First Pitch

Bon iver flume

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In our group we made one powerpoint presentation each with our chosen song and music video idea. We then pitched these presentions to our class and recieved feedback. After some critical feedback, we decided that we wanted to go ahed with 'Flume' and use this song and idea for our music video.

The idea that we have chosen for this music video is full of themes that can be widely recognised by a large audience. It is about two teenagers, one boy and one girl, who visit a place that takes them away from their everyday lives. They reguarly visit these places, however, they are never actually there at the same time. Whilst they are there they feel eachothers presence and want to know who each other are. They feel certain love for eachother even though they have never met. The singer of the band is in the studio playing his guitar and singing, reminising and thinking about these two teenagers and where they are now. Finally the two teenagers meet as they walk across some stepping stones, they then embrace however as they do the girl disolves and disspears leaving the boy left alone standing on the stepping stones.

Research and Development

We began our research and development for our music video by talking over our ideas on songs and bands. We all agreed on the song ‘Flume’ by Bon Iver. After deciding this we began researching the band and found out a bit more of what there about. We found that when writing their songs they do not really focus on the words and if they make sense. They focus on the audio qualities and how the words sound nice. For instance this song ‘Flume’ is full of phonesthemes like the sounds ‘oo’ in ‘womb’, ‘maroon’ and ‘moon’. This makes it very soothing and easy to listen to.
We looked at other forms of art, such as photography and paintings to inspire us. We looked at some of the photos on www.lomography.com/photos

These photos helped inspire us on the style we want our video to look like, also the type of place we would like to film it.

The good thing about the song we have chosen is, that Bon Iver do not actually have an official video for this song. So we do not have anything to copy. The ideas being put forward for this video are purely our own or collected from other art forms. We are also very excited to make a video for this song and see what feedback we get from Bon Iver fans who know they do not make music videos.

Before making our decision final to do 'Flume' by Bon Iver, we looked at other songs and different ideas. We thought about doing the song 'Technologic' By Daft Punk and 'What if I'm right?' By Sandi Thom. All three songs are very different and the ideas we proposed for for each of them where all very different from each other. We made powerpoint presentations for all three of these and pitched them to the class and they helped us decide which one was the best idea. The majority said 'Flume' and so we chose it.

When we pitched our songs, we played the song in the background so they could get a taste of the song. We then explained a bit about the band and who they are. Then we talked them through our possible locations and characters, then pitched the story line fully detailed.

This is a video of Bon Iver playing the song we have chosen 'Flume'. This is the closest thing they have to a music video.

A2 - The Five Stages of Production

For our music video we began to talk about ideas on what to do. We all decided to use the song ‘Flume’ by Bon Iver.

So starting with stage 1 we will begin to research the song and look at the lyrics. We will also look at possible locations and build on the characters and who will play the singer in our video.
I think it is also important to look up and research the original band, to see what there intentions of their music is, so we don’t contrast and go against it too much.
We will also decide on the narrative during this stage as it is a vital part in the video and how it will turn out.

During stage 2 the Pre Production we will begin piecing together the story fully. The story boards will be made and completed. They will have full details including camera movement, lyrics, actions, timings etc. We will also be deciding who is carrying out the major roles. Such as, Director, Camera Sound, wardrobe manager etc.
This is important because during the process of making the video, things will run more smoothly and we will be able to get more done within our limited filming time.

Stage 3 is the shoot. A few days before the actual shoot we will do a cast check. Just to make sure we still have all our actors and band member free on the day we want the shooting day to go as smoothly as possible so we will be as prepared as we can be. We will shoot on location first because of light. Then when we have finished we will then move to the studio to do all our studio shots. Hopefully by the end of the day we will have all the shots we needed, so in the post production process we are not suck.

Stage 4 is the post production process, where we will be editing and piecing together the music video. This will include looking at our story boards and sorting out the shots into different folders. For example, Location shots, studio shots, and cross over shots.
We will work as a group to get the shots in order also making sure that the singing parts match up with the track playing on top of the video. During this stage we will finish the whole editing process.

Stage 5 is the distribution and exhibition of the video and the music. We will have to look into CD releases and internet and social spaces and marketing sites. Myspace would probably be the best site to look at to exhibit new music because of our bands image. It is alternative and indie and that is what myspace is about.

Audience Feedback

As we posted our video on youtube, we have received comments and feedback on it. All the comments posted on our video are positive. This shows that we have been successful in drawing in an audience. By reading the comments it is clear that the audience have been drawn in, by our incorporated titles, and this was why we chose to do this.


hurtwoodhousemedia
GREAT!!!!

hurtwoodhousemedia
I like how you have embedded the titles into text. works really well.

stephaniemareen
Also the music is a very good choice!

stephaniemareen
Great idea, the titles work VERY well!

mchltarr
Very nice... keep it up!

butterflyheaven03
I like this! Nice one guys :)

SerinaBrave
Wow really good

Task 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

These screen grabs where taken from Final Cut pro and After Effects when editing our video. This is the title, Written by Leaya Hatzakis being typed into the ‘Google’ search bar. As it is being typed we used after effects to dim the light around it, highlighting the writing. So the audience’s attention would be drawn to the title.
Throughout the film, our titles are constantly incorporated, like the ‘Google’ title.

Here is another incorporated title within our sequence that I think explores an interesting way of showing titles. In this title, ‘Edited by Elly Sams’ is hidden within the text. Our Actress Catrina, turns over the pages to the right page, then highlights the title so it stands out within the text.
We wanted to bring back interesting titles to films because many films just simply lay the text over the film and it can be very boring and dull. A film that inspired us to incorporate our titles was, ‘Napoleon Dynamite’. Although this film is very unlike ours and had a completely different context, we can still relate them. When I watched the opening sequence of ‘Napoleon Dynamite’ it really grabbed my attention and made my expectations very high for the film, and I wanted to have the same outcome for my film.

We also used modern ideas and technology to get the titles in. Originally we wanted to use a typewriter to incorporate a title, but after thought and discussion we decided that it did not fit appropriately into our film idea. We chose a much more suitable way, which relates to our film and can also relate to the audience. We used an iPod to incorporate the title of the Original Score, because the music relates to the iPod and the iPod relates to the youth of the character who stars in our opening sequence.

Task 2

How does your product represent particular social groups?

We used many ways in our sequence to represent a particular and a wide range of social groups. Our main social group we aimed this film at was a higher more educated group, maybe middle-higher class. We targeted this audience not only by the sophisticated story line but by adding in modern expensive technology, that middle-higher class people may own.

Another group of people it would attract is the female audience; this is because the main character is a very strong female role. She is very well educated, well off and only a young adult. She represents the female body very well and would attract many women to come see it because they would look up to her. Many men would also be attracted to this film because she is a young woman, who is very attractive and lots of men would like to see that for 2 hours.

Task 3

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

I think that Fox Searchlight is the kind of company that might invest in our film, ‘Cliodynamics’. Fox Searchlight is a low budget film company that have produced such films as, ‘Juno’, ’28 Days Later’ and ‘Slumdog millionaire’. All these films started at low budget movies, but are now credited as great movies.
I don’t think that our films budget would be very high because the story line does not require lots of special effects, explosions and CGI. It’s more in the acting and the characterisation which would make the film successful and interesting.

Task 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

I think that these two people are the typical male and female audience who might watch our film.
They are young and look well educated; therefore they might enjoy our film because it’s more complex and physiological story line requires a higher knowledge base. It’s a very well thought out and clever story line, which if you were not well educated you may get confused and not follow. They also look like university students, and to be able to go to university you need money. So they obviously have money and would be able to pay to see our film.
People who will want to watch this film will not be too bothered about how much sex and gore there is included, but will be much more interested in the suspense and the mystery.
And that’s why I think that these people would be the ideal target audience for my film.

Task 5

Task 5 - attract/adress

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Task 6

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Task 7

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

After re-watching our prelim task I now realise how much we have learnt and progressed from it. The prelim task was only shot in one hour, and we had never used the camera before. We had a short briefing on how to use the camera before we filmed, but had not had any other experience before. Whereas in the main task we had a whole day to shoot and had more experience with using the camera. In the prelim we had no preparation and where just given a story board to follow. However in our main task, we spent weeks preparing and writing our sequence. We drew our own story boards, made prop lists, and where each title would be placed. This was much more complicated than the prelim task because it was entirely our idea and if we wanted something in our video, we had to sort it out and make it possible. I liked the responsibility that we where given to do this task and it was a great contrast to the prelim task.

The shots that we took in the prelim task where very basic and simple. This consisted of a wide shot, over the shoulder and a close-up, which is not very many at all. However in our main task we took many more shots than this. We took about 15 shots overall, and they where much more exciting, e.g. tracking shots and extreme close-ups.
The storyboarding that we did to help prepare us towards our main task was a new experience. At first it was hard to get our ideas down in drawing form rather than writing it. But eventually we started drawing out all the shots that we wanted, in order then deciding where each title comes in. During which shot and how it will be incorporated etc.

Our knowledge of Media studies and using cameras has grown since the prelim task, which shows in our opening sequence. When filming the main task we where constantly thinking about the shot and how it will look on screen. Making sure that everything that needs to be in the shot, was in the frame. Checking for continuity issues was also important because we wanted it to look as professional as possible.
We wanted to vary our range of shots and make it look as interesting as possible. We added a few interesting shots that really contrasted to our prelim. There is a shot when Catrina is reading, and we take a 180 degree close-up tracking shot of her face.

When shooting our prelim task, we did not have the microphone turned on and therefore did not have any sound or dialogue. So afterwards we had to re record the dialogue and lay it over the top. We learnt a valuable lesson from this mistake and it taught us to always double check that everything is working and plugged in. When we filmed out main task, we made sure that we hadn’t made this mistake again. The sound that we used in out main task was much more interesting that the prelim task. We used ambient sounds such as the feet walking on the wooden floor and the books slamming onto the table. We also had music included into our sequence, which we did afterwards by adding it into final cut pro. First we put the original music into sound track pro and edited it to make it our own.

Using final cut pro was a new experience for me this year because I had never used it before, and it was exciting to learn a new skill. I very much wanted to explore the things that we could do with our video. In our prelim task all we did in the editing process was, to put the shots together and cut them where necessary. However in our main task, it was much more complicated than that. We had to put all our shots together, and then cut them down in size dramatically. We also had to think about the speed of the shot and with some of them, sped them up. We also used After Effects, which I have never used before and it was great to learn how to use it, and develop new skills. We used after effects to highlight certain titles in our sequence and also create interesting ones.

Post Production Main Task

We have begun editing our video, using the final-cut pro server. This was a very different editing experience than our prelim task because; in our prelim task we only took four very simple, easy shots. However in our main task we took about fifteen shots, which is a big difference and ended up making our rush tape about thirty minutes long.

Firstly we had to log all of our shots into different log bins such as, titles, library shots and studio shots. We did this because of the length of the rush tape, it was easier to handle it. Because we took multiple shots for each shot it was a longer process watching through them all and choosing which one was best. We after sorting them into studio, titles and library shots, we began piecing our sequence together by dragging suitable the shots down into the timeline.

After we had finished putting all the suitable shots down into the timeline in the right order, we began editing it further by taking unwanted time of some of the shots, i.e. rolling time. After it was clean cut we ran it through, watching it thinking about what could be done to it, to make it more interesting. We decided we would like to try adding a few jump cuts, to relate it to our idea of the ‘Seven’ opening titles. We did all these jump cuts, on a rough cut of all our shots. Some of the cuts we did where; the title of ‘Catrina Kirby’, when she is writing it on the page. We then reversed the shot and sped it up adding it to the end of the original shot, so it ran smoothly in together. We also did other jump cuts throughout the sequence. After showing this to an audience, we where given feedback and decided that this version was not right for our sequence as it didn’t fit into our story. So we then began editing again on our original cut. It was a bit slow, and didn’t really grab us, so we decided to cut more unwanted time off and run it together smoothly.

In our sequence we don’t really show the audience much at the beginning, as we want to slowly draw them in revealing a little bit at a time. For instance the first two shots are tracking shots, one of a book shelf with Catrina taking out a book, and then the second shot is her feet walking. Then the shots slowly start to reveal more of Catrina our actress, as more of the titles are shown.


We included both diegetic and non diegetic sound in our sequence. There is not much diegetic sound included in our sequence, but the sound that is, is very important because it helps raise the tension. For example when Catrina, our actress, is walking on the library floor in her high heels, we recorded the sound of her heels clicking on the wooden floor. This sound was important because it helped establish her character, of a young woman who is important and smart. Another example of diegetic sound we used was, the sound of the books slamming onto the table, when Catrina puts them down. This was an important piece of sound because it showed that the sequence was about to properly start and speed up.
We also included non diegetic sound in our sequence. The non diegetic sound was the music that we used in the background. We chose music that we thought was suitable for what was happening in our sequence. It is violin music that sounds quite sinister but at the same time is very soft and flowing and I think that this was perfect for our sequence because it suits the physiological thriller genre very well. I think the music grabs peoples attention because it is quite mysterious.
We used sound track pro to alter the music to make it our own, because of copy right issues.

Target Audience

Films these days are mainly targeted at men aged between 16-25. I think our film would be aimed at men and woman, aged between 16-25 and/or higher. Also I think it would be aimed at a higher social class because our film is not the typical gory, slasher film but it’s about a woman journalist looking into a psychological investigation of a murder. This means it would also be targeted at woman, because the main character is a woman. Strong Female protagonists are familiar archetypes in both Horror and Thriller films. This makes them popular with women because of the positive image they can project. Men would also feel obliged to bring their wives and girlfriends to the cinema with them.
Teenagers might not enjoy this film as much as older people. You would have to have knowledge of the mind, and the clever ways in which it can work, in order to understand the killer in this film. No doubt younger people would enjoy this film, but stereotypically teenagers enjoy slasher films, with teenagers in high school.

Research Sources

We wanted the opening sequence to not reveal much about the film. We wanted it to grab the audience and make them interested to watch more. So we decided that we would begin with the main character, researching about the killings, and the titles would be incorporated into the props, i.e. an ID card. The film that inspired us the most was the opening sequence to ‘Seven’ because of the fast, nitty gritty, research that is going on.

Another film that we used for inspiration was 'Napoleon Dynamite’, Even though this film is not a horror or a thriller, we wanted to use the way the titles are incorporated.

The Ring, also gave a lot of the inspiration for our research scene. We use a lot of the ideas from here, like typing in Google, and looking through books. Starting from, 4.20 through to 6.50.

Idea Developments

We came together as a group, and looked through all our ideas for a film. We talked, and decided that Leaya's film was the best idea and would have a good opening sequence. Her film was named, 'Class of '73', and the story was about a girl being given an assignment to research about her ancestors. So she decided to look into the death of her great aunt. She found out that her aunt was murdered by her football team boyfriend. She also discovered the year book of the class of 73 and found his photo, she realises that he looks a lot like the school janitor at the school now.

We talked over this idea and decided that it was a bit too typical American high school horror, which is not what we wanted. So we thought it would be a good idea to change the girl into a young woman, who is trying to make it as a journalist and this is her first real job. She is asked to research into a really interesting big story and comes across an old newspaper article about some murders in a school, and the killer was never found.

This suited what we wanted better because, we wanted more of a psychological thriller than a high school flick. We talked and explored ideas on how to get a more tense, interesting opening sequence. We decided that we also wanted to incorporate the titles as much as possible.

Account of Shooting Day

While we were shooting, we made a shot list. Accounting every shot we made, what was happening in the shot, and how many times we took it. We did this because this would help us afterwards when it comes to editing, and sorting it out. This is our shot list, that we made on the day.
All these shots were taken in the studio
1- Trina (our actress) walks into the set and slams her books into the table. This was a close up shot, of where her books were slammed onto the table. Our first title would be placed in this shot.

2-Trina then moves the books to the side, and opens the bottom book and takes some paper and a pen. This is a mid shot, and we took this shot 3 times.

3- A close up of Trina's eyes reading, and we took this shot 2 times.

4- An over the shoulder shot of Trina writting her name on the top of a piece of paper.

5- Extreme close-up of Trina writting her name (this is our actress title) We took 2 takes of this shot, but at different zooms.

6- Tracking shot, using the spider dolly (breaking the 180 degree rule) of Trina opening a book, then holding an iPod, then typing on Google. This shot contains 3 titles, on the library card when she opens the book, (Director of Photography), On the iPod screen, (Original Score By..), and Typed on Google, (Written By..) We took this shot 5 times, as it was a hard shot to get perfect, but by the 5th shot we got it right.

7- Extreme close-up of Google screen, With Leaya Hatzakis being written.

8- Over the shoulder shot, Highlighting Edited By Elly Sams.

9- A Tracking shot around her face, close-up.

The next shots were taken in the library
10- A shot behind a book shelf, of Trina taking out books, and revealing her when the books are taken out.

11- A very low, tracking close-up of her feet walking.

12 - A close-up of a book on the photo copier, being used.