Cast Confirmation

Here we sent the email of the shooting confirmed date to ur casts to see whether they will be able to take part or not.

Our shoot date

We have our finalised shooting day which will be on the Tuesday of 8th November 2016. This will be a problem as there will be November Assessments going on in the school for most A1 students, meaning that our casts may not be available for the shooting day. However, we will work around this and find a solution to this problem.

Letter of Copyright: Confirmation

Today I received an approval email for all rights order from the record company 'Wagram Music.'

Storyboard Annotated and Scanned

Distinguishing Between 1920s and Futuristic: Band members

Here I carried out some further research into differentiating the 2 time frames on screen.

1920s

I expect the jazz band members to be wearing quite formal white shirt with black ties/bowties. Also bowler hats would give a good impression of being in the past.

Futuristic

After the peak of the song, I imagine the band members to be more colourful, dissing the bowler hat with now maybe a modern hat or slick back hair for men. Also the band becomes more lively meaning they would dance and move around more.

Recruiting Casts Responses

Here are a few responses we received after emailing the 12 girls to take part in our music video.

Casting/Recruiting Our Actors/Actresses

Here is a copy of the email sent to 12 different girls in our school, asking whether they would want to participate in our music video. We are currently looking for 3 dancers in which we will audition them later after the agreed to take part in the video. 

Casting for Beatophone

Casting our music video from NanciKelham1999

Set Designers Meeting

Today we had our set designers coming in to discuss with us all the props, sets and how we want the scene to set out. We showed them our set designs and prop list in which we received quite a positive overall feedback from them.

Our main issue was distinguishing the difference between the 1920s theme and the modern theme and how it will look different on the screen, how we will establish the time-travelling idea to the audience. Other main issues involve the instruments of the jazz band which some of them we do not know where to get and who to play them.

Here are the lists written down by one of the two set designers that came in:

From the meeting, we decided to use a futuristic robotic dance instead of a club element as the peak of the song doesn't change that much in comparison to the start of the song. We also found a double bass player name Mike Elvin, who also owns a futuristic-looking double bass which fits in perfectly with our music video idea. Also, we decided to look into William Robinson's inventions which Luke kindly suggested could work really well with the mad scientist. This is because it would look much better on screen if we have a lot of wires and whacky scientific equipments rather than having just one old computer sitting in a room.

Set Design: Beatophone

We drew rough sketches of our set design in order to visualise our idea as a group, here are the first drafts for each of the 3 elements.

However, we developed these rough sketches and Evelyn has managed to create a video via Sims in order to make it 3D and therefore establish what we want even further. 

Animatic: Beatophone

An animatic is an animated storyboard which is cut and edited to the pace of the song. We created this to show how the storyboard works along with the beat of the song. This helps us visualise how the storyboard will turn into an actual music video as it has been edited to fit right into the beats/tempo on what we want each shot to be on. This has been really useful for us as we can identify what we are missing from the storyboard as well as realising we may need more shots. We need to consider the fact that our song is quite up beat and funky therefore the shots transition may need to be quite frequent and constant.

We are also considering shortening the song to 3:00 mins instead of 3:51 as it may be too long for our music video idea.

Response Letter of Permission for Copyright

Within 10 minutes after sending our email, Wagram Music record company kindly responded with an email stating they will carefully consider our request.

Prop list

Instruments	Where from?
Double Bass -Traditional
Double Bass - Electronic	Mike Elvin has one
Violin - Traditional	Can borrow it from a friend
Violin - Electronic	Have one
Piano - Traditional	School has one - cannot move it (Ebay?)
Piano - Electronic	School has one
Saxophone	Klaudia W. has one
Drumkit	School has one
Set	Where from?
Shipping Container	School has one behind the studio
Studio	School has one
Red Curtains	School has black curtains which can be lit in red light to make them appear tinted
Stage Roster	School has one
Walls (Brown & White)	School has panels we can use to create a wall
Floor Tiles (Carpet & Checkered Lino)	School has them
Costumes	Where from?
Dresses for Dancers	Elisabeth
Steampunk Goggles for Scientist	Amazon (not that expensive)
Scientist lab coat	Theatre/Science department
Suits for audience	Actors/theatre department
Make-Up	Where from?
1920’s style
Futuristic style
Props	Where from?
Frames/Posters	Ebay
LED old-school pub boards	(IF WE CAN)
Computer Action Prop	Junkyard/Ebay
1920 Desk Lamp	Ebay
Smoke/Dry Ice (possibly)	Photography dept. has a smoke machine
Chairs and Round Tables	Assuming school has them (Speakeasy)
Futuristic Lamps	I have a funky desk lamp
Plants	School has them
Test Tubes/Science-y Stuff	Chemistry Lab (clean)
Vintage Slide Projector (possibly???)	Ebay
Scientific Coffee Machine	Chemistry
Lighting	Where from?
Tealight Candles	Can purchase electronic or real ones
ETC Source Four Junior	Provided by school
JTE Pixelline 1044 Fixtures (possibly)	Provided by school
Galaxia LED Softlight	Provided by school
Martin Mac 700 Profiles (possibly)	Provided by school
Atomic 300 DMX (possibly)	Provided by school
Possibly adding lights to the computer (010)	Possibly provided by school
LED Tape	Not that expensive on amazon

Wires connected have a lot of music videos to look at and take inspiration from

to different things in the shipping container to show that scientist is doing something really crazy rather than just simply an old computer - William Robinson-esque inventions

Having the 1920 jazz club projected on something, scientist kind of messing around with the old thing, it explodes and then switches to the kind of futuristic setting.

Public Broadcasting Service Band -

Letter of Permission for Copyright

Here is a screenshot of the email I sent to Wagram Music, the record company for Caravan Palace regarding permission for copyright to use their track in our music video.

Storyboard

Storyboard Research

Storyboard is an essential part to any music video production as it visualises the idea in our head into simple forms which can be read and analysed by other members of the production team. This means that instead of explaining word by word, creating a storyboard can bring out those descriptions into a real picture of how it would look in real life.

Here is a great example of what a detailed storyboard should look like. This storyboard is created by Disney for the animation 'Aladdin.' It involves all the different shots of one scene, how the movement of the characters should be shot which helps visualise the idea to other people. 

Here is another great professional storyboard for one of the most successful Warner Brothers trilogy, Harry Potter. They drew a very detailed visual which shows exactly how the effects will be, where the characters will stand in each shot as well as the shadows.

In conclusion, Storyboard is very beneficial in the process of creating a music video as it helps the group to work together and understand each other's ideas. It helps the producers saves money, time as well as making it much clearer for each member of the team to know exactly what we'r trying to achieve. 

Beatophone: Development x2

After pitching our previous idea and receiving some feedback we decided to modified our idea into something rather quite new, more interesting and fun to shoot.

Narrative: Overview

-Mad scientist travels forward in time

-Starts off in 1920s and finishes in modern day.

Narrative: How?

Our main narrative scene will be set in a shipping container. It will involve a mad scientist sets in 1920s working in a laboratory inside the shipping container, entering some random codings onto an old school computer. Throughout the music video we will see him entering codes into the computer up until 2:18 where the song enters the bridge. This part he had already pressed a button which transports the whole story into the future. While this whole process is happening, the mad scientist will also be the one who is lip-syncing the song, adding another element to our idea.

Performance: Overview
-2 dance elements: One set in 1920s and one set in 2016.
-Small orchestra set in 1920s and modern band set in 2016.

Performance: How?

We will start off with a jazz club sets in 1920s with a small jazz band/orchestra with people playing clarinets, saxophone, violin and piano in the background. In front of this band will be 3 dancers (preferably male) wearing 1920s style suits or tuxedo with bow ties, dancing along with the song. This continues throughout the song until the mad scientist presses the button, at 2:18, which transports these bands into the modern day. We will show this by having the dancers, after being transported into the future, wear more modern clothes as well as dancing kinda robotic style.

How can we distinguish the past and present to the audience?
We were planning on using black and white effect for the 1920s time frame which will transform into colourful as soon as the scientist pressed the button. 

Lighting Plans: George

George is a lighting expert who has been working with the school production for many years. He came in and talked us through all kinds of lighting available to us for the music video shoot. He showed us many kind of different lightings which is very essential for me as I have very limited knowledge about lighting and sets, making this very beneficial for me and my group.

Firstly George introduced us to Atomic 3000 DMX which is a strobe light, 'flash frames' which could make everything looks unusual, slow-motion and robotic.

Another lighting we were introduced to was thee UV lighting Cannon which works nicely with UV paint or a plain white shirt which brings out the glow in the dark effect. 

ETC Force Four Junior is a powerful spotlight which can be adjusted in sizes, strengths and shapes. The colour of the light can also be modified by changing the gel sheets in front of the light beam. 

Thomas 4 Cyc Light is used to accompany green screen and infinity screen as it rids all the shadows which may interfere with the editing process in the background. It has 4 individual lights each with 4000 Watts meaning these lights must be handle by professionals with care otherwise it may results in fatal incident. 

Galaxia LED Soft-light is a fade light which can be used to make the singers stand-out as well as eliminating the unwanted shadows during close-ups. The temperature of the light can also be modified in order to fit in with the mood of the scene. 

JTE Pixelline 1044 is are long fixed LED lights which can be modified to make different colours, effects, flashes and etc. These lights can be used both visually in set as an element in the scene or can be used outside the set as light effects in order to create weird flashes and effects.

Sharpy Wash 330 is a spotlight beams which can be modified into different colours, sizes and beats. It can also be used as sky beams in concerts.

Lastly, Martin Mac 700 can be fixated to ceilings which can be modified into any effects, shapes or sizes. It can also create illusions on the walls. 

Audience Profiling Video

Here we went around school and boarding houses in order to get feedback for our music video ideas. We play them the track while explaining our idea for the music video, then 2 questions were asked: 'what do you think of the track?' and 'what do you think about our music video idea?'

Beatophone: Research

Here we carried out a further research into the prop lists, castings, mise-en-scene as well as costumes for our music video.

Beatophone: Inspirations

Here are a few videos which is quite similar to our idea for our music video:

Here is a music video created by one of our ex-Hurtwood student. This song is similar to ours as it doesn't contain a lot of lyrics as well as having no pop-band elements.

Here is an example of a very famous song. This is similar to our idea as it contains a small orchestra element as well as using a 1920s theme. It also uses dancers in which we were thinking of incorporating in our own music video.

Beatophone: Development

Although I explained earlier that we are scrapping our old idea completely, there are some elements which we will be keeping as we see the connection of those elements in this song. One of the element is the shipping container. We will still be using the shipping container as the dark-photographic room as it would create a stand-out visual as a music video.


Here is a (very) rough sketch of our new idea, consisting of 3 elements.

The first element in the middle is the dark-photographic room. This element is where the main character in the music video is developing a series of pictures in which the context of the photos will be revealed as the music video progresses. The main narrative of this music video is that this character is developing these photos to blackmail another character.

The second element on the top right is where the performance element takes place as well as the third element which is the audience of the performance. In this scene, we were planning on bringing together a jazz band/small orchestra to be used as the performance elements, although we were told that it would be really difficult for us to use a real orchestra or jazz band as not many people nowadays knows how to play these instruments. If we cannot get an orchestra, we will use a dancer instead to represent the band. 

Finally, our third element would be the audience of the orchestra concert, showing a scene of the main character blackmailing one of the crowd (Bottom left of the sketch). This element can be portrayed in many different ways in which we are still developing how this scene will end up looking like. This music video will have no lip-sync at all as there are not a lot of lyrics.

New Idea: Beatophone

Me and my group had come to a conclusion to scrap our old idea completely as we felt we had fully ran out of new idea and element for the song 'Home.' The song also got really boring after a few weeks of listening to it constantly which makes the process of coming up with new ideas for the song even harder than before.

Our group decided to switch our song to a new song called 'Beatophone' by Caravan Palace which was my 3rd initial idea for the music video as the summer holiday work. I chose this song during the summer because i thought it was funky and different from all the usual band pop-music elements which makes the video really stand out and potentially fun to shoot and work with.

Dance for Performance Element