The response!

My psychology teacher, who we casted for the female therapist character responded for my email with a question if she would like to take part in our music video.  She got back to me and this is her response:

This is what I replied:

The date of our music video shoot! 

Today we were told that our shoot is planned in November the 17th. I emailed my psychology teacher if she can take part in the shoot on the day. I am now waiting for the reply, however Teddy is going to email our dj character. 

Also Jason today told us that it might me impossible to have the hanging ma in our clip. Therefore now we need to come up with another idea OR cast one of the students as a hanging man, what we still need to discuss with Luke. 

Animatic 

Here is our animatic, which is a video of our storyboard put together with music, to get the general idea what we are going for when it comes to our music video. 

1. What is an animatic storyboard?
An animatic is a filmed version of the storyboard. The shots are timed to what the actual are supposed to look like. Its gives a general idea what is our concept, it helps to visualise the concept since the track is playing in the background and the shots are played in a right order.

2. How useful has this been to your music video concept?
Personally I think it helped us to see what kind of shots fit in the rythm of the music, but also it helps to imagine the whole flow of the music video.

3. What have you identified worked for your music video and why?
I think the movement and a lot of quick shots are working well with the pace fo the song but we still need to add more shots to make it more dynamic.

4. Do you have enough shots? if not what do you need to consider?
I think we do not have enough shots, but we have discussed that we should have more movement shots of the main mad character to create a rapid jump cuts between the scenes.

5. What needs to change or develop to your music video idea and why?
We need to develop the narrative between the main male character and the therapist.

6. What are you going to do?
Together with my group we are going to add more action in the video

Storyboard 

HERE is our complete storyboard that we draw and annotated. 

Letter to ZHU's record company 

Teddy wrote a letter to the record company - Mind Of A Genius - asking for a permission to use their song in our video. Below I posted a picture of the email that we sent. 

How to build a padded room?

Since we are building the padded room setting in the studio on our own, HERE is the technique that we are going to use! 

Meeting with Luke and set designer 

Yesterday we had a meeting with Luke and a set designer. I found that meting particularly helpful.We came up with new concepts and some of the ideas we decided to reject. 

We decided to twist the idea a bit and came up with the concept of a dentist chair in a interrogation room - we thought that the table and two chairs is too boring and it is not original, since it is a mental hospital we should have something crazy in the rooms - break the stereotypes. 

The mad man would be tied to the chair, while being in the room with the woman therapist. However it would be our back up plan when the idea with the hanging man will not work out. 

The other idea that we had was to switch the CCTV room to a mysterious/crazy location. We came up with the idea of a cave with few monitors in it or to create like a secret office in the middle of the forest that would be hidden under leaves and branches.

Another suggestion was to just shot the whole video in a padded room and have different elements cut between, which I thought is a good idea because it would give us more editting opportunities and we can experiment with various techniques like colours, lights etc. Right now the decision belongs to all of us - we need to think if we prefer to have only one set with various elements or three completely different sets. 

We were also thinking about variety of shots of the mad man and we came with the idea of eyes painted on the lids. 

As a last idea that we had yesterday was concerning the appearance of the DJ. We thought that it would be nice to add one more aspect to the video to increase the pace and variety. From the beginning we wanted him to be in a padded room with his colorful deck and adding some colorful lights with it. 

Set Design 

For the past two days I started sketching set designs. I draw two for Padded Room - the first sketch is general view on the padded room, the second one includes the hanging man, since Jason suggested it would be good to show where are we thinking of putting the mad man. 

Another sets are representing the interrogation room and the CCTV room. We decided that we would like to include the viewing window in the interrogation setting also we thought that we would like to place the 'CCTV' room in a brick room with one monitor, simple table and some kind of office props like shelfs, boxes etc. 

Props 

This is a presentation describing props that we will use in our music video. Additionally Teddy added prizes of props that we need to buy, most of the object we already have access to.

Costume 

I created a presentation describing the costume that we would like to have in our music video. 

Meeting with Luke and George

Today during the lesson we were introduced to different types of lighting. George told us what kind of lighting are available to us and how we can use it in our music videos. 

Later on me and Teddy went to a meeting with Luke and George to talk about our idea. We were approaching the ideas in more detail. We were brainstorming about the padded room setting to make it more 'crazy' - we agreed on the idea that the main character, besides hanging of the ceiling, we would like to put him in a huge lightbulb. 

When it comes to other settings - Luke and George suggested that we need to add something more 'lively' to the shots, however they also suggested we need to cut the idea with the CCTV.  

Starting with a storyboard! 

What is a storyboard?

A storyboard is a graphical representation of the shot sequence that are connected so they create a narrative that flows. Each shot in the film is drawn into small comic boxes - just an outline of how each shot looks like, what type of the shot is it, if there are any props or the location. 

What is a storyboard for?

Creating a storyboard helps to imagine and visualise the flow of the shooting but also to see the whole movie coming together. It helps the director to decide the sequences of shots, the movement of actors, camera and lighting directions.

Few days ago we started our storyboard, we are working on the first shots of our main character being in a padded room. 

Lighting!

Below there is a prezi presentation that I create explaining the types of lighting we would like to have in our music video. 

Ollie Allgrove (executive producer) talk 

Today we had a special guest coming - Ollie, that works in the company called 'The Mill' (official website),  to talk to us about the industry of music videos and give us few tips when it comes to production of our own music videos. 

At first he was talking briefly what he is doing and what 'The Mill' is responsible for. 

• Ollie as a executive producer is looking after the whole production process 
• 'The Mill' is helping people to tell their stories
• 'We are artists, technologists and makers for all media, working at the frontiers of visual narrative.'
• In the whole headquarters in London there is 30 directors and 250 artists
• The movie 'Gladiator' got an Oscar award for the special effects that were made by 'The Mill' company.
• 'We make impossible possible'

As a first piece of work made by 'The Mill' Ollie showed us the advertisement for SSE company that supplies UK in gas and electricity. 

Throughout the whole ad there is an orangutang walking around in the amusement park. Ollie said that the animal was not real - it took them around 4 months to investigate the orangutang and then they made reference of the movement with impersonator.

How to begin?

Ollie also talked about coming up with an creative idea and creating the treatment. While creating the treatment: 

• It is important to think through how we want to get our idea across 
• The treatment needs to be like a voice - needs to express the passion about the idea, needs to inspire the artists and the director. 
• A lot of images needs to be included 
• Story boards are as well really important in the overall project 

As a first example of a music video that 'The Mill' created was a clip to the song by Jolene and the Jing Jang Jong. Ollie said the budget was quite small for this clip - but this is not what is important, it is still possible to create something fantastic without loads of money, the only thing that is needed is creativity. There are simple effects, moves, not as much props and it is quite short just a bit more than 2 minutes.

As a comparison Ollie showed us an amazing video for the song by Chemical Brothers called Wide Open.

It is an incredible piece of work, the idea is really modern and original. Comparing it to the music video for Jolene and the Jing Jang Jong it contains high tech effects and is innovative. Of course the budget was bigger and it is quite recent piece of work when the technology makes more things possible.