Filming session 4

In filming session 2 we tried to get shots of the singer outside in a natural environment which would represent her 'home' but found that some of the shots were very over exposed and the environment wasn't as nice as we wanted so we arranged to film by a lake instead to represent this element to the music video. The location was perfect for what we want and we were lucky as we filmed just as the sun was setting so we managed to get some really nice lighting.
At the moment we don't have many shots of the singer actually miming so this was the main focus for this filming session, we also accompanied these shots with a guitar as a guitar is played in the song.  

Filming location 4

In the fourth session we decided that it would be useful to have some lip syncing shots for the performance shots. Our choice of location was in the area of Stonydelph near the lakes (which can be seen on the map). This was done in hopes achieving an effect that this kind of location is what the singer is singing about.







Acting Session 4

These shots were taken at a lake. These were taken at about 4 which was when its started to get dark which gave us a change to get a change from light to dark and got some shots of a sunset over the trees.
In these shots I am lip syncing whilst looking out over the lake.
I also had to hold a guitar to try get the strumming of the beginning of the song.
Other shots had been taken with my lip syncing or looking out over the lake.
These were to get the audience to see the longing in the girl to be free as we have her singing here to show that this is where she wants to be.

Filming session 3

For this filming session we traveled to Birmingham city centre to film the girl in a busy city environment. These shots also contrast to the ones that we took in filming session 2 where we filmed her in more picturesque settings that she associates with her home.  We tried to get a range of shots of her walking through crowds and looking out of the city as though she's wishing to return home.
We spent the day in Birmingham trying to find suitable locations for the music video so we filmed near the bullring where there are crowds of people and we also came across a garden balcony on top of the Birmingham Library where he filmed the girl looking out to the entire city.
We didn't face many issues during this filming session and we thought that many of the shots worked well, but we think we should have been more prepared and planned where we were going to film in more detail so we had a clearer idea of what we were going to do whilst we were there. 

Filming location 3

For the third session of our filming we decided to travel to the city of Birmingham. This is a very busy place, especially in the part where we filmed i.e. the shopping centre. The idea was to get some shots of the ‘actress’ within the busy environment she wants to get way from. The main shots we hoped to get were of her surrounded by crowds of people and looking down at the large buildings from the library building to stress just how busy the city is.





Acting Session 3

These shots were taken in birmingham. The were all of me walking around birmingham, these were to get a new location of a busy city landscape and to show a progression and contrast with the natural shots. The variety of shots were all taken in different locations around birmingham and the last shot we filmed was from a height to show me looking down on the city.
The other shots were of me looking off camera and standing or walking.

Filming session 2

We decided to film flowers, other plants and trees to portray the happiness of the girl whilst at 'home'. This is represented by the bright shots with vibrant flowers and blue skies. The shots of the flowers were hand-held which produces a certain natural atmosphere, it also interlinks with the wind blowing. There are a lot of close ups of the daisies and other flowers which will make the video look “arty”. These close ups also emphasise the beauty of them.  We managed to create a large depth of field with these shots to make the flowers stand out more and we also experimented with blurring our the flowers and then refocusing. This effect is quite interesting and goes well with the atmosphere of the song.

 During this filming session we also tried to get shots of the girl outside in a natural environment which will contrast the the shots of the city that we we will be doing soon. However, we think that some of these shots of the girl are a bit boring and we need a better location, some of the shots also turned out a bit over exposed. 

Filming location 2

This session underwent during our collage time. Behind the building there is a large grassy area (as seen on the map). After some consideration we decided that the persona from the song longs for a life outside the busy city she is confided in. This filming session contrasts quite strongly with all the others as the main focus of it was to shoot some flowers to capture the essence of nature and freedom.







Acting Session 2

We decided to film outside the school grounds as we wanted to get a few naturalistic shots of flowers but we also got a few low angle shots of me from the back on a fence. These shots were to get a more natural, simplistic and calm shots.

Filming session 1

Train station

In this filming session we filmed at Tamworth train station, we got shots of the girl waiting at the train station as though she's making her way 'home', so this location was appropriate. There are a lot of shots of her just waiting, which correlates to the fact that she's been waiting for a long time to return to the place that she calls home.

We filmed all around the station in as many locations to get a range of shots. We started filming in the daylight but found that the shots that we took when it was darker were more effective as we were able to blur the lights but we will use both in the music video to show a passing of time. A lot of these shots were medium close ups and we might need to return to get a wider range of camera angles such as extreme long shots. 

Filming location 1

The first filming session was done at the Tamworth train station. We thought this would be a suitable location for our music video as we interpreted the lyrics as someone trying to find themselves. This developed into an idea that the ‘actor’ in the video should travel around while trying to decide where their ‘home’ may be and what the word means to them.



The first location can be seen on the map above while some of the shots taken during the session are shown below.



Acting Sessions 1

In the film I was performing the protagonist who can be seen in most shots at the train station. We did this as we wanted to portray a journey in the filming which the trains imply. The first shots filmed were of me looking around the train station in the light as it being mid day.
A few shots filmed were of me looking a train as they passed me, me looking at the incoming train sign and some low shots of my arm and body of trains passing. We also did a few shots of me walking upstairs and sitting. We filmed a few low shots of my feet walking.
Being filmed was very interesting but could be quite overwhelming when people walked past and stared. I felt that I was a very good protagonist and singer while filming as I had a very convincing saddened look while it being cold I was also kept myself close enhancing the saddened look.

Experiment 3

These are other example of us experimenting with camera angles and shots.

Keyboard

Guitar

By Emily, Lana and Renya

Experiment 2

In this short clip we tried to experiment with close ups of a piano. In this clip we have made many errors such as; the camera not being tilted enough and the hands are out of focus. Knowing this in our next trial we shall correct these mistakes. We shall try positioning the camera vertically instead of horizontally to avoid cropping out parts of the hands.

By Lana, Emily and Renya.

Experiment 1

We have filmed this short clip to attempt to achieve blurred focus that we will later use in our product to create a romantic atmosphere. We will improve this skill overtime to create a focus pull.

Posted by Emily, Lana and Renya

Task10: production schedule

The production schedule

 

 

Our production schedule was used to give us a clear idea of what we wished to produce as well as allowed us to use our time productively. Although we only used the original storyboard as vague guidance, the planned shots made us much more organized and focused as a group.

Task 10: Production Schedule

Scenes to be filmed	Date and time	Location	Who is required	Equipment	Props and costumes	Role allocation for the scenes
Looking and standing around	November 16:00	Train station	Lana Emily (Filming)	Tri-pod	Casual wear	Lana
Waiting for train	November 16:00	Train staion	Lana Emily(Filming)	Tri-pod	Casual Wear	Lana
Walking Waiting for train	November 16:00	Train station	Lana Emily (Filming)	Tri-pod	Casual wear	Lana
Guitar Writing Lip syncing	November 16:00	Lana’s house	Emily(Filming)	Tri-pod	Causal wear	Lana
Flowers	August/ September	School grounds	Lana Emily(Filming)	NA	Flower	NA
Flowers	August/september	School grounds	Emily (Filming)	Tri-pod	Flower	NA
Lip syncing	November  16:00	Lakes	Lana Emily (Filming)	Tri-pod	Casual wear	Lana
Wallking, and looking around shots	November  All day	Birmingham	Lana Emily(Filming)	Tri-pod	Casual wear (	Lana

Research into Gabrielle Aplin

Research into the chosen artist Gabrielle Aplin

Here is a brief summary about the artist we have chosen and some reasons explaining our choices for the song and casting...

Bio.

Gabrielle Aplin is a 21 year old British singer-songwriter. She started her career in the year 2008 and has since sang singles which gained her mainstream attention (‘Please don’t say you love me’ & ‘The power of love’) and produced an album titled ‘English Rain’ with some very successful tracks such as ‘Panic cord’ and ‘Home’; the latter of which we have decided to produce a music video for.

Attributes

As Gabrielle Aplin is a young, female artist, finding an actress for our music video was extremely easy as we simply had one of the members from our group do the performance. We have chosen Alannah for this role as she has had previous experience with acting (GCSE drama) and she is also keen on singing in real life; this was an advantage as she was able to ding along to the song and make the lip syncing look more believable over simple miming. In addition, both have some similarities in looks and we hoped that Lana’s attributes would make the voice fit her and make the music video more believable for the audience.

Here is a picture of Gabrielle Aplin and our chosen actress Alannah Hill.

 

Song Genres

The songs Aplin sings come under Indie, Pop, Country and Folk music genres. In all of our questionnaires at least one of those genres has come up on top and we thought as a group this was a good reason to cover one of her songs.

Music video style

Aplin’s videos always open with a short clip before the song start. This provides a setting to the usually storyline based narrative shots intertwined with performance shots. We have agreed that although making an intro to the song would be too difficult, we wished to follow this convention and decided we would add a short clip before the song as well. We also agreed that the short clip would be used to display information about the song, as from our surveys it would seem that most of the audience preferred the titles to go at the beginning rather than at the end of a video.

 

Locations for music video

One of our main locations will be at Tamworth train station where we will get shots of the artist waiting for a train. We will also film around Birmingham city centre, mostly in areas around the Bullring and down New street and in Centenary Square.