More Filming

Up until this week we have not been able to do much more filming as we have not had a room. However, we did decide to film in our dance studio, there was a shock as one of the girls in the group could not attend the filming session as she had an accident. This was not a major issue as we decided to film a short dance sequence with the three of us and then solo pieces, and then later on when Charlotte comes back we can film parts with just two of us and change up the ideas we have. This worked well as we could easily make the choreography symmetrical with 3 of us. We managed to make the filming look proffesional as we used the lights in the studio, which have different filters on them to make the lighting different colours (blue white and green)
We filmed a small Choreographed piece pictured in our storyboards. We also filmed the first piece of the chorus with me lip singing. The filming was easy, and looked proffesional as the lighting helped, and we could keep changing it throughout each shot. However, the editing was harder as I had to fit me singing and Kirsty singing in the right place. This took about 20 minutes of adding in pieces and taking away, and we had to go off track from the storyboards adding a few small hair flips in to make sure the timing fitted. This will shortly be finished and uploaded onto my blog.

Finally Filming

Finally, we decided to give up on our origional idea of the hall as it our efforts to secure a period in there were not paying off. We decided to use Pendefords dance studio. This wasnt too bad as we found 4 small stages we could use to begin our piece, as our first shot was of us all posing into the camera, we just positioned the stages so we could all be seen and did our poses here, and then our walk forward would be us coming off the small stages. This worked well and gave the video a proffesional look. We also found some tall lamps in the back room which we decided to use. These were just normal 60 watt white bulbs, however, we found when we turned the main lights off and just had these lights shining behind the camera and straight at us, it gave the film a more music video style, as it was bright, making the film look grainy and almost rough, this added affect to the film and when we uploaded it we liked the way the filming wasn't too bright. We then filmed ourselvs using a long - shot of holding 2 poses for 8 counts each. We then filmed us strutting towards the camera just like all the girl bands. This is all the filming we did that day as we wanted to change the room we were in after this. We then went back to the classroom and I began editing the footage with input from the other 3 girls. We messed around with the first bits of filming as they were very easy to edit as they were just stills. I changed the colours to make it flash to green red and blue on each word of the song. We then reviewed this footage and found that this colour change made the film look even more grainy, adding to the effect we were trying to create. We then looked at the footage of us walking forward and found that if we darkened it again and it fitted well with the idea we started to create, this looked very professional, such as Beyonces 'Love me' video.

Planning New Ideas

Today we decided we needed to update our plans to fit with the new idea for the music video. We started again with the story boards, and had to look on the internet to refresh our memories about the average Girl Band music video, these are the new story boards:


















We decided to have a shot of us walking forward as we decided with the first video, but then have some more real Choreography in the video and a lot of solo pieces and poses in to keep with the theme of 'sexy;. As you can see, there are a lot of singing bits now in the storyboards, again making the video look more like a real band music video.

Changing the ideas

Once again we went to the hall in the hope we could film, but the exams were ongoing, meaning we couldn't do anything for the film. We stayed in the hall however and decided to discuss our film. We had our original idea on paper, storyboarded, but decided that this idea may not be possible anymore, as we knew we were not going to be able to use the hall. We had decided at first to try to show 4 sides of Lady Gaga
-Unique
-Feminist
-Non feminist
-Pop-star Imagery

We were going to do this using different settings, lighting, clothing, and body image, however due to the lack of time recording in the hall we redirected our video. We decided to conform to the 'girl band' style music video of sexy and feminine. We decided to do this as it will mean not as much time will be needed to get everything just right, and also, for our last video we tried to appose the usual Gangster film image and use females as the drug addicts, we decided that we could conform in this video and then compare the two.
We had been looking at LAURA MULVEY - The Male Gaze. This is the concept that there are different ways females are viewed by others. There are 3 ways in which women are looked at. By men, by themselves, and by other women. There are different aspects of filming that an change these views, for example lighting, or underwear over the females body exentuating the parts of the body men would like to see. The feminist point of view of a music video is that women are seen as objects, 'sex sells'. This is the idea that because of the image of a female men and women will be more likeley to buy something. For example, if there is a beautiful half naked female on the cover of a magazine, men and women will be more likely to buy it then a balding old man being pictured on the front. This idea highlights that some women like being viewed in this way, for instance models. However the gaze can change directions depending on the image, for instance body image. Therefor, in terms of our music video we decided to conform and use the Male Gaze theory. For example, dressing sexily and attractivly to attract both a male and female audience.

We have conformed to this image as it works for a lot of pop stars. However, we have found that a lot of the images have been edited immensley to appeal more to the male eye. We do not agree with this so have decided to use what we have to make this idea fit. For example, wearing nice fitting black clothes to look mystereous and sexy.

Updating

As I have not blogged since December, I have hand written diaries every time we have done some coursework. I will scan these diaries and upload them onto my blog.
JANUARY:
Today we went to the hall to record the first part of our film, however, there were exam desks everywhere, even though we had booked it! We decided to go to the computer room to begin making the website. We decided on a pink and black colour scheme as this theme means we are keeping with the theme and almost conforming to the 'girl band' style. For instance We also decided to use a lot of the pictures we had taken to decorate the website.

http://girliciousdaily.com/ This is an example of a girl bands fan site, they have used pink font and have lots of pictures of them to enhance the site.

We are going to put things such as tour dates, album releases and facts about each 'band member' on the website. We are also going to have a space for fan comments. These are the things we found on real celebrities sites such as Beyonce.
We decided to use Piczo for the website, as we can out this online and make it look more real. We also like how it is easy to use as you can add text, images, and buttons to create a real webpage. When we have a foundation for this website I will upload images/screenshots of the making of the video. We decided that Emily is the best at building a website as she has got her A Level in ICT. I am the best at editing so I will be doing most of this, and Kirsty will be taking over the magazine cover as she is very good at design. Although we all have our own roles, we will all have input on the different things involved in the course work.