Blog 8-Initial Ideas

Inspiration for idea's

When thinking of ideas for the music video's I made sure I looked at a variety of Lady gaga music videos to get a general idea of her style. I collected a selection of images to help find the direction my ideas where going to go in.

From the images above.I have found that in the majority of her video she has really unique and quirky outfits and makeup styles, I have taken this into consideration when planning my music video.

Initial Ideas

I looked at the lyrics of the song chosen for my video, for the first few lines of the song the lyrics are: " In your brown eyes I walked away, In your brown eyes I couldn't stay, In you brown eye's you'll watch her go" These lyrics gave me the idea for the start of the video to have a brown eye in the back ground slightly faded blinking every time brown eye's is said whilst have footsteps walk away over the eye. I got this idea as it is quiet a abstract idea which i feel would suite the vibe for one of her video's. For the verses I want it to follow a kind of story of her sat crying on a bed or in a room with a pile of photos, I want her to be looking over photo's of her and the man she was with reminiscing over good times, but then as lyrics say "everything could everything if only we were older" I have a idea of her looking out a window into the future of them holding hands being happy but then realisation occurs and the thought shatters like glass and it goes back to her sat on the bed or floor with photos

Mise-en-scene For make up and costumes for when looking at the past because the song is about her young love I would choose to have the actor looking fresh faced with little make up kind of like lady gaga's image at one point in "bad romance", I also think it should be filmed in black and white so viewers can tell the past and now easily, also for the future part have it really bright and colourful. Another look our group are considering so the audience can distinguish the past from the present is the 1950's kind of look with big hair, red lips and a beauty spot; kind of like the Marilyn Monroe look. I also thought for the chorus because in most lady gaga video's she has a dance routine involved that during each part of the chorus there could be a group of people dancing with her at the front in a really funky outfit to make it tie in with her style.

However because the song is slower then most of her songs and more emotional instead of a big dance troupe we were thinking maybe having it in a dance studio with mirrors and the type of dance we would like to use is ballet as it can be used to portray emotion. Like the image on the right we hope to achieve this look during the dance routine and alternate between black and white shots to colour shots.

Making the video different

As most people are aware Lady Gaga is mainly known for her unique and experimental dress sense; this is what makes her so popular. This is why in our video we wish to create a video using her dress sense however we also want to challenge her style by making the video slightly more emotional and slower then videos such as "Just Dance" and "Poker Face" This is because even though she is most recognised for videos with huge performances we feel a slower more emotional video will still show many of her traits, we also are intending to purchase a Lady Gaga wig to make her recognisable.

Blog 7-Copying An Existing Video

During our media production lessons our class copied the video called "Teenage Dirtbag" by wheatus. From this experience we learnt how to set up the camera equipment, how to edit and learnt how to use the camera's safely without damaging them. We were all set in small groups and had to each take turns in filming, directing and being in the video.

Camera Technique

We learnt first about basic camera technique such as camera angle's for example low angle shot, high angle shot and eye line match. We also learnt about different types of shit such as establishing shots to set the scene for the music video; we did this so when watching the wheatus video we could understand what shot types we needed to use when copying the video. We then learnt how to set up a tripod correctly without causing any damage to the equipment. We also learnt that if we want to adjust it's height that we can extend the legs. We then learnt all the different movements it allowed for example: The tripod allows the camera to create a pan shot by pivoting left to right and can also move up and down if required.

Using a Camera

Once we had learnt how to safely use equipment we moved onto how to actually use the video camera:

White balance:

We learnt about the different types of white balance and what effects they have when shooting. Automatic white balance(AWB) can prove unreliable in different lighting. Indoor setting: This can be used especially for when shooting shots indoors. Outdoor setting: helps the camera adjust to outdoor lighting for shooting outdoors.

Exposure:

We learnt about how different shutter speeds effect the shot for example 1/50 gives a slow shutter speed with light exposure where as a shutter speed 1/1000 is fast but gives a darker exposure. Then we also learnt that by changing the IRIS/aperture we can create lighter or darker images. We were shown these techniques and settings as these were the basic settings we needed to understand in order to recreate the video "Teenage Dirtbag"

Copying existing video:

Before making the music video we watched the first few seconds of the Wheatus "teenage dirtbag" video and filled in a storyboard with the first several shots below is our storyboard that we each filled in: Our class was separated into 3 groups and we each were given shots that we needed to re create, in my group we established who was going to do what part e.g. director, clapper board, cameraman and actors. We then rotated who had a go at directing and hold the camera. When it was my go to use the camera I found that it was actually a lot harder then what I had thought it would be however after a while I got used to using it and we got some good shots. I then had a go at directing which I found probably the hardest as it required me to make sure everything happened at the correct time so it didn't look bad on the camera. We then learnt how to edit the footage on final cut pro, which I found to be the most difficult part. We learnt how to speed footage up, cut pieces up to make takes flow more fluidly into each other and we also learnt how to change the brightness of the footage. Each group took edited their footage before we all put our finished pieces together to create a short part of footage which was copied from Teenage Dirtbag. Below is our part of the music video "Teenage Dirtbag"

I feel that this exercise provided me with the fundamental skills required to start preparing for the production of our own music videos; I feel that I learnt some useful camera techniques and editing skills which will help me when it comes to the production and editing process for my video.

Other camera practice we had was filming a time lapse. We used college ground and were separated into small groups we each had to film a member for 15 minutes in a position and make sure they stood still, we then after 15 minutes would pause the camera and switch the position. The classes footage was then edited together and sped up to create a time lapse and below is the finished product:

I really like the effects used in this and like the idea of a time lapse as it looks abstract and very technical, it is something I and my group are keen to use in our music video and we feel like it will fit with "Lady Gaga's" style.