Production.

For the Production stage, we had to actually film our music video. The class split into 2 groups, and one lot went outside to film the exterior shots, and the other group stayed indoors to film the interior shots. The idea behind this was so that we could simply edit the two groups work together to save time. The group I was in went outside, and filmed in a spot next to the library, where it was unlikely we'd be bothered, because its out of the way of where people go.

Because the inside group had borrowed our storyboards, we had to find another way to know which shots we needed to record. In the end we used someones laptop to view the video, and then set up each shot we needed accordingly. Depending on who had brought what uniforms, if any at all, we decided on who was to play what part in the video, and who was going to be behind the camera organizing each shot. On reflection, I think we all did well with what we had, and our teamwork was something to be proud of, as we all contributed and got through al the shots we needed to film within the lesson, whereas the inside group didn't.

Overall, my teamwork skills were quite good, as explained above. Also, there was organisation required from me as an individual, as I needed to bring the uniform to school to take part in the video, which I did.

Pre-Production.

For the pre-production stage, we had to create our storyboard and create a props list for the video (see earlier posts for details). We were in groups of 7 or 8, and we had to try and re-create the first 1 minute 14 seconds of the video for Busted's What I Go To School For.

For the storyboard, we split the video into 3 sections of roughly 25 seconds. We had to do a rough picture of the shot, and then write down the type of shot, the duration and the camera angle/ type. My group did the quite well, and it was our storyboards that the class ended up using for the production of the video.

The skills I developed in the process of the making the storyboard was mostly teamwork and co-ordination. We had to make sure everyone knew which bit they were doing, and not to do the same shots twice to avoid confusion in the production stage. With good co-ordination as a group, we could work efficiently and quickly, so that we aren't cutting into the time that can be spent on our main coursework videos.

Finished Busted Video.

This is our finished video of Busted's What I Go To School For. Overall we are fairly pleased with the video, but time constraints meant we couldn't do anything more to improve it.

For obvious reasons, we had to leave the out the shots where the animals are mating. Mostly because we can't post that kind of thing in our coursework, and secondly because we didn't have the footage anyway to put in. That meant we were forced to fill it with various other shots, or extend the ones we always had.

Risk Assessment.

For this years music video coursework, there are risks to consider whilst making them. For each risk, we had to take appropriate steps to avoid them.

- Whilst jumping around and playing the guitar in the exterior shots of the video, there was a potential danger of being tripped up, and hitting each other with the instruements, which were quite heavy. To avoid this we had to make sure we were stood a sensible distance apart whilst performing.

- There needs to be a disclaimer on the music we used. We do not own it, and are just borrowing it. Don't want to get sued.

- There is a danger of becoming too famous on the internet. To many views equals too many fans, and there is a potential for abuse via comments on the YouTube video.

Busted Props List/ Actors.

Before we were allowed to go and film our Busted videos, we had to create a list of props that we would need in our video, and also list the actors we were using.

Still in our groups of seven or eight, my group came up with this list-
- School location (this could be broken down into classroom and outside shots).
- 3 guitars, for the outside shots.
- School uniforms for all the actors involved.
- Whiteboard or blackboard for the opening shot sequence, plus a pen to write on it.
- Pencil, for the part of the video that matches up to the lyrics "I drop my pencil on the floor, she bends down and shows me more".
- Projector, for the shots including the animals mating on the screen (we were unable to get hold of the relevant footage, so we decided as a class to leave these shots out and just extend our existing shots instead).

Our actors list was-
- Charlie, Tim Andrews/ Josh Stevens.
- Matt, Me/ Mikey Elliot.
- James, Ricken Ram/ Daniel Bailey
- Teacher, ...
- Girl that turns around, Emmy Garner.
- Girl that dances in single shot, Owain Anderson.
- Screaming groupies, The rest of the class.

Storyboard.

This is the group effort for the storyboard we did for the Busted music video. Excuse the varying styles in drawing, it was done by 7 different people in total! The lines through some of the pictures were done as each shot was filmed, so that we knew which shots we had and hadn't done.

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4)

5)

Busted, What I Go To School For.

For our preliminary music video task, we were told to get in groups of 7 or 8 and then create a storyboard for the first 1 minute and 14 seconds of the video above. In our group, we split up into 3 seperate mini-groups and storyboarded 25 seconds of the video each to save time. I helped do the first 25 seconds, along with Catherine. See the next post for the storyboard!

Within the part of the film we were told to do, the actual contents of the video certainly illustrate the lyrics through use of images and actions. For example, the line "I drop my pencil on the floor, she bends down and shows me more" is matched with the imagery of the teacher in the video doing exactly that, as one of the band members drops a pencil off his desk. This fits in with Andrew Goodwins theory of illustration in music videos. Another theory that this video fits in with is Laura Mulveys male gaze theory, as the teacher is constantly shown as something that the male actors/ bend members in the video tend to gaze at a lot. The video also includes a lot of close up shots of the band members throughout, as is pretty much conventional in any music video.

Welcome to the A2 Blog!

Hello there!

This, as the title suggests is my A2 blog for Media. This blog is focused on my practical work from the year, and the other blog will be about my theory work. Both will be updated throughout the year everytime I do some work, so expect plenty of lengthy updates.

Mark Bramford