Introduction

My name is Ysabel Hudson Searle (candidate number 0331) and this is my Media Studies coursework blog, featuring my ongoing work. I am in Group 2, along with Harry Kettenis (0390), Matthew Romo (1660) and Joshua Stevens (0796). This is the link to our live facebook page: Group 2's Facebook Page.
You can use the labels down the side to navigate your way through my blog.
Thank you!

Music Video

Our Music Video:

Group 2 Website

Our Website - Click to enter.



Our Album Digipak

Our Album Digipak
Our Album Digipak

Tuesday 18 November 2014

Shoots

Please feel free to click on any images or videos in the Prezi below:

Shoot schedule

Our shots were as follows:

Location shoots:
Central London 
Harry's House for Narrative 

Studio: 
Silhouette Lipsync
Club 
Rose Lipsync 
Fire Lipsync
Wet Lipsync
Hair Flick
Drummer
Back
Dance Sequence
Ice breaking
For these studio shoots we had to ensure that all the wires were taped down, and that equipment, especially lighting, was handled with extreme care and not allowed to overheat. Particular care must be taken with the ice breaking shoot, in which I have to smash a block of ice with a hammer. All equipment and individuals must be at a safe distance. For this shoot, and any shoot involving water, we had to ensure tarpaulin was laid down so that the water/ice didn't cause a safety hazard. Additionally, we had to ensure that all performers warm up, take regular breaks and stay hydrated on set.

As you can see, many of our shots, including publicity shots, relied on the studio. We are in yellow as group 2, and this was our studio schedule:

Shoot schedule for the Studio

Performance Rehearsals

We were very fortunate that we didn't have many factors that led to time-consuming rehearsals, e.g. a band, group dance sequences etc, and the fact that myself and Harry were in the group and making this video,  meant we were constantly immersing ourselves in what we needed. Having said that, rehearsals were still key.

Silhouette Performance:
This shot, more than anything required rehearsals much like that of a dance sequence. Myself and the other actor, Josh, had to rehearse exactly what movements came when. This was particularly important as Josh was going to be behind a sheet (unable to see me) and I would have my back to him most of the time (unable to see him); but the interaction needed to constantly seem en masse.


We also had difficult movements to perfect, e.g:
  • Moving backwards staying facing the camera, but centrally, to aline with Josh behind,
  • Josh having to move down to the floor and try to move out of frame from there.
The captions on the video below illustrate these:


Fire Performance:
Our first rehearsal - me getting used to the projector
Our first rehearsal was in a classroom, not the studio, and I had to get used to performing in front of the projector. Because of the projector, I found that I didn't know where the camera was clearly, and felt a little disorientated & blinded by the constant flashing light. This wasn't so much of an issue in the static shots, but when the camera moved freely, it became more of a nuisance. Before pretty much every shot I had to do this to check my whereabouts etc.



In addition, I was constantly wary that direction could be thrown at me at any point. The fact that I could see anything behind the projector meant that my group had to shout direction at me whilst I was performing.






Narrative: 
The narrative shots were similarly rehearsed, once we got on set, we spent a lot of time, as we had a whole day, setting up and rehearing the scenes.


          Setting up and Rehearsing the Kitchen Scene

Most of our other Performance rehearsals were done on the day on set, with lots of planning beforehand. The video below is an example of our on set performance rehearsals:

Call Sheets and Shootboards


28-29/11/14
Our first shoot was a location shoot during the half term. On this shoot we intended to get all of our outdoor location shots done, which was around central London. We didn't make a call sheet, nor be to precise with timings on our shoot board, as we weren't sure how long each shot could take due to things out of our control in the environment e.g. the weather, public, transportation etc. However we did leave two whole days to ensure that either way, it would get done.
Shootboard for the 28/29th October
03/11/14
This was our first studio shoot, and we decided to take advantage of this and schedule in all three main performance shoots and concept shots too.
Call Sheet for the 3rd November


Shootboards for the 3rd November

10/11/14
This was our next studio session in which we a more time-generous approach after our first jam-packed shoot, with only one concept and one performance shot to perfect.
Shootboard for the 10th November

11/11/14
This was a more complicated shoot, with various people coming in and out of the studio for our music video. We thought that by having this short burst of all the extra people we needed in one day early on, that our filming process would be made slightly easier. We had various extras coming in to create the club scene, a dancer for our dance sequence, and a concept shot which involved a lot of water being flicked around.
Call Sheet for the 11th November

Shootboard for the 11th November
19/11/14
This shoot in the studio focused on getting the publicity shots, and one more performance shot. 
Shootboard for the 19th November
22/11/14
This shoot in the studio aimed to get the two main performance shots perfected, altering any mistakes made previously.
Shootboard for the 22nd November

24/11/14
This shoot was our last session in the studio, and so we focused on getting any footage we needed, which came in handy as we had to retake the whole club scene with extra footage. We then delegated the rest of the time to publicity shots, as no other retakes were needed.
Call Sheet for the 24th November

Shootboard for 24th November

Kit List

On set with the Canon 5D




Canon 5D feeding to the 50 inch monitor


Cameras:
Canon Legria HFG30
Go Pro
Canon 5D                                                 









Playback:
50 inch Monitor
Studio sounds system
Stereo Jack
MacBook Pro

White Cyclorama




Studio:
White Cyclorama
Sheet stand and sheet


Lighting and Set Design

Lighting is very important in our set ups, as it contributes so heavily to our shots as they are very minimalistic. This is a flat plan for our lighting set ups for each shot:

Silhouette performance:
This was a difficult shot to light, as we wanted to have little light to allow the silhouette behind the performer to be as strong as possible; having said that, we needed the performer to be lit enough on camera. We also wanted there to be shadows on her face, to create a more striking, darker and more contrasted image. When the performer steps back-wards to go into a silhouette herself, we turned off the lights that would usually light her so that she becomes silhouetted too (as you can see in the video below)



Wet performance:
This needed much more concentrated lighting focused on the performers face; and so we had to use many more ground lights and adjust them to light the performers face adequately, but also get the glimmer of the water on the performer. 
Ungraded version of the wet shot
On set for the wet performance shot


Fire Projection performance:
There was no need for lighting as the projection lit the whole shot, any extra lighting would dull the fire projection, which e wanted as vibrant as possible. We did however have to hold and position the projector in close proximity to the performer whilst doing the close up shots, so that we could ensure the face was lit properly.
Fore performance close up 
Josh holding the proctor for the close up



Rose performance:
This was quite a dark shot, with spotlights focused solely on the performer, allowing the background to be very dark, and creating a striking, contrasted image.
The rose performance shot used
Rose performance lighting set up



Spotlight:
This set up was used for all of the concept shots, and was mainly spotlights on the subject (the back & drum shots); with the drums shot, we added a blue filter. With the bak shots, the lighting looked much brighter than it came out on the camera, as you can see from the pictures below. It must be noted that the exposure in the latter picture is very high, and the lighting was slightly darker in reality. However, you can see that the black curtains are lit on the set, but do not appear lit on the camera.
Ungraded shot of the back
Doing the make-up for the shot on set









Silhouette dance:
The silhouetted dance sequence was simple enough to light, as we simply had to light from behind the dancer. This allowed us to get some really good tones of skin, hair and clothing, whilst still keeping a type of silhouette; as you can see below.
The shot used in the video
Dancer on lit set



Club:
This was mainly a focus on colours, getting a club scene with blue and purple tones to appear authentic and recognisable as a club to audiences. This also meant that the lighting would be dim, which made the shot difficult to light at first as we didn't want the shot to be too dark and grainy. Hence, we used the coloured lights to light the scene. There are still shadows on faces, as you can see below, even in the close-ups, but this was acceptable to capture a club shot.
The club scene mid shot
the club scene close-up

Costume, hair, make-up, mise-en-scene.

These are the set ups for for each shot:

Performance:
Roses shot:
We wanted her more urban look to be conveyed here to the audience, and so chose a crop top, jeans, and jacket as costume. We then continued this through her make-up and hair, having it curly and pushed to one side, and a fresh-face make-up look. The shot was generally quite dark with a black background, and we did this to ensure that the roses stand out a lot, as well as her skin.
Beyonce in 'If I Were A Boy'
Wet-look beauty shot;
This was influenced by Beyonce, an R&B singer herself, from her video 'If I were A Boy'. It correlated very well with our 'fire and water' theme that we tried to include within the video, and conformed to the genre, which we found often had reoccurring 'beauty shots' of the female artist's face.
This was done with dewy make-up to make the face look wet, and then actually wetting everywhere but the face (as we didn't want the make-up to run). We had to constantly replenish this 'wet look' by spraying myself (the actor) with water throughout.
We thought it would be best to not how any clothing on the close-up, which sexualises the artist to an extent, which conforms to the genre, but not showing anything but her shoulders puts the focus on her face, and not her body.



Fire projection shot:
We chose a lightly coloured dress, preferably white so that the fire projection would show up well. It was to be a plain tank style dress and we chose curly hair and darker eye make-up for this. In this shot we wanted to show the power of our artist, and so having her with a tight but more casual dress on, her hair wild and make-up which enhances her eyes especially, we thought would do so.


Silhouette shot:
This was our least colourful shot, and we wanted our artist to reflect this, as it is a shot to show how tormented she is by her ex lover, and the darkness that entails. Hence, we decided on a grey and black crop top with a black skirt, and had her hair curly, but pinned back around her face. We chose simplistic makeup for this shot, bringing attention to her eyes, but less so than the other shots, and not shaping them. We originally thought that having our shadow figure with a hood on would make the shot more daunting, but when trying it out we soon realised that this didn't look as good as the figure with the hood down.

Narrative:
Bedroom phone argument; Final leaving argument:

For this we decided on natural curly hair, natural 'around the house' make-up, and her fashion sense to be casual, with styled patterned tops on and jeans or leggings and socks (as she is at home).
For the boyfriend, we wanted an urban but mature look, and so he can be seen wearing jeans and sweatshirts within that style.
We had to ensure that the mise-en-scene connotated a young couple's home, and that suiting our couple. This meant a simplistic but stylish set and props, such as a laptop.


Bedroom 'going out' argument; 
Club:
Here we needed to make the actors look like a young couple going out to a club, and so we decided on shirts, trousers, dresses, and more styled hair and heavier make-up for our female, and all of the above applied to our extras. However for our bedroom argument, only Roza wants to go out to a club, and so the boyfriend must look like he is in casual clothes to stay at home with, hence the plain t-shirt.

Trafalgar Square:
Here we had to ensure they looked like a young couple out in London, and so ensures she had on a coat, ad he had a jacket suiting his character.

Dancer
Concept:

Fire poi:
To make the fire stand out, we decided to shoot in the evening outside, and so the clothing of our performer needed to match this and be dark. However, we liked the idea of getting some shots of her skin, and so decided on her wearing a crop top, which is visible to the audience for a very quick glimpse.


Dancer:
Our dancer needed to add to the urban feel and conform to our genre, and so we chose jeggings (suitable for her to dance in), a 'Public Enemies' crop top and Nike trainers.



Back:
The shot of the back in our video needed to show the writing, and so we started off my putting make-up on the back to perfect blemishes and so on, conforming to a general industry standard for images in music videos. We then used markers to carefully draw and style the words:



This is the overall costume and props list:





Casting

The roles we needed to cast, and those we chose are below:

Roza:
Character profile: The young (21) female PBR&B artist from London.
YsabelActor: Yssy (myself)
We decided that with my acting experience, and experience acting in a music video (the prelim) and therefore ability to lip sync, that this would be a suitable choice. Not only this, but we felt it would be more efficient to keep the roles within the group.






The boyfriend:
Character profile: This is the boyfriend of the artist, of whom she has a turbulent relationship. Whilst he must have chemistry and intimacy with the artist, he must also be able to show the opposite, as in various scenes they must be arguing and show really passionately negative emotions towards each other too.
MeActor: Harry
Wanting to keep it within the group as much as possible, we thought that Harry, whop is in our group would be a good selection. Another male was also put forward who wasn't from our group, but suited the role and had acting experience. The screen tests are shown below. From these we concluded that Harry and Yssy would be a better couple for the role.








Audition videos for the boyfriend can be seen below, we filmed an argument scene, and then a happy couple scene, to see how well the dynamics were for our happy and unhappy scenes.



We also auditioned another candidate for the role of the boyfriend, and the audition videos can be seen below.


However, in comparison to Harry, there wasn't as much natural chemistry and these videos show a lack of comfort, and were generally more awkward.

We also have a few other roles:
Josh StevensonSillhouette:
We originally cast Matt for this, however, Josh was able to rehearse with me a sequence for this shot, and Josh's shadow looked better as he had a bigger build, and so we cast him instead.







Matt

Drummer:
Matt
Back:
Matt