PLEASE IGNORE THE DATES ON OUR BLOG AS WE HAVE REORDERED OUR POSTS TO THE ORDER OF PRODUCTION NOT THE ORDER THEY WERE INITIALLY POSTED.

The Group

Simon Lamb and Thomas Storey.

The Spinto Band - 'Mountains'

LYRICS

I've got mountains of problems
They all catch me off guard and
Start when I'm not looking.
They make noise when I'm sleeping

I've got mountains of mistakes
They all come back to haunt me
Every fork in the road I didn't take
Has never once cut me a break

So I'm leaving you for the man in the business suit
My priorities and views are beginning askew

Got a new code of ethics
Used to think was pathetic
Now I'm reaping benefits
Out of all my new conquests

Got a new way of speaking
think it's rather ingenious.
I'm in a mountain of three syllables or less
You really want to sound modest

So I'm leaving you for the man in the business suit
He'll make all my dreams come true
Since I've got nothing to lose
I've got nothing to lose

Oh, I don't understand you weren't invited but you came
And I can't comprehend how she still don't know my name
It's still the same
Nothing has changed

I'm leaving you for the man in the business suit
My priorities and views are beginning askew
I'm leaving you for the man in the business suit
He'll make all my dreams come true
Since I've got nothing to lose
I've got nothing to lose

Pitch

The track is approximatly 2 minutes of fast paced lively dimamic sound, therefore it would be suitable to have the images mirror this. In order for this to be accomplished the video should contain dynamic, abstract and exagerated persepctive shots; with fast, experimental and adventurous editing to mirror the music's style. Various ideas for shot types include close ups and mid shots; high and low angle; canted angles; and jumpy, rigid experimental camera movements such as tracking shots could be used.

Inflence for this idea includes two of Lyndy Heymann's videos for Suede (The Drowners) and The Stands (Do it Like You Like),(as well as various experimental shots from various sources). We want to particuly dwell upon the use of dynamic shots, simple locations, and fast editing, which would suit our chosen track perfectly due to its upbeat sound. Locations may also be a tricky thing to find and shoot (especially mountains) well so a nice simple place where we can do the majority of the filming would be ideal (this will of course mean that our use of angles and shots must be perfect so as to make a potentially boring location seem upbeat). The mountains could simply be represented by high and low angle shots or using it metaphorically and putting it in a more urban environment (tall buildings, towers, skyscrappers, etc).

Due to the size of the group we will not be doing a band performance however there will be a performance of the main character. Who is going to play the main character, is undecided at this stage. We have also decided that we want the lipsinking and singing shots within the enclosed room location, and the shots on location in the open would be part of a narrative or cut scenes. We have not yet determind the location of the lipsinking shots but we would like it to be an enclosed and well lit space. One posibility so far is the drama studio, media rooms, and perhaps even the green room.

The are many different shot ideas that have come into consideration. One example of this would be as the main character is walking through a frame (or any particular frame of choice i.e. mirror or a door). His apperance changes including costume and general physical apperance. Another effective shot that has entered our project outline is, a POV (Point of View) shot where the camera passes the homeless peson sitting in the street, the camera does not turn to look directly at the homeless character instead it passes through the corner of the frame, portraying the businessman as snobish/stuck up. Also we want to include a "Sliding Doors" (1998, Peter Howitt) scenario, in which the same characters lives out the life of two diferent individuals.

We are happy and confident with our ideas so far and our ability to complete them to their upmost potential.

Existing Music Video

The Spinto Band - Mountains



We were not impressed with this music video, it seems to have very little to do with the lyrics, and is not particularly original, as we have seen numerous other music videos in this same absract aminated style before, for examplr in the Franze Ferdinand video - Take Me Out.

Franz Ferdinand - 'Take Me Out'

We dont want to to an animated video as niehter of us in the group are willing to draw the frames and we dont have enough experiene in this style of filmmaking. We are confident that with our ideas that we can make a comletely different music video. This video does inlude a referece to our ideas, in the concept of the white sudio room.

Influences from Existing Texts

SUEDE - THE DROWNERS (Lindy Heymann, 1992)



I felt this was a good influnce to some of the ideas we had initially come up with. Not just in the white room and the simplistic locations that are used, but also in the dynamic shots and their offset perspective and angles.

THE STANDS - DO IT LIKE YOU LIKE (Lindy Heymann)



Liked the studio location just a simply white room with band performance. Also the effective use of lighting shot on black and white film to make it ever more prominent within the mise en scene together with the slightly abstract edits such as the mirror effects and split screens.

GUINNESS ADVERT - BACK IN TIME



This advert was an inspiraion to the, changing of the characters apperance from the homeless person into the upper class business person. Over time which the advert is indicating "Good things come to those who wait".

Previous Student Work

“Pick one of last year’s Long Road Music Videos and post it onto your blog with comments about camera/editing/setting/performance/genre conventions”

P1-01 - 'WARN YOU'

I liked this previous student piece, I thought was very effective particularly in its visual conventions. The shots and framing were very basic and simple, on a hill with lots of close ups and low angle shots making use of the clear sky as a plain background. We are intending to use this style of technique throughout our music video, and it has worked very very well here. The editing was rather impressive and rather more elaborate and made up for the simple cinematography. The transitions were mixed well with the effects use and made the video all the more intricate. The setting was very simple in a field on a hill, out of the way with no interferracne. I can imagine that the sound recording outside would not have been brilliant. The performance was very convincing and well done. This was obviously a band that was used to this sort of thing anyway.

U2-58 - Pilots of the sixth- No one Cares



The Reason into why I have chosen this previous students video is because I could see many different aspects of it that stood out to me throughout the video. One of the most dominant aspects of the video is its use of different camera angles. There are many different close-up’s of the different band members and their instruments, for example the shots looking down the guitars. The members act very well this is most probably because they are from an actual band well known from Cambridgeshire, which makes things easier when it comes to miming their own songs so the performance is great. The particular genre of this type of song is Indie rock often referred to as alternative rock. From what can be seen they have thought well about the different locations where they were going to go even though it was a peaceful relaxing punt down the river they found many different spots to stop and film. After looking at the editing of the video I could see that they had used some static panning shots. Where you can film a static shot but still make it appear the shot was taken on the move. To conclude I feel that they have clearly put a lot of effort into the production of this shot music video and that it would get a good grade if I was to mark it.

Developed/Alternative Ideas

We have chosen this song as we feel that we can input alot of different abstract ideas into the music video. It is 2 minutes and 19 seconds of upbeat, cheerful, relaxing music. The video will be about a homeless person changing into a successfull, well paid buisnessman. We have also decided to include alot of costumes in the music video, to compare the homeless person and the man in the buisness suit. After listening to the song a few times it is easily seen that it isnt a 'normal' song so we ave decided to include ilusion images, and special effects in the editing for example. We have chose this as we wanted to make the music video abstract from others. Not as many different filming locations as we will be using alot of the green screen, as looking at the lyrics and listening to the song itself it is singing about mountains etc which would be remarkably difficult to film in cambridge so as using the green screen we will be able to use locations images taken off the internet.

We have decided after reviewing one of the verses, that as he is emphasising on the last words of each of the lines, we are going to be using Anamatic words either coming accross the screen, falling from the top of the frame or coming out of the singers mouth. To do this we are either going to be using i-stop motion or Photoshop editing it frame by frame. We got this idea from the Suede video 'The Drowners' where they use visual representation of the lyrics by writing them on the actors back.

Intended/Possible Locations

Here are some pictures of the locations we are intending to use as well as some photos of us actually on location.

THE MAIN HALL - LONG ROAD SIXTH FORM
There is a giant pull down projector screen that we feel would be ideal for a white background that we could film against to give the impression of the character being trapped in a boring, bland white room. The majority of the shots on a white or whitish background in the video were actually filmed against the screen the rest were filmed in one of the meida classrooms.




























FISHER'S HALL - CAMBRIDGE
There is a small loading bay door for the bars that are on the corner here and we felt that we could use this as a location for our hooded character, it is out of the way so the location would not be that busy. When we actually filmed it, they came to restock the bar half way through filing so we ended up having to leave and come back at the end.
























































CROWNE PLAZA HOTEL - DOWNING STREET, CAMBRIDGE
We wanted to use the escelator that the hotel has in their entrance loby for one of the scenes in our video. At first they were rather reluctant ot let us use it, but when we mentioned that it may be shown on the BBC, they went to speak with the manager and he kindly let us film.

ANMATIC

This is our animatic for our music video. Unlike the band's original video, we are opting for a much more narrative structure. We found it a little hard to convey all our ideas in the storyboard, becuase of this some of the shots may seem repetative and prolonged.

ANIMATIC FEEDBACK

Positive

• Good drawings.
• Good movements.
• Good range of shots.
• Interesting ideas.
• Good storyboard.
• Good introuction.
• Like how the video progrsses.
• Some good shots.

Constructive

• Not sue what is going on all the time.
• Too much walking.
• Not much variation in shots.
• Pace varies too much.
• Beomes repetative and random.
• Too much suit concentration, could be cut down.
• Did drag a bit.

Shot Timeline

This is our shot timeline that we made from the animatic and storyboard, as well as our own evolved ideas of what we think would be best for our video. This will be very useful when it comes to editing our final video. Although I am sure our ideas will evolve as the final video is done, this will be useful in particular for getting an initial rough cut of the video completed.

1. 00:04-00:06
2. 00:06-00:07 (black)
3. 00:07-00:08
4. 00:08-00:09 (black)
5. 00:09-00:12 (first verse start "ive got mountains of problems...")
6. 00:13-00:15
7. 00:15-00:17
8. 00:17-00:20
9. 00:21-00:22 (second verse start "ive got mountains of mistakes...")
10. 00:23-00:25
11. 00:25-00:28
12. 00:28-00:30
13. 00:30-00:31
14. 00:31-00:40 (thrid verse start "so im leaving you...")
15. 00:41-00:45 (fourth verse start "got a new code of ethics...")
16. 00:45-00:47
17. 00:48-00:51
18. 00:51-00:53
19. 00:53-00:55 (fifth verse start "got a new way of speaking...")
20. 00:55-00:58
21. 00:58-01:03
22. 01:04-01:08 (sixth vesrse start "so im leaving you...")
23. 01:09-01:10
24. 01:11-01:17
25. 01:17-01:18 (instrumental starts)
26. 01:19-01:20
27. 01:21-01:22
28. 01:22-01:24
29. 01:24-01:25
30. 01:26-01:27
31. 01:28- 01:29
32. 01:29-01:31
33. 01:31-01:32
34. 01:32-01:34
35. 01:34-01:38 (seventh verse start "oh i dont understand...")
36. 01:39-01:44
37. 01:44-01:50
38. 01:51-01:55 (eighth verse start "so im leaving you...")
39. 01:55-01:58
40. 01:59-02:01
41. 02:01-02:11 (ninth verse start "im leaving you...")
42. 02:11-02:19

Rough Cut

Rough Cut Feedback

Strengths

• Creative shots and transitions.
• Camera angles are good.
• Good use of costumes.
• Great over the shoulder shot near beginning.
• Great locations.
• Good dynamic camera shots.
• Good transition over business man and hooded man.

Weaknesses

• Story flaws and no ending.
• Could do with steadier camerawork.
• Slightly confusing storyline.
• Needs completing.
• Close ups on White background are bland.

Ben's Feedback (Industry Editor)

• More variation on shots, no repetitions e.g the transitions dissolve across the businessman and hooded man.
• Needs a big ending due to the big build up - confrontation betwen the two characters.
• Good quirky story - Groundhog Day/Trading Places theme.

Second Cut