Overcoming obstacles, Final shots and Re doing our first shoot.

We have had to overcome a lot of obstacles and had a lot of difficulty getting some of our shots done. We shot the band shots in a very strong location, the mise-en-scene was perfect, it was an abandoned area that was sheltered by rusted metal. The landscape was overgrown with thorns and grass but the open space let the light come through so the cinematography wasn't ruined. The problem was were this ideal location was. The location was in the middle of a field surrounded by thorns, we had to transport a lot of instruments and amps to the location then move them from the cars to the location by foot. The day we did this was very well spent but it was very time consuming.

After editing what footage we have we are so far happy with the results. We do however have a lot of space to fill with our remaining shots which we haved tried to film on numourous occasions. One of our final shots is where I play guitar and sing the song directly infront of the camera so we have this shot, the band shot and our narrative shots giving a wide variety of footage. The difficulty of filming this is all three of us being available to film at the same time that the photography studio is free because this is the location we have to film it in. The other final shot will bring our narrative to a conclusion. We have our protagonist arguing with his mother and then buy alchohol.

When editing our teacher noted that the shots from our first shoot could be improved, specifically he wanted to see our protagonist get hit by the car which then causes him to fight the driver. We did not show him being hit by the car and were told that we may be marked down for this. If we re-film this shot it could mean re-filming the rest of those shots because the weather may be different.

It seems we're not the only ones...

Metalcore band Asking Alexandria have just released their ep 'Life Gone Wild' the title of the ep comes from Skid Row track '18 and Life' and 'Youth Gone Wild'. The Ep contains covers of both these songs and the artwork is very similar to the orginal Skid Row Album. Although this would be a competative product the artwork shows that people still like the style of 80's album artwork so we know that the album cover research will be useful.

Album Cover Research

Here are the album covers from bands of the era and genre as Skid Row such as Guns n' Roses, Motley Crue, Kiss and Aerosmith.

As this is a product and the aim is to sell this product we have to get the target audience right and sell them something the want, so fans that bought these popular albums should like Skid Row as they are of the same genre so the album artwork should has to be appealing like these.

Skid Row Album Covers

For the package that we are creating, we need to design a CD cover for our song. Our group researched into Current Skid Row album covers to see how they represent themsevles as a band and the style of album cover is very inportant, the artwork, the band logo all connotes a certain genre.

Band Location Shots

Here is a video that Ollie made of our band location. He has filmed this very well as it shows its full potential and use for our music video. The Mise En Scene is bleak, a deserted area where that is clearly not used very much, its rusting infact. This connotes how Ricky out protagonist is represented. The light that gets in from the open space is very strong, it will work well in the cinematography as well can get some good shots with the natural lightning.

Alternative Song Choice

An orignal idea we had which we researched into was Steve Mqueen by The Automatic. We discussed, locations and what our video would revolve around, we came up with a narrative revolving around the title of the song, we had the idea a young man about 18 years old who rode his motorbike to escape the problems of everyday life, the bike as a reference to the Steve Mqueen film 'The Great Escape'. Our opening scene would have been his parents arguing and him overhearing and then leaving, showing his ambition to escape his normal life. We would have also had band shots, like the ones in the music video.

Thing we took from this and put into our final song choice:

Dual Narratives - band shots and a narrative
Narrative choice - The boy does not have a good homelife, he is some what of an outcast
Genre - We always wanted to use a song that had a rock genre as we thought it would make a better video
Audience - The video ideas and rock vibe of both of the songs would have attracted similar audiences

Overall I feel our time planning a video for this song was not wasted as it helped us to develop ideas for our current video

Editing

Here are some examples of how we want our video to look, the video these stills are from is 'Na Na Na' by My Chemical Romance. The shots are dark and dirty, which how we want our video to look, it will make the shots look better and will make the whole video work better as its not a 'happy video'.

Filming Shots Location 2

We filmed our second shoot at Ollies dads workshop, we choose this location as we interpreted the lyrics as Ricky the protagonist being a hard working 18 year who has to do manual labor to make a living. In our shots we wanted to show that he is treated badly by his employer and that he doesn't want to be doing this job. After being mistreated one to often, he walks out.

Similar text - Editing

Here is a sequence from the 2005 film 'Lords Of Dogtown'. I am specifically looking at the editing in the sequence at 5:20 - 7:15. The dark, tinted effect is the kind of look that we want in our music video, we want to show that it is an 80's song and feel this effect would make the video look less modern.

Institution Research

Atlantic Records own the rights to the Skid Row album. After researching the institution, I have found that they sign many different artists of different genres; for example, The Mar-keys who are jazz and 30H!3 who are electropop. Looking at some of the former Atlantic artists, such as AC/DC and Alice Cooper, it is obvious that the label signs some more alternative and rock sounding artists.

Having said that after looking at the information of the album on amazon, Warner Brothers records are listed as the label which made the album. After researching into Warner Bros Records I feel it would a more appropriate label to release our Package on as its current artist list is a lot more rock/alternative than Atlantc, having bands signed such as:

Avenged Sevenfold
My Chemical Romance
Disturbed
Linkin park
Red Hot Chilli Peppers
Fort Minor
Muse

Narrative Filming Shots

We decided it would be an appropriate idea to film our outdoor narrative shots today as we are aware that it becomes darker earlier and means less filming, so we used our time wisely and got some great footage.

Band Location shots

Here are the two contenders for our band shots which will filmed in the next few weeks.

Location 1:



Location 2:

Overcoming Filming Issues

Due to the difficulty of getting all of the members of the band to come to a shoot we have been focusing our attention on finalizing props and location, pictures will be up soon of what we have including costumes and other props. After this week we will be fully prepared to film all of the scenes with our main actor then only have the band shots to worry about.

Copyright - Permission of Band

Here is the email that we sent to Skid Row asking to use their song '18 and Life', we have stated in the email that if we do not recieve a reply that we shall pressume it is a yes and use the song.

Meeting Notes - Week 3 - 15/10/2010

Band

Here is the band we are using in our music video

http://www.myspace.com/thecroft1

Themes and Inspiration

'Jesus Of Suburbia' by Green Day. here is a music video that has similar themes and narrative to our music video such as drinking and arguing with his mother, also some of the shots used are very effective and we will incorporate some of them in our video.

Meeting Notes - Week 2 - 08/10/2010

Schedule For Our Music Video

Meeting Notes - Week 1 - 01/10/2010

Song Lyrics

Here are the lyrics to our chosen song, they strongly influence the narrative of our video.


Ricky was a young boy, he had a heart of stone.
Lived 9 to 5 and worked his fingers to the bone.
Just barely got out of school, came from the edge of town.
Fought like a switchblade so no one could take him down.
He had no money, oooh no good at home.
He walked the streets a soldier and he fought the world alone
And now its

18 and life you got it
18 and life you know
Your crime is time and its
18 and life to go
18 and life you got it
18 and life you know
Your crime is time and its
18 and life to go

Tequila in his heartbeat, his veins burned gasoline.
It kept his motor running but it never kept him clean.
They say he loved adventure, rickys the wild one.
He married trouble and had a courtship with a gun.
Bang bang shoot em up, the party never ends.
You cant think of dying when the bottles your best friend
And now its

18 and life you got it
18 and life you know
Your crime is time and its
18 and life to go
18 and life you got it
18 and life you know
Your crime is time and its
18 and life to go

Accidents will happen they all heard ricky say
He fired his six-shot to the wind that blew a child away.

18 and life you got it
18 and life you know
Your crime is time and its
18 and life to go
18 and life you got it
18 and life you know
Your crime is time and its
18 and life to go

Song Choice '18 and Life' - Skid Row

Our song choice for our music video