Radical Changes to the Storyboard ~ Luke Leadbetter

Throughout filming we have had to make several changes to the storyboard of our production. a lot of the stop motion sequences have been cut out and replaced with new solutions, due to lack of time, manpower and equipment. Other shots have also been edited, but majority of them have not been to a great extent.  The replacement shots seem to fit in well, and in some places look better than what we had planned anyway!

Reflections from Editing ~ Luke Leadbetter

From all of the editing we've accomplished so far, it has become clear that we don't have enough time to make all of the clips we drew in  our storyboard. Instead we are going to, as well as getting new clips, repeat some of the other clips, just flopped and rearranged. By taking advantage of the 'electronic loop' style of music, we can do this with a good outcome, not damaging the meta-narrative or any other aspect of our production.

Lighting ~ William Dixon

Press play to view the Video Blog

Here is some photo's of the lighting we used

Costume ~ William Dixon

Press play on the video clip below to see our Video Blog

Here's some photo's of the costume

Story boarding ~Jess Hitch

We started our story boarding a few weeks back and although we're 5 days behind schedule, we're making good progress. We've been playing through the song and imagining exactly how we would want it to look. At the moment, it's still very rough so that we can get it finished quickly and start our filming as soon as possible. Once we have started our filming and are making progress, we can go back to our story board and make it more presentable for the blog. I've done majority of the drawing within the story board with 90% of ideas coming from the guys. At the moment, we only have about 1 minute left to story board which shouldn't take too long as there are no more lyrics from this point onwards which allows a little more room for creativity as we can be as abstract as we like without contradicting any lyrics.

Due to the fact that we've had to cut the song down, we've had to run the story board against our edited version so that we don't extend parts that have already been cut but this wasn't really a problem as we had the edited song on itunes to play against our story board. We've discussed chopping the video down by a further 8 seconds however, we decided against it because we didn't have the time and we'd already story boarded past the point that we wanted to cut which would affect all of the frames past that point.

The good thing about using stop-motion frames is that we can each do some stop-motion at home with free software and we won't have to do it all on set, so it'll take a lot less time since we won't be wasting filming time at our location which will be used to film all of the live-action shots. Of course any stop motion that requires a particular background will have to be done on set as the audience will get confused as to why our stop motion elements have been moved out of the room.

We've already taken mise-en-scene into consideration at this point as its important we set the room up correctly to match the meaning we are trying to portray. We are going to decorate our location with coloured lights and Daft Punk and other electronica band posters on the walls, this is to represent bright, cold technology and show intertextuality between Deadmau5 and Daft Punk. We're also including Luke's Daft Punk and Will's Deadmau5 figurines to further the intertextuality in the video.

Luke and Will have also been discussing what kind of effects we wanted to add into a our shots by toying with the transitions and effects on Final Cut Express and we've found some interesting effects that will further present our theme of drug-fueled fantasies and vivid dreams which include interesting colouring effects and wavy transitions, when put together, it can enhance the atmosphere of our video.

- Jess Hitch

Edited by Luke Leadbetter-

Here's a slideshare of the storyboard:

Story board

View more presentations from lukeybo.

Shortened Song ~ William Dixon

For our music video, we have made the decision to shorten the song from 4:58 to 3:58. We have done this by putting the song into Garage Band and cutting down the Loops and then finally adding a shorter Fade Out at the end which in total shortened the song by a minute. We did this because we felt that if the song was shorter we could keep the video more interesting in a shorter space of time. Also, this is quite a common thing for artists to do, for the same reason. Here is a list of songs that have done this: Bon Jovi’s Dry Country, Owl City’s Fireflies, Slipknot’s Before I Forget, Pendulum’s Watercolour and even Daft Punk’s Around the World.

Here's the original song, click play to hear it

And now, here's the new shortened version, click play to hear it

Moodboard and Visual Aesthetic ~ Jess Hitch

Top left - Love, teenage romance, internet romance

Bottom left - Toys, games, coloured lights

Right - network, futuristic, technology, music, social networking, instant messenger.

Visual Aesthetics

• Love and teenage romance isn't a theme that is prominent in daft punk so we decided to go by the name of the song 'Digital love' and narrate a love story surrounded by technological elements. This would appeal to the few girls in our target audience because its sweet and women love fantasy lover-stories. On this moodboard, there are many pictures of boy-girl images to suggest love and affection for one another. There are also the words 'I love you' to suggest fondness and endearment. There are also images of people on phones or laptops which ties the futuristic and modern feel in with the romantic feel. It also suggests a relationship that isn't physical and can't be touched
• The toys, games a coloured lights suggest a childish, whimsical and nonchalant theme which would appear to the younger range of our target audience because they are a little less mature and respond to bright colours and moving objects. The coloured and flashing lights as well as the remote control toys would also blend the futuristic in with the other themes.
• The technological side of the moodboard would appeal to mostly males across the entire range of our target audience because it is on the advanced scale of computing and eletronics however, the social networking side like facebook and instant messenger would appeal to the entire audience because it is something that is used daily and by everyone.

Overall, the kind of aesthetic we are trying to create with our video is a futuristic teenage romance set in a fantasy dreamland of coloured lights, objects moving on their own and bright colours which would suggest something up to date, youthful and in touch with the times, similar to many digital natives today.

- Jess Hitch

Timeline ~ Jess Hitch

Timeline

15^th Sept. – 27^th Oct. = Research and planning blogs.

-       Define music videos - To help us understand what goes into a music video and what makes it different from other texts.

-       Types of music videos and examples - To better understand the types of music video within the genre and help us decide what path our video will follow.

-       History of music videos - To help us understand how the music video was born and how it has improved to the present day. This will aid us with creating a video that will better fit in with the current climate.

-       Narrative structures in music videos and effectiveness (Propp, Todorov, Levi-Strauss) - Will help us to know and understand the different narrative structures used in music videos and what and how big an impact they make on an audience.

-       Star image - To grasp how everything about an actor can affect the audience and the video so we can better choose our actors according to our direction.

-       Semiotics - To comprehend the signs and motifs hidden in music videos designed to create meaning so that we can use signs and signifiers effectively in our own production.

-       180-degree rule - To understand how this rule was formed and why and also how in certain cases it can be broken.

-       Auteur Theory - To be aware of what kind of images can be created within a text and how we can apply these to our own effectively.

-       Is meaning created at inception or consumption phase? - 

-       Audience issues - Target audience, metanarrative, reception theory, uses and gratification theory. Knowing who are audience is and what their interests are will help us create a successful video that will appeal to them.

-       Intertextuality - References to other texts within a text. This will help us include a wider rage of techniques to include in our video and appeal to our audience.

-       Historical Context (zeitgeist) - 

-       Grain of voice - Voice has evocative powers, able to create associations, especially with fans. This will help us understand what affect a recognizable voice can have on the audience and a text.

-       Mise-en-scene - To help us understand placing within the frame and how this can affect the way the audience views a text.

-       Synesthesia - To help us understand what happens when something else occurs and how we can include this fluidity in our production.

-       Editing - 

-       History of stop-motion - Since we will be including stop-motion elements in our production, we needed to better understand the history of stop-motion animation and how it has evolved over the  years so that we can make use of it effectively and create the situation we want to create.

-       Electronica - Genre, aesthetics, metanarrative, mise-en-scene. This will help us understand more about our genre and what kind of things make it unique from other  music genres so we can portray the genre as it appears in mainstream music.

27^th Oct – 5^th November = Storyboarding and decorating set

-       Flashing lights - Gathering lights, flashing objects and glow-in-the-dark objects to scatter around the room to create an electronic and disorganized feel.

-       Various electronic objects - phones, laptops, ipods, keyboards to further support the futuristic and modern day feel.

-       Gathering filters -Using cellophane to create a desired filter on the camera can drastically change the atmosphere of a shot. We will mostly be using cool coloured filters like blues and greens to reflect the coldness of technology.

-       Making light reflectors - Light reflectors can make a good alternative to expensive lighting equipment as it can be made of tin foil and cardboard.

5^th Nov – 21^st Nov = Filming and animating

-       Maximum time to spend on stop motion aspects: 7 days

-       Software: Boinx TV – istopmotion - We are using this software to capture the stop motion aspects in our video because it is specially designed for stop-motion animation.

21^st Nov – 9^th Dec = Editing

-       Software: Final cut studio

-       Can also work on it at home, during free periods and lunch-breaks if necessary.

-       Make sure of timings, syncing, lighting, colours and effects so that it looks as professional and effective as possible.

3^rd Dec – 17^th Dec = Evaluation blogs and general blog tidying.

-       If desperately needed: Redo some stop-motion/takes in between blogging (editing for these must be done too).

18^th Dec = Final deadline for everything.


Setting: Will's bedroom because it is fairly plain and we can decorate it easily to suit our needs without causing too much damage. The objects we place in the room will also show up better against the plain walls, making it easier for the audience to see our purposely placed motifs. The plain setting will also appeal to a wider target audience as a plain bedroom would appear to have no obvious gender since it doesn't have any gender specific colours (ie. blue, pink).

Instruments: 

• x2 light up-keyboards that can play the melodies on their own whilst showing which keys should be played with red lights.
• Online music player (ie. itunes, spotify) so that we can 'play' the song from the list, adding to the technological feel.

Actors: Our main actors will be Will as the room we are using belongs to him. He is also a good actor with a very natural atmosphere about him. We also have a puppet that looks similar to him which we intend to have them 'transform' into each-other to create a sense of fantasy and surrealism. The puppet and Will will also provide breaks in between the stop-motion shots with some fluidity to vary the texture of the production.

Props: These will either be turned on and off to the beat of the music, used to decorate the setting or used in the stop-motion sequences.

• Coloured lights
• Rotating disco-balls
• Bright desk-lamps
• Laptops
• Phones
• Ipods
• Computer mice
• keyboards
• Computer monitors
• Puppets

-Jess Hitch

Synaesthesia in our production ~ Luke Leadbetter

Synaesthesia -  a sensation that normally occurs in one sense modality occurs when another modality is stimulated.


Simply put, what happens when something else does, or how something relates to something else.


In our music video we will make use of synaesthesia by relating to the lyrics of the song with images of love and romance, but within a digital realm, the online world. (Relating also to the songs's title: Digital Love)
The song has a distinct disco sound so to represent this we will use lighting typically found within a disco scenario.

Daft Punk - Digital Love, Narrative Idea ~ Luke Leadbetter

(Sorry for the poor quality, what can you expect of a webcam eh? Here's what I said if you couldn't understand)

For our Narrative idea of our music video for Daft Punk's Digital Love, I was thinking something along the lines of an online, instant messaging conversation going on between a guy and a girl, but majority from the viewpoint of the guy as the singer of the song is male. because of the fairly up beat pace of the music there would be lots of straight cuts and jump cuts to different shots, majority of these shots being at a neutral angle unless for effect, for example if there was a birds eye view shot of the computer keyboard. One of the main ideas is that sections of the lyrics could be typed up onto the laptop screen, filmed at an over the shoulder perspective or and extreme close up. The narrative that the video would portray is that of a young teen romance that is initiated online, tying in nicely with the songs lyrics and title 'Digital Love'. So generally throughout the video the two young people appear to falling for each other more and more, shown through little symbols and motifs such as small ornaments on the side of a desk with hearts on or the like. Lighting would majority be from, or similar to, the light generated from a laptop screen, the video would also be filmed in a teen boys bedroom at night, keeping to the idea of a teen romance, and also following the lyrics where it says "last night, I had a dream about you". Also sticking to this key line in the song I think that it would be good to at the end of the song have shots of the teenage boy waking up as if the whole conversation was a dream, but finding the words "I Love You" left at the end of the instant messaging conversation from the girl.

Realistically in our actual video I think that there will be elements of performance and abstract included, but it will mainly follow the conventions of a narrative video.

Over and out.