We booked out the recording studio to film me doing the lip-syncing because we wanted to keep the video interesting by having multiple locations. We also thought the recording studio would give the video a professional touch.
We decided we wanted to film in black and white for this section, again because all of the other footage is in colour and we want to keep it varied, but also because it's one of the conventions we saw in a couple of pop punk music videos.
Careful by Paramore has a mix of colour and black and white and the video is dominated by live footage. This is similar with The Consequence by You Me At Six, they have mostly footage fro their live shows, but also behind the scenes clips of the band members, but with this video it is all filmed in black and white.
By having a dark black background, when the white lights on the stage flash, they really stand out and shine on the musicians faces - almost giving a strobe lighting effect.
As usual, we had some issues when filming:
The camera hadn't been charged since the last shoot so we had to battle getting all the footage needed before the battery died. Luckily, we did get enough before it did, but it would have been nice to get the lip sync from a few different angles. Having said this, this location will only be seen in short clips so we don't really need a lot of footage.
Also, at one point, the memory card was full and the spare we had wouldn't work in the camera. We had to delete all of the old footage that was on the camera, but fortunately it was already on the computer, so not too much of a problem. In order to get the shots we wanted, we had to set up the equipment (the mic stand and leads, also the headphones) and position them in the right place so we had the drum kit in the background.
To film the parts in the wood, we needed a few hours to film in the day and because we're at college throughout the week and then working etc at the weekend, it was difficult to find the time. We got up early on Sunday morning and filmed in the cold for nearly four hours.
It was sometimes challenging because quite often there would be people walking past us, with their dogs or families so occasionally the filming was disrupted.
Instead of using the colleges' video cameras, we used Steph's SLR camera that you can film on. We thought this way, we'd be able to get much better effects and the quality of the footage would be much higher. Because we had better equipment, we tried to use better effects. For example, in one close up of my face (for the performance footage) I looked up to the camera and Steph used a shallow depth of field then focused the lens so the foreground stayed clear (me) and the background went blurry. This effect looked really good and I hope to use it in the actual video.
We took more shots than we needed so we had a choice of the best and even after three and a half hours, there are still parts we need to film.
We went back to the summer house to film for the last part of the music video where the main plot of the revealed. Again, we faced some problems:
- We reached the end of the tape so had to rewind to the start of the footage and film over it, although most of it had already been put on the computer so it wasn't really a big deal.
- The battery on our camera was quite low when we rented it from college, so when we turned it on and went to film we only had a few minutes of filming time. This meant we had to try and get the shots as quickly as we could, and only really film the parts we needed. Also, while we were preparing for the shots we had to keep turning the camera off to try and save the battery life.
- Steph forgot to bring the red lipstick which was really important to for evil side of the girl in the narrative; because we wanted her to have a lot more make up on, I did it and as we didn't have the any lipstick, I put purple eye shadow on her lips covered with lip gloss so the lips still had some colour.
We tried to overcome all the problems we faced with the most logical solution and in the end we did manage to get all the shots we wanted before the camera died. So when we get chance to put the footage on the computer, we can look through the footage and hopefully won't need to reshoot anything.
We wanted to have two versions of the same person in one shot, but knew it would be difficult so we tried to experiment with the green screen because we thought it would be a really good thing to use if it worked. We brought in everything that we needed such as make up and clothes and set up the equipment for the green screen.
Again, there were some issues we had to deal with:
- After we had set up the green screen in one of the empty classrooms, a teacher came in and had booked out the room so we had to get all our stuff, including the green screen and find another available room.
- Once we had another room and set up the green screen again, Steph got changed and as we were about to film the fire alarm went off and we had to evacuate the building. This took out a lot of the time out of the lesson so we had to eventually film through our lunch time.
We got the shots we needed, but were a bit apprehensive as to whether it would work with the angles of the wall and the floor. We'll get the other shots we need actually at the summer house and then see which ones look best.
Even if we don't use the footage of the green screen in the actual music video, it was still useful to have experienced using it.
Steph's Grandparents have a small shed-like summer house by where they live which hasn't been used for years so there were cobwebs everywhere and it had the derelict vibe we wanted. When we first went to film we had real problems; we went to the location as soon as we finished college but because of how dark it gets really early, we struggled to actually get any filming done because it was too dark. We did get some footage but because it was really hard to see anything, we aren't able to use any of it.
We'll have to go back to film one day when we're not both at college til 4pm because that's when it's difficult to film with the lighting. Although we did face problems, we got an idea of the location (I'd never seen it so it was difficult to visualise) and also what sort of shots we wanted to get because it helped seeing the place beforehand.
We wanted to have performance footage because all of the Paramore music videos we looked at had a lot of performance, so this was a big convention that we needed to take into account. We booked out the rehearsal rooms at college, and I have a lesson in there so I already knew the layout and how to set up the equipment.
A huge problem we faced, was that we didn't have a band to play the song for us. We wanted to have footage of the instruments as well as just a singer but it was difficult when we didn't have a band to use. One of my friends plays guitar and agreed to help us out by learning Monster and playing it for us, he also tried to do something similar to the drum beat - even though he didn't play drums.
To make it look like there were two different people playing the instruments, we had a shot on the drums with Jamie wearing a jumper and on the guitar he had a black hoodie.
We only needed simple shots for the drums - such as the crash cymbals and the kicking of the bass drum. another problem was that my friend didn't actually want to be seen in the video, so it's going to be difficult to make sure he's not in any of the footage.
We tried to book out the Dance Studio to film Stephs dance part because we thought it would look professional with the matted floors and wall of mirrors. However, the date we wanted to get it booked for had already been taken, but the sports hall was free.
Although this wasn't our first choice, it still was appropriate for what we needed it for. The only downside was that because it was a sports hall, there were the lines on the floor signalling different sports, which we didn't really want but it was only a small negative and didn't affect our filming in any way.
We tried to get a lot of different shots and so I filmed from different points of the hall trying to achieve different angles. I also had varying closeness between the camera and Steph. I think the filming went well, it would have been better if we had the room with the proper flooring but the sports hall was fine to use, and it was bigger.
We decided that we wanted to have performance footage as this fits the criteria of all of Paramore's music videos, but we also wanted to tell a story like in such video's as Playing God and Misery Business. We wanted the story we tell to fit to the song. This is the story that we have in our heads without actually having filmed yet, and hopefully everything will work out exactly as we plan it to.
The song starts and we see a girl (played by Steph) sitting by a lake, she is seen writing a letter and the paper she's writing on has lyrics of the song, as though she's writing her thoughts to someone but don't know who. She screws up the letter, throws it in the water and runs away. We next see her running through the forest, looking as though she is trying to find her way out. Throughout all of this part we see Steph in a dance studio dancing.
Throughout the actual narrative described, we want to have Me lip syncing in the woods and singing into an expensive Mic in the recording studio at college. We want to make the video as varied as we can, so we also plan to have close up of the guitars playing and the drum kit because we really feel that with a song like Monster, it really requires instruments being played.
We want the story to have a twist at the end, so towards to end of the song we see Steph running up to a summer house that looks old and derelict. She bursts through the door and halts immediately because she sees an alternate version of her sat on the chair, dressed in black and red, looking like a more evil version - showing both sides of a person. When the evil Steph smirks, the shot flicks back to were good Steph was standing but no one is there. Then right at the end of the song we go back to the start with the letter being written at the lake but it's the alternate Steph dressed in black sitting there writing the letter.
Hopefully this will leave the audience wondering if the nice version of the girl in the video was even there at all and whether the dark side had completely taken over.
These were our first ideas for the digipak when brainstorming. We had a couple of ideas, but obviously sometimes your ideas change and don't look like the first initial idea.
I think our target audience will be the same type of audience that would watch the music videos from the actual band Paramore. Many different types of people listen to their music but reallt it's aimed at teenagers and this is where the biggest part of their audience are. I don't think there's a certain stereotpye of people that would like our video, apart from the fact that the younger people might relate to it more.
I don't think there would be much of a difference in the gender of people that would enjoy it as both boys and girls love Paramore, but there will be a girl performing and it's sung by a girl and also a girl playing the character in the narrative but I don't think this would have too much of an effect on the audience.
When I first found out about creating a music video I immediately knew I wanted to do a video to a Paramore song because I love the band and knew I wanted to have a female singer because I didn’t know anyone that would be willing to lip-sync to a male one.
Narrative:
We want our video to fit the conventions of a lot of Paramore videos so we definitely want to tell a story as well as having performance footage. The song is quite angry or sad so I think it’s a good idea to get that across and maybe have the character crying and lip-syncing. I thought it would be a good idea to film by a lake because the lyrics talk about water, drowning and sinking so we could relate the video to the lyrics.
Visual Style:
I think we want the style to be the same as some of the Paramore videos, for example they wear jeans and a t-shirt quite often but in more of the recent videos they wear more than one outfit – something casual and something formal so I want to incorporate that into my video, maybe have a different outfit for the narrative and the lip-syncing in the studio.
I think the lighting should be editing to fit the mood of the song. For example we want to film in the woods so we thought putting a blue filter on the camera might make it look eerie but there would still be enough light to see everything clearly.
Also with the time of year that it is all the leaves are falling off the trees so hopefully that would work to an advantage. We were also thinking of filming the studio recording in black and white because I’ve seen this in videos before and it looks really and keeps the video varied.
We need a lot of detail on the facial expressions more than any other part for this song because it’ full of anger and that’s an important part of the song. I think the camera shots should vary a lot and using high angle shots will show the vulnerability of the character. We’re going to try and get as many shots as possible so we have a lot of footage to choose from.
I’d like to find out how to do certain effects in the post-production stage such as putting two videos over each other to get a merged effect because I saw it done in a music video and thought it was really effective.
Cast:
We’re unsure yet of who will be the one performing in the video as I think we both would like to have a shot at doing it. We came up with an idea that somehow there will be both of us in the video, but the idea hasn’t been developed any more than that at this stage.
We want some shots of guitar in our video because the song is really guitar-heavy. I have a friend who plays guitar and he said he doesn’t mind playing the song for the video as long as his face isn’t shown, so we have permission from him for that.
It’s early stages of planning so we haven’t really thought through if we will need any extras but I don’t think it’s likely.
Practicalities:
We want to go to Apley Wood to do some of the filming because there are some really atmospheric woods and a lake with a pier and I think this location would be really good to film at. The idea of filming at a lake came to me int he holidays when I thought it would fit really well to the lyrics of the song: 'You were my conscience, so solid, now you're like water And we started drowning, not like we'd sink any further And I let my heart go , it's somewhere down at the bottom...' I think this could look really cool being filmed by a lake.We'd also like to film in the recording studios at college because there is often performance footage in this genre. I have a friend that had access to the studio so it shouldn't be too difficult to film in there and I think a black and white effect on the camera would keep the video varied.
This video is much more serious than the Blink 182 one and this could be to do with the fact that it is categorised under a different genre – Evanescence are more ‘rock’ sounding – but Paramore have links to both genres because their music fuses the two.
There is purely narrative in this video and no performance footage which is something I didn’t see in any of the pop/punk videos but the lead singer Amy does lip sync most of the way through.
The story is of a woman who is putting on an act that she has a perfect life and everyone falls for it but behind closed doors she’s an absolute mess and hates herself. The whole video strongly links to the lyrics as Amy sings ‘no flaws when you’re pretending’ and she plays all of the characters seen – an actress for the brand ‘lies’ and the actual girl behind the act that is really unhappy.
She sings ‘without the mask, where will you hide? Can’t find yourself lost in your lies’. I think people will relate to people because so many people act like their okay when they’re not.
When doing the modelling shoot and adverts, the character wears formal, glamorous clothes but when she is left to be herself she wears a strap top and tracksuit bottoms and this is really showing the two sides of the person. I think it would be good to wear more than one outfit in my own music video.
The lighting is really dark and this is appropriate for the context of the video. I think the editing is more complex than all of the pop/punk videos I looked at. There are extra bits added to the video post-production. An example of this is when Amy is on the motorbike and the bold writing and the can comes on the screen. There is also cross-cutting between the two sides of the girl’s personality; the part where she is at home crying and the scenes where she is doing photo shoots and TV adverts – this keeps the video interesting because it’s varied. The video seems to be more thought out in this genre.
Camerawork is kept quite simple but it’s still effective because the story behind it is sad, the camerawork doesn’t need to be extravagant because it would take away from the story that affects the audience. However the camera does use lots of high angle shots to show the vulnerability of the character.
The music video uses dark lighting and varied camera shots along with a really sad narrative to portray the anger and depression felt in the lyrics.
