Psychological shots of The Clown

The antagonist in our music video is a scary, evil clown that is invented as a part of the protagonist's mind. We will shoot the clown at a scary location from different vantage points, using different types of camera movement to replicate the movement of the protagonist on screen.

There is a dystopian looking bridge in Halifax town centre which would be a great location at night to film the clown. This is because of the grafitti, run down-ness and shadows created by eerie light.

The hospital scenes

The shots in which our protagonist is in bed struggling will take place in a hospital bed. We will use the medical room at our Sixth Form, it will not be obvious that it is in a school though. We will tie down our protagonist with belts, to suggest that he is a harm to himself, to doctors or to other patients. He will also be wearing a classic and very recognisable hospital gown, this is so that the spectator recognises that he is in hospital. The hospital setting is suggestive of illness or in this case mental illness which is a common theme in postmodern texts.

Beacon Hill Filming

I was unable to attend the filming of the Beacon Hill scene as I had an interview on the day.

The rest of the group will write a review of the filming

Performance filming review

We got to the car park where we had planned to film the performance and it was a great location. It was run down, it had graffiti and it looked like a dystopian setting, which was just as we had wanted.

For the performance, we needed:

• A drum kit, provided by me.
• A guitar, provided by Brad Marshall, the person we had cast as lead singer and guitarist.
• A bass guitar, provided by the bass player in Fear The Lizard.
• The camera.
• A tripod.
• A car to travel there.

The filming did not go as well as we would have liked because the car park was not empty as we had anticipated it would be. As we arrived we found the spot we wanted and started to set up the performance area. A few different cars with people came along and just parked up and stared at us doing our filming, this caused us to feel rather uncomfortable and threatened. Unfortunately due to the intimidation, we had to pack up early and finish filming early, leaving with less footage than we would have liked.

Drum Kit preparation

Lots of bands perform nowadays with their own personalised bass drum heads to reflect either the band's name or their logo, here are a few examples.

Arctic Monkeys

The Stone Roses

Kasabian

For our performance we have designed our own bass drum head, we have used Fear The Lizard's logo.

The logo for Fear The Lizard is a simple use of typography including the initials of the band. It is likely that we will be using it in the creation of our digipak.

We re-created the simple symbol using white tape over the top of a black drum head. This is quite effective and it follows the conventions of an indie band's performance and image.

Location & Costume for performance element

Performance

Our performance element to the music video will take place in an abandoned car park, the distopian setting is a postmodern theme, which fits well with the image of the band. The car park will not require a risk assessment as it is not exactly abandoned, it is just often very empty.

The band that we have chosen to create the video for are, unfortunately, not available to do the performance with us. Instead of using the actual members we have selected 3 people to act as the band members and we will control exactly what they wear and how they will appear. 

Guitarist/Singer

Long hair 

Black Vest

Black Jeans

Black Guitar

Bass Guitarist 

Hippie style hoody w. hood up

Baggy Jeans

Dirty shoes

Wooden Bass guitar

Drummer

Black T-shirt

Black Jeans

Black shoes

First Draft Feedback Questionnaire

To work out how our music video was going, we devised a questionnaire and a screening for our target audience. From this we will work out how we can improve our video.

New Plan for music video

After our Target Audience feedback, we decided that there is a number of things we need to change:

•  We decided as a group that in our music video there should be performance as well as a narrative. 
• We also decided that there should be a Parallel narrative to run alongside the main narrative, this is only to be represented by a few shots of our Protagonist struggling in a bed, we are doing this because it is a postmodern technique. 
• We also decided to get rid of one of our planned locations because it was going to add little or nothing to the video, and there won't be enough time for it in there.
•  We've decided to do it speed up the editing of the video to make sure it fits more with the tempo of the song. 
• We have also decided that we will introduce the 'Monster' character will the use of fading two shots together, also suggesting that it is psychological which is anti-authoritarian, another postmodern technique. 

First Draft

Timeline

Storyboards

The first thing I will say about our shooting style is that we are going to be experimental when it comes to the actual filming on location. This is mainly because we do not know what the best shots will be on location. However, we have nailed down quite a few definite shot ideas for each location.

Barkisland Woods

 Beacon Hill

Spring Hall

Protagonist's costume

Our protagonist is going to dressed in dark and plain clothing, this is for a number of reasons:

• It is an 'indie' production and his costume should not be extravagant and fashionable, as from studying conventions of 'indie' music videos, we have learnt that, the characters and bands in the videos have worn plain clothing.
•  The video is meant to look 'creepy' and give the audience a sense of unease, if the character was dressed in bright, colourful clothing, this would only reduce the 'indie' conventions in our music video.

 

Risk assessment

Shooting Schedule

5/11/2012

Location : Barkisland woods/ graveyard
Members : James, Tom and Fergus
Time:12:30 pm - 4pm
Actor : James
Cinematographer and Director : Fergus and Tom
Equipment Responsibility : Tom
Equipment : Camera, Tripod, Camera charger, Costume and Step Ladder

6/11/2012

Location : Medical Room at School
Members : James, Tom and Fergus
Time:12:30 pm - 4pm
Actor : James
Cinematographer and Director : Fergus and Tom
Equipment Responsibility : Tom

Equipment : Camera, Tripod, Camera charger, Costume 

12/11/2012

Location : Beacon Hill and Spring Hall
Members : James, Tom and Fergus
Time : 8am - 4pm
Actor : James
Cinematographer and Director : Fergus and Tom
Equipment Responsibility : Tom
Equipment : Camera, Tripod, Camera charger, Costumeand Step Ladder



 


 

Locations for Jeepers Creepers video

Location 1 - Woods & Graveyard, Barkisland

Location 2 -  Beacon Hill, Halifax

 

Location 3 - Spring Hall Mansion, Halifax

Basic Narrative for Jeepers Creepers video

• The video will start out establishing the location of a wood.
• The protagonist will be established with a series of close up shots.
• The audience will then establish that the protagonist is in distress, with the use of facial expression and a range of different shots.
• The protagonist is being chased by something, that the audience can not see, this will be conveyed with the use of point of view shots of both the protagonist and the thing chasing him.
• The protagonist will run away into a near by grave yard where his distress continues and he is still being chased and eventually falls over and gets attacked.
• The protagonist will wake up on a bench at the top of a hill, realising that when he was being chased he was dreaming, we will use a dream like transition to portray his dream.
• The protagonist realises that whatever was chasing him is still there, but now at a different location.
• He continues to run away from the thing chasing him.
• Again, he is caught and attacked, the attacking will be portrayed with the use of a point of view shot of the attacker getting closer to the protagonist who is in fear.
• Once again the protagonist will wake up from the dream in a more urban environment, where the chase continues.
• Finally when the protagonist is attacked for the third time, he wakes up in a hospital, he is strapped down and with the use of mise-en-scene, the audience will deduce that he is in a mental hospital. 

Genre for our music video

The song we are going to do a promotional music video and a digipak for is by a local band called Fear The Lizard, the song that we have chosen is called Jeepers Creepers. The song is very much an 'indie' song as it is about imagining things, killer clowns, monsters and general 'creepy' things. The music style is very converged; it is a cross between funk music, and rock music and sounds to be heavily influenced by many popular indie bands such as Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Nirvana and Queens of the Stone Age.

Fight Club - Sublminial blips of Tyler Durden

During Fight Club there are instances where a character is flashed into shot for an extremely short period, not everyone notices this, and some people think it's an accident. It gives quite a creepy affect and it is used to represent, mental illness and to introduce a character who will be coming into the film later on. This is a technique that we could be inspired by, as our video is going to be inspired by the horror and psychological thriller genres, this would be good for us to use. Our music video is influenced by psychological thrillers such as Fight Club so we are almost directly referencing the film in our video, using intertextuality which is a common feature in postmodern texts.

Arctic Monkeys - R U Mine?

The video is shot in black and white, which increases the documentary feel to the video. The video involves the band in a car, 'performing', not strictly though as they have no instruments, they are playing 'air drums' and 'air guitar', this adds to the humour of the video and represents the band well. The clothes that the band are wearing are dark and plain, giving them a stylised look, to represent them as cool and individual. At the end of the video there is a performance with instruments but only two of the band are playing, this increases the odd atmosphere of the video, as they are playing in what looks like a car park. The is an almost, dystopian state in the video because the band are playing without instruments and when they are playing instruments, nobody is watching them. This could be used in our music video.

Pendulum - Propane Nightmares

The video starts off in the woods, with a close up shot of a dirty plastic bag, straight away giving a sense of normality and realism, bringing the band 'down to earth'. There are also mid shots out of focus, giving a sense of unease. There is a shot of the sun through the trees, the shot is low angled looking up at the sky. There are also close up shots of objects such as leaves, with the figure of a person out of focus in the background, which is a good technique to use. The performance part of the video is intertwined with the narrative part as the band are playing in the bar in which the narrative is taking place. There are many shots which use a change of focus, focusing on one thing and then another, in the same shot, this is a simple technique which allows to reveal things which aren't clear at first, this almost shocks the audience. There is a section in the video which uses handheld camera and fast cut editing, which creates a sense of urgency as the people in shot are runnign away from something.

Trivium - In Waves

The video has no performance whatsoever, which we may do too. The video is shot in low key lighting and low saturation of colour. There are shots in the dark woods, with high lighting coming through the trees which is a technique we may use. There are sections in the video which use fast cut editing, generally close up shots, which are edited in time with the rhythm of the song. The costumes of the band are plain, dark, clothing which connotes the band to be individual and not extravagant.

Blink-182 - I Miss You

We will take inspiration from this video. It involves both performance and a narrative. The mise en scene uses lots of 'old fashioned' clothing and objects such as spiders, these both create a 'creepy' atmosphere to the video. At the beggining, the video is shot in the woods with excessive lighting, lighting a woman dressed in white, we have intentions to use this technique in our music video. The video has lots of close up shots of people's faces, sometimes through leaves giving the audience the idea that there is something wrong with them. Also, in the performance parts of the video, the band are playing old fashioned instruments, e.g. a double bass rather than a bass guitar, this adds to the whole 'creepy' atmosphere of the video. The video uses special effects, making people seem to appear from nowhere, which is a simple but effective technique to use to create a sense of unease.

Attitude, overview - Thomas De Zengotita

• You can disagree with friends about movie stars, TV shows and even humour. But you can't be friends with someone who loves the latest boy band if you are into Ani DiFranco and Gillian Welch.
• It's no accident that ancient Greeks, linked music and morals to closely, given their interest, it was only natural for them to ask which forms of media was most powerful.
• They drew the line around arts and artifacts whose essential purpose was to communicate through representations of some kind, they found one modality that belonged with communicating arts like writing and painting - yet could not be containes by the representational criterion.
• Music doesn't represent anything else, it's there, humanly crafted, yet given, more like the wind itself than a description of the wind. It moves out of us and into us im-mediately. It blends with emotion, it becomes emotion or passion.
• Music, like the stream, like time, like life itself, will not stand still - it will not last, it cannot last, it is music, it has to end, it is mortal.
• Music takes hold of you on levels of your being that precede intentional articulation, levels of being that contain what you can put into words.
• Words when sustained by the immediacy of music, they represent, they articulate, they fill dumb bodies with meaning.
• A code 'anchored' in music has the power to 'form character', and mediated teenagers understand this, because they are engaged in constructing themselves from the ground up.
• Attitude names what the fundamentals of posture and gesture and rhythm come together to engender - the gestalt of a personality, the form that makes details of expression and deportment into a coherent identity.
• Attitude is the very nexus of music and morals.
• The essential attitude is what the heroes teach because attitude is what the fans crave.
• The great performers of this culture will have to be regarded as the heroes of this age.
• Ask yourself this, if you are under forty: who are your heroes? Who do the kids you know idolise, if anyone?
• Sports, no matter how hyped, avoid virtualisation, entertainment performers who stand for something across their appearances come as close to our culture allows heroic stature, e.g. pop stars (mainly) and movie stars (less so).
• Movie stars are not heroes in the way that pop music stars and athletes are - their land is too distant, too fictional, a realm of dreams.

Lana Del Rey Analysis

These images of Lana Del Rey suggest that she is a vulnerable, yet sexualised young american independant woman. The top image shows her retro 1950s, 1960s fashion with the sunglasses and big hair. The second Image displayed shows her breast being held by a man, her facial expression is gived the impression that she is vulnerable and shy. The 3rd image displayed shows a close up of her infront of an American flag, conoting her American mentality and her stern facial expression makes the viewer believe she is serious. In the next image she is layed on her back with short shorts on looking into the eyes of the viewer, she looks vulnerable yet sexual due to what she is wearing. The next image shows her standing infront of a classic American suburban home, making the viewer believe that she is from that sort of background and not very priveledged. The bottom image shows Lana Del Rey singing at a live performance, her facial expressions shows passion for her singing and performance. All of these images add up to the final image of a very individual woman with integrity and a raw talent and love for music.


Lana Del Rey became a massive internet hit after posting her video single Video Games online in August 2011. The YouTube video was watched worldwide and she gained commercial success at number one in many countries. The main question though, was, Who is Lana Del Rey?

Lana Del Rey - Video Games (2011)  

 

The video displays lots of American symbolism, including the American flag, Hollywood, American teenager. The Video is said to have been directed by Del Rey herself. The video is extremely retro, with shots of old newsreel, the use of retro film cameras to film things going on in the current time. The video itself has no narrative and has a few performance shots of Lana Del Rey actually singing, these shots are filmed infront of a plain white wall, giving the audience the impression that she is a normal person in a normal home. During the video there are shots of a very drunken Hollywood actress, Lana here I believe is mocking Hollywood. The general atmosphere of the music video comes from a 1950s home video, documenting nothing particular important. The song itself is very individual and unlike anything in the UK charts at the time, it has been compared to songs by Nancy Sinatra such as Bang Bang due to the melancholic drone to the lyrics and her voice in particular. Overall, the video and the single was very different to anything in the charts at the time, so there was no surprise that it was a big talking point in the 'blogosphere'.