Tuesday, 16 November 2010
Research/Influence
As part of our research we thought it would be helpful to look at a band that are real soldiers. "The Soldiers" – Sergeant Major Gary Chilton, Sergeant Richie Maddocks and Lance Corporal Ryan Idzi are a different type of band who released an album called ‘Coming Home’ in 2009. All of the proceed's went directly to charities including Help For Heroes, the British Legion and the Army Benevolent Fund. We looked at their style of cd and cover and talked about what parts we thought worked well and what parts we didn't think worked and wanted to use this band as an influence.
Tuesday, 9 November 2010
Filming Day 2
After receiving all consent forms to film the children we began our filming. Our location was in a local sports field, with a bridge and small stream. We wanted this open space as it works well with the mise en scene of the soldiers training ground. We asked the boys to get into their costumes and we also dressed up our actor as tony blair. We took all the props we needed and starting to look at the lighting and what would be in the back of the scene. We was wary that because we are filming in winter the days get darker, quicker so we didn't want to do the majority of the filming in bad light.
We started our filming, and as part of our video is a choreographed routine, we taught the boys the 13 second dance and made them practice until they were completely in time. We also wanted footage of tony blair giving the boys there army bundles, and them being dressed within seconds. This stage is where we will have to edit our footage by speeding up the speed of the clip so that the soldiers are collecting their bundles, changing and leaving the show all within a few seconds. This will make the scene alot quicker and less predictable as with 5 actors doing the same thing makes it harder to substain the audiences attention.
We made the bundles of clothes and tried to make them as authentic as possible with brown tags with all the soldiers details on. These were the bundles that we used in the video.
Aside from the filming we also took photographs for possible CD cover ideas or adverts. We wanted the boys to look as serious as possible without looking angry, but also wanted them to look like a band.
We started our filming, and as part of our video is a choreographed routine, we taught the boys the 13 second dance and made them practice until they were completely in time. We also wanted footage of tony blair giving the boys there army bundles, and them being dressed within seconds. This stage is where we will have to edit our footage by speeding up the speed of the clip so that the soldiers are collecting their bundles, changing and leaving the show all within a few seconds. This will make the scene alot quicker and less predictable as with 5 actors doing the same thing makes it harder to substain the audiences attention.
We made the bundles of clothes and tried to make them as authentic as possible with brown tags with all the soldiers details on. These were the bundles that we used in the video.
Aside from the filming we also took photographs for possible CD cover ideas or adverts. We wanted the boys to look as serious as possible without looking angry, but also wanted them to look like a band.
Monday, 8 November 2010
Filming Day1
Today was the first day of filming and we had planned the whole session the day before. We had arranged times and locations with our actors so we could have a clear shooting schedule, without wasting time. Our group had also been provided with amazing new Sony HVR-HD1000E cameras, so we had a pre-session where we learnt to use the cameras properly and experiment with what they can do.
Our first scene to shoot was a shot of Tony Blair in his office, surrounded by hate mail. We created this setting with a huge table and a blank wall, whilst covering the table in letters, envelopes and papers. We dressed our actor in a suitable suit and a realistic mask and started filming at different angles with different lighting to show the actor in various ways.
Our second scene was to shoot a dramatic scene of the parents of the child soldiers,where the mum is histerically screaming at the news on the television of tony blair. We found this quite difficult as we were filming two people and had to make sure that we was following all the acting. This scene we used the built in microphone so we could get footage where we could hear what the actors where saying. We took shots of various angles and used close ups/reaction shots of the parents to show their expressions. We also wanted shots of the mum dropping a tea tray in anger, so we had to set the shot up so that when she did drop the tray, the teacups and other props didn't smash on the floor.
Our first scene to shoot was a shot of Tony Blair in his office, surrounded by hate mail. We created this setting with a huge table and a blank wall, whilst covering the table in letters, envelopes and papers. We dressed our actor in a suitable suit and a realistic mask and started filming at different angles with different lighting to show the actor in various ways.
Our second scene was to shoot a dramatic scene of the parents of the child soldiers,where the mum is histerically screaming at the news on the television of tony blair. We found this quite difficult as we were filming two people and had to make sure that we was following all the acting. This scene we used the built in microphone so we could get footage where we could hear what the actors where saying. We took shots of various angles and used close ups/reaction shots of the parents to show their expressions. We also wanted shots of the mum dropping a tea tray in anger, so we had to set the shot up so that when she did drop the tray, the teacups and other props didn't smash on the floor.
Saturday, 6 November 2010
Friday, 5 November 2010
The CD images
After researching hundreds of CD's, manually looking through piles of CD cases and looking back at our audience research, we new that the CD plays a massive part in determine whether the CD is bought or not. As part of our research we went into HMV music store and asked various customers what it was about the CD's that attracted them, and did it matter what was the cover. A few of the comments we recieved (males) had told us that because they were fans of the music (arctic monkeys and the hoosiers) it didn't bother them what their CD's looked like, as they new the music itself would be what they were expecting and enjoying. However, other comments included things like " If i'm buying a CD for someone else as a gift, and the front cover is weird or doesn't match the personality of the person i'm buying it for then i'm always tempted to put it back on the shelf" and " My CD collection is very specific and particular and the majority of what I listen to is the same, so if I was to suddenly buy a CD where the cover was completely different to the music it would definately put me off!"
We used these comments and started designing our own CD covers, inside slips and CD design. Also, because our CD was a "single" we did not want to use a back cover, as it is rarely seen on singles, but frequently used on albums.
Wednesday, 3 November 2010
Toy Soldiers
As part of our filming we wanted a part where we incorporated stop motion. We looked at a video by Oren Lauvie,http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_HXUhShhmY who produced an amazing video using only stop motion, and also a video by Owl city called Firefliez http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psuRGfAaju4. We attempted this with some toy solidiers as we wanted to play on the fact that the soldiers in our video are children. We also found a brilliant example of the use of toy soldiers on Eminem's CD cover, and we this i decided to design some possible CD covers for our group.
Tuesday, 2 November 2010
Design Ideas
As a group we used all of our research and planning to start putting together some designs. By doing this it will allow us to look at the strengths and weaknesses of each and also get some audience feedback.
Monday, 1 November 2010
Photography Day 1
We new that as well as our video we would have to produce an advert and digipack so we took some photographs whilst filming using an SLR for quality. During our research we came across some images of protesters with fake blood all over their hands. We liked the powerful effect of these images and wanted to experiment with our own images.
We took hundreds of shots, at different angles and lights and then eliminated the ones that didn't work. Here are ones that
we liked, alongside edited versions of them.
We took hundreds of shots, at different angles and lights and then eliminated the ones that didn't work. Here are ones that
we liked, alongside edited versions of them.
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