Research into Location

Our location will be quite controlled as the shots take place in Cally’s house, Cally’s road, Connor’s garden and Bluewater. This makes the filming easier to control as we can access Cally’s house and road easily and film as much as we need.

First location: Cally’s Spare room.

We used an empty spare room in Cally’s house. We covered the windows with a dark blanket in order to make the room dark with only a torch producing light. This was successful as it created a deep blue tint that corresponds with our blue and orange colour tones that are highlighted in our research. 




This was the room before we altered the lighting. It was too bright and didn't create the correct mood or tone.











This is how we blocked out the light. We then turned the light off and only used a torch as the source of light.

This is Cally sitting in front of Connor to judge how the close she needed to hold the torch to his face. This is how the footage was created.











This was after we had changed the lighting.

Final product compared to our initial research:

These are print screen from  previous lighting research. As you can see the pictures are similar as they have a unique blue tint and are surrounded by darkness with the light only focusing on their face.

Second location: Bathroom

We also used Cally’s bathroom to film the bath scenes, this was chosen as the marble on the walls produce an orange tone when the lighting is controlled with only a lamp shining through the crack of the door.

The images on the left are the ones before the lighting has been controlled, as you can see they are too bright and they lack a suitable tone. The images on the right are shots of the footage once the lighting has been controlled. We put the lighting behind the door and shut the door slightly so that the light was only coming through a very small gap.

Third location: Cally’s Road and the Bridge

Cally’s road was used because there is a bridge that overlooks the cars beneath us. This location was important as it visually represents time passing and life passing him by while he is stuck in his depression and missing life because of his excessive drinking. 



Fourth location: School Corridor

We used our school corridor to film the phone, clock and teddy bear scene. This was a useful location as we could easily control the lighting by asking the teachers permission to turn off the lights. The location was convenient as we could re-film it easily. These scenes were filmed in the corner of the corridor. We borrowed a desk from a classroom, added a blanket, some supplies and a boys school bag which was borrowed from one of the students. We did set up the lights however they were too bright, therefore we used a torch to highlight the mise-en-scene yet keep most of the scene dark. 

This is a photo of how the desk was set up to look like a boys room, this wasn't shown in the video on its own, we created a pan shot that moved across the location and focused in on the phone. The location was important to create the right tone however it wasn’t a main feature.

This is the clock scene; we attached it to the white brick wall as it is visually successful as the hard brick walls highlight confinement. We turned off all of the lights and held a torch on the clock from the left in order to create a shadow on the right. This makes it appear quite sinister as the clock appears 3D ensuring we get the sense of time passing. The white walls and white clock face link to our desired mise-en-scene as our model wears white throughout and Lily wears a white dress in the bath. 


This is the phone scene that was shot in this location, despite you not being able to see the mise-en-scene it still works as the lighting is dark until the phone lights up, this is successful as the reason for his depression, which can have the colour connotation of black, is because of the drink which is what his friend is telling him to do in the text. The mum’s text comes first which highlights there is a problem, the fact the friends text comes through second and removes the mum off the front screen highlights how he will choose alcohol.

Fifth location: Cally’s Garden

This was shot in Cally’s garden on the patio. The brickwork is successful as it has a slight orange tint to it which relates to our colour scheme and previous research for the bath scene. The ash is shown on the floor which adds to the tone and adds a blue colour scheme that matches the lighter and his shoes.

Sixth location: Bluewater Car Park

Originally we wanted to film Lily running down a corridor in Bluewater, however, we were unable to get permission to do this. Therefore, this location changed. We chose the corridors as they were grey brickwork which would have given the tone of isolation and related to the brickwork behind the clock. The walls and barriers are important throughout as it represents our models situation. We decided to still film the running scene but to try it in the car park which ended up working better than we had planned. It was quite dark as it took us a while to get denied permission. The addition of the street lamps and car lights worked well as it became quite sinister and scary.

This is the running scene the car lights behind her work well and the cars and limited lighting creates the correct tone.

The image on the left shows the angle and shot I had from my position. In the image on the right you can see where I was standing and filming from. This change of position and angles worked well as we can edit them together to create an erratic feel to the scene. 

These locations vary as each shot needed to be different to highlight the passing of time despite the state of our model being the same throughout. This is to highlight the depth of his depression and alcohol abuse. The locations vary from dark and light as this highlights the ellipsis of time. The dark lighting reflects his state of mind and the sinister aspect to why Lily doesn't feature in the video throughout. The daylight is used to focus on the bottle and the burning of the photos as dark lighting would have ruined these specific mise-en-scene details.

Comparing our Music Video to our Story Board

These comparisons between our research and our final piece show how we were influenced and how far we used our research to influence our music video. These comparisons will show how successful our planning was as it shows how we stuck to our ideas and used our research to help create and perfect our shots. 

As the song we’re using is quite dark and depressing, we chose to have our model running in the dark down the road. A running scene at the beginning of the story will attract the audience because it makes them want to find out why she is running or what she is running from. To create the sense of fear, we used a car park as the car behind her is possibly the reason to why she is running. We used the models school uniform to highlight her innocence and her young age. However, we need to re-film this scene as the video is quite pixelated and the camera is not steady enough.

When we filmed this scene, we adapted from the drawing and the story board and tried to keep them as similar as possible. The changes we made were instead of using a small glass, we used I wine glass. We decided to use wine as the alcohol as it’s a deep red colour to represent danger and to have the background pure white to keep the focus on the alcohol pouring. We also blurred the filming to make it a point of view shot that would highlight his mental state, his vision is blurred as he is drunk.

In this part of the video we were unsure whether to have our model with his eyes open or closed. When we drew our storyboard we wanted his eyes open then when we went into more detail we decided to have his eyes closed. When it came to filming, we tried both ways and decided having his eyes open looked best.

This shot was used to highlight his depressive state of mind and his reliance on alcohol. We used a bare room as our research proved this was successful as it put the focus on the model. We used l lighting to surround him in to set the correct mood. We used his arms, hands and head to portray our message, similar to our research as this gesture is used to show the actor is thinking and distressed about what is on his mind. 

In our original plan, we wanted to get an old fashioned clock and video it changing time. However, when it came to the actual filming we found it too difficult to find a clock like the one in our detailed storyboard. Therefore, we went back to the storyboard we draw and found a clock similar to that.

We decided to have this shot to show that she is always on his mind. The fact she is blurring in and out of focus is because he is drunk while thinking about her which highlights the fact that she is his reason for drinking. The other reason we chose to blur her was to illustrate the fact she could be dead as the image of her is blurring like a memory as she is no longer alive this links to the first scene when she runs away from the car. 

This bath scene was chosen as it would highlight the sense of danger and panic as both Connor and Lily would come up from the bath quickly and grab the side of the bath. These actions are stereotypical of panic and fear as they feature in films and videos a lot. Therefore, these types of shots fit with our message and tone of our music video. 

We decided that this shot of Connor will be the same shot with Lily. We chose to alternate between them both in the bath to show how they are both connected and that both of them are going through a hard time. This was decided because we wanted to show that Lily is the reason Connor is depressed.

This shot of alcohol is crucial as it is a noticeable feature of our video and our message. The shot of it rolling on the floor is successful as it shows the alcohol moving and creates a successful visual effect. This will be repeated in our video as it is to show how often Connor is drinking. The fact it is rolling on the floor could be because he is so drunk he has passed out and dropped it.

This shot was important as it included two text messages that showed the audience there was something to worry about as his mum texts him but this is replaced with a text from his friend about a party. This shot highlights how drink is becoming his life and that it is a danger as his mum is clearly worried.

This shot was chosen in the middle of our planning as we needed something that linked to his childhood as the lyrics hint that alcohol was part of his life growing up. Our original plan was to have two children holding the teddy; however, this was difficult to film.

This is an important shot as it visually shows our model drinking which is the most important message of this video. This shot was successful as the dark room represents his dark mood and depression and the spot light represents the fact this abuse is the most important part of him now as he relies on alcohol.

This shot of the bottle smashing was something we really wanted to film as it represents visually his destructive behaviour. We struggled to film this as the shot was so quick however once it was slowed down and put into the video it worked well however the quality wasn’t as good as we had hoped yet the message is clear and the footage is still understandable for the audience.

Changing our Ancillary Task

Poster Research

The aim of an album poster is to promote the album as much as possible to get the audience to buy the album. For this to happen, an album poster has to attract the audience’s attention to buy the album. To promote the album well, the poster has to give off the same image and tone as the album or music video. In our case, our poster has to give off a depressing tone due to our song involving alcoholism and a sense of mystery which is largely linked to our video as there is a mysterious girl in it. The pictures above some already existing album posters that have a similar look to how we want our poster to look like as they are from a similar genre.

Final Production of the Back if the CD Cover

The pictures above show the original idea we had for the back of our cd. The picture on the left is where we got our inspiration from and the picture on the right is the drawing of our design. We wanted to use a rose or roses to symbolise death as they are commonly used for funerals. We decided to make the roses gold to signify wealth which is what most hip hop artists do. The gold rose will be put on a black background to keep the colour scheme to a minimum. However, after more research, as a group we decided that we would alter our original idea by adding a wine bottle with one rose. This is because it then links to our video as it involves alcoholism and it would attract our target audience more.

















This is the final design of the background for the back of the cd case. Instead of having just a plain black background, I decided to have black roses which represent death and depression. Then I created the bottle with the rose and placed it in the correct position.

The songs we chose to feature on our album:

Swimming Pools
Poetic Justice
Art of Peer Pressure
Wicked Games
Monster
Survival
Devil May Cry
Echoes of Silence
Disturbia
The Party after the Party.

The reason we chose to name the songs these is because after a lot of research into artists of the same genre, we chose what songs would suit our album the best. Most of the songs have some sense of sorrow in them and a lot of them link to our video. The song ‘Peer Pressure’ links to the alcoholism part of the video and that could be one of the reason he is drinking. ‘Monster’ links to the depression and alcohol abuse. ‘Survival’ links to the mental and physical state of Connor and the use of Lily. ‘Echos of silence’ links to Lily’s role in the video, creates a sense of mystery to the album. ‘The Party after the Party’ links to the affects the alcohol and partying has on his body.



ADDITIONAL FEATURES ADDED TO THE BACK

The Barcode:

This is the barcode I used. To make this more unique, I changed the numbers at the bottom to make it my own. To do this I used the clone stamp. I then placed it at the bottom between the singles and the bottle as that was the best place to put it.

The copyright information:

I chose to research real information about Kendrick Lamar from his album to make the cd case look more realistic. From this we were able to get the real names of the executive producers and the right information about the record labels.

The producer’s information:

To get the correct information about the producers, I looked it up on the internet. Keeping the colour scheme black and gold enabled me to make the writing small but still clear enough for the audience to see it.


The record label signs:

To make our case as realistic as possible, we thought it would be best to use the real record label logo that Kendrick Lamar uses. These record labels include Aftermath Entertainment, Interscope Records and Top Dawg Entertainment.

The dotted lines to add the writing to:



After looking at Rihanna’s cd back, she had dotted lines to see where the spine of the cd will be.

First I added the title of the album using the same font used throughout the whole cd. Then I added that artists name and the record label ‘Top Dawg’ and a registration number. This all makes the case look more realistic.

Filming of the Bottle

We filmed a bottle rolling which will be a repetitive shot will throughout the video to show how alcohol is the main focus. This footage will be used in the bridge as it repeats throughout the song therefore this shot was important as it needed to reflect the message and the correct tone.

This angle was unsuccessful as we tried filming it from above. However it worked better when we put the camera on the floor at the same level as the alcohol as it made it look more professional and had the bottle rolling towards the camera which looked better.

This is the bottle at a different angle in order to show the label of the bottle to make it clear it is alcohol. This shot is successful as it uses the label and you can see the alcohol moving in the bottle as it rolls. This creates more features within this one shot.

This footage is successful as it rolls past the camera and starts rolling from side to side which make it look better as it creates more of a focus. The angle is successful as we are on the same level as the bottle which makes it the main focus. We prefer this video of the bottle and decided to put this one in out video.

Font Research for our CD Album Title

We did the font research on InDesign, we used the artists name to create an array of fonts. By putting all the fonts together it allows us to compare them all and visually choose which one would fit our album the best. This is also the font we will use for the whole cd, not just the title.

We chose the font Birch STD as it had the serifs we wanted which makes the font assertive and masculine as it becomes quite Gothic. We will use the same font for the album title ‘Troubled’; however, we will use the font on a title that is all capital letters. This will make the font look different yet will increase the serifs which is successful for a title such as 'troubled' as it suits the masculine appearance. As you can see the font is successful as it looks different on the title as it is larger and capital letters therefore the title and artist font link as they are the same but they do not look so alike that it looks silly and repetitive. By making them look different, we stretched out individual letters. This is a successful font as it portrays the perfect tone and message and visually represents the title and tone of our video. This highlights how important research and planning as we had to gather research before we could choose the best font for our CD.