NOTE:

Unfortunately my microphone has broken on my headphones and is no longer working, though it was before and I am only now made aware of the fact with the worst possible timing. Until I can get another one hopefully tomorrow, there is nothing I am able to do about adding audio clips or anything else to my blogs to include more multimedia, and apologies for the large masses of text on my blog instead which were unavoidable as I was the scriptwriter.

LOCATION SHOTS

Here is a slideshow of the location shots we all took in advance of shooting our music video.

The first few shots are filled with nature, a common convention of locations in music videos for both actors as well as the performing artist/band; the first couple with a long walkway which we wanted for the acting veteran soldier to walk through and the third a sadly unused shot of a memorial statue in Windsor which we as a group went on a trip to in order to scout possible locations for shooting our music video. We had originally wanted to try and shoot with Windsor castle in the background but unfortunately after asking security found that it would be a difficult and likely unsuccessful venture even after asking and waiting to see if we had permission from the press office headquarters.

The fourth and fifth photos are of the large World War I memorial site in Stockwell with pictured Violette Szabo, poppies, famous lines from a Laurence Binyon poem etc. We checked out locations with memorial sites and names on them so as not to rely on stock footage for direct reminders of the war and have present day signs of remembrance. The following photos run along the same theme of possible nature locations for our band to perform, engraved names of deceased soldiers, and stone wall memorials.

JOBS

Hanan - Scriptwriter & Filming & Sound Editing (and got stock footage + target audience research)

Umair - Storyboarder & Editor & Filming

Yasmin - Filming & Digipak

Katy - Filming & Organiser & Poster

INSTITUTIONAL RESEARCH - RECORD LABELS

Institutional research record labels

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SEE FINAL SLIDE FOR WHICH RECORD LABEL WE CHOSE.

BAND SCRIPT

As some of the footage from the first session with the band isn't enough to make up the time for the rest of the video, as well as some parts of it not being suited to the song we are going to film again on Sunday. To make our task simpler I have created a script purely for the band filming, which is a work in progress and will be added to later. This is the band footage that is in the script but without the narrative, stock or any other footage mixed in - this is so that whilst filming the band performing in time to the music we may see line by line aligned with the bullet points what shots we wanted to film for what lines.

Band script 3

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This was created in order that we may save time during shooting the band. A copy was printed off and given to each member of the group to bring along with them for the shoot, and copies of the script were also given to band members in advance to ensure they'd be able to remember their lines in time.

group schedule: updated frees

Frees updated

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STORYBOARD

October Half Term Group Timetable

Halfterm timetable

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FINAL SCRIPT

Script draft 4 detailed again

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This is the final version of the script. I've added one more colour coded category of 'misc' for miscellaneous, and I have ordered the visuals on screen scripted parts in bullet points so that the first bullet point of on screen, should match the first bullet point of the lyrics. Each point correlates to each line of the lyrics. The stock footage chosen has also been cut down and changed as a result of group discussions and decisions e.g. instead of the charleston dance, we have decided to cut to only the most relevant clips such as a young girl crying with her handkerchief, a mother holding her children weeping and so on though we kept the footage of a ship leaving shore as it was a perfect example for the visuals to illustrate the lyrics. Some of the original stock was also cut and a decision was made to flick back and forth between clips of famous leaders in war time speaking, of Bush, Churchill and the band with some protests in between. This was a matter to be finally decided in editing however, but this is the final working script with which we could finally go and shoot the video with and begin editing afterwards.

4TH DRAFT SCRIPT - WORK IN PROGRESS

Script draft 4 detailed edited

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This script is entirely different to the 3rd draft. To organise it better and make things much clear, I have laid it all out in a table with different verses in different boxes aligned with the scripted footage in a box beside it. Overall the table is divided into three: 'time marks', 'lyrics', and whatever should be showing visually 'on screen'. I've colour coded the types of footage we will have, stock, band, and narrative so visually anything we're looking for is much quicker and easier to find. I've labelled the verses and checked the time marks of each verse as well as instrumental parts in order to better plan and time what footage should happen when. This will also be useful when doing the editing, both for cutting the clips as well as syncing it to the sound.

3RD DRAFT SCRIPT

Script 3rd draft for king and country

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At this point everybody changed jobs a little and I became the scriptwriter. I worked on descriptions of the possible stock footage that we wanted to use, as well as descriptions of our own footage that we already had as well as planned to shoot. A time lapse of clouds in the sky is there to show the passage of time as well as a couple from the 20s doing the charleston dance before that to show all the light and happiness in life that was lost by the young soldiers who went off to war, proper performance shots were thought of collectively and written up here.

A modern day parallel is written in the narrative footage with the soldier before he goes off to war seeing the woman he will later marry at the bus stop, and later of him nervously buttoning his coat post-war leaving the house. He is no longer the same, and cut with stock footage of war in Afghanistan to give some context he looks over an old graduation photo adding pathos to the lines 'my pale schoolyard chums away lost country's call' - this cuts to footage of the names engraved in the war memorial, reflecting war times past and present and the great loss that soldiers have made for this country.

The second chorus is cut frantically between performance and narrative, with a loud noise shocking the already jumpy veteran with camera shots in uncomfortable close ups showing his anxiety and stock explosions, the camera spinning at a three hundred and sixty degree angle to show his inner turmoil. Another scene shows him waking up having nightmares with his wife shaking him awake, these narrative scenes are to show that he is no longer a normally functioning individual within society but rather tormented by the loss of his friends and the great suffering he has seen and is having difficulty adjusting - showing a real human being as opposed to a two dimensional character which glorifies the soldiers loss while airbrushing out all of the pain. At this stage the script is still being worked through, ideas being placed in and practicalities of the ideas being tested out, and it is not complete for ideas near the end and the beginning of the video isn't entirely decided either.

youtube permissions letter template

Dear ____

I’m writing to ask whether I could possibly use your footage in this video LINK, VIDEO TITLE? My group and I are making a music video for our Media Studies project in the next couple of weeks. As the song is based around WWI and the 20s, it would be much appreciated if you could allow us to use parts of it and we’d make sure to credit you.

Thanks
…

Editing and Camera Techniques

Editing techniques

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This was done by Umair to assist the group in learning what kind of editing and camera techniques are used in folk rock music videos.

MOODBOARD

Moodboard

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Experience after War: Research on Articles, Ideas for Narrative

Articles

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This was done by Umair to assist the group in inspiration for ideas for the narrative scenes in our music video by researching articles on war and soldiers experiences after war.

Recreating Scenes Inspiration from War Poetry

Wilfred owen poems inspo for media

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This was done by me to assist the group and for inspiration in writing the script to try and figure out what we could write for narrative scenes within our music video. I researched old war poetry by Wilfred Owen who was a WWI war poet that was critical of the war, which is in tune with our own approach to war within our music video. I found his poetry very helpful in trying to formulate ideas to include within the music video although unfortunately not all of them were practical: a verse from 'Disabled' (before scrapping the flappers and dancing scenes of the stock footage) was useful in 'girls glanced lovelier as the air grew dim' - 'now he will never feel again how slim/Girls' waists are, or how warm their subtle hands'. I highlighted the most helpful lines and annotated them with my ideas in boxes which can be seen above in scrolling through the document.

I found the poem 'Mental Cases' the most helpful for practical ideas. This was what gave the idea of the loud bang! startling the soldier and causing him to have a panic attack which can be read in the script with the lines: 'Always they must see these things and hear them/Batter of guns and shatter of flying muscles'. Also the scene where the soldier is waking up in the middle of night with nightmares looking and feeling disorientated with the lines: 'therefore still their eyeballs shrink tormented/Back into their brains'.

more free stock footage links

http://xstockvideo.com/?page_id=2&layout=search
http://vimeo.com/groups/freehd/videos
http://www.detonationfilms.com/free_stuff.htm

FILM PLANNING BY LAYERS SECOND DRAFT

Filming planning by layers 2

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This is a second draft of the layer plan for the music video but more detailed than the first with more ideas for the shots of nature we could film ourselves and possible stock footage to search for including nature: e.g. a low angle of the sunlight shining filtered through the trees leaves, a lens flare with the screen blurring out to a medium long shot of the band playing, a slow motion shot of someone blowing a dandelion, a direct shot of the sky above with birds flying across, and an empty children's playground.

MORE STOCK FOOTAGE

Media stock footage links

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2ND DRAFT SCRIPT

Second draft of script

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This is a second draft of the script with more ideas put in, particularly for the narrative. For example, ideas that weren't in there before were the transition from a christmas bauble on a tree the young sad sweetheart hung up zooming in then out to reveal a flying union jack, a scene with a few soldiers laughing with another sitting alone to the side looking at a photo of his girlfriend that he left back home who we just saw, a more detailed description of the opening scene of the camera's movement moving from the actor soldier to the sunny sky to the band and another scene where a soldier stands alongside his friend who's dying and coughing blood into a handkerchief. There's also more directly correlating scripted visuals to the lyrics, in terms of the children playing alongside 'my pale schoolyard chums', 'no summer blooms marked friends of mine' coinciding with a flower growing through a pavement crack and preceding the dying soldier and so on.