Apologies, again.

Once again, sorry for the gap between posts.

Just to update, now got the majority of my footage edited. Unfortunately can't put up any stills just yet (technical problems) but the video itself is very nearly finished.

I'm now playing around the website design using wix. There's a small scene in the video in which we see megan (the central girl) drawing a simple black and white ink sketch of herself. These sketches are going to be the running motif for both the website and the digipak. So the website's hopefully going to have a very hand written, monochromatic look, and the digipak'll be similar, with sketches of the band, and of my central characters from the video (Megan and Alex).

So hopefully by the weekend I'll have a few stills to get uploaded. I'll also hopefully upload my storyboards, and the sketches beign used for the website and digipak. I'm also planning to get the last few bits of footage, so hopefully I'll have the completed video uploaded next week.

Sorry

I know it's been a while since I last updated. Unfortunately I've had a few problems. Hopefully everything's sorted now. Storyboards and shot lists are about done, and hopefully I'll be able to get those photo's up tonight. All my locations are chosen, and shooting dates are set. So next week I'll be able to show photo's and a bit of the footage so far.

As far as the website and digipak goes, I'm still a little behind since I've been working on getting everything together so I'm ready to film. Since the filming and editing process is pretty much at a standstill until next week when I get some footage, I'll be spending the rest of this week working on that.

Update

So I've got a few more bits done. Will be getting the final push of paperwork done over the holidays, and I'm hoping to start filming early January.

• Started my storyboards, photo's uploaded when I get home on saturday. Also started working on shot lists for the locations I've chosen so far.
• Will hopefully get a bit more location scouting in over the weekend. There's only two more I want to look at; the house/living room that'll probably be the main backdrop for the video and possibly a restaurant for a faux romantic scene.
• Drafting my letter to the cinema, turns out I need to apply in writing for filming permission, I'm hoping to hear back from them by January.
• Also need to give the record company a call and ask about getting permission to use this song. Hopefully it won't be a problem as the video won't be used in any commercial way.

And that's pretty much it. My video's all cast now. My friend Megan'll be playing the central girl and my friend Alex is both kindly supplying a living room to use, and playing the central man. Photo's of them will also be up on Saturday.

Research, a lot of ideas, and some test shots.

So, following on from what I said at the end of my last post, I've been looking for a unifying theme between my video, album cover, and website design, something they do on a regular basis. For example, Tegan and Sara's current website uses both the imagery and colour scheme from the album cover for "Sainthood". Inspiration wasn't entirely forthcoming, but thankfully it did literally hit me. One of the peices of artwork blu tacked on the wall above my computer desk fell off. This simple little black and white ink sketch of Tegan is from a while ago (ignore the colour and writing around it), but it's the kind of motif I'm looking for. Like their music, it's very basic and simple, and I think a sketch similar to this of the twins would be an excellent album cover, something not overly stylised and very basic (a lot like their music) while fulfilling basic record label needs of using imagery of the artists. It'd also be a theme that would work well with the website. I also like the idea of using a monochromatic colour scheme for both the album cover and the website. Jonathan Glazer's video work has taught me just how effective and noticeable can look.

I've also, obviously, been thinking about the video itself. Everything from my research points to the same thing. (Focus group videos should be uploaded next week.) It being such a simple song, the lyrics are definitely the main focal point when listening and the more literally the song takes the lyrics, the better. Bearing this in mind, I've been looking around and getting a few photo's with ideas I have for certain sequences based on the lyrics. The overall feeling I want for the narrative the video does twist it's meaning slightly. The song itself is about being a twin, and getting away from someone who people believe is identical to you and being your own person. However, I've been trying to think of a narrative that more people than just twins can relate to, so I'm going to be following the very simple idea of a girl coping with a break up, and learning how to be herself and not just someone's girlfriend. While it's a little contrived and overdone, I believe that, especially for a band like this with a following that tend to be in their late teens to mid 20's, it's something a lot of the fans will have been through at some point. The first idea is based around the opening lines.

"Go downtown, watch an early movie.
The seats are cheaper
They don't mind if you put your feet up."

So, going with this literal thing, I think shots just of the main character going to watch a movie would work. I've been looking for a cinema small and with a little more character, because of this idea of somewhere small and downtown that the song puts across, rather than a big chain where putting your feet up would be considered a sin (something I know from personal experience!) and thankfully the older cinema in bury has just that look. The manager let me in last week just to grab a couple of photo's, but I have to apply in writing for permission to film. Will be posting a letter at the end of the week because it's just got that "older cinema" look about it, and I've decided it'd be perfect for those shots.


These are the shots I got from in the actual screen. I like the angle in the second if I just want to show the central character. I do like the idea of having the actual screen on film though. I think showing a film of the character on that screen and then zooming into that film would be a great transition into whatever I do next in the video.

Which brings me into my next idea. Again, simple and very very literal. The following lyrics in the song are:

"She's out on a highway.
She's got a home made sign that says:
'Go ahead, try and figure what my future looks like'"

I like the idea of the character standing out by the road holding this up on a sign, but I thought about using four different signs, each with part of the lyric, and her just throwing them away. Originally I was inspired by this iconic Bob Dylan video. So my friend Megan agreed to take a few photo's in a couple different locations so I could show what I mean.

I don't like the lighting in these, I think it needs to be lighter, and earlier in the day. But I wanted to look at how it would appear on a town street, especially since having Megan "on a highway" is more of a risk than I'd like to take.



I much prefer the lighting in these shots, though the signs a little hard to read. I also preferred the location, although I'd need to film at a very different angle since it's not obvious here that she is in fact standing on a bridge over an A road.

So yeah, nice to know the whole creative block thing has finally gone. I'm continuing with this whole literal idea and drafting some rough storyboards at the moment, hopefully will be showing those off next week. :)

More research

So these are the covers for the albums Tegan and Sara have released so far.

This is the cover for their first album, "Under Feet Like Ours", released in 1999. It contains the song "Divided".


This is the cover for their album "This Business Of Art", released in 2000 (And my favourite T&S album ^_^)


This is the cover for their album "If It Was You", released in 2002.


This is the cover for their album "So Jealous", released 2004. This album contained the single "Walking With a Ghost", later covered by The White Stripes:




This is the conver for their 2007 release, "The Con".

This is the cover for their latest release, entitled "Sainthood", which came out just a couple of weeks ago.

These covers are going to set a good example from my own work. I like that they don't make the band being on the cover a necessity, if they can instead use a relavant peice of photography or art work. I also found the original video for "Walking With a Ghost" really interesting:



It uses the same little red felt hearts that are on the album cover. I think important to keep a motif common with the album cover and the video, and it's definitely something I'll bear in mind for my project.

Song Selection

So I've decided on the Tegan and Sara song I posted a while ago. I like the even pace and think it'll suit the narrative ideas the lyrics have given me. Been listening to advice though, and I'm looking at a away to put in some kind of performance feel, to keep like a music video and stop it from being too much like a short feel.

I've planned out how I'm going to do my research as well.

For the actual video I'm looking at both Tegan And Sara's youtube channel and their forums to get a good idea of the audience I'm targeting, and geting together a few focus groups to listen to the song. I'm asking them to think about the lyrics, and how they'd interpret them, to get a better feel for the narrative of the video.

For the digipak cover I'm going to, again, look at past examples of Tegan and Sara Cd's and Dvd's. I'm also going to look at other artists of a similar genre and see how they advertise themselves.

I'm also taking similar steps for the Website. I'm going to look at The bands website, as well as other examples, and work out the key aspects of a musicians website, as well as how to link both this and the cd/dvd cover to the video.

So now I've planned out how I'm doing the reasearch, looks like I'm going to have to go and do it!

Director Profile - Michel Gondry

Born in 1963, Michel Gondry is one of the many directors of music video to have moved into film. in 2004 he won his first Academy award, for the critically acclaimed Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Michel Gondry's work has a very distinctive, almost surrealist style. He uses a lot of high level CGI, but mixes it with pro-filmic, theatrical effects. He manipulates mise-en-scene to give a twisted, almost dream-like feel, due to his hige fascination with dreams and the unconscious. All of this creates a fantastically creative, almost avante-garde style that fits perfectly with the music for the bands he tends to work with, such as Björk, The White Stripes and Daft Punk.

An excellent example of his use of pro-filmic effects is the stop motion work he did for the White Stripes video "Hardest Button to Button".



This piece uses nothing in the way of special effects. They use 32 drum kits to shoot this, and simply add or remove as needed between each shot. The pro-filmic effects used here are representative of his style, and he keeps in the key motifs of the band, sticking to the colour scheme they prefer to use and shooting in their home town.

A great example of Gondry's obsession with the unconscious mind is his video for the Foo Fighters song "Everlong"

Foo Fighters lyrics

Foo Fighters - Everlong Video - Foo Fighters Music Videos

Music Videos by VideoCure

It stays away mostly from the standard genre conventions, with very little performance aspect until the end. He still uses the recurring Foo Fighters motif of the drummer being in womens clothing. It's a primarily narrative based video with a conceptual element, following a twisted dream of a young man to lead back into his bedroom, where terrifying nightmare creatures turn into the band members to perform the final chorus.

The video uses a lot of intertextual references, giving it, like a lot of Gondry's work, a post modern feel. From the Sid and Nancy references the dream moves on to the style of a cheesy 80's horror, with clear nods to both the Shining and Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

It also uses Gondry's common motif of giving a surreal element by changing the sizing of objects. A great example is the scene in the video with the giant, oversized phone.

One of the things I'll definitely take away from Gondry;s work is to look mose and using profilmic effects instead of CGI, and think more about how I film something to give it the effect I want. I also may employ some of his more surreal elements, to give my video a more unrealistic quality.