CONSTRUCTION: EDITING SNAP-BACK SHOT

For our latest shoot, which involved us taking many shots of the group wearing snap-back hats at different angles, we used the new app Flipagram, to make a stop motion video of all the shots that were taken.

Flipagram allows you to add as many photos as you like to the video, as well as editing how long each transition is.

A music feature is also available for background sounds, and you can chose from a wide range of tracks, old and new, to play in the background


Here is an example of the stop motion video we made using Flipagram

CONSTRUCTION: SNAP-BACK SCENE

On Tuesday 14th January I and my group went Esher and location scouted for possible places to shoot our snap-back scene.

The idea behind this shoot was to emphasise the American and Hollywood obsession with product and materialism that is referred to in the lyrics of Californication. This ties in with Adorno's theory of a culture industry that is designed to feed the general population petty materials and products to keep them happy and brain-dead.

After location scouting, we now had three locations that were ideal for the scene - a small common, a private road and against an all white wall. The shoot consist of us three standing in different locations in a profile position. To represent the materialism we decided to use snap-back hats because they are currently a very popular fashion item and are quite an expensive item of clothing that is not a necessity. The scene features us all wearing these snap-backs, but in every photo the position of the hat will change while we remain still. The photos will form a montage in our video to represent the materialism of Californication.

EDITING PROCESS

In today's lesson we made use of the photos of the snap-back scene that we took on Tuesday afternoon.

We began by selecting all the best photos from our various shoots and cropping them all down to the same size, making sure to cut out any unnecessary background. These pictures will form a montage in our music video so it is important that they are all the same relative size.

After they had been cropped we put the images into photo-shop to be layered and defined to bring out better colour contrast and lighting effects. The end results have been put into a flipagram slideshow

FILMING: BAND PERFORMANCE SCENES

On the 19th of November, I and my group were able to fill the first major scene that would be featured in our music video. We decided to use our school gymnasium as it is very large giving us plenty of space to film as well as use lighting and props.

We were able to use our friend Huw Carey as our drummer whilst Elliot and I played guitar and bass/vocals respectively. Ellie was on the main cameras and we also borrowed Huw's GoPro camera for the shoot so we had someone experienced to help us with filming and positioning. Ellie used two cameras to gain a variety of shots and experiment with different angles and lighting combinations to try and get the most professional looking shots we could.

This was the basic setup for the instruments and the cameras. We had one that would shoot face on and a second that would shoot low and at angles. The drum-kit took center stage and me and Elliot stood at either side to distribute the screen time as evenly as possible.

Unbeknownst to us we had access to a smoke machine which our teacher was able to get for us. We used this to add depth to our lighting when filming to create some very dark and creative shots. The fact that we could utilize the large gymnasium meant the smoke dissipated evenly and quickly so we were not completely hidden in smoke while on camera.

This is me striking a pose in conjunction with the smoke machine, we had not used the lights at this point so as to try and preserve the bulbs, but we were able to get a sense of how the camera would react to the sue of smoke and how we would appear. As you can see the effect gives an edge to what might have otherwise been a bland photo.

Here we are utilizing the GoPro to get closeup shots of us playing our instruments. We decided to film the scenes with the GoPro first as it was one of the easiest shots to set up.
Huw simply held the camera in place and we adjusted the angle to get different shots. We did not fix it to the instruments as we did not have the clamp attachment for the camera and holding it in place allowed us to move the camera freely and try different positions on the instruments to see which yielded the best result.










This was the Camera we used to film the front facing shots. Its a Canon 100 and we used it primarily to film the front facing shots as it was attached to a higher tripod and had a better zoom capacity than Ellie's camera which we used for closer, low angle shots.
We used the canon to film our entrance to the music video, the three band members playing all at once and towards the end used to to film panning, close ups of the individual band members.



Overall, the shoot went extremely well, and although we were time pressured due to a late start because of the lack of availability of the school gym until 4pm, we got a lot of brilliant work done. The shots we have taken will provide us with near a minutes worth of screen time for our music video. We will review what we have filmed on Thursday 20th November and begin to start editing the shots so that they are ready to be incorporated in the music video when new scenes are filmed. 

FIRST DAY OF FILMING

Today we had the opportunity to film one of our first scenes for the video. This scene is meant to be a direct reflection of the shallow and materialist values that stereotypical Americanism represents.

The scene shows Ellie driving into the distance followed by a tracking and zooming shot. As she moves away a handful of money is carelessly thrown out the window.



Here is a picture of the tripod and the car we were using during the filming of our first shoot. The weather was sunny and crisp and therefore it was an ideal time to film this scene as we could see everything clearly when filming and  the weather reflected the Californian image. 

This scene is influenced directly by Adorno's Theory of the culture industry. Adorno suggested that today's society influences and encourages needless materialism and that people are kept satisfied by this need for things that are not actual necessity's, which has been manufactured by a huge industry that churns out basic brain food to keep the human population satisfied .

Here we printed  out 5, 10 and 20 pound notes to use as props that would be realistic enough to be recognized (although there will also be a closeup of the money before it is thrown so the audience knows what it is).








Bibliography: 
Adorno, Theodor (1991), The Culture Industry: Selected essays on mass culture, Routledge, London.

CALL SHEET: MONEY THROWING SCENE

A2 Media Studies Call Sheet: Money scene

·                     Track – Red Hot Chilli Peppers: Californication

·                     Length – 3 mins 22 seconds

·                     Shoot date – tbd

·                     Location – Money throwing out of car window – Ellie’s Car – in car

Crew: [Ellie Walton, elliepw@hotmail.co.uk,]

·                     Crew: [Elliot Hogan, hogan.elliot@yahoo.co.uk, 07825563046]

·                     Crew: [Max Day, maxday@hotmail.com]

·                     Camera equipment (Nikon Camera (Ellie’s cam) and tripod from media)

·                     Lighting equipment (N/A as will be done in natural daylight)

·                     Props (Photocopied money – preferably £20 notes)

CALL SHEET: HANDBAG FIGHT

Call sheet A2 Media – Handbag fight scene

Track: Californication

Track length: 3 minutes 22 seconds

Cast and crew required:

·        Ellie

·        Elliot

·        Paris

·        Max

Equipment:

·        Canon camera

·        Camera battery (charged)

·        Camera lenses

Props: Stereotypical cop

·        Handbag

·        Police badge

·        Hawaiian shirt

·        Baseball bat

·        Sunglasses

·        Fake handlebar moustache

·        Doughnut box

Band members:

·        casual clothing