Sigur Ros had a series of experimental films made for the tracks on their Valtari Album, it was these films that led me to decide that I would like to make an experimental music video. In the video posted below, I liked the way in which the movement of the dancers matched the feeling of the music. This was something I began considering for my own production. Also, the run down location is an interesting contrast for the feel of the music and the smoothness of the movement. After watching this video I searched for other videos and short films that had explored ideas through movement.
Sigur Rós - Valtari from Sigur Rós Valtari Mystery Films on Vimeo.
According to its description, Falling considers ideas of human interaction though this use of movement. I like the lighting techniques in the video, having the figures lit and the background in complete darkness exaggerates the movement, emphasising the explored themes.
FALLING from Adriano Cirulli on Vimeo.
Although this is not a music video (below), it still uses movement in combination with sound. What I liked most about this was the slow motion and the way the fabrics move. This is something, I feel emphasises the movement in combination with the sound. I would like my video to be to quite experimental with regards to technical effects/lighting and so am looking for video that use unusual techniques. The Vimeo channel of 'Tell No One' that created the below video uses several effects such as chroma keying in his videos, this is a technique that would be possible to try out in my own production.
Dynamic Blooms from Tell No One on Vimeo.
The below video, is another experimental piece that makes use of chroma keying, adding an usual effect to the movement of the subject.
Michael Langan - Choros
Choros from Michael Langan on Vimeo.
Hurts - Better Than Love
As I had choosen to use movement in my work, I knew I wanted to use a ballet dancer and so began looking for a dancer to star in my video. Due to this, I set out in looking at other music video that use ballet. One recent one that I came across was Hurts Better Than Love. I was interested in seeing how other film makers made use of the dancers and their movement.
I chose to look at an artist and a photographer as part of my research to inspire my own piece. This will help with the framing and lighting of my own piece.
Edgar Degas - More than half of Degas' works are depictions of dancers, ballet in particular. He mostly uses oil on canvas for his paintings, creating a sketch like feel to his work. In the images I have selected below Degas tends towards a warm colour pallet. This is possibly due to the way in which he uses the effects of light in his paintings. In the first image below, The Ballet Rehearsal On Stage, there is a distinct lack of colour in comparison to most of his other pieces, supposedly due to an interest in the new found photography technique.
I like the way Degas frames his works, making use of the stage, and the studio (shown through the wall bar). He also appears to make use of the outdoors, using an indoor and outdoor location is something I'd like to do in my own work.
Alexey Brodovitch - Ballet
Alexey Brodovitch was most famous for his work as art director for Harper's Bazaar magazine. However, he was also widely known for his photography skills. One of his lesser known collections of photographs was his book entitled Ballet, published in 1945. I have selected a few of these photographs below. Particularly in this first image you can see how Brodovitch captures movement. The lighting in these photographs is different for almost every image, take the third image down. Here you can see a well lit stage with a light source pointing directly at the camera, the final image below however, has much lower lighting and a high contrast making the faces of the dancers in compete shadow. It is this experiment with light that I would like to carry over into my own production.
Melodie Rouland - Lily
Selecting Music.
As I had come up with my ideas for a music video before having selected the music, I needed to ensure that the track I selected would work with my idea, I needed something quite atmospheric. To begin I listened to instrumental music as my initial ideas were sparked by a Sigur Ros experimental film. I came across a band called Hungry Ghosts. (listen below) However, many of the tracks I felt would work were rather long, the one below for example is over 7 minutes, this I felt would be too long.
After, I had decided these tracks were unsuitable I looked for similar music but with lyrics. A band called Cloud Boat was then suggested to me, I went on a listened to their EP to see what there music was like. I also looked at one of their music videos giving me an idea of how artistic/experimental they were when it came to videos. This helped me decided whether or not my ideas would be suitable for the band. I eventually came to the decision to use one of their tracks that did not already have a video, called Bastion.
Lyrics:
///
i left these things in my back garden
and they grew with the grass
i left these secrets on my father's coatpeg
and they break him like the waves
i need to feel like you will watch my babies be born
we'll sit in the flowers and we'll stay there
until i'm ready to be a man
until the days don't feel so heavy on my back
i'll break the windows and i'll burn the floors
but you won't clean them
i'll lift the carpets and i'll open the doors
but it's been years since anyone used them
i need to feel like you will need me when you grow old
we'll in the sit flowers and we'll stay there
until i'm ready to be a man
until the days don't feel so heavy on my back
\\\
Arranging meeting:
I knew I needed a ballet dancer for my video so I had to begin making plans to find and meet a dancer. As I knew a dancer at a ballet school, this was of course my first port of call. I called up the school and introduced my idea to a teacher, as she seemed interested she then asked the dancers if anyone would like to be involved. A young girl named Paige seemed interested and so I arranged to go in a meet the dancer the following Thursday (23.05.2013). I came up with a list of things that would need to be discussed at the meeting before we could begin any filming.
I needed to introduce Paige to my chosen track, I had asked her to choreograph her own dance so giving her a copy of the track was essential. Possibly showing her videos that inspired my own ideas to give her an idea of what I wanted. I would like to discuss, hair/make-up/clothing for when we did the shoot. Showing her my sketch book with some storyboarding to extended her knowledge of how I wanted my final piece to look. Finally, as I have permission to film in their studios I want to take some still shots of the studio to get an idea of space and lighting so I can accurately plan my shoot. Another thing that would have to be done before shooting any footage would be ensure that the young girls mother is happy to allow Paige to be in the film, this is due to the fact she is just 14 years old.
Meeting: 23.05.2013
Meeting with dancer from Dionne Turpie Dance Studio (7:30 - 23.05.2013)
During this meeting I would like to photograph the studio in order to get an idea of what kind of space I will have to film in. This will help me to to storyboard and prepare for the first shoot.
I would also like to discuss what the role of the ballet dancer (Paige) will consist of in my film so she is aware of her role. I began by playing Paige my chosen track that the video will be for, this allows her to get some idea of what kind of choreography she may choose. After a this, we discussion how she felt about choreographing her own dance, this she felt happy with and appeared to have a good idea of how to interpret the track with dance (most likely to be contemporary ballet, though with a small about of classical mixed in). I went on to present her with some of the videos that had inspired my own ideas, this was to give her an insight into where my ideas came from, again helping her to understand her own role and what style I would be looking for.
Location Scout: 24.05.13
As I want part of music video to be shot outside, I needed to find an appropriate place to film. I decided I wanted the location to be very natural so avoiding urban areas was essential. I began by googling local country parks, forest area and fields to get an idea of how what I had to work with.
The images below are from a nearby country park, Hartshill Hayes. Though I do like the way this area looks, I would be concerned with the fact that there isn't much flat ground, and the trees prevent a wide open space, this could make it difficult for my dancer to perform. However, I would still bare this location in mind when considering a location as it has the feel and atmosphere that I am looking for.
Location Scout: 27.05.2013
Royal Tiger's Wood was the another location I visited when deciding where I would be shooting my video.
Planning for filming:
Now much of my pre-production has been completed, I can beginning planning filming shoots. I will of course need to compile equipment lists for each shoots, ensuring I do not lose out on good footage due to a lack of organisation but also coming up with a shot list for each shoot will maximise my time spent in the location. I want to achieve a much footage as possible in the time I have.
I tried to rent out a light reflector with the rest of my equipment only to find that it had been lost and therefore was unavailable. As I do not have the funds to purchase a new one, I opted to make a DIY reflector by covering a piece of board in kitchen foil. I will evaluate how well this worked later in the post.
Filming: Day 1-Planning (30.05.2013)
Day 1 of filming will be at Dionne Turpie Dance School Studio's. Having been to this location before I have been able to consider my shot list based on the room I have seen and would like to film in. I have also been able to think about health and safety issues while planning the shoot (see below).
Health and Safety:
When carrying out a risk assessment on this location the first point of focus was the setting up of the equipment. This has to be carried out carefully and accurately in order to avoid injury and damage to the equipment itself. For example, ensuring the camera is securely fixed to the tripod and cables are secured to avoid them being tripped on.
As I would be using a small spot light during the shoot (see image below) I made sure all crew members were aware of that that the temperature of the light can get quite high. It must be left to cool or appropriate gloves should be worn before handling the light once it is switched off.
Because the room would be full of equipment, it is important to ensure any liquids are kept a good distance away to avoid damage. Any spillage's must be cleaned up immediately to avoid injury.
Equpiment List:
Canon 600D
Sd Card (4gb x2)
Tripod
Reflector
MacBook
Spot Light (Including barn door)
Shot List - Available as hard copy.
Evaluation of Shoot
On the day of the shoot we had a slight delay due to the fact that Paige needed some help with choreographing a little more of the dance. This set filming back about half an hour later than anticipated. However, I used this time to photograph the room and ensure I knew exactly what shots I wanted to get. I.e. what angles I would shoot from. This made the time spent filming much more efficient.
While the choreography was finished, I also took time to work out how best to light the room. Lighting was in fact one of the biggest problems I came across during the day. Though the room is relatively well lit, with two large windows. However, the windows are on one side of the room, throwing the balance off. When looking through the camera, this put one side of the frame in shadow, particularly when shooting Paige dancing, half her face was hidden. I adjusted the blinds on each window to see if this would make any difference, having the back blind lower seem to help a little but still it didn't look quite right. When trying with the light on I found that this lighting look too artificial. After trying out these things, I moved on to seeing what effect my DIY reflector would have. In more close up shots, this proved to be effective as it evened the light out on the dark side of the frame. I was, however, still having trouble with lighting the wider shots. As it is a ballet studio, there is a large mirror on one wall, i decided to try re-postioning my camera to use the mirror as a reflector. This proved the most effective technique, but obviously only worked on certain shots when the mirror was in the correct position.
Once the lighting issue had been sorted and the dance completed, the shoot was fairly successful. I managed to get a variety of angles, and experimented with the spot light to create close up, low lit footage. Definitely achieved footage that will be good for my final edit.
Filming: Day 2 (31.05.2013)
Day 2 of filming will take place in Royal Tigers Wood. As with the above location, I had been to this location prior to the day of the shoot in order to gain a good idea of what space I would have to work with.
Health and Safety:
For this shoot I had to consider additional health and safety issues as this was an on location shoot. First of all a general scout of the area to ensure no harmful or unsanitary objects are around. Extra care must be taken when doing on location shoots with regards to criminal damage, theft and violence form the public. The area in which we filmed was quite so this was fairly low risk. One point that I became aware of immediately was that of the ground itself, as there had been a lot of rain in the previous days before the shoot and we would be filming on a grassy area, in many areas the ground was still boggy. Though our chosen area was relatively solid, we had to be careful of uneven ground to avoid injury and damage to the equipment, this would also effect the way I used my tripod as I would need to alter the balance in order to have an even frame on my footage. As we were outdoors and the sun was fairly strong, I ensured all crew members wore protective creams and had a drink to prevent dehydration. All the points made for the previous day's shoot still apply. For example ensuring the correct set up of equipment and securing wires.
Equipment List:
Canon 600D
Sd Card (4gb x2)
Tripod
Reflector
MacBook
Shot List: Available as hard copy
Evaluation of Shoot
This shoot was fairly successful, I managed to get a good amount of footage to go towards to the final cut of my video. As with the previous shoot, lighting caused me a problem, though it was a nice day, the sun was very bright making it difficult to see the camera LCD screen and also creating a small amount of glare on my footage. A number of the shots has slightly different lighting as the often got covered by clouds, softening the light, as this was somewhat unavoidable I opted to continue with the shoot and even out the light over all the footage in editing.Problems:
As I began to edit my footage together, it became clear that due to the lighting issues I had during the shoots were going to cause problems when editing too. Because of the difference in light for each piece of footage, it was proving to be difficult to make the footage flow smoothly making it feel distanced from the footage. To get over this problem, I put a black and white effect over the footage in premier to see if this would improve the flow. Though I feel it definitely helped, I can't help but this that the black and white effect doesn't fit with the track, however, I will not rule out the option completely.
In addition to this, I realised that not enough footage had been captured with regard to extreme close-ups that would had provided good cut aways for the video. For these reasons another shoot is necessary. In order to make this shoot more successful than the last I have looked for a few more influences (below) to inspire my own film.
More Influences:
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| Alicia Nega For Dana Falconberry Album: Leelanau |
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| Karoliina Barlund |
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| Anthony Gerace 'Portrait, 2012' |
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| 'Little Venice Maida Vale' Dorothy Bohm '1960's London' Collection |
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| Clare Gallagher 'Domestic Drift' series |
After looking into more photographers and film makers, I went out and attempted to mimic some of there images to include in my own piece. The images below are screen shots of some of the footage I captured taking direct influence from the above images.
MVI 0329 from Sammie Masters-Hopkins on Vimeo.
Final Film
Evaluation:
One of the main problems I encountered when editing my final piece together was that the footage I had shot appeared to be missing some kind of narrative to link give the final video a purpose and direction. I feel this is one of the main issues I have with my final piece. When editing I attempted to rectify this problem by repeating the opening shots in reverse order at the end of the video as you can see above. I felt this may help tie together the images you see throughout giving the video a cyclic structure. If I were to shoot this again, I would definitely ensure I had more of a 'story'. One of the shots from my video is the young girl putting on her ballet shoes, this idea of getting ready and preparing for a dance would be something I would like to take further, had I the chance to do the video again. Hopefully this would add an extra dimension to my film in that it would aid it's purpose. As it is now, my video is more of a montage of images, this is less conventional of the music video than a narrative piece. However, when considering the audience that this style of music might meet, a more experimental or stylistic video can be appreciated.
Another point I picked up on, was that a mood needed to be captured more obviously, again this is something I feel is begun in the opening but as the video moves forward it seems to be lost. I think if I had narrowed down my influences down to a few key ideas and themes I would have been able to achieve a much stronger tone for my video that would have made it work more successfully.
Technically, I feel that the many of shots work well, I aimed to maintain the rules learnt through a short photography workshop, for example, the rule of three and the placing a subject on an eye line. By keeping to these rules, I feel many of my shots are aesthetically pleasing. However, the lighting of my footage needed to be improved, this is something that I had trouble with from the outset of my video and is reflected in my final piece. Lighting the subject in my frame is definitely something I feel I need to work on for future productions. To overcome this issue, I opted to produce a black and white version of the video, though this what not how I originally planned my piece to be. In editing, I put the black and white effect over my footage and ensured that by altering the contrast I had much more evenly lit footage.
Another point to make about the technical aspect of my work, would be that there is a lack of camera movement, many of my images are shot with a static camera with the movement coming from within the film. This is something that I definitely need to consider and improve on when making another production. Had I done this piece again, I would have experimented with a dolly track, this would have allowed me to track the subject as she moved. Not only would this have given my video a more professional look, it would have also expanded the amount of camera work and techniques that I had included, varying the shots and allowing me more footage to work with when I began editing. Increasing the amount of footage would have been helpful when editing, I could have achieve this by using multiple cameras, allowing the same footage to be shot from multiple angles. Again, this would make my production feel more professional. The problem I would have had with this was the fact that I produced the piece on my own, to operate multiple camera would have proved difficult. In future working with additional people on my production in a definite as this would have aided my production and I feel made it more successful.
Thanks a lot for sharing this amazing knowledge with us. This site is fantastic. I always find great knowledge from it. Music Video Production
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