We assessed what equipment was required inorder to create the music video and sought suitable locations to undertake the filming. We also knew that we wouldn't be able to complete the video purely by ourselves. Luckily, I had enlisted the help of some close friends who are keen amateur actors and have access to various essential equipment that would be vital for constructing and editing our video.
Filming the Story
The base line to the song is about the narrator of the story , who is the singer, describing about their own relationship and how they're beginning to struggle coping and they don't know what to do next. I understand that the meaning of the lyrics make this quite a sad song, however, the lyrics are entirely different to the actual music which is extremely happy and enthusiastic. This made Nikil and I come to the conclusion that we should make the music video for this song peaceful and comical.
The major musicians of the song are the singer and a guitarist. We decided that we were going to have a singer and a guitarist in the majority of our music video as they would represent the narrators of the storyline. It would also represent an important convention of music video - continuity.
Now that we had our actors, Nikil and I were to select a location to start shooting our media film. We found our ideal location fairly quickly and we were both pleased. We had decided to film in Werrington, just outside our actor's house on the green. The landscape is mainly grass with a few shrubs and trees dotted about, here and there. This landscape covers up the majority of the surrounding houses within the camera shots.
For our opening scene, we decided to have the singer, Jessica, and the guitarist, Pete, walk into the shot where they would find their microphone and guitar. It is an extreme close-up shot of Jessica's face on the left hand side of the screen. On the right hand side of the screen, we are able to see a mid-shot of Pete picking up his Guitar in Black and White as he appears. Nikil and I decided that shots like this were to occur throughout the music video. This is because you can see how the singer is the main focus of the song, yet, she is backed up by the guitarist in the background. You can see the comical element of the music video when you suddenly see Pete rotating and standing on the chair he was originally seated on. 
The second scene begins to show the storyline of a couple who split up. They are played by Matt and Courtney. In the 1st shot, of this scene, we can see the emotions of Courtney as she gazes through the front window of what is her boyfriend's house, looking for her boyfriend. This shot reflects upon the lyrics of the song :
"...I can see the pain in your eyes."
This camera shot clearly demonstrates these emotions, especially with the grey-scale effect that was added - which I feel added a level of grittiness and sincerity to the shot. This shows that whatever is happening, it is currently in an unhappy time of the relationship.
This is followed by an over shoulder shot of Courtney, closely followed by the camera zooming out. This is when we see Matt, Courtney's partner, return home and enter the room. He clearly isn't happy with her and this is shown through his physical-body language. The original baseline is that Courtney has been cheating on Matt and upon discovering this, Matt is extremely distraught and returns home. We then see Courtney stand up from where she was seated. This conveys the secret message that she is rising from an inferior position and she is trying to reach Matt's level. You can easily notice how the camera is rather unstable. This is due to the fact that I did not use a tripod to aid the camera's stability. I did this on purpose as it mimics the turbulance of the relationship.
Courtney reaches out to him but is quickly rejected by Matt. Courtney realises that there is no sympathy for her and she makes a speedy exit.
The third scene shows a camera shot of me playing a chess game against Matt. This has been sped up to ensure that the audience can understand what is actually happening. This clip was added into the video because it is referred to in the lyrics:
"...I'm trying to make a move just to stay in the game,"
The fourth scene is similar to the 1st camera scene but slightly different in the fact that Pete is now at the front playing his guitar and Jess is in the background singing. We chose this environment for the camera shot as you can see how the screen has carefully been divided by Pete, Jess and a tree.
Throughout the clip, you can notice how Pete sways from side to side. He does this so that he can attract more attention and divert your concentration from the singer.
The fifth scene is of Matt, sitting down and holding a photo of himself with Courtney when they loved each other. The camera is positioned from a high angle pointing downwards. This shows Matt's current emotions and his low self-esteem. He is melancholic and reflecting upon what has happened to their relationship.
With heightened feelings of anger and betrayal, he rips the photograph in two. To avoid confusion of what is happening, there is a split second of when we see Matt about to tear the photograph from another angle. The following scene is then projected between the tear of the photograph as he rips it.
Below is a screen-shotthat show the clip of me fading away and wlaking into a screen of light. We added these two shots as they both refer back to the lyrics:
"...Soon you will disappear
Fading into beautiful light..."
Below is the camera shot which is a flashback that explains the history of the relationship between Matt and Courtney when it was in it's good stage.
We decided to fade this shot from Matt and courtney to Pete and Jess to show how there is a connection between the narrators (Singer and Guitarist) and the actual couple.
One of the shots we chos to use was were you can see Jess singing, but Pete is playing his Guitar whilst sitting in a bush. This was added to enhance the comical side of our music video.
No comments:
Post a Comment