Welcome!

Welcome to my A Level Media Blog. My name is Joshua Brooks [0110] and for this project I am working in Group 5 with Vivian Oparah [0621], Sebastian Hodge [0330] and Louis Caldwell [0131]. Under the heading 'Labels' of the left hand side of the page, you are able to filter post from the project's various stages of production. At the bottom of the page is a link to older posts also. Click the link listed below for Group 5's Facebook page, which contains evidence of production work from throughout the project. Thanks for taking the time to read this and I hope you enjoy the rest of my blog!

NTLS Final Music Video


NTLS Final Music Video

NTLS Final Digipak

NTLS Final Digipak
NTLS Final Digipak [Right click to open larger image in new window]

NTLS Final Website

NTLS Final Website
NTLS Final Website [Right click on the image to open the website in a new window]

Twitter

View our Group Twitter page here:

https://twitter.com/NTLSmusic

Facebook

View our Group Facebook group, which we used to administrate the project, here:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1538872199681204/?fref=ts

11 Jun 2014

Prelim Edit - Josh And Yssy



The final edit for the 1975 music video remake for the song 'Girls', completed by myself and Yssy.

A2 Prelim - Josh Gavin Kayon Audition




The audition video for the male parts present in the video 'Girls' by the 1975

The 1975 'Girls' Music Video Remake - My Costume

Describe or list the specific costume/look you are aiming for
The costume of the bassist is fairly simple, consisting of a t-shirt, leather jacket, hooded jumper, skinny jeans, and pumps, all black. Props include a brown bass guitar with a white trim and a black, studded guitar strap.


A sample of my character's costume 


Do you have the items you need or are you planning to beg/borrow? Is there anything that may need to be bought?
I have everything on the checklist, except from the hooded jumper, leather jacket and shoes. These items are fairly easy to get hold of, and I will most likely borrow all of them. I may need to get some black skinny jeans, but luckily I've been meaning to buy some for myself so i'll do that in the near future. I assume that the guitar and strap will be provided. 

The 1975 'Girls' Music Video Remake - My Role

Describe your role, how you feel about it
My role, the bassist for the 'first part' of the video, exist of playing a bass guitar, moving backwards and forwards looking either straight ahead into the distance or down at the guitar. The character is mostly stationary, and bounces using his heels on the spot, or bobs his head to the beat. The character does not look at the camera, and is occasionally seen laughing or smiling at various points in the video.

For the two sets I am in, my costume does not change so it saves me having to find extra costumes and means that the shoot is less hassle.



To make sure I do not repeat the same motion on camera when filming the scenes, I will vary my movements as follows:
  • Bouncing on the heels
  • Rocking back and forth on the spot
  • Nodding of the head to the beat of the song
  • Shuffling of the feet 
  • Tapping of the feet to the rhythm of the music 

Is this a challenge for you, or something within your comfort zone?
I feel that this should not be too challenging, however I will need to work on the performance aspect as to be as similar to that actual video as possible, seeing as this is a shot-for-shot project. 

The 1975 'Girls' Music Video Remake - Personal Achievement

What do you personally want to get out of the whole A2 prelim experience?
I feel that this exercise is an opportunity for me to discover how the industry and process of professional film works. Recently I've been a lot more interested in film and the media as a future career prospect, and I currently do not have any experience of working on a fully functional set film set (although I have worked in photography studios on similar projects). Hopefully this should be a really good way of getting to know how it all works and also to gain some knowledge of this area of media, as again I have no previous experience of it as of now. 


Is it a challenge for you or within your comfort zone?
I know for a fact that it'll be challenging to act in front of a camera in front of a large audience as this is one of my main insecurities (most people who know me will find this surprising I'm sure). However I feel that the process could be really beneficial to me and it should be really fun from what I have heard from people who have worked on similar projects. Other than that I don't feel that the project should be too challenging, as although I haven't worked on a film set before, I know most of the theory behind it and so it shouldn't be too hard to apply. 

Have you achieved/learnt anything so far?
Everything I have learnt so far has been about acting and the process of making a music video specifically. With the crash course in basic drama skills the two classes took part in prior to filming the video, I learnt a lot about how to appear articulate on camera and how acting in front of an audience was. As for the making and editing of the music video, although obvious now, it never occurred to me to sync the footage on separate tracks before editing, so that was new to me. Hopefully I should learn more as we progress with the project. 

[1] Did you enjoy the workshop day? What were your best bits and why?

The workshop day was a lot different to what I expected it to be, and I found that I further enjoyed areas I was already interested in, but also found that the process was dissimilar to anything I had really experienced before. I really enjoyed working on the set and learning new techniques, such as how to focus the image of the DSLR and how to avoid peaking on camera, and I thought the whole atmosphere was really positive. In particular, I felt that actually being in front of the camera was my favourite part, even though this was the part that I was looking least forward to prior to the shoot day. I also liked being part of a functioning film set, and seeing the theory we had been learning about being put into practice. In future I would really enjoy looking to get some more experience on sets similar to these.

A selection of photos from the scenes or areas I enjoyed the most. 




[2] What have you learnt from participating in each of the prelim tasks?

[1] Learning And Practising The Performance
In theory and at the time of filming the auditions independently, this task seemed really easy and straight forward. It took a while to get over the awkwardness of performing into a camera and to learn the lyrics of the song but apart from those minor issues it was a relatively straight forward task. After we were given some criticism about our performances however, I found that it was a lot more complicated than I had anticipated. Lip syncing was the hardest task for me, as although I knew the words to the song, I 'did not articulate on camera enough', meaning it was hard to see what I was saying on camera. Luckily I was castinto a role without lip syncing, although I wouldn't mind giving it another go at a later date or with the next project.


The audition video for the parts included in the music video 'Girls' by The 1975

[2] Help To Plan And Organise Your Costume
When organising the costumes, a lot of communication was involved. All the cast and crew worked really hard to make sure that everyone had what they needed by the required time and that the costumes were as close to the ones in the video as possible. It think that it helped a lot that we were all constantly talking to each other and it made the process a lot easier. I can imagine that I could have been much worse, as items of clothing could have been misplaced, forgotten about or poorly kept but fortunately this did not happen. Ultimately it comes down to communication, which is key in any of the tasks that we completed whilst taking part in the project.

A sample of how the  costumes and characters were broken down in the booklet
[3] The Shoot
The shoot was unsurprisingly the task I most enjoyed out of the four that we completed. It taught me how a professional set functioned and how even simple tasks were sometimes the most important to get correct. I talked to Jack, the camera op, and also Dom, the director, about what sets they had worked on, what problems they most regularly came across and also discussed techniques on how to make the most out of the camera we were using (The Canon 5D mark II). As I had already been taught how to use the sound and lighting box, I didn't spend much time up there, but I did see that lighting a studio for a shoot was a much more relaxed process that doing a live performance, as the were not as many cues to follow, but the lighting process was a lot more precise and arduous.

The set for 'Girls' by The 1975
[4] The Edit
This task was by far the longest to finish for the team I worked in. Even though we managed our time well, we still fell a little behind schedule. On future edits, I believe that completing a rough edit to plan out where the shots go before being picky and precise with the details would be a more sensible and efficient way to edit, as most of my time editing for me was spent being a perfectionist and spending too much time trying to sync up shots exactly. I did learn how different from editing a narrative was however, and also it was my first time editing footage to pre-recorded audio, which was interesting and a fun experience.

A screenshot of the workstation in Adobe Premiere

[3] Are you pleased with the footage and your edit? Is it how you expected it to look?

The edit for our group was surprisingly good and I personally think the final video looks amazing. I was doubting how some shots would look before the shoot, such as the scenes containing the vespa or the shots where the props were noticeably different to the actually ones, such as the 1975 neon sign or the zebra crossing scenes, however they turned out rather well. Some shots were worse than I had expected them to be, and were harder to edit and correct in premiere. Scenes such as the GIRLS sign made of flowers or the shot of Kayvon lip syncing on a yellow background proved the most difficult. With the GIRLS sign, it was the fact that the shot had not been framed or lit correctly, and so was a lot harder to grade in order to make it coincide with the other shots. As for the shots of Kayvon on a yellow background, the director failed to do a full take of the song and so It was incredibly difficult to edit the individual clips, which required watching 15 minutes of footage to find a 2 second snippet. Other than those two incidents, the footage was perfect. My favourite shots include the ones of the band, both female and male, and the poolside scenes with the three girls in the deck chairs, as although some of them are completely different to the original video, they look the nicest.

The Scenes where Kayvon is on a yellow backdrop, which we did not have a complete edit of.
The bike scene (previously the car scene) which I was surprised by.
The 'GIRLS' logo which was quite dissimilar to the original, which proved tough to grade. 
Another bike scene
The scene by the poolside




[4] How do you think your prelim experiences will impact on your approach to next term's music video coursework?

This preliminary exercise has really helped me to realise how much more work is required to make a music video than we have previously been putting into past projects. Especially seeing as nest term's coursework requires a lot more than just the music video, I think that a number of the skills learned on this task will help me to complete our A2 music video to the best of our ability.

[-] Lip syncing
With the lip syncing for our actual A2 coursework, I feel that I learnt a variety of new techniques to improve the quality of the footage for the video next year. Simple things such as making sure the actor opens their mouth enough or that the actor is directly addressing the camera can have a huge difference on the final product, and they will definitely be taken into consideration for the tasks to follow.

[-] Casting / Character Breakdowns
I recognised quite early on that the process of knowing the characters and their roles in the video was the first process to address. Being able to replicate or create a believable personality to suit the genre for next year's video is going to be a hard task and I have decided that having a character breakdown for the casting would be the most sensible thing to do, as it would make the job a lot easier and more efficient.

An extract from the booklet given to us containing information for the shoot
[-] Organisation
Organisation of a shoot is a really large task I have learnt, and I think that the main areas of organisation that caused the shoot to run so well were the costumes, the time schedule and the organisation of actors on set. Firstly I think the key was to have it all down on paper and to make sure everyone had a copy. The costumes were all written down and laid out to make sure that all the cast knew exactly what they had to wear. Even on the shoot cast members had hangers assigned to their character, and I'd really like to replicate that level of detailed organisation for my project. The time schedule was incredibly organised, especially seeing as it anticipated overrunning and the complexity of the scenes. On top of this, on the shoot day, everyone had a role, which I thought was also really important. Overall, I think I may just use the remake information booklet as template as I was really well structured and clear for all members of the team.

A time schedule for the shoot day

[-] Equipment
Next year, the equipment we use is a lot more varied and advanced. After working on the shoot using a Canon DSLR and also owning one myself, I think that I would be sensible to work with one of these cameras for the coursework next year. Lighting of the shoot is however the bigger issue. I feel like I already have an idea for a video, but It involves shooting outside as well as in the studio. On previous projects working outdoor has been a lot of unnecessary effort. I like to think I am competent with using the lights in a studio but I don't know how outdoor lighting would play out, and I will have to discuss the idea with my teachers

On set for The 1975 music video remake

[-] Editing
With the editing task, I felt that my method was not the most efficient, seeing as I worked on the project constantly throughout the week and still managed to finish late. I will definitely take advice from other class members on techniques or tricks that allowed them to finish an equal standard of edit to mine, on time. I will try to use the performance bed technique to edit my video, as I feel like that will be the quicker approach and will be just as effective.

A screenshot of the Adobe Premiere workstation