Blog 10- Mise en Scene

Detailed notes on planned mise-en-scene – setting/location, props, colour, costume and make-up (with images – photos of proposed locations/costume designs etc). For each part you should comment on how that element of the mise-en-scene contributes to the representation, targets the audience, reflects the genre and communicates the story and the ideas.

What is Mise en Scene?

Mise en Scene, translated to "placing on stage", is used to describe the design aspects of film or theatre production. When applied to film, mise en scene refers to anything that appears before the camera, for example, actors, set, costumes, props and lighting.

Planning our mise en scene:

Setting/ Location

We want our music video to be shot in woodland as this is common in Florence and the Machines personal videos. It is ideal as it is easy to find somewhere we can shoot and no booking or payments have to be made.

For the shots of the boy building the coffins, we are going to set up a room at college, preferably with a brick wall like a studio with lighting that will emphasise the shadows on the wall that we can also film.

Props

Essentially for our props, all we needed a Hammer, for the scenes where we wanted a 'mysterious' boy hammering/making his coffins. We also bought black vest tops for our dancers, however the cold weather conditions meant that they needed to wear cardigans etc, but we still managed to keep all of the clothing black, like we had planned.

Colour

We want the colours in our video to stay natural like the forest we filmed in. We edited the contrast on the camera to make it a little darker and the colours a bit richer but the greens and browns of the forest came through really well.

Costume and Makeup

For our costumes, we wanted Lucy who was playing Florence and all of the dancers to wear black. This is because the colour black connotes death, and seeing as the song is all about this topic and the building of coffins we thought that this would work effectively in our video. We let our dancers use their own makeup. One of our ideas was to make our dancers and main characters look aged towards the end of the film, to show a lifetime in a day. We experiemented with makeup to make our character look old.

We achieved this old look by covering Lucy's face in a white powder. We then used a grey/silver eye shadow to give the impression of bags under the eyes and liver spots. We then got Lucy to scrunch up her face in different ways, and where her face creased up, we used a brown eyeliner to fill in the creases and therefore give the impression of wrinkles. From a distance, the makeup looked quite effective but we decided to not use the old theme/ lifetime in a day idea as we didn't want our music video to get too complicated and confusing for anyone watching it.

Lighting

The lighting for the majority of filming will be natural lighting however we can adjust the shutter speed to let more or less light into the camera. When recording the hammering scenes, we will be relying on lamp light to give the room a natural looking glow that will emphasise the shadows.

Blog 16- Advert

For this part of the blog, we had to analyse two adverts from our chosen artist or artists from a similar genre. This is the first advert that I found for Florence and the Machine.

The advert is promoting Florence and the Machine for the store HMV. The advert talks about what her inspiration is for her song "You've got the love". The advert is effective because it is all done in black and white apart from the statement pink for the

HMV logo. The photo of Florence is a mid- close up shot, and is effective as she is looking at the audience and therefore connecting with them. I like this idea and therefore might use it in my own advert. It also looks like she is singing, and this is reinstated with some of the lyrics that are flashed across the page. The white font also stands out against the black and white background.

The second advert that I analysed was that of the Friendly Fires advert for their UK tour, as they fall into the same 'indie' genre as Florence and the Machine.

The advert is effective as it uses quite simple colours, for example the black background with the white writing. The main picture is effective as it is quite ambiguous however it gives the impression of shattered glass and also makes me think of the human eye. The overall effect is quite quirky and would be something that Florence and the Mac

hine may possibly use in her own adverts.

After looking at both the adverts, I would like to have a simple black and white main picture mixed with some greens and browns to match the theme of the forest in our video. I would either like the photo of Florence to be a close up like the HMV advert where she is connecting with the audience or for Florence to be shown in floaty clothing pictured dancing in the forest with cinematography of a long shot.

These are my flat plans for the advertisement.

My first flat plan design includes a tree and a small coffin in the background. I chose the tree as it looks quite simple on the page and I liked the idea of the titles to be running down the branches of the tree. The plan follows my idea about having continuation with the music video which is why I have incorporated the tree as the majority of our video is filmed in the woods. The coffin is included as it fits with the title "My Boy Builds Coffins."

My second flat plan design follows my idea about a long shot of the forest and Florence shown dancing within the shot. I chose to make the advert landscape as you will be able to fit more of the landscape into the advert. The text would be at the side of the advert so that you can clearly see Florence and so that it does not follow the easy planning of running along the top. The browns and greens give the advert a woodland theme and the black font stands out well against it. I want the font for "Florence and the Machine" to be curly as after looking at her website, I feel this is a font type that would capture her style well.

This is a screen shot of the font that is used on Florence and the Machine's website. It has a curly font and I want to capture this on my advert also.

This is my third digipack flat plan. From looking at the previous adverts I tried one with a mid shot of Florence. She has her eyes shut, almost as if she is sleeping or in a coffin.

This is my finished advert:

To view it bigger, this is the link for Google documents.

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B0DnGj06WOfoZjA0Zjk0OTktYjlmMy00OTA5LTg1MzAtNGQxZmIyNWVlYThk&hl=en

I decided to go for my flat plan that depicts Florence standing at an extreme long shot in the centre of the forest. Mise en scene shows her to be wearing black which shows continuation with the music video and the digipack, as it connotes death. I chose to keep the colour scheme with greens and brown as it represents the woodland that she is standing in and would also appeal to both males and females of a more mature age group which is what I am targeting with my demographical audience. I am really pleased with the outcome of this advertisement as I feel that it stands out as Florence/Lucy is not easily recognisable to begin with.

Feedback I got was that I hadn't actually included that it was advertising a digipack, so I recently included the text reading "IN EXCLUSIVE DIGIPACK FORMAT" so that onlookers are sure about what is being advertised and maybe tempted to go out and buy the digipack.

If I was to change anything about this advert, I would probably lighten the contrast a little more on the background picture so that I could make my text white so as to match the digipack rather than it being yellow. I would also learn a few more skills on Photoshop so that I could do something like edit in some birds flying out of Lucy/Florence, representing Freedom as it is something that comes across in many of her other music videos. It would also look quite effective.

In conclusion, I feel like I have learnt many new things from learning how to use Adobe Photoshop and my skills have definitely improved since using it last year for my college magazine. By using these skills on Photoshop I now know how to do things that I wanted to achieve, for example changing the font colour, adding text and changing contrast etc.

Blog 12- Health and Safety

We learned about the precautions needed to ensure cast and crew are safe when filming the video. By law, you are expected to adopt risk management techniques to ensure everyone is safe at all times. Before we started filming, we had to go out to our location and do a 'reccy' to ensure that where we wanted to film would be safe. A systematic approach meant that we walked round all the areas we were thinking of filming at and decided what risks were present. We had to think about what kind of hazards may become a problem, work out who may be harmed and the think of ways to overcome these risks.

Risks that may occur when filming:

- The un-even ground in the woodland may cause accidents due to tripping or falling

- The camera may not be correctly connected to the tripod and joined with the problem of un-even ground this could lead to the camera falling off of the tripod and breaking.

Problems that may affect filming:

- As the video is being filmed outside, bad weather conditions such as rain could make it impossible to film due to the camera getting wet and breaking.

- Since everyone in our group has jobs and our college timetables are very different, it may be hard to find a day when we can all get together and film.

When filming in the studio, we also had to be careful about any trailing wires that you could trip up on. We were also using lighting which got especially hot. If we wanted to change the angle of the head of the lamp, we had to wear gloves so that we did not burn our hands.

Blog 7- Copying an existing video

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B0DnGj06WOfoNGUyYjRmYTUtZGFmZC00NGJiLWIzM2MtNGYxODBhOTJjNDE3&hl=en

This is my groups version of the Teenage Dirtbag video by Wheatus. Here is a link for the original video:

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/sy-1761951110/wheatus_teenage_dirtbag_official_music_video/

This is a picture of the shooting script that we put together for our Teenage Dirtbag video. The shooting script was used when filming and allowed us to set up a schedule for the filming and included a list of shots that we intended to film. It also meant we could log what shots were good and what shots weren't, and this saved time when editing. We will be using a shooting script for our own music video as it allows for an organised and detailed plan for shooting and will make it much easier for us when it comes to editing.

When making this video, I learnt a lot about how to use the camera and about successfully putting together the scenes to make up the video. We were shown what buttons to use to change the light and contrast on the camera and how to zoom in and out.

We were also shown how helpful using clapper boards are as when it came to editing the video we were sure on where each scene needed to go. This is something we will be using in shooting for our final video.

Doing this preliminary short video also taught us some skills about how to use the editing equipment on the Macbooks. We were taught basic skills such as how to cut out takes we didn't want to use, using the razor tool and then other skills such as fading out a take. These are all things that we will want to know when it comes to editing our final filming. In lesson we learnt how to correctly use the recording camera that we will be using to shoot our music videos and how to use the tripod that the camera sits on. By learning this we now know how to safely use the equipment and how to steer clear of breakages.

We were shown the on/off button, how to change white balance and exposure and how to zoom in and out. We were also shown how to fix the camera onto the tripod using the screw on plates and how to adjust the tripod in height and also so that it will give the camera a different tilt and panning speed.

We also learnt how to use a shooting script. A shooting script is a version of the screenplay that is used to assist the directors, camera-workers and actors etc on how to produce the scene. The shooting script can be used to determine whether a take was successful or not and can speed up editing when used alongside a clapper board during filming which can tell you which takes are being filmed. We were taught how important communication is on set, a clapper board is also important as it enables you to log the amount of takes you take to get the correct shot that you want. It will also help when editing as you will know what shots were good and what ones were not.

We were taught about: White Balance and the 4 different settings;

- Automatic White Balance (AMB) - Which can prove unreliable

- Indoor Setting - Picture of a lightbulb -

Outdoor Setting - Picture of a sun

- Manual Setting Exposure;

- Shutter speed - 1/12, 1/50 & 1/1000 - (This is the fastest)

How to use the controls;

- Press the middle button 3 times = Automatic White Balance

- Use controls to select setting

- Bottom button = Shutter Speed

We were taught how to edit our shot in Final Cut Pro and how to connect the camera to the laptop using a FIREWIRE cable. The camera connection was recognised by changing the setting to VCR/Playback.

In this country, we were taught that the PAL (Phase Alternating Line) should be set to 24 frames per second. We were also taught about Scratch Disks and their use, this is te destination for all captured footage.

We also learnt that we can actually control the camera via the computer through 'Device Contol'.

When editing, it was important to distinguish which shots were good enough to include in the final edit. The shots that we didn't want to use could be removed using the 'Razor' tool. An 'Assembly edit' could also be used to seperate the poor shots from the good ones.

We also learnt some creative camera use like how to execute a Timelapse shoot. This is something that our group is interested in using as it fits in well with the idea of a lifetime in a day and so could show how quickly the days go past. Here was the result of our Timelapse shooting:

Blog 15- Digipack

This is what my digipack would look like when put into a DVD case and printed onto disks.

These are some print screens that show the beginnings of my digipack coming together. Here is the original template that we had to use to start making our digipack:

This shows me putting the digipack together bit by bit, for example here the barcode is going onto the back of the digipack.

This is what I first started to design my digipack to look like. However I eventually changed the font as it was too hard to work around, and changed the colour of the text to white so that it linked to the advertisement and showed continuation.

This is my finished digipack outside and inside:

To view them at a larger size, these are the links to view them on Google Documents.

Front/Back of digipack

https://docs.google.com/leaf?

id=0B0DnGj06WOfoZjg1YTM4NzEtYmE0ZC00NGZkLTllMWYt

NWY3NjFjNTVhY2Q3&hl=en

Inside of digipack

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B0DnGj06WOfoMTgzNGVlYWYtOWQ3MC00NDJmLTgwMjItNDA1YWYyNjVkM2M2&hl=en

These are some of the photos that I took for my advert

and digipack.

I really like this photo of the sky line and the tops of the trees. It looks like a pattern and the dark trees standing against the lighter sky is quite effective. Because I took my photos at home in my own time, I downloaded them onto my iPhoto and edited them on that.

The picture above, shows the editing techniques I used on my pictures before I used them for my digipack and advert. I used the "Boost Colour" option first so that the tree tops stood out well against the sky.

I then edited the picture using the "brightness" and "contrast" buttons and this really brought out the blackness of the trees and also the clouds in the sky, which you couldn't really see in the original picture.

This photo is a possibility for my advert. I like this photo because the trees act as a frame around Lucy. I have kept her wearing black so as to stay in sync with the music video, where she will again be wearing black so as to connote death and therefore match the title of the song "My Boy Builds Coffins". Again, I edited this photo by boosting the colour so as to make the colours of the woodland richer, and also edited the contrast, so that Lucy stood out well against the lighter colours around her.

This photo is another possibility for my advert. I like it as Lucy does not fill the screen and you therefore get a feel for the forest around her. I also like how she is more to the left of the photo rather than in the centre. By not looking at the camera, there is a sense of mystery around her, and therefore she fits in well with the theme that surrounds Florence and The Machine.

This is one of my favourite photos that I took and I definitely want to use it for something. The photo gives a really good idea about the surrounding and shows continuation with the filming that we did in these woods. I again edited the contrast so that the trees seemed a little menacing, and it also meant that the sun shining through them was picked up on much better as well, adding to the effectiveness of the photo. Lucy is not recognisable until you really begin to look at the photo and I like how she is perched in the bottom corner, rather than being in the centre and therefore the focus of attention.

This is another one of my favourite photos. I edited the picture by using the contrast button to make the trees much darker against the white sky. This picture fits in well with the inside designs of my flat plans that show the trees branching up towards the sky.

The two pictures above are more that reflect the inside plans for my digipack well.

This photo would work well for the advert/promotional campaign. By having Lucy looking directly into the camera, the audience would feel connected to the musical artist and could therefore be convinced into buying the album or listening to the music.

This photo would work well for the digipack, as the material that is flying out from her hands could continue round towards the back of the pack. I boosted the colour for this photo and made it a lot richer. The contrast was also changed so that Lucy stood out well against her woodland background. I really like the shape she is making with her arms and with the black material and so this would be a good picture to use.

I really like this picture as it shows the surrounding area well. It is the same woods that we shot the music video in and therefore shoes continuation with the video. I edited the contrast on this photo and it really brought out the reflection of the trees in the lake. It also made Lucy look incredibly pale which I liked, as it almost made her seem dead, and joined with the black clothing connoting death this fits in incredibly well with the title of the song we are producing our video to. It also fits in with my ideas that I would quite like a long shot for my digipack or poster. The pose that Lucy is in is also quite mysterious and it looks like she is connecting with the forest around her, therefore taking on the 'Hippy' feel that can be accounted for in many of Florence and The Machines personal music videos.

What is a promotional pack?

A promotional pack is when your music video, single cover and costumes in the music video all follow a similar theme so that they are easy to promote through this theme. A digi-pack is our print task and is a DVD sized holder, that contains our music video and featured song that we have chosen. To full understand what is expected from a digi-pack, we evaluated other digi-packs that previous artists from the popular independent genre that we believe Florence + the Machine fall into.

Evaluation of other digipacks

This is the digi-pack for Mumford and Sons. On their digi-pack, they have their album, 'Sigh No More' and then bonus features which includes a DVD of their music videos for some of their well known songs such as 'Little Lion Man'

and 'Winter Winds'.

http://www.play.com/Music/CD/4-/11555682/Sigh-No-More/Product.html?&engine=froogle_music&keyword=Mumford+%26amp%3B+Sons+-+Sigh+No+More&_$ja=tsid:11518%7Ccc:%7Cprd:11555682%7Ccat:Music+%3E+CD+%3E+Rock+%26+Pop

This is Mumford and Sons album cover for 'Sigh No More'. There is a clear theme that runs through the album cover and the style in the videos that are featured in the digi-pack. On the front cover, we can see the band in the window of a shop. They are not visibly seen, however we can see that they have quite a distinctive style of clothing, with checked shirts, waistcoats and straw hats. This style of clothing is casual yet, they have made it their own. The front cover also has quite a casual and genuine feel about it, as we can see that it is a simple idea that has worked well and isn't over the top and highly modified on the computer like some other genres may chose to have for their album covers, for example, the R&B genre.

The style that Mumford and Sons portray in this album cover is kept as a prominent theme throughout the videos featured in the limited edition digi-pack. Amazon give you a preview of what is included, and from looking at this we can see that Mumford and Sons stick with their casual image by having the majority filmed in a house that they are all sitting in playing their instruments. We can also see their instruments in the album cover. This is similar to Florence and the Machine, as her harp is seen a lot throughout her music videos. Mumford and Sons are again pictured in similar clothes of waistcoats and checked shirts which keeps in theme with the album cover and the image that is beginning to be associated with them. When I saw them play live at Reading this year, they kept with this style again and so we can definitely say that this style is now their own. Here are a few screen-shots from the special features that show us the continual style and theme.

Another digipack that I analysed was Marina and the Diamonds 'The Family Jewels'.

This is the front cover for the album. There is a similar theme of style that runs through the cover of the album and the music videos for Marina's songs, for example 'Hollywood'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1VTcJfL7RE

The flowery pattern background for this album is quite old fashioned and matches the general theme in the 'Hollywood' video including the outfits worn by the people in the video and things like the wallpaper and furniture that makes you think of an older era.

This is the back cover for 'The Family Jewels' album. It shows continuation with the front cover as again it mainly consists of just Marina's head and hair.

These are my digi-pack flat plans:

This is the front page for my flat plan idea. As the song is titled "My Boy Builds Coffins", I have chosen to include the coffin as a shape for my model to be inside and also for the track listing on the back. The trees are included as we are filming our video at Friston Forest, and on the front page, it shows half in the day and half in the night as in our video we want to show a lifetime in a day. I also included swirly flowers around the coffin on the back and on the actual CD in the inside of the digi-pack as I thought this was something th

at Florence and the Machine would maybe use on one of her actual digipacks and from looking at things like her website this is clearly apparent as the theme seems

to be quite natural for example the images of lungs and swirly patterns.

The inside of the digipack shows continuation with the front as there is the pictures of trees.

This is my second digipack flat plan.

The front page sticks with the theme of trees and flowers as this is something I want to definitely have incorporated in my digipack as the filming will take place in a forest. The front of the digipack shows a graveyard and coffin as it links well with the title of the song, "My Boy Builds Coffins". The track listing on the back is quite a simple layout as it means that the song titles are easy to read.

I decided to try a pattern for the inside of my digipack that will hold the discs. I wanted there to be two discs rather than one so that the album could go on one disc and the music video on the second disc. I chose the pattern to be leaves as again this fits in with the theme of the woodland.

This is my third digipack flat plan.

The front cover of the digipack again uses the theme of the coffin. I also kept the leaves to represent the woodland and had them on the floor around the coffin. This is however my least favourite out of all my flat plans.

The back of my digipack again has the coffin so that it feels coherent. I don't like this flat plan however as it feels too plain and simple. I would quite like the track listing on the back of the digipack to be different to just a list running down the page vertically, and perhaps instead have it running horizontally along the bottom.

My finished digipack (at the top of the blog). I am very pleased with it as it looks simple yet professional. The digipack clearly links well with the advert and final music video as it shows similarities in colours and style, for example the font is exactly the same. If I was to change anything, I would probably make the title 'Lungs' a little higher than how they are currently resting on the hill, however when I tried this it was impossible to see the font properly through the darkness of the trees.

My digipack would appeal to my target audience as it doesn't have any specific colours that are stereotypically aimed towards a particular gender. It is also a digipack that looks like it is aimed at an audience that is not any younger than 16 and so would therefore appeal to my target age range of 15-40.

Blog 8- Initial Ideas

https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B0DnGj06WOfoOTQ4YTNmYjYtY2M3Yy00OGI2LTlkNzktNGFmOWQ0MmI3MDIy&hl=en

This is a powerpoint showing what our initial first ideas for our Florence and the Machine music video is going to be about.

Blog 9- The Pitch

Here is the link for the powerpoint that we used duing our filmed presentation to discusses the pitch of our music video. It explains how our video idea will reflect the artist and appeal to their current audience.

https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B0DnGj06WOfoY2Y2Nzc5NjItZTkzNi00NmExLWEyZWItZTc0OGFhNDQwNjA2&hl=en

This is a video of us presenting our pitch to our media class.

To view it larger this it the link to view it on Google Documents:

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B0DnGj06WOfoMjkxMzBjNDgtZjc2MS00ZTEzLWIxOWEtYzJhM2UwOTk1MTJi&hl=en