the magazine advert all whilst referring back to my group for their opinions and changes they would like to make.

We have already discussed this aspect of the overall task and we are aware that this advert will be promoting the music video we have created. Considering that the main emotion throughout the music video is one of vulnerability, sadness and depression we will be using one of the photographs from our photo shoot with Alice that conveys a deep sadness which will mirror the lyrics of our chosen song. 

These are the images that my group and I are most likely to use in our magazine advert:

These photographs portray Alice with smeared eye make up which relates to how she is presented in our music video. We have chosen to dress Alice in the same clothing as it highlights the continuity throughout our music video and would remind our audience of the music video when looking at our magazine advert. 

I will now research real magazine adverts and promotions for music singles and decide which layouts and colours I think work well together in order to guide our work.

General Research:

I began to research general magazine adverts and focused quite intensely on photographs which contain hands and arms as these are the photographs of Alice we have roughly chosen. 

These images of Beyonce are quite plain upon first look however the second photograph contains Beyonce as a different persona with a lot more make up and accessories. We will not be doing this with Alice as we are focusing more on the emotional turmoil of her lyrics in her songs and less on her external image to the public. The use of two CD covers in the corner of the magazine advert convey the continuity between Beyonce's products and we are eager to use this in our own work.

Jessie J also uses her hands in her magazine advert, however her main theme in this magazine advert is attitude and we were not looking for this. The positioning of the photograph is central which is useful as the artist is the main focus. The layout is simple which we liked as a group because we think this may be achievable. The artist is wearing thick black make up similar to Alice's however, Alice's make up will be more smudged and convey a deeper upset.

Specific Research:

I have decided to look more into emotional artists song, such as Adele and in some cases Rihanna, as they focus their promotions on the individual song being promoted rather than an image being portrayed to the public.

Considering that our other ancillary task has been based on the album covers from Rihanna and Adele, I decided to look into their magazine adverts which supported their albums to see how they incorporated their own themes into the production.

After using Google to research Adele's music magazine advert I noticed that her album cover for the magazine was featured on the magazine to highlight the continuity. The pictures are also very similar of Adele looking down with the same make up and slightly different hair style. The advert much similar to the album cover is very plain and simple yet very effective as it highlights that they are representing the same song/songs. The fonts used are also the same including their colours which is useful to know as when creating our magazine advert I will be using the same fonts and colours to highlight to continuity we will have.

Rihanna also has the same featured effect in her magazine advert, although in a different way. The same photograph has been used on both pieces which is the best way to present continuity. The target audience of this music would be able to recognize the photograph immeadiatley and be able to relate the two advertisements together with the artist. The fonts used are similar to the ones used on the album cover which also portray continuity. 

Both artists are also using their hands and arms in the positioning in the photographs much similar to our idea of Alice holding her hands against her head in the photograph. Her make up being smeared is similar to Rihanna's advert, although Rihanna's make up is more prominent. Although the simplicity of Adele's album and magazine cover has influenced our ideas most as this is most similar to our album cover. I will now go on to create our magazine advert, all whilst referring back to these two adverts.

Problems with Filming

Continuing from our problems due to characters in our film, we are also finding it difficult to organize when we can all meet to film our music video. As we all have exams this month at different times and we have part time jobs too. We have decided to have a short photo shoot with Alice after all of our exams have finished which would be the 17th January; this allows us time to revise for other subjects.

We will then carry on filming and re-filming certain scenes in order to keep our filming up to date. During the period of our exams me and my group will be focusing on our ancillary tasks, one of us will create both ancillary tasks whilst constantly referring back to the group for feedback. We thought this would be easier as then the other two members of the group can focus on the music video and both pieces of work should be complete at the same time.