Storyboard

After we decided we wanted to do a narrative and had agreed our location would be Weston - Super - Mare, we knew we needed to draw up a storyboard as quickly as possible. Luckily both me and Amy know Weston very well, so we could write up the storyboard in very accurate detail. As a typical convention of indie-pop videos are the use of short quick clips we knew it wasn't going to be an easy task. It ended up being 10 pages long, and we didn't have time to illustrate it until after we got back. However this proved to be quite useful as it gave us the opportunity to recruit a local Bristol artist, Jonny Wilkinson, to illustrate it for us, as sadly mine and Amy's drawing skills are not really up to scratch. This means that it looks amazingly similar to our video and is a great end result. 

We took the storyboard with us on the day of filming for reference, so we knew the locations we had to definitely go to film. We will also have it with us through the editing stage, so we can match it as accurately as possible, and keep the style of the short, quick cut clips.

Storyboards are the best planning tool to use, as they simply go into as much detail as possible. Once the storyboard is created, the media product starts to come to life. They are essential for any media product, and all directors use them. Alfred Hitchcock was apparently  the first director to start heavily relying on storyboards, he was enthusiastic and consistent with his use of them. Since then, they have become a vital part of any media product's creation. 

Below is an example of his infamous movie Psycho and the storyboard he created before he began filming in 1960.

Photos from the day

When we arrived, as the weather was so good, we decided to film an establishing shot straight away, which is what you can see us doing here. Since analysing narratives at the beginning of other famous music videos, we decided that we needed an atmospheric establishing shot as this was commonly seen in the openings of indie pop videos/

The first few shots I took were simply to include the equipment, to show that we filmed the whole thing ourselves, and that we haven't put any filter on the video as the lighting was so beautiful whilst we were there it didn't need it. You can see that we only used two tripods and the rest was filmed by hand. This was to create an authentic vintage and personal look, which is very popular and a common feature of the indie genre.

We continuously took photos whilst filming as we had another agenda that we needed to fulfil, which was to take photos that could be used as our album cover, back cover, album inserts and promotional poster. Some of these, such as the inserts, can be taken as stills from the video. But to get the best quality, we wanted to take stills not on a video camera for better quality, and also this was to maximise our chances of getting the right shot once we got back into the editing room.

The two shots above were taken as an option of one of our inserts or the cover of the CD case. The lighting, again, is beautiful here, and I love the silhouetted look, however it's not quite right and isn't exactly what we wanted.

To try and be more creative, I ask my sister to jump in the water and took as many consecutive photos as I could. The outcome was spectacular, here is the series of shots 

This is likely to be the photo we use for the front cover of our CD case as it doesn't need any extra editing and looks amazing. It also captures the mood and tone of the video, lively, fun and artistic.

We then tried to take some atmospheric shots of my sister in the sea with her guitar. After studying CD covers, adverts and promotions by indie artists, we came to the conclusion that a typical feature we must include is the guitar, as it seemed to be that the instrument played by the artist was always featured. The pier in the background of these photos also helped to set the scene, however, due to the incredibly beautiful sky, I think it looks best if we use a photo without it in as the simplicity makes the artist and the setting stand out even more.

This was our favourite as the lighting against the water was magical, and the silhouette of Alina with her guitar looks amazing. We also liked it as it captured the setting in a beautiful but subtle way, and the colours and tones looked typical of an indie pop promotional poster or album cover.

We spent most of the morning filming on the beach and we incredibly lucky with the weather, and apart from a few dogs running into shot, nothing really went wrong. 

I took some more photos whilst we were packing up.

We then went to the pier, and almost stumbled across this incredible view pictured below. We felt very lucky to have such a good view and such good weather, and filmed as much as we could here. As soon as we entered the pier we decided that this section of filming needed to be fun and upbeat, which is why you can see my sister in the car with her feet sticking out, pictured above. This compares dramatically to the pieces filmed in the sea as we're likely to be used for our narrative at the beginning of the video. Yet both settings still fit with our indie pop genre nicely.

We had no issues in the arcade or filming on the pier and were very happy at this point with what we had filmed. After we had filmed in the arcade as much as we could, we went to have lunch and found another arcade, a slightly smaller one, which we filmed in for a little while before going to get lunch. I kept filming Alina all day, even when we eating as we had an incredible view and I didn't want to miss a good and interesting shot. 

When we went back to the beach for the final time, we were hoping to film the sunset. Our plan was to time lapse it in the editing stage, however there were a few difficulties at this stage. We got to the beach about an hour before the sun was due to set and we were getting very cold very quickly. As well, two out of three of our cameras had died and by the time we got there, and sadly our last camera died just two minutes after we had set it up on the tripod. 

 It wasn't a disaster though as we still got many beautiful shots and also had the chance to take these beautiful pictures and capture the beach in a different way than in the morning. In my opinion, these photos are even more atmospheric than the ones taken in the morning. However, as Alina doesn't actually feature in any of them, it is likely that we won't use them as it won't fulfil the typical features of an indie pop artist.

Below is one of my favourite photos taken in the afternoon because I like the way Alina is holding the guitar to her side, rather than playing it like she is in all the other shots. I think it creates that tiny bit of originality that an indie artist needs, but still has all the typical features needed to be a stereotypical indie artist. The fact that Alina is present and clear in all the shots we are potentially going to use complies with the pop part of the genre, as even though it is indie, it is still all about the artist and making the artist sellable. 

Apart from being very windswept and tired, we had a very fun and productive day of filming and are very excited to get in the editing room to create this music video to the best of our ability.

Risk Assessment

Before filming, me and Amy decided it would be important to do a risk assessment as we were filming in a public place by the sea and on rides, where there were lots of potential dangers.

We first started off assessing the beach location as this was where we would start our filming. We broke this down into the risks for the equipment and the risks for ourselves, this would also be done for all of the other locations.

Finally, we looked at how we would deal with these problems if they were to occur. 

Audience Research Questionnaire

We interviewed 15 people to find out whether our ideas for our music video would be effective with out target audience. Once of the most useful questions was finding out who were people's main music icons. Beyonce and Ed Sheeran came out on top, which I thought was brilliant as we have studied and taken much inspiration from their music videos. After our first band let us down, we wanted to find out whether the track we were on with our second idea would be effective and popular. We found out that music videos are just as important as any other adverts as they are everywhere, and often an artists first video will determine how successful they are. This added the pressure but we were excited that our ideas seemed to be the most popular.

The questionnaire also helped us realise how important album work is, and has made us determined to include photo taking on our filming day to try and capture the best shot possible for our artist. The internet seemed to be the most popular way for our target audience to access music, so any adverts we make must be compatible with websites etc, as it is realistic to want to advertise in as many places as possible. 

The questionnaire has allowed us connect to the audience more by allowing us to put their feedback into our ideas and into our final video.

We felt we collected a good amount of data to do with music videos from a good amount of people, with a range of ages but mostly we asked those in our target audience age between 15 and 20. Overall this questionnaire was very useful to collect information about the way that music videos and artist are perceived and accepted, and gave us a clearer direction on how to advertise our music video and how important it is to collect images to use on our day of filming.