Practice Magazine Advert

In preparation for the final piece of our ancillary task I decided to make a practice magazine advertisement, just so I could get a feel for the way in which we would have to make it. My work is below:

Location Change

As I mentioned previously, we needed to change the location we were filming, as the place we had didn't look right at all. During our initial planning, I had suggested a local music venue, Leo's Red Lion, as a possible location, but the rest of the group didn't seem to agree. After time we saw that another group in our class was using the venue for their location, and it actually looked quite good. Our group's minds were changed, but it wouldn't be possible now the other group were using it.

However, I then remembered that there was more than one stage at The Red Lion. I suggested the downstairs basement stage as a location, and after some initial skepticism, the rest of the group agreed. I arranged for the room to be booked for a few hours on the next Saturday, at the price of £5 an hour, which was fairly reasonable for a genuine music venue. With the location decided, we worked on arranging all the equipment we needed.

We were aware of the fact that this would probably take more than one session of filming, and we knew that we would have problems on the first day, as we did at the previous location. We would probably take longer setting up then we would actually filming. However we agreed to go and give it our best shot.

Post-Filming

Whilst in the process of filming we thought everything was going well. We knew that we would have to go back, because it took a long time ti set up and work out where we wanted to arrange all the components of our set. But we thought the footage we shot was good, but it seemed this wasn't the case. The background we made didn't cover the wall behind the set, so brightly painted words were still visible behind the band. Also, there were a number of other objects in the background of our handheld shots.

Overall, the main problems were:

A - The location just wasn't good enough, it didn't look like somewhere a band would play or the set of a music video.

B - We hadn't been professional enough. We didn't set up our shots effectively or with enough quality. We needed to focus a lot more carefully next time we filmed.

We decided to address these problems when we returned to the classroom, and in the meantime we agreed to look at alternative places to film.

The other thing we needed to look at in the meantime was copyright permission. We couldn't find an email address as we had when contacting Frank Turner's record label. However, Tom was able to find the address of the head office of Capitol Records. Jake drafted a letter to send them, and so this issue was taken care of.

More Planning

We majorly needed to start filming again so we decided to bring together our ideas and get going as soon as possible. I presented my ideas along with all the other members of the group. We focused on doubling our efforts enough to get a suitable plan together to start filming. With the impressive research we were able to pull together as a group, we were fairly successful. We drew up some of our plans on storyboards, and made an animatic, both of which can be seen below.

Final Planning and Filming

Upon meeting with the group again, I found that the others had similar ideas to me, and that my own personal contributions were well received. The vision for the video was to have an older man, performing the piece, but also, reflecting the message of the song by attempting to be young again. To achieve this we decided to have him performing actions traditionally associated with children. We hoped that this would look comically ludicrous and reflect the vibrant feel of the music. By this point, beginning our filming was becoming a massive priority, so we decided to start as soon as possible. After making our final plans, we agreed to start filming on January 23rd.

Our initial filming was riddled with problems from the very beginning. By leaving it so late, we weren't available to get together to film, with our actor, until 3 o' clock. This meant that we couldn't film any exterior shots, because it would get dark very quickly. So we decided to start filming an interior performance shot at our first location. This location was a cellar used by a friend of ours as a music studio. The room seemed to have the right feel and was available when we wanted to film. However, more problems arose as soon as we arrived. Due to a limited amount of lights and space, it took a long time for us to set up our first shot. What we managed to shoot was fairly good, but we simply didn't have enough time to shoot a suitable quantity of footage. So, we returned to school with what we had, to see if we could do anything with it.

Planning

After finally deciding on a song, we got on with planning. Our first planning meeting was very productive, and our ideas came together well. Everyone had their own individual ideas and there was good contribution all round. However, we did run into several problems. Despite our initial caution, our ideas were largely narrative based. We decided to create a narrative based piece, with supporting performance sections. In themselves these ideas were good. However, we didn't feel they worked together as a whole video.

With this in mind we got together to discuss our options, and unanimously agreed that it would probably be better to change songs. If we stuck with "The Real Damage" we'd be too tempted to create a narrative line or basis to the video. We still thought that Frank Turner would be a good artist to stick with, so after some discussion, we selected our favourite song, "Photosynthesis". I personally thought this was a good choice, because it seemed like a good idea to stick to songs we liked so we still enjoyed working with it.

We agreed to look into the song individually and come back with our ideas. I chose to look at the existing music video for the song

In my opinion, this is a weak music video, especially for the potential that the music has. Although it captures the vibrant feel of the music, the content doesn't really reflect the meaning of the song. I envisioned an adult in an eternal chase of his lost youth, rather than interaction with youth in itself. The song suggests he feels out of touch, and even dislike for the youth of today, so seeing him interact with them didn't really make sense. With this in mind, I decided to present the group with my ideas.

Song Choice and Permission

The time had finally come for our group to choose a song. The general consensus was that Frank Turner would be the most suitable, since we had the most ideas. Our initial choice was the song "The Real Damage". We began our planning for the video straight away. The idea was for a performance-based piece, with a loose narrative backup. We planned for around three settings for live performances, which would form the spine of the video, with the narrative section filling in the remaining time. We felt an exterior setting would be appropriate to the music and general feel of the song. With this in mind, we brainstormed locations that we knew that would be possible. A park in Dartford was deemed suitable, as was a local riverside. For the interior shots we chose a friend's shed and a cellar.
To make the video, we would also need to try and get written permission from the copyright holders of the song. Frank Turner's recording label is the UK-based company "XL Recordings". I used the contact section of their website to email them to ask permission to use the song. However, after two weeks there was still no reply, and we couldn't hold off filming any longer. We decided to begin at the earliest oppurtunity.

Starting Off: Initial Research

These are a couple of videos that I liked personally.