Child Actors

I first fell in love with child actors when I saw the motion Picture of "Lolita" and I thought that working with a child actor would be great and effective and useful.
Little did we all know it's slightly more complicated than that...
First of all it seemed as though Jake was totally up for acting for the big kids, getting to dress up and go out. Soon this attitude changed and he was reluctant to do as requested. Doing the same shots over and over again because he was looking at the camera or stumbled must have grated on his nerves a fair bit.
His sister, Leo heroically squeezed the last bit of footage out of him using bribes, blackmail and begging.

Unfortunately this means we have to make due with what we have currently, as no more footage can be obtained of Jake.
So forgive if at any time the shot looks slightly off or some sort of mistake occurs, since we couldn't go back over it.

But we can take as much footage as we want to of the other actor, so that is what we shall do to even out the quality.

And the rest...

We're going to have to use every chance we get to edit what we have, fitting hours of footage into about three and a half minutes is harder than one would think initially (and we're using speedups too).
But we're getting this done and after-all, is this not what media is all about? the lonely solitary tapping of keys; the endless cutting, editing and pasting into final cut; swinging from tree to mighty tree with camera in hand! Yes, this is Media 2008, Bold and Dynamic like the sea from whence it was birthed. DEAL WITH IT.

minor problems

There have been ump-teen problems hereabouts with my video footage-
Firstly) The inability to convert my footage straight from the HD camera.
Secondly) The lack of instinct to turn the footage into a quicktime file so it can be ready by Finalcut.
Thirdly) The fact that I need to sift through all the useless shots taken
Umpteenthly) I complain about all of these things regardless of the fact we have plenty to do anyway.

Aside from that we're progressing quite nicely...

MUSIC PRODUCTION CRITICAL EVALUATION: PART 1

>>> Due on Moodle by 9am Monday 20th October

MUSIC PRODUCTION CRITICAL EVALUATION
Part 1 should be about 1500 words in length and should consider the planning, shooting and editing to rough cut stage. You should make use of your blog as a reference point throughout! Where you refer to real examples for comparison, give web references and as much detail as possible e.g. artist/song and video director.

Introduction
Explain what task you did for the AS production and how this one differs from it.
(e.g. thriller/kids Tv)

Part One
Explain briefly how the work came about and what the tasks were.
(Talk about learning more techniques for final Cut, analysing some real music videos and looking at student examples,talk from promo director, music range of choices, etc)

Which band/artist did your group choose and why?
(give some positive reasons here)

How did you ‘pitch’ for them?
(summarise briefly)

Where did you get your ideas from? Cite actual examples as shown on your blog!

What tasks had to be done in the research and planning phase? How were these handled and what could have been done to improve them?
(talk about storyboarding, animatic, organising places, props, equipment, people)

How did the group come to decisions about approaches to the tasks to be completed? (what range of options did you consider and why did you opt for the choices you made?)

What roles did the various people in the group take on? Concentrate particularly on your role in the various activities.

Talk about any test footage you shot. What did you learn from doing these tests and from the animatic?

Write about the shoot. What went well/badly? what could you have done differently?

Consider your early editing and how you reached the rough cut stage. Outline this process and discuss decision-making you undertook.

What does the group feel about the rough cut? What feedback have you had from director/ other students etc? what still needs to be done?

UPDATE

So far...

Roughcut has been completed.

We still need :

Dan's footage - which should be completed over the weekend and ready for monday.

Next lesson we are hoping to really dive into editing and make sure all the footage we need is ready and present.

Getting a general order to the clips, and making sure we know which clip goes where and that there is enough narrative for the length of our song.

But, assuming our planning was right (which OFCOURSE it was) we shouldn't have any problems doing this - but it may take a bit of time to cut up all the shots we want and where we want them.

we have busy lessons ahead of us!

ROUGH CUT

Here is our rough cut video of the work that we have got together so far. The gaps are of the footage we are yet to have, but will add in next lesson.

we're confident that we'll have the footage that we need, and hopefully also enough time to edit our videos to a high standard.

Stuff and stuff

This is some more general research.





We thought we should add a video that was officially made for one of the Cage The Elephant's songs to show their ideas as a comparison to our own.

Tuesday 7th October 2008 Lunch/Last Lesson

Today we accomplished alot as a group, considering we were at college and had other commitments as well as our media project; as a group we are happy and anxious with the days events...

Leo and Dan had rounded around 10 of their friends up, and asked them if they were able to wear or bring a suit into college for today as we were going to shoot the 'executives scene' and by gosh, was it a success.

I (Maili) admit I was not much of a help as i was late in due to my bus not turning up, and was too ill to be be filmed but it didnt phase Leo as she was sorting out everything and had done about half of the filming by the time I had got there.

Everyone was very considerate of the fact we were under pressure for time and it ran very smoothly, we were able to film one after the other and everyone did it in one take and was happy to be appart of it.

We captured each of them as a stressed out business man, and some of them were able to lipsync with the song making it more effective as they 'freaked out' as the music climaxed during the chorus. Having quite a few people there will make the editing alot more effective as we have such a range of shots from different people's reactions to the song. Everyone was able to give it their own personal touch and definatly stood out from eachother.

Once we had finished filming me, Leo and Dan then went back to the lesson to upload all our footage, the music from the college video cam seemed to be out of sync so Leo put some skill into sorting that back out again so we were back on track, and we then uploaded the footage from my video camera to find out that the quality was not as we had expected it to be as a size setting was different to the other cameras that we had been using and we were unable to change this.

Being the brilliance that is my group, we managed to talk it over with our teacher and decide on what we were going to do, as we didnt have enough time to reshoot everything on another camera. We decided that most of the shots that were taken on my camera were of Jake, Leo's little brother, so we decided to edit the clips of Jake at work with some filters and so on, to give a negative, boring kind of vibe to mirror his life and his feelings from it. As Dan's shots will be on a different camera all together we're not as worried about these.

Leo will be reshooting the morning shots of Jake with a school camera where he is playing the role of a little boy so the only clips that will look a bit pixelated are of Jake at work, so this is why we're using it to our advantage and playing around with effects. Although my camera has been a let down, as a group we have got past it and all i can do is say sorry as it was my camera that has caused the problems!! :(

So with the new footage being done tonight, Dan also starting to record his, and the editing starting in tomorrow's lesson, we have definatly got on with it despite hitches.

Yay for our group! and they said 13 was an unlucky number.

Lyrics to our chosen song

Tonight I’ll have a look
And try to find my face again
Buried beneath this house
My spirit screams and dies again
Out back a monster wears a cloak of Persian leather
Behind the TV screen
I've fallen to my knees

I said you got me where you want me again
And I can’t turn away
I'm hanging by thread and I'm feelin’ like a fool
I'm stuck here in-between
The shadows of my yesterday
I want to get away
I need to get away

Blanket of silence
Makes me want to sink my teeth in deep
Burn all the evidence
A fabricated disbelief
Pull back the curtains
Took a look into your eyes
My tongue has now become
A platform for your lies

I said you got me where you want me again
And I can’t turn away
I'm hanging by thread and I'm feelin’ like a fool
I'm stuck here in-between
The shadows of my yesterday
I want to get away
I need to get away

Now you know
Yeah you got my back against the wall
Oh god
I ain't got no other place to hide
Chained down
Like a sittin’ duck just waitin’ for the fall
You know
Yeah you got my back against the wall

Deep in the jungle
Camouflaged by all the fallen leaves
A hand holds up the sky
While shamefully I make my plea
The alters callin’
But my legs won’t seem to stand
Guess I'm a coward
Scared to face the man I am

I said you got me where you want me again
And I can’t turn away
I'm hanging by thread and I'm feelin’ like a fool
I'm stuck here in-between
The shadows of my yesterday
I want to get away
I need to get away

Now you know
Yeah you got my back against the wall
Oh god
I ain't got no other place to hide
Chained down
Like a sittin’ duck just waitin’ for the fall
You know
Yeah you got my back against the wall

Now you know
Yeah you got my back against the wall
Oh god
I ain't got no other place to hide
Chained down
Like a sittin’ duck just waitin’ for the fall
You know
Yeah you got my back against the wall

Plan of Action - revisited

1. Friday - Sun rise - Dan
2. Saturday - Leo - Leo's House - Morning shots of Jake TICK
3. Wednesday - Dan's house - Morning shots of Dan TICK
4. Sunday - Leo and Maili - Town with Jake/office/bus TICK
5. Sometime before Wednesday - Dan - Park scenes.
6. Sometime before Wednesday - Maili, Leo and Dan - Wall scene, executives.
7. Sometime before Wednesday - Maili/Dan - Nature shots. Extreme close ups.

TO DO.

Sunrise shot. Maili or Dan.
Park scenes of Dan
Executive scenes 'back against the wall' lip syncing (hopefully Tuesday)
Extreme close ups of Nature. Maili or Dan... Probably Maili.

Filming at the weekend.

Me, Leo and Jake went filming on Sunday. Leo and Jake first went into Cambridge to film the shots of Jake making his journey towards 'work'. Leo filmed him walking through crowded streets and getting on a bus towards his office.

Me, Leo and Jake, also accompanied by my dad, then met up in Fulbourn and drove to my dad's office which is located in S&B Herba Foods Ltd. Leo did a few location shots outside and also filmed Jake walking into the building. We then started shooting jake at the office desk typing and generally doing work for about 10 or so minutes from different angles.

After getting most of the shots we needed we were able to get the final shoots of the music video. We got shots of Jake throwing papers around, and the final shot of him standing in the fallen paper staring directly at the camera.

Overall i think the filming went well and I am very grateful for dad letting us use the office, and also the patience of Jake, Leo's little brother who we wouldn't of been able to do it without, He was an excellent actor.

Leo and Jake also managed to get the morning shots that we needed for the music video on Saturday; which has also put us at a brilliant advantage as we have all of Jake's shots now completed and Dan has done some of his. I think as a group we've achieved alot from this weekend and hopefully we can finish filming as soon as possbile to be able to start editing as early as possible to get the biggest advantage for our final peice.

Reply from Maili's Dad's work.

From: Graham Carter (graham.carter@sbhf.com)
Sent: 03 October 2008 17:19:36
To: Maili Seljamae (mugzthebeast@hotmail.co.uk)
Cc: Reino Seljamae (reino.seljamae@sbhf.com)

Hi Maili,



No Problem ~ we will all have to make sure that we leave our desks tidy tonight !



Hope the shoot goes well.



Very best regards,



Graham Carter.

research images

Here we have the classic 'little boy' stereotype. Boys are 'supposed' to get dirty out, playing in the mud. We think this will be a great way of symbolizing the man's craving and dream of having no responsibility again, and have a life where all he has to worry about is his mum telling him off for ruining his clothes.




This is what we're hoping to use for our office scene, this isn't the actual place we will be shooting but the real thing is very similar. It is a group room which I think is good because it shows that the boy isn't an important person in the company otherwise he would of had his own office. It also gives a sense of claustrophobia which we are trying to achieve through some of the other scenes




We wanted a playground such as this with the bright colours and play equipment which symbolizes the little boy's personality and lifestyle.



Here is a great example of the frustration of being in a boring job that we are trying to create (obviously without the comic value) we want the amount of work and the boring daily routine, ontop of the stressful job to finally create an over whelming feeling that he needs to explode and release the feelings that have been bottled up.

Letter to Maili's Dad's work, for permission to shoot in their office space

From: Maili Seljamae [mailto:mugzthebeast@hotmail.co.uk]
Sent: 03 October 2008 08:48
To: Graham Carter; Reino Seljamae
Subject: A Level Media Project

Dear Graham

I am currently a Media studies student from Long Road Sixth Form College, working on a project for my A level grade.

I have been asked to make a music video with two other people, and our plan for a small part of the video is in an office location. Which is why I would like to ask you if we were able to use your office space for a brief location shot as part of our project; it will be a great advantage to us and we would be ever so grateful

The date in which we would like to shoot this would be Sunday 5th October 2008, with the presence of my father, Reino Seljamae.

Thank you very much for reading

Yours sincerly

Maili Seljamae

chorus brain wave

we've been pondering over an idea to fill 19 seconds where dan will be 'transforming' into Jake, and visa versa.

When the chorus hits we will rewind the video that has happened to far to the scene where Dan and Jake leave the house, but this time they will come out as each other and continue their routine of the other person. This will then continue like our previous plans.


Are we great or are we great?

response to peer assessment

From our peer's feedback we have found out the following things:

1. We need to add rough footage of our own.
2. more detailed shot list
3. more student videos as examples.
4. a more detailed pitch

we have been marked 24-30 marks by two groups and 17-23 by another two.

and of course, the big assessment question

"why are we here?"

"cause of the Ducks"

"well.."

Wrong, all wrong.

For the next few session our aim to improve our blog with the following suggestions made by our classmates

Plan of action.

So we've just figured out the reality of how much time we have compared to how much we need, so we're getting our arses in gear and deciding on who is doing what.

1. Friday - Sun rise - Dan
2. Saturday - Leo - Leo's House - Morning shots of Jake
3. Wednesday - Dan's house - Morning shots of Dan
4. Sunday - Leo and Maili - Town with Jake/office/bus
5. Sometime before Wednesday - Dan - Park scenes.
6. Sometime before Wednesday - Maili, Leo and Dan - Wall scene, executives.
7. Sometime before Wednesday - Maili/Dan - Nature shots. Extreme close ups.