Production diary: Week 6

This week a produced a basic story board for the Kyoto Gardens filming scene. This was made for me to remember what shots I was looking for and for my main character to feel confident with what she was doing in front of the camera.
Story board can be seen above.

Call sheets:

Production diary: Week 5

This week I produced 'call sheets' to email to everyone involved in the filming aspect of my film. A call sheet provides basic information for things like: timing, location addresses, what to bring, and a brief description of what will be happening during the the filming process along with what needs to happen.
The call sheets will be available to view in my next post.

Production diary: Week 4

This week I've been focused on the codes & conventions of music films - focusing on Sir Alan Parker I've watched as many of his works that I can online and gotten a sense of what he tries to do when he produces films. He's really intrigued about his surroundings and the environments around him and I understand that kind of motivation; which is what I want to convey in my film also - in order to do this I have to capture quintessential but non-typical perspectives of London which is ultimately the motivation and inspiration behind my film.
In order to do this I made a photo diary, basically made up of interesting things I've found on the streets of London, you can have a look at my images below:

Production notes: filming & editing

Some of my favourite music videos (or films as he likes to call them) are directed by Nabil Elderkin who is an American filmmaker/director. He edits and shoots his films as if the viewer is in them. Some of his shots are so extraordinary yet they still have that point of view touch which really engages viewers in what their watching and truly makes them feel as if they are a part of the happenings. One of my favourite examples of this by Nabil is the video he directed for Alt-J's Hunger of the Pine. This is a fantastic music film with it's effortless sharp cuts to it's tremendous birds eye views which cascades over a forest and the camera angles really work into the grooves of the pine trees. Also, the slight tilting and jolting of the camera whilst the man being filmed is running really makes what you're watching so much more realistic and makes you feel as if you are running with the character.

Production notes: styling & make up

To continue on the theme of subtlety and coyness I don't want the styling to be too overbearing or remarkable. I still do want my character to look well dressed but the focus should be far from what it is that she's wearing. I do know that I want to keep the colours neutral and quite 90's high school student casual (which will complement the analogical filming but give it some quirky-ness as everything else being shown is quite modern. Here's a visual example incase it's hard to envision:

As for the make up - again, I want it to be very natural, light (not heavy), tidy make up which will be done by a friend of mine who is a make up artist.

Production notes: characters

My film (already as unconventional as it is) will only have 1 main character (and potentially a few extras floating in and out of scenes) but none of them will have any lines so none of them will speak. In most music videos we see artists lip syncing the lyrics to their songs - but I've always found this a bit odd especially for those filming, which is why the artist in my film will not lip sync. Although I think it may be nice to partially have her say some of the words to the song, but very subtly like the camera isn't watching her do it. The song itself is quite a mellow ballad and I think by doing this it will only compliment and emphasise the lyrics and their meanings.
This is the artist's artwork for the song which was photographed by me:

As she looks quite shy and bashful on the cover I want to carry out this attitude throughout filming, I want her to move in the way we see models do in their portfolio reels but the camera will be focused a little less on the main character's face but mostly on body parts and the locations around her whilst filming. Although, the background is quite loud and outstanding and it's a great juxtaposition of how she is perceived to be in the photo, I still want the locations in the film to be vivid as it takes some pressure off of the character whilst filming and still allows her to be gentle and subtle in her movements. Here are some examples of the model reels I'm talking about:

Production notes: location

For my music video/film, I've looked at a couple different locations. I really like the shot from the 'Scene Girl' video when the rapper is walking down the road of a suburban neighbourhood so I've decided to to the same - I will begin by filming in the residential park located across the road from my house.

I'm also going to film on the rooftop of the Westfield shopping mall car park located in Stratford, East London which is where the main character resides. The empty car park will create an ambiance and sense of seclusion which the lyrics in the original soundtrack will be complimented by. Another great thing about the rooftop location is that there's a special view of London in the background during scenes.

Paul Kelly

Paul Kelly is an English director, musician, photographer and designer. Kelly took on film making as an extension on his love of photography. He started making 'promo' videos for bands that he was with at the time such as: 'Hal', 'Cherry Ghost', and 'Saint Etienne' which I will focus on in the post. When Kelly and Saint Etienne first collaborated in 2002 The Observer described it as a 'cinematic hymn to London'. 'Finistene' is the name of the first project produced and it was premiered at The Institute of Contemporary Arts. The latest collaboration to come from Kelly and Saint Etienne is a piece called 'How we used to live.' It is described as an 'enthralling celebration'. The film is made up of rare color footage from the British Film Institute archive and a wonderful narratation by Ian McShane. 
Below is the trailer for Finisterre, it's a documentary-type music film made by Kelly and musically enhanced by Saint Etienne. Although it differs from your ordinary video montage/documentary about London as it doesn't physically feature any of the voices heard via voiceover. It's main narrator is Michael Jayston, according to Torodov Jayston's commentary isn't the correct way to go about commentating as he doesn't work on an equilibrium its more of a free flow of words. His narrative could be linked to Shakespeare's prose writing.

Here is the trailer for 'How we used to live':

Again, the narrative over this trailer doesn't follow Torodov's theory. The narrative is like listening to poetry about London - it can be taken as multiple intrepretations for many different ideas about London which circulate. This is an insightful tactic as it doesn't limit the viewers thinking, it allows for different perceptions which is what media essentially revolves around as what we see in media is just a representation of what truly is.