Wednesday, 29 April 2015
Tuesday, 28 April 2015
Filming Permission
Llamedos
Apple Lane, Westerham
Bromley
Kent
Br8 9WE
Ravens Wood School
Oakley Road
Bromley
BR2 5RN
To whom this may concern,
I am writing to you on behalf of the Laurence&Ben Production team to request your permission to shoot footage on your grounds.
We are in the pre production process of the music video project, assigned to us by the band Muse. We have taken much consideration in location, and we would be extremely grateful if you would allow us to film in your school grounds. We have looked at several different locations and under a unanimous decision, found that your school fits our desires the most. I am writing to you in the hopes that you will see the potential success in this possible partnership, such as free advertisement and countrywide publicity. We require 2 weeks filming time and understand that this may be best done in one of the school holidays, as to not disrupt the education for the students at your school.
Below I have produced the dates that we wish to commence filming;
29th March - 14th April
You may notice that this is within the easter half term and we hope that you will be able to accept our request.
Yours Sincerely, Ben Davis
Monday, 27 April 2015
Friday, 24 April 2015
Top 3 NME Music Videos
Muse - Knights of Cydonia
Knights of Cydonia was filmed over a period of 5 days. 3 spent in Romania, 1 day in London and 1 in Red Rock California. It was edited to be a spaghetti western with post apocalyptic influences. This particular song is a rock genre, so when looking at conventions normally affiliated with rock music it is unusual to see that the Knights of Cydonia music video is very unconventional. Within a rock video you would usually expect to see the band on a darkened stage playing their song and 'rocking out' but in this song, it is set more like a film and after doing some research on the song it actually required a huge budget. The setting of this varies from the wild west to a futuristic bar. Having very strange themes going on throughout, the meaning that Muse tried to convey through the music video is, "To teach people to stand up for themselves and make their own destiny"A particular thing that is interesting with this music video is how the song actually resembles the music video. For example, Matt Bellamy wanted to create a vision with the song, the baseline has a galloping rhythm, resembling somebody riding a horse, and when the song is paired with the video there is a person riding a horse when the baseline is playing.
Outkast - Hey Ya
Hey Ya was released in 2003, placing it firmly in the golden ages of music video production. This fit the conventions of bright colours and flamboyant costume, and also story telling themes. The music video begins with a narrative, setting the scene, this shows how the music video fits the conventions of the time period it was made in. The music video was directed by Bryan Barber and he said it was heavily influenced and to an extent based on The Beatles' landmark appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. This meant that the Mise en Scene used within the music video was heavily influenced by the sixties, the props within the music video are designed like they would be in that period, for example the microphone Andre 3000 sings into is an 'old fashioned' design, also the guitar is a typical sixties shape and model. The reason this music video qualifies as one of my top 3 music videos is probably because of the entertainment value of it. As a whole, it is a very simple music video, just having the band on stage singing with a bit of extra performance on top, but what makes it one of the best is the way each member of the band is the same person and is on the screen at the same time. It is a very clever twist to add onto a simple idea and it really makes it better. There is no specific meaning conveyed through the video, which backs up the fact that it was made purely to entertain.
Pendulum - Salt in the Wounds
Salt in the Wounds was released in 2010, being one of the more recent successful music videos. The genre of music is dub step, therefore the conventions of the music video are to be very abstract and visual, in this case, the video follows that convention. Almost all of the music video is based on insects such as centipedes, cockroaches and spiders. There is no storyline as such, it only appears as though there are these robotic arms growing off of the insects. In terms of technicality there is a theme of red throughout, the background is red and even the insects seem to have a red filter over the top to make them look slightly red. Another theme the music video portrays is electricity, on multiple occasions the background turns into something that resembles a huge circuit board. This is significant because it actually matches the genre of music of dub step, which is a heavily electronic orientated genre. The music video itself is actually more disturbing rather than entertaining, watching it makes the audience cringe, which was the intention of it which is surprising and very original.
Thursday, 23 April 2015
Production Log
Day 1 - Setting Up - We began this day at 9:00am and proceeded to set up the location to our desires, taking advantage of the equipment we had. We planned a production schedule so the next three days would run much smoother than if we hadn't taken the planning seriously. We did our final checks of weather and sunrise/sunset times and left for the day at 16:00pm, earlier than anticipated.
Day 2 - Filming - This is the first day of filming and so naturally we began with the first section of the music video. This was being filmed at Laurence Hisee's house in his bedroom. The actors were given directions and did a very good job at following them, and ensured that we spent minimal time in this location. At 13:00pm we moved on to our next location and began filming the early part of the music video, this being the meeting of Laurence and Ben and then the confrontation with their mortal enemies. We managed to film a total of 45 seconds footage, which is more than what we had planned for. At 18:00pm we left for the day.
Day 3 - Filming - On the second day of filming we arrived at 9:00am, to ensure a full day of filming on location. We began with the sequence where Ben and Laurence realise that the costa virus is spreading and they run across the school to get geared up. This consisted of numerous long shots and wide shots and was fairly easy to get all the footage we needed. The next part of the filming consisted of finding an appropriate place for the first meeting of the Zombie and Ben and Laurence. After a while of searching we found a good location and began filming there. Despite the good location we found that the lighting was not sufficient enough and therefor we had to find a better place. This set us back an hour which was made up by our success the previous day. At 19:00pm we left the school, an hour later than anticipated.
Day 4 - Filming - The final day of filming was one of our most successful, managing to film the fight scene, Laurence's death and then the final scene of Ben's death. We had no production issues and managed to finish shooting the entire thing by 12:00pm. For the rest of the day we cleared up all of the production equipment, props and costumes and got ready to begin editing the video together. We left the location at 15:00pm, an early end of the day before the long post production process.
Day 5 - Editing - On the first day of editing we began by importing and labelling all of the footage onto Final Cut Pro. Ben was in charge of editing, with Laurence as his supervisor. After the footage had finished importing they began sifting through it, finding out which clips they were going to use, marking them with a scene number and then a Y or an N, Y being yes, and N being no. (E.G: S1 Y) This helped them locate the scenes that were being used. They decided to edit in chronological order, beginning with the expositional shot of Ben and Laurence watching telly. They got a rough first edit of the first minute of the music video.
Day 6 - Editing - Today we began at 10am and focused on cleaning up as much of the edit as we could. With the rough edit we knew that everything was already in order and cut to the right places, all we needed to do was add audio and effects that were required. The beginning of the music video was our primary task for the day, and we felt that a more slow, and romantic setting would fit the footage of Ben and Laurence watching television together. So for this we decided to add some slow motion to the shots and use the cross dissolve transition. We were able to complete this part of the video in under an hour to its best potential and then we needed to continue to the actual music video. Throughout the day we edited footage, consulted with the director and made any changes that needed to be made, by 5pm we had the majority of the video edited, with only three more scenes to do, and we decided to stay for another hour to complete the final editing process. We started the exporting/rendering process and left it overnight.
Day 7 - Finalising - This was the last day of production and therefor it was mainly paperwork based, after giving the final version of the music video a watch to make sure it was 100% ok we moved onto the final signing off of the task. After this we closed the set and finished everything we needed to do.
Day 2 - Filming - This is the first day of filming and so naturally we began with the first section of the music video. This was being filmed at Laurence Hisee's house in his bedroom. The actors were given directions and did a very good job at following them, and ensured that we spent minimal time in this location. At 13:00pm we moved on to our next location and began filming the early part of the music video, this being the meeting of Laurence and Ben and then the confrontation with their mortal enemies. We managed to film a total of 45 seconds footage, which is more than what we had planned for. At 18:00pm we left for the day.
Day 3 - Filming - On the second day of filming we arrived at 9:00am, to ensure a full day of filming on location. We began with the sequence where Ben and Laurence realise that the costa virus is spreading and they run across the school to get geared up. This consisted of numerous long shots and wide shots and was fairly easy to get all the footage we needed. The next part of the filming consisted of finding an appropriate place for the first meeting of the Zombie and Ben and Laurence. After a while of searching we found a good location and began filming there. Despite the good location we found that the lighting was not sufficient enough and therefor we had to find a better place. This set us back an hour which was made up by our success the previous day. At 19:00pm we left the school, an hour later than anticipated.
Day 4 - Filming - The final day of filming was one of our most successful, managing to film the fight scene, Laurence's death and then the final scene of Ben's death. We had no production issues and managed to finish shooting the entire thing by 12:00pm. For the rest of the day we cleared up all of the production equipment, props and costumes and got ready to begin editing the video together. We left the location at 15:00pm, an early end of the day before the long post production process.
Day 5 - Editing - On the first day of editing we began by importing and labelling all of the footage onto Final Cut Pro. Ben was in charge of editing, with Laurence as his supervisor. After the footage had finished importing they began sifting through it, finding out which clips they were going to use, marking them with a scene number and then a Y or an N, Y being yes, and N being no. (E.G: S1 Y) This helped them locate the scenes that were being used. They decided to edit in chronological order, beginning with the expositional shot of Ben and Laurence watching telly. They got a rough first edit of the first minute of the music video.
Day 6 - Editing - Today we began at 10am and focused on cleaning up as much of the edit as we could. With the rough edit we knew that everything was already in order and cut to the right places, all we needed to do was add audio and effects that were required. The beginning of the music video was our primary task for the day, and we felt that a more slow, and romantic setting would fit the footage of Ben and Laurence watching television together. So for this we decided to add some slow motion to the shots and use the cross dissolve transition. We were able to complete this part of the video in under an hour to its best potential and then we needed to continue to the actual music video. Throughout the day we edited footage, consulted with the director and made any changes that needed to be made, by 5pm we had the majority of the video edited, with only three more scenes to do, and we decided to stay for another hour to complete the final editing process. We started the exporting/rendering process and left it overnight.
Day 7 - Finalising - This was the last day of production and therefor it was mainly paperwork based, after giving the final version of the music video a watch to make sure it was 100% ok we moved onto the final signing off of the task. After this we closed the set and finished everything we needed to do.
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