Filming Schedule

Here you are able to see our filming schedule for the music video. We found it difficult to set a date when Sammi and I, and the two characters could film throughout the whole day. 

• We started on the 15th November- Sammi and I started filming in the woods, catching shots of the surroundings for the video, for extra footage. I then carried on, on my own with our female character Stephanie. We started from the beginning of the chase scene, using all different camera angles. Throughout the woods, I got Stephanie to run and act out scenes, which will look effective when we merge scenes together of the other character too. 
• On the 22nd November we needed to start filming the beginning of the video, which was the house scene of our other character Luke. Sammi and I both took part this day, but due to the weather we could not continue with the rest of the chase scene, set in the woods. We collected pictures of the Stephanie and stuck them to the wall as our prop. We chose this certain house due to the 'typical' boy's room and the fact his room was right next to the stairs for Luke to run down. When the rain stopped we filmed the car scene outside.
• Our last day of filming was the 29th November. We were lucky to get our filming done in just 3 whole days as we could focus on the other work, e.g. CD cover, advert and our blog work. This last day we had to make sure we got all the filming finished including the rest of the chase scene and the scene leading up to it. We was lucky the two characters could make this day together, with the sun shining. As we were used to using the camera we filmed rather quickly and it was successful. 

Theories of Narrative

Vladimir Propp examined hundreds of fairytales in the generic form 'the folk wondertale'.
He identified:
-8 character roles (or 'spheres of action')
-31 functions which move the story along - examples include Sleeping Beauty (her touching the spinning wheel which will make her die/sleep for 100 years then the punishment of the villian).

Propp's 8 character roles or 'spheres of action'

• the villian
• the hero- a seeker character motivated by an initial lack
• the doner- who provides an object with some magic property
• the helper- who aids the hero
• the princess- reward for the hero
• her father- who validates the hero
• the dispatcher- who sends the hero on his way
• the false hero
  

FOR EXAMPLE; the Disney film 'The Lion King'

The Villian - Scar
The Hero - Simba
The Doner - Rafiki
The Helper - Timone and Pumba
The Princess - Nala
His Father - Mufasa
The Dispatcher - Zazu
The False Hero - Scar

Propp's 31 functions

• Absentation
• Interdiction
• Violation of Interdiction
• Reconnaissance
• Delivery
• Trickery
• Complicity
• Villainy and Lack
• Mediation
• Beginning Counter Action
• Departure
• First Function of the Donor
• Hero's Reaction
• Receipt of a Magical Agent
• Guidance
• Struggle
• Branding
• Victory
• Liquidation
• Return
• Pursuit
• Rescue
• Unrecognised Arrival
• Unfounded Claims
• Difficult Task
• Solution
• Recognition
• Exposure
• Transfiguration
• Punishment
• Wedding

Propp's theory is a form of structuralism, which is a view that all media inevitably in the form of certain fixed structures. These structures are often cuturally derived and form expect actions in the mind of an audience from within that same culture e.g. fairytales always have happy endings of the princess always marries the handsome prince. Propp's theory can be applied to genertic structures in western culture, such as popular film genres. This genre structures form expectations in the mind of an audience that certain rules apply to the narrative. However, cultural change can force structures to change e.g. a hero can now be a woman.

Tzvetan Todorov developed the theory of disrupied equilibrum.

He identified that stories follow a typical pattern of:

• equilibrum- the 'status quo' where things are as they should be
• disequilibrum- the 'status quo' is disrupted by an event
• equilibrium- is restored at the end of the story by the actions of the hero

There can be several moments in the plot where resolution of equilibrium takes place, for example when pieces of the detective's puzzle fall into place.

Todorov later developed this into a 5 stage pattern:

1. a state of equilibrium at the outset
2. a disruption of the equilibrium by some action
3. a recognition that there has been a disruption
4. an attempt to repair the disruption
5. a reinstatement of the equilibrium

Roland Barthes - The Five Codes

The Hermeneutic Code (HER)The Hermeneutic Code refers to any element of the story that is not fully explained and hence becomes a mystery to the reader.The full truth is often avoided, for example in:Snares: deliberately avoiding the truth.Equivocations: partial or incomplete answers.Jammings: openly acknowledge that there is no answer to a problem.The purpose of the author in this is typically to keep the audience guessing, arresting the enigma, until the final scenes when all is revealed and all loose ends are tied off and closure is achieved.

The Proairetic Code (ACT)The Proairetic Code also builds tension, referring to any other action or event that indicates something else is going to happen, and which hence gets the reader guessing as to what will happen next.The Hermeneutic and Proairetic Codes work as a pair to develop the story's tensions and keep the reader interested. Barthes described them as:"...dependent on ... two sequential codes: the revelation of truth and the coordination of the actions represented: there is the same constraint in the gradual order of melody and in the equally gradual order of the narrative sequence."

The Semantic Code (SEM)This code refers to connotation within the story that gives additional meaning over the basic denotative meaning of the word.It is by the use of extended meaning that can be applied to words that authors can paint rich pictures with relatively limited text and the way they do this is a common indication of their writing skills.

The Symbolic Code (SYM)This is very similar to the Semantic Code, but acts at a wider level, organizing semantic meanings into broader and deeper sets of meaning.This is typically done in the use of antithesis, where new meaning arises out of opposing and conflict ideas.

The Cultural Code (REF)This code refers to anything that is founded on some kind of canonical works that cannot be challenged and is assumed to be a foundation for truth.Typically this involves either science or religion, although other canons such as magical truths may be used in fantasy stories. The Gnomic Code is a cultural code that particularly refers to sayings, proverbs, clichés and other common meaning-giving word sets.

Applying Theory; comparing video's

Bitter Sweet Symphony - The Verve 

The Verve ~ Bittersweet Symphony

InspiringCreation.com | MySpace Music Videos

This music video is overly classic because of the simple idea of the singer walking down a street. The use of camera angles also make it simple, to make it a classic. The band want to show off  their attitude towards life and this music video gets the point across successfully. Richard Ashcroft, the main singer of the band, is just walking down a long road and he is not moving for anyone passing by . The shots are so sharp and blunt, as well as the mis-en-scene and costumes (all in black; skinny jeans and black leather jacket). This is showing where the band used to live, how they grew up and what is really going on in life now. At the end of the video the rest of the band joins Richard Ashcroft but he moves out of the way for the band. This shows the audience the rest of his band mates are important to him.

Massive Attack - Unfinished Sympathy 

 

Due to the music video, this song became very famous. The Verve used ideas and conventions from this music video to make their music video even more successful. Similiar to The Verve's video , it is a shot of life in an urban outlet, a run down environment to show the target audience what life has been like for the artist in their past. The setting is the most important aspect in this video because the audience can relate to it and shows the attitude towards life. Also, the camera angles and shots are much like The Verve where they are simple just rotating around the main singer and focusing on the Mis-en-scene.

Fat Les - Vindaloo 

This music video has similarities to The Verve's music video. It has deliberately included the main character, who is a lookalike of Richard Ashcroft. When watching the beginning right through to the end it is clear to myself and the audience the video was a 'copy-cat'. It has a man walking down a long road with him barging into people but not just any people, mostly famous people. The video came across as a mockery to the original video by The Verve. But this video is only apparent and became famous because of the conventions used to the other 2 famous music videos. However, in this video, I feel they have used more camera shots and angles to just show the humorous side of the song and video.

Final Storyboard of Every Scene

When Sammi and I came together with our individual storyboards, we basicly had the same ideas due to the certain effect we wanted to come across in our music video. Outside of my blog, i drew this storyboard, as it is unclear I will translate the meanings of this sketch.


As the beginning of the song is a drumming part, we decided we wanted to use 8 fast flashshots of the rest of the music video. In the first part of the storyboard you can see the first four flashshots, including pictures of the girl (to show she is obviously appearing in the video), the main character Luke smashing a photo frame. This certain flashshot will lead the audience to question why is he smashing a photo frame? This will want the audience to keep on watching. Again the second part of the storyboard is the next four flashshots showing more to the video and of a different location (the woods). The last flashshot has to be a cliffhanger to create tension for the ending of the video. This flashshots will be a tease of what is in the video, using close up camera shots, extreme long shots and medium camera shots. The actual start to the video begins with close ups and medium camera shots of photographs of the two main characters to show their relationship status together. The appearance of the characters hands touching the photo's. Sammi and I didn't want to give too much away at the beginning, because we thought it would ruin the certain effect we wanted to put across. So we carry on the video by then showing the main character's face (who was touching the photo's), using a medium close up to show his emotion, which is angry and upset. The audience will then immediately know the relationship is over and that is what the video will be about. The next scene the second character enters driving past in the car, while Luke storms out the house with anger. Using an over the shoulder camera shot, the boy watches Stephanie drive off in the car. At this point Luke will be standing in the middle of the road. Luke then spooks Stephanie in the next scene by appearing in the road (as he followed her). We decided to use an over the shoulder camera shot again, placed in the back on the car so we will have a full view of the road infront (where Luke will walk out infront of her).

On the second storyboard, we have used an point of view shot from Luke looking at Stephanie getting out the car. As Luke walks out infront of her driving, she stops and gets out. This was connecting to the chase scene into the woods, the tension builds up due to the lyrics at this certain point in the music video. The chase scene starts when the audience is able to see the extreme long shot/tracking shot used focusing on the characters running through the woods/trees in panic (Steph) and anger (Luke). The third section on this storyboard is again a point of view shot from Stephanie. She slows down from running, and rests on a tree gasping for breath. At this point in the video, the audience feel for her terror. The next scene continues from the last, but this time we have used a extreme close up and a front over the shoulder shot showing Luke in the distance warming behind her/catching up. We plan to make Stephanie in focus at this point due to the last scene with her gasping for breath still. To make an effective chase scene we wanted hand held shots when their running. We decided to use both characters for this type of camera shot. The last scene on our storyboard closes the music video leaving a cliffhanger to our video, the audience are unaware of what happens to Stephanie in the end. Again to make a strong ending, we want to use a hand held shot by an surprisingly third character/s, going through the trees and then play in reverse.

Audience Feedback on Ideas

Do you think having a music video set in the woods creates a horror effect?

When seeing people had selected 'yes' on the poll, i asked them why they thought that. These people answered 'the fact the woods is a huge place, quiet, and 'spooky' it will create suspense'. One person answered 'no'. Again i asked their opinion and they thought the fact we were planning to set our film in the woods, but in daylight, that it ruined the horror image of the effect and that it should be set at night. Sammi and I considered this, but we wanted a good filming quality and having a horror scene set in daylight is different to what the audience see's. 

My other poll questions also helped Sammi and I, as our viewers on our blog all prefered rock music, which was our chosen genre. My second poll was what their opinion on the music video's I have analysed was, they all prefered the music video Decode by Paramore. This was an advantage to Sammi and I as we selected that video to be our favourite. We liked the use of camera angles and the fast camera shots of the surroundings. This will help us with our own music video.

Target Audience

Right from the start, when given our coursework title Sammi and I knew we wanted to aim our music video at teenagers, 12 year olds, plus. We both, ourselves enjoy listening to rock music so we decided to use a song sang by Muse, which also fit into a few genres which will attract most teenagers who are interested in listening to alternative rock/electronica. My coursework in year 12 helped me on what i needed to research this year for the same target audience. Having rock imaged characters will relate to the audience and having a famous rock band will attract rock interested teenagers to watch our music video. Our music video is intended to attract students, casual workers, unemployed all over America and Europe. We play to attract this audience by choosing a English band, which are famous world wide. Muse have bin a band for over 12 years, which is an advantage due to the audience we want. As the band will already been heard by the older teenagers, they are already attracted by the certain track.