Story Board

Before we can even shoot our music video we had to come up with a story board in order to guide us along when we come to film. The story board is mainly cut down into different sections of the song. What I have tried to do is make it easy as possible without the audience getting confused throughout the video. I have decided to keep the consistency of some scenes. This way it can flow easy when we come to film and edit the song. As shown above you ca see that some of these scenarios are not different. This is because they are kind of similar.

Scene 1:
Shot : Extreme Close up on guitar, quick cuts on strings, neck and finger picking (Boyce Avenue & Tyler Ward inspired) 
Lyrics: take me to that place again I wanna feel your breath all on my skin, The moon is creeping through my window pane... silver.

Scene 2:
Shot: Panning through the trees (make sure to catch sun rays) high angles, Slowly coming down to follow on performer, medium shot 
Lyrics: It shines between the spaces in the trees and finds its way right back to me, its like a million states of ecstasy...silver.

Scene 3:
Shot: Establishing turned to middle shot on two performers center stage. 
Lyrics: Oh, oh, oh, I've got a plan, come with me. Take my hand You are what I need tonight, I'm hypnotized  by silver lights

Scene 4:
Shot: Medium, slowly panning &zooming camera into a close up
Lyrics: oh, oh, oh don't question it, just close your eyes and pull me in. I know when something's going right, Oh i'm in love with silver lights. 

Scene 5:
Shot: Long, zooming and panning into a medium. Low angle looking up towards the performer. 
Lyrics: My shoes anticipate my steps, I'm  not sure where i'm going yet I spend a lifetime searching for silver

Scene 6:
Shot: Close up - Super close up on watch on (minute)
Lyrics: Its love and heartbreak all at once, its minutes, days weeks and months

Scene 7: 
Shot Long/medium zooming in on certain aspects of the section
Lyrics: Oh, oh, oh I've got a plan. Come with my, take my hand You are what i need tonight, I'm hypnotized by silver lights. Oh, oh, oh, don't question it Just close your eyes and pull me in I know when something going right, oh i'm in love with silver lights. 

Scene 8: 
Shot: Close up, low angle looking up 
Lyrics: Silver, Silver, Silver lights

Scene 9:
Shot: close up blurred background
Lyrics: Have got my hypontized tonight, I've been broken all my life but you're the one thing that feels right 

Scene 10
Shot: Close up, low angle looking up 
Lyrics: Silver, silver, silver lights have got me hypontized tonight I've been broken all my life but you're the one thing that feels right

Scene 11
Shot: Long/medium shot, Zooming in on certain parts in sections
Lyrics: Oh, oh, oh, I've got a plan come with me take my hand you are what I need tonight I'm hypontised by silver lights, Oh, oh, oh don't question it. Just close your eyes and pull me in I know when something's going right, oh i'm in love with silver lights. 

Scene 12
Shot: close up on performers face - giggle for outro
Lyrics: Silver, Silver, Silver lights x4

When researching into music videos I've actually started to notice that the music video itself has about 5 - 6 maximum different scenes. This is so the audience doesn't get confused throughout the song and keep up to what the singer is actually lip syncing through their lyrics. This is something i wanted to try to do to keep it up with professional standard.

I have broken the song down into its:

• Intro
• Verses
• Pre Chorus
• Chorus
• Bridge
• Outro

All of these aspects create the blocking to a song. With music videos they follow a similar pattern. They tend to use the same scene for each parts... So for instance looking at our story board you can clear see we have chosen to use the field scene whenever there is a chorus. This is because its the most happiest part to the song and beaty part. In addition to this whenever the beat slow down we tend to have a guitar scene.. for instance the bridge sings "Silver, Silver, Silver Lights" - We get the bridge twice in the whole song which is why we have decided to have it with the acoustic guitar sitting down because it adds to the tension just before it reaches its last chorus and outro creating the climax.

We have tried to add in different scenes depending on the kind of lyrics and visuals we would like too see in those situations. For instance Erica Hall had the idea of singing with the acoustic at the beginning to create this chilled relax vibe then slowly getting up and then moving into the next scene ready for the verse. Which is where i had the idea of bringing in our influence and summer vibes of walking and skipping down the streets dancing on the pavement in a free spirited way. Then we both decided on the chorus as being fun and cheesy just having a classic girls day out laughing in the fields.

Our actual story-line is based on the relationship of 2 girls being best friends. It starts off with just 1 girl singing and the casually going to the field to meet her friend for a while and from then on it just gradually builds into this fun friendship with happiness. Their teens their having a laugh and fooling around and being their typical quirky self. We hope after we have filmed the video and come to editing we can get aspects of the footage slow down on those parts. Which will create the more dramatic impact on the video itself.

One video we have seen that can help us create this free spirited vibe our from a band called Cimorelli. They are a group of sisters that sing on You Tube. When we first heard this song myself and Erica didn't know how it would fit in with out kind of theme but after watching it a couple of times we can clearly see that this is the kind of video we need to watch in order to get the bond across to the audience and the freedom and carefree attitude.

Cimorelli - Believe it 

Another video which is great to see the bond between the sisters would be "Made In America". When they hit the chorus is just cheesy and great to see them having fun and just being themselves. Which is exactly what we intend to do in our music video. Again the carefree attitude is something which makes this video have the feel good vibe too it. It makes you smile and want to join in with the fun which is exactly what myself and Erica Hall tend to do.

Cimorelli - Made In America 

Overall I believe that our storyboard/story-line for our chosen song will be good. It's cheesy, it's fun. It seems like its going to be fun to shoot because we can just have fun on camera with the props we are using and the settings. The ideas that we both have our coming out creatively which is why I think our music video may turn out good and how we actually want it too. The ideas that we are having our original and imaginative and they just keep flowing which is why I am keeping a diary of notes that just keep coming so if we do plan to change anything on the way through I can quickly type and update a blog post. 

Shooting Schedule Back Up Plan

To shoot our music video we obviously need a back up plan just in case things go wrong, For instance:

• Performers: - Are ill on the day or injured therefore this would mean that we would need to have a backup date in case. Or overall they may be busy the day that we want to film. This is also the reason why myself and Erica Hall decided to use ourselves within our music video, We have the same free lessons and we are both free at the same time which makes it alot more easier for us.
• Weather: - Erica Hall and myself relied on the weather alot throughout our planning stage for our music video. We planned on having the summer weather. If this doesn't happen on the day of a shoot then we would need to obviously wait until a better day wheres its more sunny.
• Footage comes out wrong: - If we finish filming and we re watch our footage back and its not up to Erica or my satisfactory it would mean re filming again. This could be due to lighting arrangements or just in general wrong angles.

The back up plan for a music video is vital because alot of the time myself and Erica are wanting to create the good feeling vibes throughout our music video. This is done by the sunshine and the blue skies. If this doesn't portray within our music video then it wouldn't looks as effective as it could. This is bound to happen. Which means Erica Hall and myself are going to need to research into the weather changes in that exact location to make sure we get the right date and time and make sure that our shooting schedule is stuck too to keep it professional and efficient.

Erica Hall and myself decided that we wouldn't set an actual shooting date in the end because the weather could change so quickly throughout the day, We decided to just wait for the day to show sunshine throughout and select the time we were free.

Our overall plan for reshooting is basically to wait for the sun to come out and then go and shoot making sure that we have checked the weather every day that week just in case it changes suddenly. This meant keeping track of the BBC weather forecast.

RESHOOTING

Journal note 1 -

- We have decided to re-film our music video after watching the footage back due to the fact of it being to dull and grey in the background. The lighting wasn't as good as we thought mostly due to the reflection of the sun to the camera lens. Erica Hall and I have decided to re shoot our footage to a different date where it's more sunny.

Furthermore we found that the camera angles weren't as good as they could be for some of the lyrics we were saying and we had some better ideas that we could do to change this. Overall we have decided that we will be reshooting our music video as soon as possible.

Journal note 2 -
- Re-shooting  was professional and quick. The weather stayed out which is great because when watching the footage back it improved the feeling towards our video, They're more happier, bright, bold, quirky emotions then what we had before.

Shooting Schedule

This is the shooting schedule that Erica Hall and myself have come up with. This shooting schedule should be printed off and kept safe during the filming process of the shooting. This way we can make sure that myself and Erica stay on top of each scene and are professional and kept strict with time limits.

There are possible switch around which may come to this shooting schedule. For instance is the weather start to turn bad e.g. - thunderstorms then there will be a likable chance that shooting that day would have to be cancelled and switched to a different day. Furthermore if their are passing showers we need to think about the timing issues in re changing the shooting hours. 

This shooting schedule is just a basic guide of the day when we are going to film. We have made a table with the date, scene, time, casting (when they are needed that day) and where about's the location will be (there is another high possible chance that the locations will be switched around depending on the weather again. 

Location Scouting

In order to create the actual music video myself and my group partner had to actually narrow our ideas down to 1 single idea (This has been shown in a previous post). When we narrowed down the actually idea and we could see different scenarios we had to then come up with the different scenery and settings. This meant we had to find different locations to meet the right codes and conventions in our genre of music video style. Watching different music videos has actually helped influence some of our settings for instance researching into artist that link well with our genres such as "Lenka" and "Eliza Doolittle". These artist actually helped alot to create the basic setting to create the summer and feel good vibes that we wanted to go for. When watching both of these videos Erica Hall and myself actually noticed that they base alot of their videos outside which is great because its exactly what we wanted to do to create the summer, relaxed, chill out vibe.

For our location scouting myself and Erica Hall actually had a few ideas for instance after watching the music video Believe it by Cimorelli we were inspired to go to beaches and just spend the whole day filming at the beach, However we had to think about the possibilities of the actual video camera loosing its battery charge. So this meant we had to then change our ideas of location scouting. Cimorelli mainly influenced us through their mis en scene, being a group of girls just having fun. It's shown through there facial expressions and body language. At no point when watching this music video did i feel uncomfortable it felt really happy and couldn't stop smiling. This is something myself and Erica would love to portray in our music video. Their locations of being at a beach really did play well with the summer pop vibe. The colours too. The fact that it seems like its been a 1 day shooting process for this music video (as you can tell from the different lighting situations in the video) is something myself and Erica want to do when filming which is why we have decided we would like to go to a field instead of a beach. We want the field to have long grass that way we can run around in it lip sync and have the sun in the background creating the perfect back drop for a relaxed summer vibe.

We then decided to retrace our steps and look into the artist of Eliza Doolittle and Lenka to see what kind of videos they have come up with,  Also trying to match the codes and conventions within the music video too. I have found out that Lenka tends to sit in parks and is close near roads in her music video which gives off the ordinary every day life situations 

This is something myself and Erica both noted down and decided to keep as one of our main options, I figuired if we could have a path way near a road and at least some trees it would seem alot more summery and give off the outdoors vibes which we both really liked. From the first moment we hear Lenka sing "I'm just a little bit caught in the middle" - We are shown long shots of Lenka and her surroundings. This is the kind of surroundings we would like to go for however the place we have chosen don't actually have a bench they have a Costessey sign stand which is something we could use to sit on and play the guitar. 

Going back to our original influence all along Eliza Doolittle has really inspired us to create the bright aspects of using different scenarios such as brick walls and pathways. We feel like this is something that could help with the star image at certain points in the music video. Eliza Doolittles videos again are always giving off the bright happy vibes and her scenes and locations always help along with this. Again props and costumes also have something to do with this too which is why we have taken Eliza Doolittle as one of our main influence for our music video. In the music video "Big When I Was Little" we can see straight away from the first scene the kind of road and houses along the side.

We would like this in our music video however without the houses but with trees instead. - I believe that this will help with the nature because stereotypical when you think of flowers and nature you always think back to this kind of summer vibe. Which is exactly what we want. Another Video of Eliza Doolittle's that influenced the outdoors vibe and setting would be the song "RollerBlades" Again its alot of walking down streets and just being carefree and happy. Bike rides, balloons and parks. Its exactly the kind of thing that myself and Erica would love to go for. 

The main influence towards our location scouting would be again from 2 girls that are YouTube artists, They have made a  music video called "A Girls Life". Their videos seem to have the perfect kind of locations for the style of our music video that can also match the codes and conventions within Goodwins theory. 

When watching this music video we can see the group of girls are again int he outside area. This is obviously the basic location area of our music video outside in the air with the trees to create these different emotions when listing to the song it immedialty sounds like an outside song not and indoors one. Its one of those songs where you have to hold your head up walk along the road and smile too (Silver Lights - Drew tabor) It really fits the right location of being outside in the open air and as soon as certain instruments hit down you instantly get this summer, outdoors look. 

This is one of the main reasons i have chosen this particular music video as the main focus point towards location scouting. We like the idea of Erica and Myself being in the long grass fields (like the video below) and walking past trees and singing on the pathways. Furthermore also these 2 girls have a great bond of friendship which is something myself and Erica hope to portray through out the music video too. 

All together from these music videos I have taken key notes and fed-back to Erica about the things I like. She has also done the same. We have both agreed there are elements in the above videos that we like alot more then others (location wise). This is why we have chosen the following areas to shoot. 

• A Long winding road and pathway
• A long grass field
• Costessey post

Now it may seem like there only a couple of scene changes however once it comes down to filming and editing it will soon seem like alot. We didn't want to add to many places because jumping from different scenarios could become a little bit jumbled for the audience watching. Erica and myself have decided to take pictures of the locations we are going to be shooting at. We have taken into consideration the places we are filming and the risk assessments/health and safety procedures too. All of the places we have chosen we have tried to narrow down into the same area which makes it easy if we ever need go back to Erica Hall's house and recharge the video camera. We can easily make a full day of filming and be done if we keep it professional and in with time with the shooting schedule.

Our Locations

These are the main places we are going to be filming in. They create a good folk genre vibe with acoustic. Furthermore the mis en scene will hopefully bring out a lot more of the jazz style from the codes and conventions. Erica and myself are very happy with the choices of our location even though its the beginning of September it could almost be classed as late summer due to the colours of the fields. However i believe the yellow/green colour still adds bright colours and gives it the summer look. You can clearly see how the "Megan and Liz" music video has influenced our choices with the field and how Eliza Doolittle and Lenka have combined together to get the other locations. Which is great. Our whole video will be taken in the Costessey area which makes it local to the Norwich area hopefully if anyone sees the thumbnail and see the surroundings on You Tube or any other social network site they will click on it and see that its Costessey and that will gain a bigger and wider audience. I believe our choices in location are spot on with he influence and will help combine mis en scene, codes and conventions together to create the right video for the style of song. I can also see in  my mind the blocking for each part of the song in these scenes too.