Filming Update: 29th Feb

Today, we filmed more footage up at the castle for our video, we are not entirely sure if we will use this footage but we need to take as much footage as possible so we have a mix of shots and locations. The only problems we have encountered so far is that our main actor wears different clothing on different shots due to the day the footage was shot, we also have many shots which feature snow while others are taken on another day where the snow had melted, this isn't a big problem but we will have to come up with a solution that will hopefully make sure that the audience doesn't notice these changes.

Audience Theory

The Cultural Studies Approach to Audience:

Within the Birmingham Centre of Contemporary Cultural Studies, David Morley researches how the media influences audiences, he encourages researchers to understand the active nature of certain audiences. His approach aims to understand the intended effects of media texts, he has noticed that audiences take different standpoints to values expressed in certain media texts, these are:

1. Preferred (or dominant) reading - the audience recognize the values being offered by the text and accepts them as natural and correct.
2. Negotiated reading - the audience recognize the values in the text as legitimate and accept them in general, but adapt their reading of the text to fit in with their experiences and interest.
3. Oppositional reading - the audience understands the values in the text, but disagrees with them and rejects them

• How might audiences read the values expressed in your video and print work in a preferred, negotiated and oppositional way? - I believe our target audience will recognize our video in a preferred way because of it's views of loneliness, the age of our target audience will relate to this because each of us experiences loneliness at some stage. I think our video could also be recognized in a negoitated way because our target audience could relate to the text and fit it in with their own personal experiences, they could also reognize it's artistic value because the main character is shown as a lonely but incredibly gifted individual and creates imagery from his dreams, many may relate themselves to his artistic talents. Our video could also be recognized in an oppositonal way where the target audience rejects our views of loneliness, in their own opinion our views could be said to be incorrect but then again their views could also be incorrect.

• What are you going to do to encourage the target audience to take a preferred reading? - To encourage our target audience to take a preferred reading to our video we will use an actor of a similar age range to the audience, we will also try to make him seem like a typical student just like themselves. Our video won't feature stereotyped characters that may offend our audience because young people stereotyped into different groups can be quite hurtful towards some people.

• What kind of person might take an oppositional reading? - Seeing our video is targetted at a younger audience some older people may disagree with our views of loneliness, they may understand them but may dislike the way we explained them on screen, this may be the same with some of the younger audience but the video wasn't designed to please everyone, some will like it whereas others may not.

Filming Photographs

Various Photographs of us from the filming, some photos show us to be having alot of fun with the making of the video, we also took a few funny photos of ourselves to show the members of our crew.

Filming Update: 27th Feb

Today we continued filming our video hoping to complete all the footage we need for the editing stage of the project, again we used a mixture of shots of our main actor running, we used long shots, point of view shots and tried to used some over the shoulder shots but were not sure how these will work in our final video.

Filming Update: 20th Feb

 Yesterday we successfully filmed some more footage for our music, we tried to use a mixture of various shots to make the video seem much more professional, we also got a few shots of the landscapes which could prove very useful for when the editing begins. We are trying to stick to our time plan which continues after the 20th feb, and we have said that we were planing on filming today but we do need to finish as soon as possible.

Music Video Risk Assessment

Potential danger	Potential outcomes	Actions to avoid potential outcomes	Further outcomes
Tripping over roots/brambles	Serious injury Cuts/bruising	Film away from thick undergrowth
Risk of tripping over power cables	Electrocution Serious injury	All cables to be kept above ground level and taped down	Sam will be supplying generator if we cannot get battery powered lights
Falling/tripping while filming running sequence	Broken limbs Cuts/bruising Concussion	Film in an open are with few obstructions
Falling from high stonework	Broken bones Concussion Bruising	Sensible foot wear Extreme caution taken Only film on easily accessible areas.
Slipping down banks etc. in the woods	Grazing Bruising Minor cuts	Do not film in wet conditions, this reduces risk of   slippery ground

Outfits

These drawings illustrate our ideas for the costumes in our video, the first is quite dull and colourless to match the style of the video which will also be very depressing and as dark as we can get it. After this it starts to lighten up as the character because much more happier and appreciates what he has, so for this his clothing becomes much more colourful.

Narrative Theories

For our video we needed to look at a few narrative theories that could help us with our video, the first was the Todorov theory...

Todorov's theory says that in the media these days there are five different stages within a music video and in films.

• original equilibrium (normality) - a state of balance where the world is at peace
• disruption - the peace or equilibrium is disturbed, the world has been purged into darkness.
• recognition (of disruption) - the disturbance has been found but getting the balance back will be a difficult task for the heroes.
• attempt to restore (original equilibrium) - they attempt to bring back the balance that once brought them peace.
• new equilibrium - the balance is restored, peace is back once again. 

Another theory we researched was levi Strauss' theory which states that there are opposites that are always in conflict with each other, and the audience immediately recognises which side they should be with.

• Good & bad, in films and music videos these almost always appear
• Rich & Poor, Usually the rich are the more powerful and the poor are the ones affected by the corruption of the rich.
• Eastern & Western Worlds
• Love & Hate

The last theory we looked at was Propp's theory which states that there are a set of characters including the...

• Hero - person on the quest
• Princess - Prize for the hero
• Helper -  helps the hero on his quest
• False hero - somebody who believes they are the hero
• Dispatcher - sends the hero on their quest
• Father - Rewards the hero
• Villain - attempts to stop the hero on his quest
• Donor - provides objects to help the hero on his quest

These sets of characters appear in many franchises of films and in many music videos that have stories, it's very important for the audience to have characters that they may start to care about close to the climax.

Music Video Actor/s

Actor/s:

Our main actor and so far our only actor for the video is Jack Purkis who shall be playing a depressed person who is tired of his repetitive and dull life which is on a never-ending loop of no reward, he wants to find something that gives his life meaning and involves a future. 

Time Management

December 2011:

• In december we started our blogs and needed to start the most basic of tasks to start our analyses and focuses on past music videos, this is very important because it will give us an idea of the pathways we could take to make our music video, obviously the budgets of these videos are much larger but we still have the inspiration to make our video to the best of our ability.

January 2012:

• Finish analyses on music videos and start illustrating ideas for the music videos, storyboards and ideas need to be posted so that our thoughts and ideas are shown. The storyboards will show how our ideas are changing as we think ideas through, we need to think about locations and how to make the story of the video seem obvious to the viewers, we don't want the video to become confusing to the viewer.

February 2012:

• Shooting needs to start and we need to finish off posts that should have been done earlier, the filming is priority so close to the end of the project, we will need to film alot of footage so that many shots are available for when we begin editing.

Location Scouting

• Ludford Bridge: We are quite lucky to have a town so scenic as Ludlow, there are many different places we could film at including the castle, the Teme river and even Mortimer's forest that we are planning to film in because of the many scenes in which the main character runs through the forest, Mortimer's forest and Whitcliffe would be perfect for this. This location is Ludford bridge which we plan on filming close to the beginning of the video where the main character is walking towards the forest, it would also be great to get a shot of him walking across the bridge from the viewpoint where this photo was taken.

• Whitcliffe: Whitcliffe will be perfect for many shots of our main character and even shots of nature around him, this will prove difficult but we have the forest which will be home to many animals, this will definitely help us. At the moment we are also having some interesting weather, so it would be nice to get some camera shots while the snow lasts.

• The River Teme: Another great feature we can film at, the river Teme has some great viewpoints which we could really use to great effect, we can also get some interesting shots filmed here.

Song Lyrics

Sierra Planes - Lyrics:

Light moves off the fallen and on to jungle rain
Light moves off the fallen, calling out my name
But I can't hear the forest begging Cowell for fame
Light moves off the fallen, and on to sierra planes

I want light
I want hope
I want to swing
On my own jungle rope

We want light
And searing heat
Forget your chase and your former place,
We're swimming in the sea

I want light
I want hope
I want to swing
On my own jungle rope

We want light
Around and above
With my jungle rains and sierra planes
Forever being love




SIERRA PLANES EP

Written, performed and produced by George Barnett from March - July 2010.

© George Barnett 2010

Audience Profile

This is my audience profile, this explains the genre which our group want to aim our music video at.

Audience profile

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Animatic Storyboard