Filming of the Glass Overflowing

Filming of the glass overflowing:

This is the first filming session we did of the glass overflowing. This footage consisted of blackcurrant juice and red food colouring poured into a wine glass to make it look like red wine. We continued pouring it into the glass until it was overflowing to show Connors excessive alcohol abuse. This footage was successful in ways that gave the right message to the audience. Also visually it created a good affect having a red liquid poured into a clear glass in front of a white background. However, in some ways this footage is unsuccessful. This is mainly because you were still able to see the gap in the papers in the background which made the footage lack quality. The reason for why we used paper was because the liquid we used can easily stain clothes and that was the only thing we could think of that wouldn’t be ruined by the liquid that we were able to throw away straight after. We tried to overcome this problem by blurring the footage, however, this then made it difficult for the audience to see the glass and made the footage, again, lack quality.

Re-shooting the glass overflowing:

We then decided that it would be best to re-film this scene due to the lines in the background being too visible. We decided to change the scenery by filming it outside. We changed the glass and the liquid to pour in the glass. The colour of this glass relates to the colour scheme of a lot of our previous footage – a blue and orange tint. We didn't have any red wine so we used white wine. However, this was still successful as you can visually see the bubbles while it is being poured which makes it look authentic. However, the only downfall to this new shot is that you can’t see it overflow clearly as it isn't a dark coloured liquid like the one in our first shoot. Other than that issue I feel it is visually an improvement from our first attempt and, therefore, is using it in our final music video.

Analysis of Kanye West Promotional Poster

This is general research into posters of a similar genre to ours. The analysis of the poster has been made to show how creative the poster is and how it has been produced to create the correct message they want to send to their target audience.

Analysis of Chris Brown Promotional Poster

This is general research into posters of a similar genre to ours. This Chris Brown poster is similar to Kanye West’s poster as they are both artists from the same genre. The colour and vibrancy are very similar. Although our music is from the same genre, we want our poster to be different from this as this poster send off a happy image whereas our video is a dim, depressing video, therefore we need our poster to be similar to this. However, parts of this poster will link to ours as Chris Brown is the main focus of the poster and we want our main model to give to same effect.

Filming of the Text Message

As a group we thought it would be a good idea to use this scene in our video to show the audience that his family is aware if his drinking problem and that they are worried about him. We show this in the video when his mum sends him a text saying that she is worried about him. However, he then receives a text from one of his friends asking him to come out to a party showing that they are unaware of his drinking problem. The fact this text comes in last and replaces the text of the mum shows how the alcohol and partying is his priority and that the reason for some of his alcohol dependency is due to his friends and the depression he is in.

We found it extremely difficult to film this scene as we struggled to focus the camera on the screen due to it being too bright. We also found it difficult to send the messages at the correct time as they would either come through together or there would be a huge gap between the two. The blurring was due to the darkness turning into brightness; however it had to be like this because we wanted the dark room to show depression and then the texts to highlight his alcohol dependency.

After many attempts, we managed to film this scene successfully.

Analysis of Miley Cyrus Bangerz Promotional Poster

This is general research into posters of a similar genre to ours. Similar to the other posters, the colouring of the posters are different to how we would like ours to look like. All of the posters we have analysed are similar as they all have the name of the album they are promoting, but not the name of the artist. This is because the photograph of the artist is so clear so the audience is able to see who the artist is. Also the artist is so well known so there will be no confusion.

Analysis of Rihanna Digipak

     We decided to look at two of Rihanna’s album digipaks as they convey two very different styles, showing a clear transition in her style of music.

     The first digipak with her bright red hair could easily be mistaken for a classical artist with the soft vibe of the pictures, even though there are the brightness within the flowers and hair it is a very soft tone and very feminine, although when she changed her hair colour to red it was seen as a very quirky thing to do, the pack making this centre of attention with the roses being the same colour as her hair and the image of her being very close, linking the lipstick to her hair again.

     Her eyes are closed and this is rare for an artist to do as they usually focus their eyes so that the audience connect, however, it could show that she is feeling the music, creating an emotional connection which then brings the effect of the roses into relevance. Her facial expression and body language on the fold out show emotion maybe hurt which by again using emotion like Kanye did to link with your album intrigues the audience and could entice more sales. 

     The red with the dark skin and the dark green bushes contrast well and allows the bright colour to stand out more, as we are using a dark skinned model we could also focus on using bright colours such as red as this contrasts well, also the title in simple white bold writing 'LOUD' although written subtly suggests she is now speaking out.

     At first, when looking at this digipak it was very classic and subtle, a feminine look, however, when looking at it closely it in fact conveys danger and love and lust, something that people will find intriguing and a direct connection to her genre.

     Rihanna’s latest album Unapologetic does not sugar coat the raw sex appeal that she is going for in the way the Loud album does, she appears nude with writing on her and the black colours give her a sense of danger, the short hair works with the ‘baring all’ look that she has gone for, appealing much more to the hip hop genre. 

Analysis of Kanye West Digipak

     We decided to analyse a digipak by Kanye West as his music fits in with our genre, we used his album 808’s Heartbreak. The digipak is so simple and he has not even needed to use strong branding like Wiz as his name is not on the digipak, showing he is so well known just through the picture you know exactly who it is. The picture of the crushed heart suggest that it will be full of emotion and links to the title ‘heartbreak’ showing that the simple image can convey a lot and you do not need to have too much going on. The pale grey colour keeps it simple and plain and does not distract the audience from the main image of him and the crumpled heart.

     When looking more closely you notice that the crumpled heart is a deflated balloon, keeping Kanye’s childish playful side but subtly, it could also suggest that this heartache stemmed from childhood. The audience can then relate to heartfelt experiences they may have had and makes them feel like they have a connection with Kanye, making them listen to and buy his music.

     Kanye is dressed in a suit, this allows all classes to respect and look up to Kanye West as a role model. However, his more specific target market would be Hip Hop and R ‘n’ B listeners. The multi-coloured rainbow coming from Kanye’s heart suggests he is spilling out his emotions and this again uses the idea that the listener will feel connected to Kanye and persuades people to buy the album as he has not just thrown together an album but has created a heartfelt story almost.

     The structure of the digipak is very conventional with two folds and three squares of card, linking again to the simplicity of it all.

  

     Kanye’s digipak conveys a lot of meaning and this is the idea we are going for on our album as we are having simplistic ideas with a deeper meaning to it, so we will look further into Kanye’s digipak as it is very similar to our idea.

Analysis of Wiz Khalifa Digipak

        Star motifs are used quite a lot throughout this digipak, suggesting that Wiz is not a well-established artist just yet and wants to get his name out there, wants you to know who he is and by placing his name on the front, back and cd hopefully people will not forget it, all three of these pictures being in bright yellow on dark backgrounds it also brings their attention to his name straight away, also with two of them having the image of Wiz Khalifa on them it supports his image with fans immediately being able to associate themselves with him, and people less familiar with him will now know exactly who he is.

   The green smoke around his name and his face on the front cover have connotations of weed and Wiz Khalifa Is well known for not being against this, and being a 'rebel' which can be understood as he talks about it a lot in his lyrics and links in well with the cover of the album ‘rollin papers’ which also has connections with making money as ‘papers’ is a urban term for money used by rappers quite a lot, these are stereotypes that are strongly linked to the rap genre and are a part of the narrative of texts, we have seen the theme of money and drugs appear a lot when researching the hip hop genre and it seems a central idea that they all focus on.

    After looking at Wiz Khalifa’s album digipak I can tell that colours need to be consistent when we are piecing ours together as he keeps the dark background mixed with yellow writing throughout all three pieces, however, I also like the smoke look on the cover, it not only links to the hip hop genre but looks mysterious and dark which is the look we are going to do. Before deciding to use it we will test it by using Photoshop to create this smoky text look.

Research into Album Artwork for our Genre

Created with Padlet

This research gives us an idea into how we can create our ancilliary task as we need an overall idea of what is common within the genre of our music video. We were able to find this by looking at similar artist with similar songs and genre. These chosen albums show how men use themselves as the model, this is important as we were trying to decide whether to feature our model on the album or a prop such as a wine bottle or smoke at the bottom of the Padlet.

There are many differences between the male models and the girl’s album covers. The male models use a darker tone and the girls use more colours which would have been our inspiration if our tone of our music video was different. 

The most important aspect of the album covers are the models. Trey Songz and TheWeekend’s album is similar to the way we want our album to look like as the they ensure that the background is plain to the entire focus is on the model. We want our background to be dark to relate to the tone of our song and the emotionless facial expression we use throughout our video which will feature on the album. The facial expression we want our model to have will be similar to the album T.I Paper Trial as his face is a blank expression just looking in the camera.

TheWeekend’s album cover is the one that relates to our video the most as the girl behind the man relates to our music video as her face isn’t shown which creates mystery, which is the main feature in our video.

Filming the Teddy Bear

We wanted to add the filming of the teddy bear into our video due to the lyrics saying 'Now I done grew up round some people living their life in bottles, Grandaddy had the golden flask.’ We thought it would be a good idea to film a teddy bear as it links to childhood. We wanted to keep it gloomy to keep the tone of the video. It also give the audience an idea that he had a bad childhood.

We filmed the teddy bear in 3 different ways; we had the camera zooming out from the 'B' in the Teddy's stomach. This makes the audience wonder what it is as they slowly learn it’s a teddy bear. This is to show his depression as the camera zooms out to highlight his distance from people and his lack of control as he is relying on alcohol.

We realised that this footage could be unsuccessful as the audience may not understand why the teddy bear is relevant and it would take a while for the footage to show the teddy bear fully which means the audience would be confused until the teddy bear was shown fully at the end of the footage.

We then used a flashing light to represent danger and make the lighting more of a feature which can respond to the tone and illustrate the dangerous tone of the music video. We realised that this may not be the best feature for the video, therefore we changed the speed of the light to make it slower which would be less distracting, as before the flashing was fast, but still create the correct tone and use the lighting as a successful prop and visual effect.

Make Up Research

Click to enlarge.

Filming of Connor Drunk

This is an idea of footage we could use to put in our video. We filmed Connor being drunk running toward lily, acting as if he has a guilty conscience. The fact her back is to the camera highlights that she's not really there and that she is always out of his reach as he walks towards her

This footage was unsuccessful as he didn't look drunk which therefore meant the meaning was lost.

This shot worked better as he looked drunk and depressed as his head is dropped and his arms are by his side, he is swaying and staggering which is successful. When he gets to Lily he tries to grab her which is visibly successful as his body then blocks the shot so they audience can't see that he manages to grab her which makes it look like she isn't really there which is successful. 

Despite the shots looking as we had planned it still isn't successful as it isn't clear in terms of the meaning and the lighting could be a lot darker to work better. Therefore we won't use this shot in our music video as it won't be clear and it will confuse the audience. The lighting doesn't fit with our music video therefore this will be cut from our video.

First Photo Shoot for Ancillary Task

For the first shoot of our model to use for our ancillary task, Becky and Cally set up the lighting with the red and blue gels while I took the photographs. Becky and Cally started by setting up the professional lights while our model changed into the correct clothes. We tested the gels over the lights, however, the colour did not come out as bright as we wanted it to so we decided to put the gels over the camera rather than the lights.

As you can see in the photographs on above, the photo on the left was taken with the red gel over the light and the photo on the right was taken with the gel over the camera. The photo on the right is more like the way we wanted our photo to look. The reason we chose the brighter colour is because we wanted the photos to stand out in our ancillary task. We chose to use a red tint to so create a dangerous tone due to its connotations and the blue is linked to depression and sorrow, therefore we tested out the two colours. The brighter the colour ensured that the audience would be aware the colour is important and it sets the mood. 

We first decided to take some images without any gel to see how they would turn out in case the gels didn’t work and so we would have another image as a backup. We made our model do different poses to make sure we get different pictures from different viewpoints. We made him use his hand and arms to give of a depressing vibe which links to the story of our video. The poses also gives different aspects to the image which attracts the audiences attention.

We then used the blue gel to see how well that would work and we also made our model do similar poses to the last shoot. We asked our model to look toward the floor and to touch his head to give off an impression that relates to the tone of the photo with distressed body language and the blue creates a sense of sorrow. Also his facial expressions play a crucial part in creating the right mood and and giving off the correct message.

Once we put the red gel on, we realised that this was the best gel as it wasn’t as bright as the blue one which gives the right tone, depressing rather than happy. The tone makes it so the picture is different to regular photos as they tint makes it eye-catching which would be good to attract the audience.

However, as a group we decided that the gels overall didn’t work as well as we hoped. This was because the blue tint was too bright which gave off the wrong image, we wanted the image to be depressing and full of sorrow like the video but the blue tint seemed to have made the picture look happy. We did think that the red gel worked better, however they are still too bright which ruined the dangerous mood we wanted.

Smokey Writing Draft

This is a drawing of how we planned our front cover too look like or our poster. For this we planned to have the title in a smokey writing to come off the match. I looked up how to do this and made it myself.









1.

First I created a new document size 600X400px. I then created a new layer called ‘background’ and filled this layer with black.

2.

 I then created a new layer called ‘clouds’. I set my toolbar foreground colour to 49667a and my background colour to 1b2934. I then selected my lasso selection tool and made its feather amount ’30px’. I then created a rough selection around the centre of the canvas.

3. 

 I then went to filter>convert for smart filters. So I am able to select the filter I want. I then when to filter>render>clouds. Due to my selection edge being feathered, my cloud area has a soft edge. I then reduced the layers opacity to 50% to make the clouds more subtle.



4.

I then inserted the text that I wanted by changing the colour and the font to the way I wanted it. I then changed the text layer’s blend mode to ‘overlay’.

5.

I then went back to filter>convert for smart filters. Then to filter>blur>motion blur. I then changed the motion blur settings the angle: 90 and distance 20 pixels. This then started to give it a smoky appearance. I then duplicated the text layer, then reduced the opacity of the duplicate layer to 15% to make it faded.

6.

I then placed the pictures of smoke in on my canvas over the writing where I want the letters to look smoky.

7.

I then played around with the hue and saturation to make the picture brighter. I changed the saturation to -100. This created an underlying smoke layer. I then changed my smoke layer’s blend mode to ‘colour dodge’ and its opacity to 15% to fade it so you can see the word.

Final Draft

Filming the Burning of the Pictures

The Pictures:

There are reasons for why we chose the pictures we chose to burn. We wanted the pictures to be natural as if Connor is the one that took the pictures. We used footage to show Connor’s fixation with Lily and the anger towards her, towards what has happened, or towards what he has done. This shows that his drinking problem and depression is due to Lily. He wants to remove her from his life which removes any evidence of them being together.

The reason for why we chose to use these pictures of lily is because she looks relaxed and comfortable. In one of the photos she’s pulling a funny face which shows that she is relaxed and comfortable in front of the person who is taking the picture, which is Connor. Also, we chose to use this image of Lily as she looks natural and the photo is quite personal as Connor could have taken this while spending time with her. This shows that they have a close relationship. Their relationship is also shown in the picture with Lily and Connor together. The fact that they are both smiling shows how happy they are and the fact that they are close to each other in the picture shows how close their relationship is. The reason we film Connor burning the pictures is to show that he’s trying to remove her from his memories, removing her would mean he wouldn’t have to grieve. The images are all useful when burning as they show a direct link between Lily and Connor and gives an idea that Connor is drinking and depressed due to the loss of Lily, unknown to whether she died or just left him.

The Videos:

This shot is taken over his shoulder which is quite personal as it makes the audience feel like they are connected with Connor and his emotions. When the photo is beginning to burn, the camera then zooms in on the burning photo to clearly show the audience that it is in fact a picture of lily burning, which links to previous footage of lily in the video. This is the only part in the video where Connor and Lily are together, so this give the audience a sense of relief that they are able to start piecing the video together and the relationship between Lily and Connor.

This footage is a different angle as we are at the side of Connor in order for the picture to be the main focus. The shot still zooms in on the photo as it burns and then ends as the photo is completely engulfed in flames. This shot and angle is successful as it ensures we know what the main focus is and we can clearly see this is an intimate photo of Lily that Connor could have taken himself as she is clearly ready to go out and she is smiling to show she was happy. This could be why he is burning the photo as the memory of her being happy could be what makes him more depressed as he is remembering the good times which are what is driving him to alcohol.

This is a different angle from the rest as we are over his other shoulder which makes us see what he is seeing. This makes the audience feel like they are Connor. The photo is still clear which is successful as it is clearly an intimate photo as Lily has no make-up on and is obviously comfortable with the person taking the photo which is hinted at being Connor. Once the photo is burning we see him drop the photo to the floor where remaining ash from the other photos are, this is successful as the way he drops it indicates his despair and depression as he crosses his hands and watches it while it burns. This is quite emotional as he is clearly physically and mentally affected by the memory of Lily.  

Filming Connor on the Bridge

This footage of the cars under the bridge will overlay some of the other footage to show time passing which indicates how Connors drinking is repetitive and dangerous as life is passing him by as evident by the cars moving.

This footage was taken from the other side of the bridge to indicate distance from other people and Connor. We tried many different angles and shots in order to create the best shot. We experimented with the angles to determine which shot worked the best afterwards. This shot was the least successful as the vodka bottle isn't the main focus; the only thing successful about this shot is the cars visibly passing him below him.

This shot is from the back of him, while filming this we then zoomed in on him walking to show that we are tracking him. The footage doesn't work as well as you can see houses and not the cars however this works as it shows he is alone. The shot would work better with his face in it i feel as it would focus on his expression which would create the tone. I feel this shot would work better if the angle included the cars below him and featured the vodka bottle more.

This angle incorporates his face as he is walking towards the camera this is more intimate as the audience see him walking towards us. His facial expression works well as he looks at the cars below him which indicates he is aware that life is passing him by and that he has distanced himself from people.

I filmed this shot by following him with the camera so that the shot moved the same as our model. This tracked our model successfully. I used the angle to include the cars beneath him while focusing in on the bottle in his hand. You can't see his face but his legs, the vodka bottle and the cars is enough focuses which means the facial expression wasn't necessary. This tracking shot was difficult as i had to keep up with him without moving the camera and ruining the angle. I feel it is successful as it incorporates the main features while perfecting a well-known camera shot.

This shot could only be filmed once as we only had one vodka bottle. I set up the camera by guessing where the vodka bottle would land. However, it moved when hitting the floor which means the angle wasn't as good as we had hoped so we thought his footage wouldn’t work. However, when we edited it to speed it up, it turned out to be good footage to use in the video.

Research into other Music Videos by Kendrick Lamar

Poetic Justice Kendrick ft Drake

•   Starts in a dark desolate place, similar to the effect we are going for looks depresed. Dark colours – dark sky, dark roads, and dark cars.
•  People start to appear seeming happy (slightly like our party scene) however, unlike swimming pools the boy is not isolated from the party and is enjoying himself with friends while watching a girl we assume he likes.
• Turns to a shot of him rapping on a podium, like the one in swimming pools, however a much lighter atmosphere he is not hiding his face behind a hood or looking depressed.
•   Back to the scene of everybody enjoying themselves, however something happens that we do not know and in slow motion everybody starts to flee as a warning to something bad happening the dark colours may have been displaying this.
• We then move onto drakes verse first with a close up shot of the phone calling Drake, one quite like what we will portray in our video, apart from it will be from several texts from his mother and friends.
• Drake’s scene is bright he is in white clothing with white bedding and a bright room, away from the rest of the people
•  A shot of someone who has been shot and is lying on the floor, however, we do not know what is going on or what has happened we can use the shots he has used to keep the mystery on this with our enigma Lily as we plan to keep her as a mystery.
• Casual wear of a jumper with a black background and just a headshot of drake rapping, a girl fading in and out as we assume she is who he is rapping about
•  Drake fades out and comes a head on shot of an ambulance then the camera spins around and shows the faces of everybody we had seen earlier having a good time at the party looking sad and depressed, hinting to us that the person that has been shot was shot here
•  Camera moves smoothly across the crowd and zooms into the devastation on their faces and how they are standing/reacting proving to us that the incident did in fact take place here, the place is no longer vibrant but the dark colours are shown with the clothes and the choice of a black and white scene.
•  The words ‘love hurts’ then appears on screen with a black background and we see a downward shot of the boy shot defending his girlfriend/girl he loves as he lays on top of her, suggesting to the audience that he was protecting her.
• The girl and boy are then shown in black clothes against a white wall as he raps, however, it then keeps flicking back to the scene of them both dead, but to end the video there is a rewinding effect used and we see the scenes repeated of the party where they are both smiling together.

Overall, poetic justice is an emotional video which tells a story of a boy very much in love who will die for his girlfriend, as we want to tell a powerful story with our video we can use many of these techniques. It is evident when comparing this to our chosen song by Kendrick Swimming Pools that he uses the same techniques in his videos a lot as many of the shots are the same, especially with both videos being very dark and meaningful. He likes to portray a powerful message and manages to do this well in both videos and we can use both as inspiration.

Kendrick Lamar – Bitch Don’t kill my vibe

•  Very close shots, firstly of church seats and we see a childs head from round the side this show innocence, purity, goodness as both children and religion teach this, it then stays as a close shot but of three men all dressed in white again bright colours showing innocence – completely opposite from the rest of his videos which have started dark and depressed, like ours.
•  Different views of the church, everyone in white, a child praying, but then we go to Kendrick who is at the back of the church away from everybody else, however, still wearing white and the scene is very bright and light
•  For a moment it is dark with a few candles, then we switch to Kendrick in his white outfit still in an open field, the open space could represent being free
•  Back to the church, he leaves from where he was standing alone, walks through the crowd where everything from their clothes to the floor tiles is white and as he approaches the alter we see it is in fact a funeral, the casket being white we assume somebody innocent has died.
•  He leaves, enters a white limo we are seeing the continuity of the colour white playing out, however we are now seeing the grief on peoples faces as we have a close up of a woman crying and he is in the back of the limo looking upset, coffin is placed in the back of a car.
•  It then switches to a shot of him and his friends partying with champagne in the back of the limo, now looking happy, switches to the countryside again I feel this represents his mind as when a meaningful lyric happens we see this shot, when he is thinking about his actions.
•  Baptism in a ‘pool full of liquor’ reference to swimming pools but also maybe religion being corrupt?
•  We then see the funeral commencing in the countryside where he was based alone, everyone again in white – ironic for a funeral as people tend to wear black they are all looking sad once again, but within an instant are all dancing and celebrating as to celebrate life which could be the reason for the white outfits
•  Ends with everybody happy, but then a close up of somebody dropping the white rose then a black screen and the words ‘death to molly’ which wraps the idea of the video up, molly being a drug he wants it to be stopped. The funeral represented the death of the drug and everybody was wearing white as instead of a sad occasion this was a celebration.

Overall, I think that this video contrasts from the other two we have looked at by Kendrick, the light is completely different and he is seen as much happier, even though he is continuing to pursue a dark story he has gone about it in a very different way which came across as intriguing and I often found myself not knowing what was going to happen next.

Ignorance Is Bliss – Kendrick Lamar

 We are tracking someone but with a very low view shot as we are following their feet as they climb over a fence and walk on the grass, they then lean down we see their outfit is all black his face hidden by a hood and he crouches by a grave – once again we know we are in for a story video

•  We then go to a close up of him swigging alcohol through a bottle, the way he is shown with this is very helpful to us as we are using our main model as an alcoholic and this is a shot we were looking into.
•  We are back tracking him from behind again, he continues to swig from the bottle and then climbs back over the fence, away from the grave.
•  The shots are all very close as he is in a car we see the close up of the drivers hand, focusing on a tattoo – could be symbolic? He then picks up a bottle of alcohol and passes it back to Kendrick, we see a shot of just his face and the bottle hitting his lips as he swigs, he then puts the bottle down and hides his face in the hood showing a very depressed state of mind.
•  He stares out the window, the camera jumps to a group of boys that then flee and jumps to Kendrick who is now holding a gun, camera goes to the floor of a bottle smashed as a boy lifts his arms in surrender – the glass dropping is another shot we plan to use and can use this as inspiration on how to show this.
•  Camera is switching between the boy who seems to be who Kendrick wants, the one responsible for the death of his friend and Kendrick, showing their facial expressions, adding to the anticipation of us wondering if he is actually going to shoot him.
•  The camera focuses on Kendrick for a while as we see determination in his face, a focus on his face as though he is fighting for a cause, the shot is fired and quickly the screen goes black with the title ‘ignorance is bliss’ an abrupt ending.

Overall, with this video once again it was a story and Kendrick shows us a different way of portraying a sad story once again, this time it was a lot less about lighting and colours as there was not direct correlation the light outside was a bright summers day and the only darkness was in his clothing, however, the camera was really important in this video it had to make many quick switches and had a lot of work, never staying in the same shot for more than 10- 20seconds. This added much dramatic effect and is something we should consider in our video.

Target Audience