Health and Safety Risk Assessment (Josh)

There are a nuber of risks that are involved in the construction of our music video. Most of these were during the narrative part of the filming.

The Tree
  There are always a number of safety issues surrounding putting a man up a tree with a guitar. Before sending Mike up the tree Jonny went up to ensure that it was safe and the ladder was footed by myself so that it didn't fall over whilst he was up the tree. Jonny checked that the branch could hold the weight both when we originally found the tree and then once agin on the day of shooting.
  To get Mike up the tree we used a ladder and ensured that he would wear shoes with a lot of grip in order to make sure that there was minimal chance of him slipping out of this tree. Once Mike got up the tree we made sure that he was comfortable before handing him his guitar. Once Mike was in position we made sure that the filming was done as quickly as possible so that mike didn't have to stay up the tree to long we did ensure that the film was to the highest quality.
  We used a ladder to get Mike out of the tree so that it was as safe a possible. There was one more thing that we needed Mike to do at the tree, hang off of a lower branch and then drop for one shot that will be used. Before doing this Jonny checked that the branch was able to hold the weight

The Field
  There is minimal risk here; the only that we found was rabbit holes along the down hill where the actors would run. For this reason before we started shooting the footage we walked up and down the hill to check for holes. We then found an area that there weren't any holes and began shooting the film.

The Bridge
  Once again there was minimal risk at this location. The only risk was that Mike could slip on the bridge. The prevent this we made sure that Mike had grippy shoes so there was minimal risk of him slipping.

Organizing Costumes For Our Music Video (JONNY)

I took on the role of organizing the costumes for both the band and the actors in our music video. 

When deciding on what the band should wear, I felt that it was right to represent the real village musicians style. I hoped that this would give an authentic relation between the band members and the song. For example; it would not have been effective if our band members wore baggy jeans, baseball caps and golden chains.
However, I felt that it was also important that our band members wore something true to themselves and that represent their unique style as a band. I found some pictures of the band and posted them on our group facebook page. I showed our band what the real village musicians wore, however explained to them that they had free reign over their own costume as long as it was similar and represented the genre of music. 




When shooting the narrative I ensured that Mike was wearing the same costume to avoid continuity errors. I worked with Ami (our actress) to co- ordinate a costume that represented her character
and that went well alongside Mikes costume.




I decided that it would also be important to start developing an 'image' for our lead singer Mike. Something that would distinct him from other artists. We decided that his leather jacket gave him a really nice nice image, and so you can see him wearing this jacket throughout the music video.

Filming of the Narrative 29/11/12 (Josh)

Yesterday we went and filmed the narrative parts of the music video. This was a long day for all involved with us starting at 10:30 and not finishing until 19:00. We had a number of different locations which we needed to shoot in and wanted to make sure that we wouldn't have to re-film any sections so we took lots of footage.

Here is a photo of jonny at the first location capturing soem footage from the point of view that the main singer would have. This will be used in the early part of the song. Jonny made sure that he held the camera steady whilst taking this shot so that the video is of the highest quality.

Here Jonny is explaining to Mike what he needs to do for the next scene. We made sure we done this before every single scene that we filmed so as the actors would have 100% confidence that they knew what to do. This meant that the filming would not take to long and would be efficent for all involved and wouldn't mean that the actors would have to film each scene to many times.

 Here Ami (the girl in the narrative) and Mike are about to start acting one of the scenes and are just recieving a final brief on what they will need to do from myself and Jonny. This is another part of the film which will go during the part of the film where the main singer (Mike) is imagining that they are in a relationship.

Mike and Ami mid scene, this is another part of the footage for when the lead singer is imagining they are in a relationship. Mike and Ami were confident that they knew what they were doing and done a fantastic job of this scene. This was ine scene that we filmed not sure weather or not we would use it but after we had filmed it we decided that we would definately be using it as it look great.




To conclude this was a really enjoyable day for all involved and was very constructive for Jonny and myself. We managed to get all of the footage that we need for the film and hope to have it completely edited by the end of November.

Organizing our filming schedule with the use of Social Media (Jonny)

Before commencing our filming for our music video Josh and I had the complicated task of organizing our filming schedule. This may not seem like a complicated task, however logistically finding a day where we could use our chosen location or green screen and where all 3 of our band members were available was never going to be easy!  Because of this, we decided to take our filming schedule in to the 21st century and create our own Facebook event where we could co-ordinate days with our band and actress and find dates that were mutually convenient for everyone!

We invited our 3 band members and our actress for the narrative to the event. We uploaded images of the original 'village musicians' so our band could get an idea of the style, along with this we also uploaded our animatic to help explain to the group the structure and story line of our music video.

When we needed to film a scene we would 'tag' whoever was needed in a post along with what we needed to film and where it would be filmed. Those who were 'tagged' in the post could then post a comment telling us what dates and times they were available, allowing us to co-ordinate a date that everyone was available. This process was very simple and saved a lot of time. It was a excellent example of how social media can connect people, as if we had not created an event we would have been left with the tedious task of phoning each member individually and collating the dates that everyone could do, before phoning back all of the members to tell them the date we had decided. The event page also allowed us to inform the group of any plans for the filming, for example, where we would meet, what they would need to wear etc..

Along with making life easier for ourselves, using social media also allowed to us to add another technology to the ever growing list that we have used in this A2 course. 

Performance Green Screen Filming 17/10/12 (Jonny)

This was our first filming day on our new music video project and despite a few set backs it went really well! We had chosen to film on Wednesday after school as all of our band members were free, along with the class room and the green screen. We borrowed the drum set and the keyboard from the music department and Mike (the guitarist) brought his own guitar. We filmed each member of the band independently with their instrument first filming a standard full shot of them playing the full song. We then filmed them a second time with a number of different close ups and angled shots. One of the main problems we
encountered during this process was that the band struggled to listen to the song being played over the top, this was especially a problem for our drummer Nicky. We overcame this problem by having him discreetly wear some in ear headphones connected to my phone which played the song straight in to his ear. This allowed his drumming to be in sync with the actual song.
After we had filmed each band member individually we then proceeded to film the band as a whole. Although we only intend to use them in the chorus, we made the decision to film them playing
the whole song as a contingency plan for any changes made along the way. When filming the whole band, we struggled to fit everyone on the green screen without peoples heads and arms coming off the screen. Josh and I were able to solve this problem
by strategically placing instruments so that all members could fit.
 Although this does block the view of the drums slightly, we felt that this was the most effective way of fitting the whole band in shot. Following this we took some shots of the band members without instruments 'messing' around and being silly as we felt this would be effective to go in along the chorus with other footage of them actually playing the song. Although a fair amount of our film looked quite stage, we did manage to get a few moments where the acting looked genuine and where they all managed to fit on the green screen.


Over all, I feel that Filming went well and that we achieved to get footage of everything we needed. We have looked through the tape, but are still to edit it, so we hope to avoid any major problems there. At times it was difficult to get the whole band
 to co operate simultaneously and film the footage which was frustrating and caused the process to drag out longer than we needed. However it was important to keep our band members happy throughout the process, after all they were the ones doing us a favor. Josh and I enjoyed the experience of directing and filming the performance with the green screen and had good fun with the band. We felt that this was a really good first filming session and hope that filming sessions in the future are this productive! Are next planned footage to film is the majority of the narrative which will involve us filming off location (date tbc).
We are looking forward to this greatly!  

The Village Musicians Project Proposal (JONNY)

The Village Musicians: All This Time on Prezi