Wednesday 29th September 2010

On Friday, we furthered ideas for our production side of the project and developed a draft narrative for the project. We also sorted out project roles amongst our group. We brainstormed a few ideas for certain camera shots, for example, the ECU (extreme close-up) on the iris of our main character, followed by a slow zoom as the music kicks in, to reveal a house party taking place, and even decided on all of our locations for shooting, for example, the exterior surreal elements of our video will be shot in Bruntwood Park, and the interior will be shot inside someone's living room, for the house party scenes.

Production Treatment : E1 G6

Production Treatment: E1 G6

Duration: 03:43 minutes approximately

Audience: Our music video would appeal to a male audience between the ages of around 18-30, but may also appeal to teenage males between the ages of 13-17.

Resume:

Our song is about the surrealistic elements, such as hallucinations and mirages. Our song is based on this style of inspiration because of the surreal parts of the music. There will be a slower pace area of the video, where the music is just about to kick in with a slow zoom out from our main character’s iris, zooming out slowly to a wider area with people in a house party, taking place in slow motion and then as the music kicks in properly there will be a faster cut-rate of surreal imagery, such as confused characters getting lost in pink forests, with tie-dye style backgrounds, and various lakes in the background in purple colours. When the hallucinations begin. Then as the song eases out again, the main character awakens on the floor of the house party, with all of the other guests also on the floor, sleeping, and there is a slow zoom back into the eye of our main character.

Suggested Elements:

Performance: We will rely heavily rely on the performance of our main character, because their performance may make or break our video, based on how well they do, because of the style of lone-acting that we have chosen to do for the majority of our video.

Costumes: Our costumes are vital to our video based on how much impact they will have on the surreal elements of the music video. For example, our tie-dye t-shirt will enhance the surreal aspects of the video.

Special Effects: Special effects are also going to have a major impact on our music video, because they too will enhance the surreal elements of our music video, such as the crazy colours we will use.

Locations: Location will also be a key aspect of our video, because of the plain empty fields we will use for the surreal elements of the video and the interior house design, we will use for the house party scenes in our video.

Recording Days:

We intend on spending about 2-3 weeks on the production side of our project, to shoot our video and then around 7-8 weeks on the post-production side of it, for the editing and overall polishing of the piece. We will also spend time outside of our lesson time to complete these aspects to the highest standard. During the post-production time we will also complete our CD Covers and Magazine articles for our project.

Budget Estimate:

Our approximated budget for this project will be around £20, to cover props, costumes and travel to our specific locations.

Video Inspiration

Since the start of the course, we have been using Muzu.tv to look for different music videos and use them for ideas and inspiration. The genre we decided on as a group was techno/dance and we looked at videos that would help influence our ideas towards this genre. The first video we decided to use was the original video for the song we were using for our project, which is Out of Space.
The video is notable for strange colour effects which change during the video. We hope to use this as inspiration as the use of strange colours go well with our theme of surrealism, and the "trippy" effect is what we are basing our video on. Another video we wached was the Video for "Everybody in the Place." Another song by the Prodigy, this video is familiar to the out of space video, with its use of strange colours, very fast cut rate, and bizarre/abstract shots. We looked at this video to help us expand our knowledge on Prodigy videos and try to examine the common features.
Continuing with the dance genre, another video we decided to view was Star 69 by Fatboy slim and although the narrative and pace of the song was not what we were hoping to emulate, the video still gave the group a few ideas with its intresetig shot list and this will be valuble to us, when it comes to creating a shot-list.
The final video that we agreed to examine was Swoon by the Chemical Brothers, being a popular dance song, we belived this video would give us plenty of ideas to hopefully use in our video, although the main aspect for this video is plenty of visual effects which would probably not work well for our project. This wasn't useless however because it allowed us to realise that we cannot just fill our video with too many post-production effects as this will damage the quality of the piece.

"Out Of Space"

I'm gonna send him to outer space,
To find another race.
I'm gonna send him to outer space,
To find another race.
...
I'll take your brain to another dimension.
I'll take your brain to another dimension.
I'll take your brain to another dimension.
(hold it!)
Pay close attention

Prodigy - Out Of Space on MUZU

Music Video Analysis

The music video that we are going analyze is Propane Nightmares by Pendulum. We will discuss the technical aspects of the video, along with the narrative and genre aspects. Throughout the video the main shots used are mid-shots and close-ups. Other shots that are incorporated in the video are wide shots, tracking shots, low angle shots, POV shots, panning shots, establishing shots and whip pans.

Pendulum - Propane Nightmares

Technical aspects of the video:

At the beginning of the video the scene is set with establishing shots of a forest. The use of the blurs portray a sense of mystery and the unknown. We also noticed that the tracking shots aren't always perfectly smooth, they all have a subtle unsteadiness. We think thats this technique adds to the overall eeriness of the video and almost makes the audience feel dizzy. There is also use of some low angle shots around the church, which we feel is used as a warning, due to the previous people losing their lives in the narrative. The low angle shot also hints at the church building being superior to the characters in the video. In the church theres also a lot of close-ups of the priest, this show him as a powerful figure in the music video, because he is relevant enough to have a lot of shots based on him. All of the opening shots are all tracking in the same direction, this gives the viewer a sense of continuity, and we thought this was quite an effective technique to use.





This is a low angle shot hinting at the warning from the dead and possibly representing the audience being inferior to those above them.







In the beginning of the video the pace of the editing is quite slow to match the opening pace of the song. As the song begins to get faster in tempo the cut rate speed increases, usually matching the hit of the snare drum. Lip synching isn't that much of a common occurence through-out the video. It is used occasionally during the performance parts of the video and also used quite effectively by the protaganist, the priest, and the music video's protagonist, the man with crutches. The whole video is treated to have a monochromatic/sepia tint to it, to help set the scene of eeriness. The main post production effect is towards the end as the protagonist leaves the church out the window with the stereotypical damsel in distress. As they run into the forest, a thick cloud of souls rise up out of the church to symbolise the people inside who had just taken their own lifes. The costumes used in the video are normal clothes/church-wear, all clothing is also dark and dull colours to help set the scene. The locations used are the forest, the church and at the end of the video, a street in the city.

Narrative / Genre aspects:

The genre of this music video is techno/dance, however the aspects and features of the music video are completely different to a typical techno music video. In the video, the narrative shows a group of people walking through the woods going to a church where there souls are then taking from them. This sort of effect gave us the impression that the genre was quite a dark, possibly gothic and sinister rock video.

The video had an illustrative narrative as it was easy to follow and had a good sense of continuity to it. From the beginning of the music video, it explained to the audience the story behind it. From the beginning to the end it was clear that the main focus was on the male on crutches saving some of the people from being killed. However at the very end of the music video it does involve some disjuncture. This is when there is a shot of the escapees on a street in an urban environment. This is completely seperate to the locations used in the rest of the video and gives the audience a sense of confusion.

There is definitely a performance aspect to this video, because through-out they are acting out as if there going to this run down church for a good reason, however when they get there the main protagonists realise what the priest's intentions are and 'save the day'. The priest and the male in crutches both play crutial roles in the performance aspects as they really grab you into the video as if you were there. A lot of close up shots are used on these characters to show there significance to the plot.

From looking at this music video thoroughly, we have noticed the balance between the narrative and the performance. The performance is very strong and convincing and this really portrays the narrative to the highest standard. The balance has been created well as the two factors of performance and narrative link well with each other without one overpowering the other.

Overall opinion:

As a group we have decided the music video is quite effective. It's effective because every shot and every post-production effect added, helps to convey the mysteriousness and danger of the situation that is brought across in the song's lyrics. The narrative also helps the music video to link in with the song and brings the overall experience of the production to the viewer.

As viewers, we have decided that the production really grabs you into the story of the music video and along the way this makes the audience feel un-easy and disorientated about the narrative.

Initial Planning Meeting (Wednesday 22nd September 2010)

Today, we have gone through a few various different idea's for our music video project. We discussed the type type of genre we will pick. (ie: Dubstep, Rock). In the end we decided to do the dance genre, with our favourable artists being The Prodigy. This being because of the fast pace of their songs, with basic lyrics being implemented.

The idea we are most fond of is the song, Out Of Space, and our music video will be based on the surreal elements of the song. This will include a high tempo narrative, and the inclusion of a weird sub-plot which will establish the emotion that The Prodigy are trying to give off to their audience.

The roles we are going to take for our music video project are going to be shared, as our group agreed that all of us were capable in different aspects of film production. Fortunately, we have members in our group who are skilled in the Graphic and Photography area of the project and members who have over three years of experience in Media Production.