Our Story
After reading through the lyrics many times and thinking about it we have came up with this story.
A killer kidnaps a female and is ordered to kill her he hasn’t ever killed a female before so its a hard job. He kills her and then his conciseness kicks in and he decides to give himself up to the police. He walks and thinks about it and cant force himself to go in. Then his final resolution is to end his on life, he does this in a green area using the same handgun he killed the victim with. During the video there will be allot of shots with him thinking and walking to show him having this murder on his mind but he has no other way to earn money, towards the end he stares into the distance watching traffic for a very long period of time after he has done this he makes his decision to end his own life when he gets home.
A2 Media project
Music Video
Ben Palmer.
Chosen music video, to do a cover on- What Ive Done by Linkin Park
3 minutes 26 seconds long (206 seconds)
opening
8 band scenes
9 other scenes
closing
Lyrics of what ive done by Linkin Park
In this farewell
There’s no blood
There’s no Alibi
‘Cause I’ve Drawn Regret
From the truth
Of a Thousand Lies
So let Mercy Come
And Wash Away
What i`ve Done
I’ve faced myself
To Cross out what I’ve Become
Erase Myself
And let Go of What I’ve done
Put to rest
What you Thought of Me
While I clean this Slate
With the Hands of Uncertainty
For What I’ve Done
I start again
And whatever pain may come
Today this ends
I’m Forgiving What I’ve Done
What I’ve Done
Forgiving What I’ve Done
Media studies essay
For the advanced media portfolio there were many choices to choose from, I chose to do the music video cover with CD cover and poster this was because I felt my main strengths were in this area, also the two people I was working with Mike and Emilis also had a lot of musical knowledge. After this decision I started to watch music videos as part of my planning, this helped me get a good idea of the different genre’s and how music videos differ with their editing and special effects. After watching a number of music videos I thought it would be appropriate to analyse one, so I chose Kanye West’s Love Lockdown video, whilst analysing this I looked a six areas I thought were key. Editing, so things such as the transition and smoothness between shots, in this video it is filmed with a white room so this helps with that. Mise en scene in this video all the make-up on the tribal dancers. Camera movement, I analysed the different types of camera movement used for example a crane shot. The lighting used in the music video, which in this video were very bright to emphasise the tribal dancers. You will see my full analysis in my portfolio. After analysing the music videos I thought it was key to get some audience feedback, therefore I designed a questionnaire with a range of questions on there such as their favourite genre and favourite music video. I then analysed these and it was clear to me that the favourite was rock. Leading on from this I decided to do some research on genres in music especially the top two choices from the questionnaire alternative rock and alternative metal. Alternative metal is a genre of heavy metal that gained popularity in the early 1990s. Most notably, alternative metal bands are characterised by heavy guitar riffs; typically, these riffs, have a pronounced experimental edge, including unconventional lyrics, odd time signatures, more syncopation than typical metal, unusual technique, a resistance to conventional approaches to heavy music and an incorporation of a wide range of influences outside of the metal music scene. Like its relative, alternative rock, alternative metal also has a dilute, softer sound to it.
During the research I noticed a band called Linkin Park used both of these genre, from this I did some independent research away from my group on http://linkinpark.com/ to see exactly what songs they had made. When listening to a few songs, one song caught me it was What I’ve Done by Linkin Park. I put this idea forward to my group and they thought this was a great idea. My first step was to write the lyrics out and start to think about a story to go with this. With a few joint discussions with my group it was clear it had to be something the main actor in the video had done to regret. We then started to get ideas down on the computer. During this process we had to take into account quite a few things including budget, we didn’t have one this music video was going to have to be made without using any money, during research I also looked at old media projects on you tube to give me an idea of the standard with low budget music videos to give me a realistic idea of what was possible when making ours. Also during this process we decided we had to come up with our own band name we agreed on the “Nobody’s”. Our teacher set us the deadline this had to be in so we thought time management skills were important in the making of this music video to give us enough time to be able to create good standard ancillary texts. So we decided to come up with a plan and dates we would like to finish each part of the music video for example filming and editing, you will find this in my portfolio. Story boards were key to the planning process to give us an idea of how long our scenes were going to be, as we had decided on a story going through out the music video with cuts back onto band scenes every few scenes. The outcome of the planning was to use nine story scenes in the video and 8 band scenes. Also a big thing I learnt from last year was time management skills and I think this was key to make a good portfolio.
After completing the planning, we had set out around a month for filming. We used our school cameras and tripods. During filming we had a few set backs to our time schedule this was because it was winter and some days it was raining and we couldn’t film out side. Also we had a week off because of snow shutting the school. With these things being out of our control we made the time up outside lesson time to stay on track. I enjoyed the filming part the most as you really got to express your imagination. One of the things I learnt from last year is you can never have enough filming, so for this project we made sure we filmed each scene at least twice, this might have been extra work to cut it down when editing but it would be worth while with the end result. After one filming session we had a technical problem, after uploading the work it was very jumpy and some parts had blanked out, so this set us back one lesson because we had to re-film this.
It was clear to me after last years project editing takes a very long time so we set the most time out for this. Especially with three opinions parts were changed back and forward with deciding on how long each band scene and extending parts of the story line. But knowing we had finished filming this really motivated to push on to the end of the project because we could start to see it coming together. We split the work up between the three of us whilst editing to each of our strong points, mine being adding in the transitions with the special effects, Mikes being organising the order of the music video and Emilis making any changes after we had edited a small section at a time. Being good friends really helped us during this process as we took each others opinions into account and all had an equal part to play in the whole project. Editing took slightly longer than expected but it was worth the extra time with the end result.
After finishing the music video, I started off making my CD cover. I researched over the internet the dimensions of a CD cover and all the details on them. Also with previously brought CD covers at home I looked on these this really gave me an idea of what to do. I used red white and black on the cover as our group decided on these colours. We all had to have a different CD cover but we wanted to have the same colours. As I am not that experienced in Photoshop and a lot more comfortable in Pages, I made my logo design in Photoshop and then copied it in to Pages, by doing this it was easy for me to organise all the other parts of this like the titles and barcodes with copyright information on it.
The end result was a positive one, with many things going well including the process, we didn’t really have any major set backs compared to last years project this was because we were more prepared and had a good idea how to go about doing a portfolio. We still finished a few weeks over schedule this was because of the extra filming so it took us twice as long to cut it down. Also we could of made it look a lot better if we had money available to us, but considering we didn’t I think it’s a very good project.
The combination between my main product being my music video and ancillary texts being my poster and CD cover go together very well. The dark main colours because its quite a dark story behind the music video and to make it eye catching the red and white
Evalution
In the evaluation the following questions must be answered:
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real
media products?
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation
Primary Research
- 2 Video Analysis
- Questionnaire
- Letter to band to make sure we can use song
Secondary Research
-How a music video is made
-Old A2 music videos on youtube
Music Video
-Story boards
-Filming
-Editing
-Planing plan
Evaluation
-Questionnaire
-Essay what went well/what went wrong
In the evaluation the following questions must be answered:
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real
media products?
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation
stages?
Ideas for the format for the presentation of the evaluation can be found in the Guidance Notes.
Media
-Magazine Cover
-CD/DVD Cover
Genre work
Name:
Age:
Gender: [ ] MALE [ ] FEMALE
Occupation:
Preferred movie genre: [ ] Thriller [ ] Horror [ ] Comedy
[ ] Sci – fi [ ] Action [ ] Romantic Comedy
[ ] Other ( please state)
________________________________
Did you enjoy the film ? [ ] YES [ ] NO ( why ?)
What did you enjoy most about the film ?
What could be improved in the film ?
Was the music effective ?
What did you think about the camera angels?
If are film was Shown on TV, would you not watch it if it was on a specific channel? why?
What is your first thoughts of the film?
How did you think the actors did in the film?
Overall, how would you rate the film?
What improvements would you offer?
thank you
The Chase production report
We decided that we would do an opening scene to a thriller it had to be about two minutes long. I started off by watching a number of thrillers to get more of an understanding of how thriller movies are made and what they consist of. We watched films such as “No Country For Old Men”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YLfpDBzhFI which was directed by Ethan and Joel Coen and was released in January 2008. “Fargo”which was directed by Lewis D Collins and released in 1952 this contributed to my studies I also watched some thriller trailers from the Apple website. Whilst I was watching them I was looking for things such as camera shots, mise en scene, editing, special FX and sound. We started off learning things about the camera by experimenting by doing a mixture of different camera shots in one scene. After that our plan for our film started coming together. I started to pick up rules such as the 180 degree rule. We started with a preliminary task, walking into a room sitting down and having a conversation, this really helped us in the ideas for our movie also watched ‘The Maltese flacon’, a film in black and white which influenced our decision to use black and white in our film. This genre is called film noir which uses a technique called high key lighting, binary opposition. This exaggerates the difference between the light and shadows within the film. I also watched ‘Memento’ which showed me the use of flash backs which I also used in my film. In my media project, Todorov’s theory, in our film the disrupted force is the man being killed.
Our film plot was related to society today, because people have more money problems than ever, this is why people may relate to it and it is a moral lesson. It started off with two men are discussing money matters in a run down room. How the two men our going to come to an agreement over the money? But it is such a huge some of money that the man has to pay the bank back. The debt collector leaves the room leaving the other man distressed and upset because he is unable to pay the bill, there was some suspicious noises coming from the entrance. When the debt collector returns to the room to his shock he finds a body laid out on the floor. It isn’t moving. This is because he had money problems with ex friends and it had come to haunt him. Petrified by shock the man stares at the body. Until something catches his vision it was a man peering through the tinted glass window. He realises that its the killer. And the dark shadow disappears. He begins to chase after the man through the two doors leading to where the figure was. Until he sees him go into the distance. He opens the last door in the court yard. Nothing is there is he seeing things? He notices the door is shutting the other side of the court yard, could it be him? This is where the opening sequences ends, if we were to carry on with this plot there would be lots of encounters, and near misses finding this man but the murderer is never found. We filmed the movie in are sixth form area and the outside quad, it took us a while to decide this because we had a few options but these ones where perfect for the Chase, we made it look run down by removing all the nice furniture and use black and white effect to make it a better effect, because we thought it didn’t give us the appropriate effect in colour.
We didn’t use much mise en scene in are film, we made the business man wear professional clothes to make him higher status than the gentleman who owes the money we done this to create status. We done this to create a representation of someone of high status. Representation refers to the construction in any medium of aspects of reality such as people, places, objects, events, cultural, identities and other abstract concepts. Such as representation may be in speech or writing as well as still or moving pictures.
scene one
Two men are talking about money matters in a run down room which one man is unable to pay due to he had lost his job and been unemployed for a while, one of them gets annoyed and aggressive with the other man. The other leaves him with the bill but it gets to a boiling point. The room is a tatty old room with a dark gloomy effect.
scene two
The man comes back, and is shocked to find a man lying on the floor not moving it appears he has been attacked but is not bleeding anywhere, he notices that a dark shadow is outside the window in to see what evidence he had left.
scene three
The man outside the window begins to disappear running away through the courtyard , so the man starts to chase after him.
scene four
The man runs into the building. The chasing man can not identify him
We started off with a clear idea of what we wanted to get across with our thriller and the questions we wanted the audience to ask whilst they where watching our film. We did not want to be unorthodox and subvert the usual codes and conventions of this genre. We wanted to follow the themes of a thriller. We did not use all the filmed footage we had scenes that we didn’t use at all, this is due to opinion of are group. The reason these were not added is because they turned out not to fit in that well, not due to technical faults.
Evaluation
My media project represents the social group which is a wide variety of people that owe other people money, it just shows if you owe the wrong people money it can cost your life, this is an explicit case just to try and get the point across, in society today there is a big money issue, due to many things in life. The advertising I would use to advertise my products would be, bill-boards with an image to get the film around this would also remind people about the theory. We would run trailers on C4 in the weeks coming up to transmission. The channel it would be on is channel 4 because it is willing to experiment after the watershed and I think this would go down well with 16-25 year olds which watch this channel because of the serious effect.
We sampled our audience by asking peers to watch our movie, also we asked teachers and the deal was they filled in a questionnaire. We had positive results, we made sure it was not bias by being out the room whilst they watched it and they filled the questionnaires anonymously. This was the first time I have used things like stills cameras and tripods so I have learnt a lot, including the do’s and don’ts whilst filming I think I have come on a lot an would now be comfortable using this type of equipment with no errors.
In the preliminary task I made quite a few errors due to inexperience of using the equipment but this only made me confident when I knew the correct techniques, for example I broke the 180 degree rule, so then for when we where filming our movie it was on my mind to make sure I had improved and learnt from my mistake. Also I learnt how camera shots help you create status not just props, for example high angle shots, looking down to the person, we used this in our film when the bank worker came to visit the worker to discuss money, we made sure he had an over shoulder shot looking down on the man who owed the money. We also added dark drone music on this scene to build suspense.
I think the filming part of it went well because it was quick and efficient because we worked well as a group and we didn’t re-shoot many scenes, I think our planning could have gone better because we didn’t have much knowledge and understanding of filming. I had never used I-movie before so it was all new to me, I learnt how to make cuts and how they make the pace build up also the use of transitions in how to make a smooth fade to the next scene.
A2 Media project
Music Video
Ben Palmer, Mike Govier and Emilis Stupelis.
Chosen music video to do a cover on- What Ive Done by Linkin Park
3 minutes 26 seconds long (206 seconds)
opening
8 band scenes
9 other scenes
closing
Research
The Prodigy are an English electronic music group formed by Liam Howlett in 1990 in Essex, they achieved mainstream popularity in the 1990s and 2000s. They are known for high-quality live performances. They have sold over 17 million records worldwide which is unequalled in dance music history. Their music consists of various styles ranging from rave, hardcore, industrial, an backbeat.
Analysis of Invader Must die
Initial response to Invaders Must Die was somewhat mixed, which received an average rating of 60 out of a 100 from mainstream critics.
Special FX-
editing-
mise en scene-
camera movement-
sound-
Lighting-
Environment-
Kanye West Love Lock Down
The music video was directed by Simon Henwood. It was filmed at Kanye’s apartment and features him in a while room also dressed in white.
Special FX- The bright coloured shadows on the two very tall Tribal women. Shaking of the camera 2 minutes 30 seconds. At the very start the tribal shadows running past the white blind which the picture below shows.
editing- The white in the background through out the video helps with cutting from Kanye in the apartment it is filmed in to the tribal group area so the video runs smoothly .
mise en scene- All the tribal dancers, with there instruments and make-up. All the white drapes over the room which is shown in the chorus. The telescope in the room where the video ends.
camera movement- The first camera angle to start of is a crane down, through out the video there is close ups used, point of view is also used, tilt, panning, top and bottom angle and zoom in and out. This picture is the crane down at the start.
Lighting- The lighting is quite bright to make sure emphasises the tribal group and also Kanye. Also it looks like the director has tried to shade the scene with different lights reflecting off the tribal dancers.
sound- Through out the video the scenes only switch between to main rooms, at the sound is diagetic.
