Third Day Of Filming For The Music Videos

2nd December 2016

I’m not normally in on Friday, so I getting up early didn’t exactly put me in the best of moods, but I had to put that to one side for the day, I wasn’t going to let it get in the way of filming. Once I arrived at the college at about 10 in the morning, I went to get the green room open so we could get the gear out and ready to film for the day. Since none of the tutors were in for the day we had to rely on the maintenance guys opening the doors and rooms for us, which started to get a little grating on them after a while, but oh well. Once we got all the equipment ready the acting students we needed, Ben and Dylan arrived and we set out to film there scenes. Before we could leave the green room we had to lock it as no one was going to be there for a while, but we couldn’t because we didn’t have any keys for it. Amy came up with the idea to leave Andrew behind to look after it until the maintenance people could lock it, as we were already behind schedule. The rest of us set off for the little path that Logan had picked out for his video, and once we arrived we set up the camera and got right down to it. We filmed the scenes that had both Dylan and Ben in them at the little pathway until Andrew arrived. Once he had arrived we finished filming in this location and set off for the infinity bridge. We filmed a fair bit of footage there too, and finally set off for a small path down by the riverside. We only got a few shots there, but it was all we needed for the video. After we finished this we sent Ben home as he was no longer needed for the days shoots. After this we sent Dylan off to do his own thing and told him he would be needed at a later point in the day for the rest of the filming. At this point we had almost 2 hours to burn in between shoots, so we sat in the classroom and discussed future filming. Amy and myself decided to go to Sainsbury’s to get some food to pass the time, and Amy learned about the ‘meal deal’ you could get. Once we returned to the class we had a little bit of time left before we were needed to film. Once we had to get ready to film the next scene, we departed from the class and set off for the green room to get the equipment back out to be used again. We opened up the classroom we would be filming in and quickly realised that the acting students we were using had been told to go to the green room instead of this class, so I decided to go and wait at the green room for their arrival. Once all but one had arrived, we headed for the class to start filming. It turns out, however, that we needed one extra person to be in the video than was there, so it was up to me to, reluctantly, fill in the blank space. After a few shots had been shot, the final actor arrived, a little late, and we could get the rest of the wide shots that had more people in them. After we had filmed these we sent Johnny away to get his makeup done while we filmed the rest of the close ups on each of the ‘students’. After that was done we let them go, as they were no longer needed. Some chose to stay behind, however, just to keep us company, which was nice. Once Johnny got back from makeup with his clown face on, we finished filming the rest of the shots that had him in them and called it a day. We set the tables back the way they were supposed to be and put the equipment back in the green room just in time for the maintenance guys to lock it up for the night. We pulled the rest of the recorded footage off the SD card and put that away too, and that was the end of the day of filming for us. I think that this day went the best out of them all do far, so its only downhill from here.

Second Day Of Filming For The Music Videos

 29th November 2016

Now, for the general premise of the second day, things went pretty well. We started the day out a little bit later than the first day, getting in at about 8 in the morning to get the cameras ready for the filming, getting the tri-pods and the like ready to be used for the day. During this time the rest of the team arrived along with some of the acting students so we sent them off to the room we would be filming in. We decided to take the table from the small room at the end of the corridor and use it in the video, so we began to bring it down to the classroom we were using. Once we arrived at the room, however, Kelly spotted us attempting to get it in the room and told us we couldn’t use it, so we went all the way back and put it back in the small room. We figured we could just use the tables that were already there and just shift them into the shape of a larger table in the centre of the room. We followed Andrew’s instructions and got the acting students into their positions around the table and began filming. After an hour or 2 we were almost done filming the main parts of the scene, along with some other shots that weren’t on the list but we got them just in case, so we sent 4 of the acting students off to get makeup done for later that day, thanking them for their help. We finished the rest of the shots with Josh in them and sent him off too. We put the tables back in the right places and left to go wait in the classroom for the next part of the day’s shoots to begin. After the lesson with Kelly, our group departed to get the cameras and gear to get ready for the shoot at the Edge Bar. Once we had everything ready to go, we set off for the makeup department to gather the last of the acting students. We had to wait around for a bit so the makeup girl, Becky, could get the last of the makeup done for each of the acting students. Once that was done we set of

f on the cold journey to the Edge Bar. We crossed over the bridge and arrived at the bars main entrance only to find we were locked out. Andrew called the owner of the bar and he came and let us in. once we got in the owner, Mark, showed us around and showed us each different room we could use. He gave us practically full control of the entire bar for the night, or at least until 9, when the bar actually opened. We decided to use the bottom room for the shoot as it had the best lighting available. We set the gear down and figured out the lighting and the sound tech, before we could even start shooting. Once we figured everything out we started to shoot the main bulk of the shots for the scene. We had the music booming and the lights going, it was quite the spectacle. We then started to shoot the shots that had Josh in them. One by one, the acting students went home after we had finished filming their parts, as we didn’t want to keep them there when they weren’t needed. Once we had finished filming all the shots that we needed we put the equipment away and started to head out, but when we went to thank the owner, the topic of filming a promo video for the bar came up in conversation. We agreed to film a short ad for the bar when we had the time, and head off home. Amy and Logan took it upon themselves to take the equipment home with them, as they were the only ones who didn’t need to get the bus or walk home, they were getting a lift. I set off for the bus stand and called it a day.

First Day Of Filming For The Music Videos

28th November 2016

The first day of filming for our music videos began with what should have been a warning sign from the start. I got up at 6 in the morning to get the half 6 bus to arrive at college for around about half 7ish, but instead got to college at around quarter past 7, which was mildly annoying. I started waiting for everyone else in the group to get in, but decided the best course of action would be getting breakfast, so I trudged off to Sainsbury’s to pick up a meal deal. When I got back Andrew was there waiting for everyone else to show up, so we sat and waited. After a while Logan arrived and we set off to get the maintenance guys to open the green room for us so we could get the gear we would need for the days shoot. We got in only to find that the cameras where all gone, turns out the second years still had them from shooting over the weekend. So we couldn’t start preparing until they got in, because we had nothing to prepare. So we sat and waited for them to show. By this point Amy was also here with us, she got stuck in traffic and was held back a little. We started to set up what we could in the conference room and waited eagerly for the guys to get back with the cameras. Amy and I were waiting in the green room to see if they would come there first, while Andrew and Logan were in the classroom printing paperwork needed for the shoot. After a little while the second years arrived for their lesson, cameras in tow. After they got there recorded footage off the SD cards we stole them back to the green room where we began proper preparations for the days shoot. During this time a few of the acting students had showed up and were now sat around waiting for us to finish preparing the room for them to use. We were finally ready to begin filming for Andrews’s music video! But the hard times had only just begun….

One of the acting students didn’t show up until it was too late to be in the video, and didn’t bring the correct clothing required for the scene. Andrew sent him off and we were immediately down an actor, not a good thing. We started filming and got a few shots done before disaster struck once again. And they say lightning never strikes twice. One of the higher ups in the college turned up and started to knock on the door to get our attention, only we were in the middle of filming a shot. As his knocking turned to banging we thought it might be a good thing to see what he wanted. We opened the door and found that the room was already booked out for the principal, not gonna argue with that. So, once again, our plans were scuppered. Andrew decided, as the director, that we should call it a day and try and re-record the footage in a different room, on another day. We sent the acting students off with a smile and decided to begin preparations for the shooting of some scenes from Logan’s music video. We brought Dylan to the little interview room were we had planned to record Logan’s scenes and began re-organizing it to look right for the shoot. We had also brought some of the red-heads from the green room to help with the lighting of the room, and it got incredibly hot in there very quickly. We finished filming the scenes that only had Dylan in them, during which time Beatrice turned up and was ready for her scenes. We rearranged the room to suit our needs and got recording the next scenes. After this we sent Beatrice off to get her clown makeup done and sat around waiting for her to get back. After a rather long time waiting Amy messaged her to find she hadn’t even gone to makeup, so Amy and Andrew went off to ‘escort’ her to makeup to make sure she made it there. Eventually she got back with her clown makeup fully done and we began work on the next scenes that had her in. once we finished these scenes we were finished with the acting students so we sent them home, thanking them for their time as they left.

Once we had finished tidying up the green room and all other rooms used, we took the SD card out of the camera and headed for our classroom to retrieve the footage. And this is where the lightning strikes a third time. Since Logan had the SD card he was the first of us to begin taking the footage off the camera. Andrew decide that it was a good idea to just scrap the footage we took from the morning shoot in the conference room, as we were going to need to do it all again anyway. Logan began to delete the footage from the SD card when Kelly told the whole class that all members of a group needed all recorded footage, regardless of whose video it was for. Fortunately Logan had only deleted it from the SD card and not from his hard drive so we were in the clear, only when he went to go to his hard drive to get the footage and transfer it to us, it was gone. It was gone from the SD card and his hard drive; this day couldn’t go any worse. After a brief talk with someone from the IT department of the college we deduced that it would be best if we gave the SD card to a technician to see if they could drag the deleted footage back from the aether or wherever it was. The next morning Logan and Andrew where already in before I got in. They were in the LRC trying desperately to get the footage on the SD card to work. But it was too little too late, it was corrupt, and there’s no saving that. It was a terrible shame that this footage was lost, as it was some really good stuff. But its ok, every failure or mistake is a learning experience. It might have been a wasted day, but we will learn from this day and use this knowledge in the future.

Writing Brain Training

Five Things You Wish Your Parents Had Never Told You

1. ''Were starting to do Slimming World''. This actually really scared me when I first heard this, because I'm a very fussy eater. The fact that Slimming World uses all kinds of weird ingredients in their food, regardless of how good it actually is, is a very offsetting prospect for me. Things like aubergine, courgette and even mushrooms, which I have a long standing hatred towards, are all things which are either strange, unusual or just plain taste horrible. The texture of theses weird foods and the way they make the plate look wrong is all wrong to me. Now, I'm not gonna knock Slimming World, because it does work, but maybe they could come up with a few newer, nicer recipes for my parents to try, maybe?


2. ''Were moving to Canada''. Now this might not sound like a bad thing to begin with, and it isn't. I would love to live in Canada, it’s a great place, but I think that the only reason they said it is because it was in the wake of just having been there on holiday. We went to Canada to see what it was like, just for a bit of a holiday trip, and really enjoyed it. The problem from moving there comes from the fact that, not only is it a French speaking country some of the time, it would also mean that I would have to make new friends, find new things to do and even change the way I think. Now we never actually moved to Canada, as you can guess, but the threat of a massive life change was very big at the time.


3. ‘’Were going on holiday to America’’. Without me. That’s the important part of this statement, they didn’t take me. They went on this nice, big fortnight long trip to the great US of A and didn’t bother take bring me. Now some people would relish this opportunity to have a free house for a full week, but not me. Mainly because I don’t have any real reason to need a free house. I don’t hold parties or have loads of friends to bring round, so I ended up just being sat on my own most of the time. I would much rather they didn’t tell me where they were going and just disappear for a week. That would have been better than knowing where they were and not being able to go with. But oh well.


4. ‘’Were getting two cats’’. Now again, this might not sound like a massive deal, I for really like cats and so do many other people, but, as it turns out, I am also mildly allergic to cat hair and stuff. So it wasn’t all that great an investment. Now I love both cats right now, they’re great, they can be annoying, but so can I. Maybe that’s why we get on so well, who knows. We have had these cats for a number of years now and the allergies have proven to be very minor, but at this time of year when the cold is about, it only serves to heighten the effect that the cats have on me. It’s not very nice.


5. ‘’Get a job’’. Now again, this isn’t an inherently wrong thing to say, but it was more in what was meant by it that bothered me. This is something that I will stick by to the day I die, and that’s that you should never settle for mediocrity, middle-class average. Why aim low? And this is what they meant, and still mean, when they tell me to get a job. Live the life we do. Get a job. Get a car. Get married, live in an alright house, have kids. Grow old, retire, die. That’s the life they will live and that’s the life they want me to live. Because they think it’s what’s ‘’good’’ for me. It’s what’s best. It is a steady, slow, ultimately boring, life to lead. When they say they want me to get a job they say it because it will get me a nice steady income, somewhere to go if things go wrong, a backup plan, but that’s only if you think things might go wrong. And that’s not the kind of attitude I have.

Writing For Film And TV

Six Word Micro-Fictions

A six word story with the title: Happiness is.....

Happiness is knowing she wont give you up.

A six word story about exercise is.....
Exercise is good for your body.

A six word story, that tells a real story is.....
She ran to escape from him.

A six word story with the title: When I grow up.....
When I grow up the world will know my name.

A six word story with the title: The best thing about this week will be.....
The best thing about this week will be that we can start making progress.

A six word story with the title: A message from someone you have not seen in years.....
A message from someone you have not seen in years is like being given free love.

A six word story with the title: They can take my life, but they can never take my.....
They can take my life, but they can never take my giant bag of hot, cheesy nachos.

A six word story with the title: The perfect Christmas......
The perfect Christmas involves more than just your family.

A six word story with the title: Christmas is.....
Christmas is that sad sense of loneliness again.
Christmas is a commercial. It is not real.
Christmas is the barrage of adverts you get.
Christmas is the biggest night of my life.
Christmas is when I bring people to justice.
Working with Logan to make the prior six word stories more story like.

Happiness is....
Knowing she wont give you up.
''What happens, when things are happy?''

Exercise is....
''Exercise is good for your body''
"At least it made me exercise"
''I walk to college. That's it!''
She ran to escape from Him.

How Does 'Cant Stop This Feeling' Make Me Feel

Justin Timberlake
'Cant Stop This Feeling'

This music video mainly makes me feel alive and happy. The collection of different people dancing and enjoying themselves evokes the feeling of happiness regardless of how you feel at the time. The combination of this and the lively pumped up music really makes for an exciting song. It also puts the film 'Trolls' in my mind because of the synergy within this video. The song was written for this movie and the music video features some of the characters too, on the TV screens in certain shots.

Where I Am So Far

Where I Am So Far

So far my music video production has come to a halt as we have decided to film and edit it after the Christmas break to make it easier for the acting students as this will hopefully have less clashes with timetables. We are going to be filming Andrew and Logan's music video instead. The planning has also come to a halt, but I do still have permission to film in all the places I would like to, so it shouldn't be an issue in leaving it for so long. We are currently in the process of finalizing the planning for these other music videos and will hopefully begin filming them next week, starting Monday. This is as exciting as one would expect it to be, as we are finally going to be able to make some progress. It is also scary, as an entire quarter of the music video rests on my shoulders, as with everyone else involved. personally I am just waiting for the filming to be planned out for my music video so we can begin filming it. So far I have planned out all the different shots I will be getting and I can always add more if they are needed. I know who will be the main actors and who will be the extras in the different scenes. I am in a pretty good spot with the production for my music video aside from it coming to a halt entirely. hopefully it will look as good as I hope it will.

Aldi Christmas Advert

Aldi Christmas Advert 2016

The Amazing Christmas Carrot

I think the Aldi Christmas advert for this year is by far my favourite one of the year, mixing humour with the joy of Christmas and a little bit of product placement on the side. The advert revolves around a little baby carrot as he quests to meet Santa Claus on Christmas eve. His journey takes him across the dinner table covered in what is presumably Aldi's own foods. He starts by trekking across a sea of mashed potatoes acting like glue, then finds himself face to face with his brothers and sisters in one of the more grim shots of the ad, as they are all cooked. He then bumps into a bowl of roasties, knocking a few of them over and running from them, a clear homage to the Indiana jones death boulder trope. He jumps to avoid them and lands on a cheese grater, shaving a little off his back. He walks across a bucket of ice, akin to a frozen wilderness to a little carrot like him, this is coupled with some obvious product placement of the champagne Monsigny. He then bumps into a candle and knocks it into the Christmas pudding, lighting it on fire, as is tradition, for some reason. The fire of the pudding lights his ''hair'' on fire and he runs in panic, jumping from the table and onto the Christmas tree. He wipes the sweat from his brow and collapses onto the plate with Santa's mince pie on, falling sound asleep. He wakes up tied to the front of Santa's sleigh like some sick Mad Max ritual and Santa flies away into the night, off to perform more nefarious carrot kidnappings no doubt. The advert ends with the obligatory Aldi logo and the motto, Everyday Amazing. Also the carrot is called Kevin which is incredibly cute.

All of this is accompanied by a rather humorous narrator reciting a poem about the little carrots journey through the terrors of the dinner table. This adds a sort of light hearted feel to the whole video and makes it a bit more family friendly. I cant help but feel that the advert was sort of pushed in certain creative directions by the need to have some product placement in there. This would normally spell disaster for an advert like this, but it seems to only serve as a way for it to be more relatable, as we all have champagne on Christmas, right? One of the most annoying parts about the whole video is that it is set at night, why is this bad you ask? Well, nobody sets up the whole Christmas dinner the night before do they? And it has been cooked as you can occasionally see steam coming from the foods. But that's probably just me nit-picking a good advert. Who can truly say.

My Music Video So Far

Work Song

I have been working quite hard so far during the pre-production side of making my music video. Most of the planning for my music video is quite near to completion, I have just to meet the acting students for rehearsals yet, and then we should be good to go. I am hoping to meet a lot of different people and really hope that some will be perfect for the roles that I need. Filming will hopefully only take a few days to complete, the rest of the groups videos should be the same too. After that it is just up to editing it to finalise it and then it will be done. I will more than likely be filming the latter parts of my music video first due to the constraints of the church we are filming in. There isn't much makeup needed in my video, but we can send the actors away to get that while we film other parts. The props are easy to come by and so are the costumes. I have made up a short story board for the video, along with a comprehensive shot list and a shot schedule so that nothing is forgotten. I am quite nervous as to running the whole operation on my music video but that only means I will have to try harder to nail it on the first go as we only get one go.

Music Video Roles I Have Been Given

Music Video Roles I Will Have

For my own music video I will be the director. This will require the utmost precision to pull off this video properly. As the originator of the idea for my music video, it is my responsibility to make sure that everything goes off without a hitch and the video ends up looking the way I want it to. It will be my job to make sure that all the crew members and the actors are on set or wherever they are needed, when they are needed. It will also be my job to make sure that everyone is motivated enough do actually dot he work, as it will no doubt be cold on the locations I am shooting at the song I have chosen is slow and sad so they will probably get bored of it quick, so this will need to be addressed and circumvented to keep them up to the task. It will also be my responsibility to make sure that nothing in the church gets damaged and that no one who is there is offended by what we are doing and saying. As the director it is up to me to make sure that everything is shot to the highest quality it can be. It will be a tough task to complete but it is something I am willing to do to better learn how to do this in the future, so I am excited to do this.

On Andrew's music video I am the director of photography. This means that it is my responsibility to make sure that the cameras are in the places Andrew wants them to be. It also means that I can be a little experimental during some of the more weird scenes in his video, allowing for some peculiar shots. This job also entails making sure that everything is recorded properly and as Andrew requests. This is a big responsibility on my shoulders, and is something I cannot mess up, as then there are 2 people going down. I will do everything I can to make sure that Andrews video is recorded and captured just the way he wants it to be, whatever it takes, as this too will be a great way to learn for the future. The cameras are completely in my control during the shoot, so if anything goes wrong it is all on me, which is something that I wont let happen. It is definitely making me nervous, this much pressure, but that also means that is an exciting prospect, and I will do whatever it takes to make it perfect.

You're Beautiful Part 2

You’re Beautiful Part 2

Eminem – Without Me

Written By Aaron

The music video for ‘Without Me’ and the lyrics really capture the persona of Eminem, lively, funny, comedic, fast and memorable. We all remember that backing track and that silly costume that he wears throughout. Directed by Joseph Kahn and written by Eminem, it is quite possibly one of the top three most memorable music videos made with Eminem. It features on the albums ‘The Eminem Show’ and ‘Curtain Call’. It primarily falls into the hip-hop, although it is more comedy hip-hop than impactful hip-hop. It features fast lyrics and flashy visuals, which are common in hip-hop videos. It features all different kinds of performance based visuals with Eminem and Dr Dre as the main characters. It tells the story of a superhero, Dr Dre, and his sidekick, Eminem, as they are alerted to a child who has purchased an explicit Eminem album and must track him down to stop him from listening to it. Alongside this there are shots of different scenes featuring Eminem and Dr Dre as different characters, in an almost parody sense.

There are a lot of different points throughout the video in which the lyrics and visuals align. Right at the very start, in one of the more memorable verses, the lyric ‘two trailer park girls go round the outside’ we can see Eminem waking up alongside two women, presumably the trailer park girls. Immediately after this, during the lyric ‘Shady’s back, tell a friend’, we see various colourful characters telling one another that Slim Shady has returned, perfectly personifying the lyrics. A major point of the relationship between lyrics and visuals throughout the song is that the main story of the song will cut away to some form of parody or joke, which will usually emphasise the lyrics. When we hear the lyric ‘when I get shocked at the hospital by the doctor when I’m not cooperating’ we see Eminem in a hospital gown literally getting shocked by defibrillators. This happens a lot throughout the video, where the lyrics are visualised literally through video.

There isn’t really much of a relationship between the music and the visuals, as this is a hip-hop song with a comedy video, so the camera doesn’t really cut to the beat. The video does however cut to the lyrics, but not to the beat. There are certain points throughout that the music is personified in the visuals through dancing. Near the end when Eminem and Dr Dre are driving, we see them bobbing their heads in time with the music. The main reason there isn’t much of a relationship between the music and visuals is that the only actual music is the backing track. Most of the reason people listen to hip-hop is the singer, so there isn’t much point making an incredible song, as it will be drowned out by the singer.

There are lots of close ups of the artist, as this is a hip-hop song, and they are quite necessary to sell the image of the artist. The record label was probably mainly looking to sell the music video on its flash and memorable visuals; however it could also be on its lyric to visual relationship. The main image of the artist being shown is of different and wildly crazy costumes and sets, this is to sell his crazy and unpredictable persona.  The video is very similar to previous videos by the artist as most of them are crazy and weird. In one song he wears a pair of fake buttocks and sits on a man’s face, so he is well known for being a bit strange, making this video nothing new. This means the video isn’t really a change of pace, the video itself is different to all the others, obviously, but the main theme remains the same, weird and memorable.

The main artist isn’t really on sexual display in the literal sense; it is parodied at certain points throughout the video, but isn’t meant to be a serious thing. At the start, however, the ‘trailer park girls’ are made to look like prostitutes, having just woke up with Eminem in bed.  There are certain points throughout the video, mainly during the shots inside the car, where Eminem will thrust his crotch at the camera, obviously meant to be in an offensive, sexual manner. Right near the end of the song we see Eminem sat, dressed as a terrorist, in a cave. The shot uses a fake news border, ENN instead of CNN, to show it is on a live TV show. There is also a recurring theme of a TV show called ‘True Story’ a Jeremy Kyle style show. These are probably used to reference the fictional ‘Eminem Show’, the name of the album.

The music video very obviously references other forms of media, as stated above, with reality TV and news programmes being just a few. It also references game shows and comic books. Throughout the video, as we cut back to Eminem and Dr Dre, we see comic style banners, exclamations and text boxes, all used to reference the fact that the video is about a superhero, ‘Rap Boy’. During the lyric ‘I know you got a job Ms Cheney, but your husbands heart problem is complicated’ we see Eminem on the set of another fictional TV show, this time about electrocuting people, accompanied by an elderly man with jump cables attached at each nipple, a reference to the heart problem and how electric shots are used to remedy the more severe ones.  This is probably to reference how the media will make a TV show out of about anything these days.

The music video is primarily performance based, showing the artist with close ups and in different costumes throughout. It is also slightly narrative based, in that it tells the story of Eminem or ‘Rap Boy’ coming back from retirement to stop a child from listening to explicit lyrics by Eminem. It could also be construed as a concept based video, as it makes a jab at a lot of different forms of media and even references Eminem’s personal life. The lyric ‘Shady’s back’ could be a reference to how the album was released at a rough time in his life, with him having been in the news for drug related offenses.

In conclusion, this is a very memorable video; some would say it’s even more memorable than the actual lyrics. It touches on a lot of different points in media and the real world, making jokes about TV and even other celebs, alive or dead. It is a performance based hip-hop video that will be around for a while. It is used to sell not only the artist, but the album and the song, and maybe even future albums with its flash visuals which have become a staple of Eminem. It won many awards for best music video and the song won a few Grammys too, all of which just go to show how important a music video is.