Group Decisions of who will take charge in what

        In preparation for our music video, we as a group have decided what, who and where in terms of shooting the music video for 'Human' by The Killers.

Kayleigh: Costumes, props, locations and photos of the chosen actors.

Jack: In charge of Health & Safety for the shooting of the video.

Jake: Main storyboard drawing with partial help from the other group members.

Connor (Me):  Treatment of the music video, partial storyboard drawing and taking care of the schedule list to know when we are able to shoot.

For Kayleigh's blog, visit: http://www.kayleighmusicvideoblogg324.blogspot.co.uk

For Jack's blog, visit: http://www.jcharlesworth96.blogspot.co.uk

For Jake's blog, visit: http://www.jakejonesg324.blogspot.co.uk

Full Treatment

       The beginning of the storyboard centres on the lead singer and the band (the band begin playing their instruments through the intro, mid-shot of the band) as the camera cross-cuts between the two other separate narratives consisting of a woman in one and a man in the other. The woman is shown to be sleeping with a dishevelled look (birds-eye mid-shot), and the camera cross-cuts to the man, who is in a hospital corridor on a gurney (the orderlies push the gurney through the hall, the man is clearly upset and in pain, shot from a dolly effect) as the pre-lyric sequence plays through. The hospital is a metaphor for the mans 'pain' of living a bad life.

        As the song actually begins (cross-cut to the band) the lead singer is shown in front of the microphone (lead singer begins singing from a mid-shot) and starts the song. As he is singing, the narratives switch to a phone falling off the hook in the same room as the sleeping woman, who is woken by it (camera cross-cuts to the woman jolting awake and has a confused facial expression) and gets up to look (camera cross-cuts to the woman walking drearily to the hanging phone, from a side-shot). The phone dropping off the hook and needing to be replaced is a metaphor for the woman's uneventful life and she yearns for a 'replacement' in life. The woman replaces the phone after listening to the other end of the line, where the lead singer is singing. Upon hearing the music from the phone (close-up of the woman's eyes widening and immediately starts smiling, pulling a sticker with the image of an upturned smile from her face, cross-cutted into a mid-shot), she puts the phone on the hook, which this time doesn't fall off. With the odd look of a smile but with a frown, the woman leaves her room and sets off down a road to an undisclosed location (a dolly shot follows the woman walking out with a frown and smiling, but remaining in an excited state). The lead singer is then shown singing for a few seconds (mid-shot, side-shot of the singer performing). 

         This then switches to the mans narrative (from a side shot). After hearing the singing, the man gets off of the gurney (brief side shot of the man suddenly getting up, smiles and jumps off the gurney, with a brief panning shot as he walks). The narrative switches back to the woman for a few seconds to show her frown disappearing (shown from 4 different shots. Mid-shot of her face, high angle of her hands feeling her eyebrows, extreme close-up of the fingers peeling off the stickers, then a high angle of the woman with a happy face), allowing her face to express a smile. The narrative cross-cuts to the band (mid-shot), then returns to the woman (she becomes excited and sticks her arms up in the air, high angle).
       Turning back to the mans narrative, he is walking through the hospital corridors (dolly shot follows him), notices a set of signs with 'sadness','devotion' and 'dancer' on them (he stops and stares for a second, from a mid-shot, then carries on walking), implying that he leaves his human emotions behind and heads for a better alternative. (Showing elated expressions from a long shot) The man walks out of the hospital and begins towards an undisclosed location. Cross-cuts to the lead singer (close up, shown from the side, the singer wraps his fingers around the microphone), then to one of the other band members (playing whatever instrument they have, shown from a mid-shot).
      Returning to the woman's narrative, where she stops outside a forest (the woman runs towards the forest, then stands still just outside, shown from a long shot), which then cross-cuts to a long-shot of the man, who has also entered the forest, from a different entrance (the man walks slowly, the camera follows him as though he is following the camera, sustained long-shot to establish the forest and the man looking around). The story then shows an unused gurney and then a hanging telephone/unused mobile etc to symbolise the abandonment of the average human life (?) (quick cross-cuts to the gurney and the phone).
     The man and the woman are then shown as they are about to enter (split-screen of both people to show that they're not actually next to each other, shown from a mid-shot) a large clearing (long shot of both people entering the clearing from a distance apart), as the narrative quickly changes to show empty streets (from a long-shot for both frames, to emphasise the emptiness) where no people are. (an establishing shot of) The clearing shows the band performing in the background and a large crowd of people who run towards the man and the woman (from a side shot run by a dolly or panning shot), who are shown (from a side shot) noticing each other for the first time. The singer is shown performing (mid-shot) again, with (a cross-cut mid-shot of) the man and the woman throwing their arms in the air and expressing excitement and an elated mood. We once again see the band performing (from a long shot) to imply that the video/song is almost over. The band (from a sustained long shot, no cross-cutting) performs until the end of the video, where just before the very end, the man, the woman and the crowd are shown all together (in either an establishing or a long shot). The video ends.

TO SEE THE STORYBOARDED VIDEO, PLEASE VISIT;  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFwCWb00GGM 

Treatment of my Music Video

     For my own interpretation of the song 'Human' by The Killers, I have constructed a trio of narratives on my storyboard. This is where I have created two separate settings for the two main characters to start in, then a third is included to show the band performing the song in certain sections throughout my storyboard. The two separate storyboard narratives will follow a man and a woman, who both live separate but very average lives. The woman is introduced sleeping in bed with dishevelled hair and wearing all of her clothes instead of clothes like pyjamas etc, to insinuate that her life is out of order in some ways. She wakes up with a depressed look on her face, then walks towards her phone (which is ringing) and then, just as she picks it up, the shot of the singer is shown with the microphone. The woman then suddenly drops her phone, as though she has just heard the singing, then begins to peel off a fake upturned smile imprinted on a sticker over her mouth, which when she removes, she is smiling, then leaves her apartment/room and starts walking to an unknown  destination that is revealed later on.

   The man in the other narrative is introduced just as the other narrative finishes until later on. The man is in hospital, being pushed on a gurney down the white corridors, until they stop at a set of double doors. Around this time, the singer is shown again in the third narrative, as the man sits up, gets off the gurney, and walks through the hospital (signs of 'sadness' and 'devotion' direct towards the place where the man has just come from, and a 'dancer' sign that points in the direction he is going). The hospital is sort of a metaphor for the mans ruined life. The man then leaves the double doors and starts walking to an unknown destination. As this is happening, the woman is shown walking down a street, feeling at her frowning eyebrows and noticing that they are peeling off. She pulls these stickers off, now revealing a much happier face as she walks towards the unknown destination. The stickers represent sort of a manufactured sadness that becomes automatic when people live the same life day after day. Now she has given her 'regards to soul and romance,' she can set off to become the 'dancer.' With the bands performance and singing lasting, the woman finally reaches the outside of a forest, in which she begins to pass through. Around this time, the man from the other narrative enters the same place, just metres across from the unsuspecting woman (the man also doesn't realise that the woman is nearby). The music becoming louder to both people, they quicken through the forest, both eventually reaching a clearing at the same time, but still not noticing each other. It's at this point where the story briefly cuts to   a deserted street, as though to question the disappearance of everybody. Cutting back to the man and the woman in the forest clearing, a large crowd of people are shown surrounding the band. Upon noticing the man and the woman, and upon the man and the woman noticing each other for the first time, the crowd rushes towards both people. The video ends with the two people being brought through the crowd and everybody becoming much more joyous. 

   

Group Music Video: Fluorescent Adolescent- The Storyboard Years Part 2

We have now finished our storyboard order for the music video 'Fluorescent Adolescent' by The Artic Monkeys. To be able to know what order to place these images in for the video, we scanned over the lyrics multiple times to find which ones match with what the words are suggesting. After about half an hour of moving the images round to match with the lyrics (which was helpful because most of the pictures we drew were literal to the words in the song, such as when Tabasco is mentioned, Tabasco is shown), we finally finished piecing them together.

Now that we have finally finished piecing together our music video, we used the pictures we took of the full storyboard and placed them on iMovie, where we edited it into place. We downloaded the song to be put onto iTunes then drag it over to iMovie where we had to intricately synchronise the songs lyrics with the storyboard images that perceived them. After listening for the first time to the music and the pictures, we were given an idea of where to move the images to synchronise with the lyrics. Two or three lessons later, after moving and adding a few images, we played the song for the final time along with the slideshow of images, and eventually it fit.

Now that we are happy with our finished product, you can view it here at:

http://www.kayleighmusicvideoblogg324.blogspot.co.uk

Enjoy :-)

Planning the Music Video: Blog 1

Here I will show and tell what I have done for the first stage of my music video plan. The music video I am planning for here is the 'Them Heavy People' by Kate Bush, not 'Fluorescent Adolescent' by The Artic Monkeys. I have completed a storyboard for my chosen video (which could hopefully be made) with elements of allegory; characters; settings (mise-én-scene) and location that I have drawn through just over 4 pages of 3X4 storyboard frames to be able to feature the typical three-part 'narrative' of a typical music video. NOTE: This is a post that was made for another intended video, not 'Human' by The Killers.

 

Analysis of the Storyboard

 

       The two main locations that I have chosen for this video are the forest (or just a wooded area) and the room of a house (I drew a kitchen because of the osition of the furniture to be able to pull off one certain scene involving a mirror. The completely different locations are because the forest resembles the actress's state of mind and the world inside her own imagination. The kitchen/house is used to juxtapose with the imagination as the house is intended to be filmed in a more darker tone to correctly oppose the brightness of the imagination and the darkness of reality. The actress is pulled out of her imagination and back into her house (reality). Of course, this would require some quite complicated editing as I intend to throw her back to reality via two shady suited men who drag her through the forest and slumped onto a chair, which is randomly placed so that it resembles her view o returning to reality through a chair. It reflects her state of mind along with the lyrics of the song. As the video plays on, the 'story' becomes clear that the actress is being driven more insane by the real world, which is told with accompanying cross-cuts to a slinky being pulled taut and snapping; the slinky being her mind. Despite the dark undertone of the storyboard, the lyrics do imply these tones on occasion, so the inclusion of a third cross-cut setting is used to show the actual instruments in the song being played and the song being sung by the actress. This is a typical feature in most music videos; where the camera cuts to the band/artist performing the song, as though 'breaking the fourth wall.'

 

 

        

 

 

Group Music Video: Fluorescent Adolescent- The Storyboard Years Part 1

For the last couple of weeks, we have been working on creating a music video for a song that we were given: 'Fluorescent Adolescent' by The Artic Monkeys. Through these couple of weeks, we got into a group of four; drawing our own sections of the storyboard by basing it off the lyrics from the song. We then began cutting up the storyboard frames and interweaved them with each other to form the three main scenes of the music video; creating a story as the background for the video. The three main scenes were: The band shown to be playing the instruments and singing; the story shown through an almost literal style; and cross-cuts that show a woman with a paper mask on that changes emotion every time the camera cuts to her, with certain items being used to symbolise the fall of her adolescence (which is literally shown as a scene shows cut up letters that create the word 'Adolescent' fall before the woman wearing the mask. I created the scenes for the latter description: the masked woman, mostly because I had no idea how to interpret the lyrics until i was given a hint that she was growing up. Here is the storyboard section that I created: