Our key prop - The Book

In our production we have decided to use a book as a key prop. The book will be used by myself when I will be reading to Libby. This shows the idea of innocence and childhood. We are planning on naming the book 'Safe and Sound' which is the title of our song, and use a disney style writing font to create the idea of childhood and the idea of a fairy tale. At the end of the video we will have the book appearing again, with the words 'Happily Ever After' appearing to show the idea of the children being happy now they have escaped. This is slightly cliche, but we believe it will work with our childish idea. An example of our font is pictured below.

Influential Styles

For our video we have decided to focus on the idea of sisterly relationships, and the idea of a warring family. One song which deals with the relationships between sisters is 'I'm Missing You' by Brandy. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYGGY014UzQ - Song Link
Although the songs is about one sister singing about another after she has died, it still keeps with the main concept of the relationship between two sisters. 

Another relationship about two sisters, and how one would do anything to keep the other safe, is the story/film 'My Sister's Keeper'. Although this story is about a child being born only so she can save the life of her older sister, it shows the relationship between the sisters, and eventually the older sister dies but she tells her younger sister that she wanted to die. This shows just how strong a bond can be between two sisters, and this is what we want to portray in our video. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWGqoCNbsvM - Song Link
Our song is by Taylor Swift who is a country singer. Another singer who shares a similar style to Taylor Swift, is Colbie Caillat. Her song 'Bubbly' is set with the same song style as 'Safe and Sound' and we mentioned her in our pitch as a stylistic influence. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yERDDbP53Sw - Song Link
Another aspect of our video, is the idea of parents fighting. 'Broken Home' by Papa Roach is a example of another song which deals with the idea of fighting parents. The song is sung from the point of view of the child, and he sings about how he is always stuck in the middle of his parents arguments. This is again what we wanted to show with our video, as the children in our video are stuck in the middle of their parents arguing. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CbRwC7ByiU - Song Link
This song 'Runaway' by Avril Lavigne, is also slightly stylistic for us, as at the end of our video, we are going to have the children running away to start a better life. Although it isn't in the same style as our song, our song is a country song, 'Runaway' is a rock/pop song, the main concept is still there; the idea of home life being bad, and running away to get a better life. 

Actors/Actresses

These are the actors/actresses who will be appearing in our music video.

This is me. I will be playing the older sister.

This is Karen, who will be playing the arguing mother.

This is Joe, who will be playing the arguing father.

This is Libby who will be playing the younger sister.

Location Shots

These are shots of all the locations we will be filming at.

This is Nicola's driveway, where we will be filming the sisters leaving.

This is outside Nicola's house on the pathment, this will be for when the sisters leave.

This is Nicola's back garden where we will be filming the happy memories, and we will also being using camera shots to show the grass decaying over time.

This is Nicola's bedroom, where we will be filming the majority of the video, as it is the safe place for the two sisters.

This is Nicola's front room, where we will film the parents arguing and also one of the happy memories.

Costumes

These are the basic outlines of the costumes we are going to be using in our production.

This will be my happy outfit. We decided that for the happy memories we should be in bright colours to help suggest the idea of happy memories. I will also be having my hair loose.

For the sad memories, I will be all in black or dark blue jeans. This will help to reflect the negative emotions I am feeling.

For Libby's sad costume, we want her to be in white or a light colour, to reflect her innocence and to match with the black and white editing we will use. Her hair will also be up.

For Libby's happy memories, she will be in a dress or something brightly coloured to contrast to the white she will be wearing for the negative memories. She will also have her hair down.

Experimenting with a new camera

During today's lesson we experimented with different techniques on our new camera. These are some of the videos which we made whilst experimenting with the new techniques. We also tried to adjust the focus of the camera manually however we couldn't get it right. These videos are short little snippets we filmed to just get a feel for the camera. My partner Nicola was the one behind the camera for all but one of the shots, as she is going to be the one recording the majority of our video, she needed to be able to set the different effects we need. We did have more videos but I cannot upload them.

 

Auto

Cinema Mode

 

 We also tried Focus Adjustments, which we would like to use in our video, but unfortunatly we are having trouble figuring out how to make it work, Frame Rate, which was a little blurry, and we probably won't use it in the video, Image Stablization, which made the video slightly more still when we were walking, but again we don't have a reason to use this in our video. We also used the Low Level Exposure setting, which when viewed looked like I was standing in front of a white light, Manual Exposure which made the video lighter and darker, which could be used in our video, the Manual setting which didn't really do much, the Snow Setting which made the whole video lighter, and the Sun Set Setting which again made the video to dark.

 

Music Video Animatic

This is our animatic, which shows what we intend to do with our video. When we showed the animatic to our teacher, she told us that some of our shots were too long and we would need to cut into them with other shots, for example our end shot of the train. We decided we could extend our train shot, by adding in a shot of myself and Libby walking into the station, and then sitting down waiting for the train. We could also include close-ups of myself hugging Libby, and her hugging a teddy a bear, to show her innocence.

Storyboard

During our 2 hour lesson this morning we focused on getting our storyboard finished, and then once we had finished getting our images in the right order, we took a photograph of all them individually which we will then re-size and put together to create our animatic.

1. The Camera starts blurry

2. Eventually it comes into focus and we see a little girl looking out a window

3. Her big sister comes up behind her

4. The big sister puts her arm on the little sister

5. They go to hug

6. They hug

7. The older sister lip-sings the line 'When all those shadows almost killed your light'.

8.The little sister puts her head on her sisters shoulder

9. The younger sister lifts her head to look at her older sister

10. The little sister lip-sings part of the line 'Don't leave me here alone'.

11. The older sister then lip-sings 'But all that's dead and gone and passed tonight'.

12. The little sister goes to the older sisters bedroom door.

13. There is a close up of the sister opening the door

14. She goes inside the room.

15. She gets into the bed with her sister

16. Her sister reads her a book, close up of the book

 17. The sister smiles as she falls asleep

18. Close up of the sister asleep

19. The older sister lip-sings 'You and I'll be safe and sound'

20. The parents are arguing

21. The parents are in focus, the children aren't.

22. The children come into focus

23. The sister lip-sings 'Don't you dare'

24. The garden changes from being normal...



25. ...To being dead and decaying

26. The parents argue again

27. Split screen of the parents arguing and the older sister plaiting the little sisters hair

28. The younger sister cries

29. The older sister goes to hug her younger sister

30. They hug

31. The older sister covers her sisters ears

32. The older sister lip-sings 'Even when musics gone, gone'

33. The older sister lip-sings 'Just close your eyes'

34. The sun sets

35. The older sister is reading to the little sister

36. She gives her a teddy bear

37. The younger sister hugs it

38. The sun rises

39. The older sister lip-sings 'You and I'll be safe and sound"

40. Flashback in black and white to a happy memory

41.  Flashback in black and white to a happy memory

42.  Flashback in black and white to a happy memory

43. The sisters pack

44. They run away

45. They are sitting at a train station

46. The train pulls away

47. The book is shown with the words 'Happily ever after' written in it

48. The book closes

Anotated Song Lyrics

These are the lyrics to our song, 'Safe and Sound' which we have annotated with our ideas for the video. They have been included in detail, and they can be found with pictures on my storyboard post.

 

Music Video Pitch

This is the Music Video Pitch, me and Nicola presented to our class. After giving our pitch we were given feedback by our teacher and class mates, which mainly said that we could aim the video at male fans of the Hunger Games, as our song 'Safe and Sound' was used in the film soundtrack.

To keep the link with Taylor Swift, we chose to have her picture as our background.

This slide introduces our idea. It tells the song we plan to use, the original artist, the intended length of the video and song, and the genre.

These are still images from Taylor Swift's song 'White Horse' which is a very similar story to 'Safe and Sound' our song.

In this slide we spoke about the intended audience for our video. We said we would mainly aim the video at females as Taylor Swift's songs are normally about love and relationships which often attract a more female audience. However after a talk with our teacher and class mates, we decided we could also aim the video at males, due to the link between the song 'Safe and Sound' and the film 'The Hunger Games' which was watched by main male and female fans.

For our visual style we chose to include pictures from two other artists music videos, Colbie Caillat and Avril Lavigne, as their song in which we borrowed the images from have a genre and plot reference to our song. We also mentioned about how we planned to have our flashbacks in black and white, and other parts of our video with diluted colour. We spoke briefly about the kind of shots we would be using and the natural shots we would use, eg Sunsets.

Our next slide was on Intertextuality, in which we referenced 3 films which we could link our song to, Notting Hill, London to Brighton and American Beauty. American Beauty would suit well with our idea of family conflict, Notting Hill has a market scene in which the seasons change, which links to our idea of decaying grass, and London to Brighton links with the idea of leaving somewhere on a train. Fairy Tales were also mentioned at they link to our moto of the song, 'You can always have a happy ending.'

For our sound style we chose to reference Colbie Caillat, another Country Singer, and her song 'Bubbly', and Avril Lavigne's song 'Wish you were here', which is a sad song.

Our Mise En Scene mentioned about our ideas for locations, Nicola's house, her driveway, a field for the flashbacks, and the train-station, costumes, dark coloured clothing to represent the idea of warring families, and props which will be inportant to our shoot, a book, rucksacks, a teddy bear, picnic and other things which would make a generally happy family memory.

Our narrative structure briefly outlines our plot and storyline, please see my storyboard post for further details.

The plan for our first Ancillary task is a CD cover which will include a photo of two sisters hugging looking sad. The photo will be in black and white to keep with the idea of it being a flashback and the idea of a family at war, with all the joy sucked out.

Our final Ancillary Task idea was for our magazine advert. We have 2 ideas for this task, one is to do a before and after shoot of the sister, the other is them walking away to show a new life beginning.

This slide introduces our team roles.

The final conclusion slide sums up our ideas for the video. We mention our USP, 'You can always have a happy ending', the different skills we will be using for this project and the different examples of what we would be doing to make our project the best it can be.





Music Video Song Change

We had originally plan to use the song 'Mary's Song' by Taylor Swift as our song, but due to problems with actors we have decided to change our song to 'Safe and Sound' which is also by Taylor Swift, as we feel that we can create a better video using this track.

Background to our song

The song we have chosen to use is 'Safe and Sound' by Taylor Swift, ft The Civil Wars. The song was originally written as a collaboration by Taylor Swift, Joy Williams, John Paul White and T-Bone Burnett. It was written as a promotional track for the 2012 film 'The Hunger Games', and released on the 23rd December 2011, before the films release in March of 2012. Originally the song was premiered on Twitter by Taylor Swift, and when it was released she tweeted a link to the song which was being sold exclusively on itunes. Considering the hype and popularity of the film 'The Hunger Games' the song was originally released in the States and the UK, but also it reached the charts of Australia, New Zealand and Canada. The song also entered the Billboard Hot Digital songs tally at number 19 with 136,000 copies sold in two days. 'Safe and Sound'  attained its highest position worldwide in New Zealand at number 11.

Analysis of a Professional Music Video

For my analysis I chose to analyse 'Love Story' which is another song by Taylor Swift, and so it therefore connects to the song we have chosen to use in our music video.