Some more information about Temple Scene

To help me decide what sort of video would be best for the band, I asked them what group most of their listeners belong to, and exactly what genre they are (I never have been officially sure, I just went by what I heard. The song's ID3 tag simply quotes "Other". Here is what the band have to say on the subject.

"As for age/sex of our listeners... it's quite hard to tell as we don't really sell enough to have statistcally meaningful analytics. We seem to have a lot of people in the 25-35 age range, with 15-25 and 35-45 probably coming joint second. But that could equally reflect the general demographics of the sites we are present on, rather than us specifically. Possibly more females among our younger listeners (up to 20) and more males among the older ones. Equally, we seem to get a lot of listeners from America, especially California and the West Coast. But again, this could just reflect the browsing habits of those people, so maybe they are more likely to find our stuff...

I have no idea what our genre is! I guess it's broadly 'alternative' (in the proper sense of the genre), but it's hard to say beyond that. It's has a lot of electronica, but not enough to be in the 'electronic' genre. It's kind of not quite rock and not quite pop... although some of our songs tip over into one or the other. I don't mean to sound like one of those insecure bands who say "oh we don't have a style". I think we do, but I suspect it falls in between the big genre names... or it's just hard for me to have perspective."

There you have it. This target audience fits the style of the video, especially in the 15-25 year olds range, given the parkour, which is a street sport that mainly appeals to young people (although from the feedback I have had, still appeals to older people, but are turned off by the inaccessibility of the sport too them. For my purpose, which is to get the "wow factor", 15-45 year olds will be perfect. The genre backs up my previous choices, such as the one not to use the band in the film - "a lot of electronica" is not a style of music which tends to have much of the artist in their videos. (It tends to be a genre where the videos are more interesting and break the mould)

Symbolism in my video

There are several symbols that I am using in my production, which give the plot a deeper meaning. They are listed below.
Heart-shaped necklace - This is a symbol of love from the male . When it is dropped by the girl, it signifies her rejecting his love, and ending their relationship
Light trail - This signifies the tie between the characters, and links to the necklace. The light leads to the ring, showing that this tie is created between the male character and his relationship with the girl.

Filming dates

Brendan is coming down this Friday evening, and will stay in Norwich until the following Sunday. Therefore, I have set some dates for filming beginning Thursday 11/09/2009.
Friday evening - spend a couple of hours location scouting
Saturday - the entire parkour group meets up at 11 on Saturdays and Sundays, and so we will try to film the opening shots from the film then
Sunday - same as above
Monday - location scouting 
Tuesday - rest day
Wednesday - filming locations from Monday
Thursday - filming other non-run stunts
Friday - girl scenes
Saturday - more runs Sunday - anything else left

EDIT 25/09/2009

The shoot:

I have since finished filming. Very little really went according to plan due to weather, accidents (Brendan badly damaged his knee on the Wednesday, making some shots impossible), other plans, and a whole bunch more reasons, the main being sunlight hours - I wanted the entire film to be shot at twilight, but this proved very hard, so I used a filter on the camera to give the film an orange glow when the sun was too high or low. I have shot what I feel will just about be enough footage to complete my film (not that I have any time to shoot more with my actor gone) to my current plans. While creating my vision of the film many aspects of it changed - the reality of it made some parts of my vision different. The first thing I decided to change was the human interaction. I have not shot any first person scenes, and decided that the lack of dialog and the almost inhuman stunts detaches the viewer from the plot, which makes the plot much less important. Therefore, I decided to make the film as much about the essence of the sport much more than a tale between lovers (I shot enough scenes of the girl, but intend use very few of them as she is also hard to relate to), and I have put far more emphasis on the flowing nature of the sport instead of the plot. I shot plenty of footage of the more dynamic aspects of Freerunning, and very few shots where the protagonist is not moving. I chose to shoot very little of the characters faces, to make the action more concentrated on my new theme, which is very unusual for a music video, but seems to be an emerging trend as special effects enter the arena, making some music videos seem like 21st century light shows, although this is looking too far into it. The footage has already been uploaded onto two computers (for backup) and the two tapes used safely stored away.

Digipack thoughts

I have started thinking about the promotional digipack which accompanies my music video. Firstly, I found out exactly what a digipack is. Quoted from About.com:
"Digipacks are a type of CD packaging made out of card stock or other heavy paper/cardboard material. Digipacks can flip open like a book, or it can have three parts, so that one portion of the packaging opens to the right and one to the left, with the CD in the center portion. Usually, the portion of the digipack that hold the CD is made of plastic like a traditional jewel case CD - the plastic part is simply attached to the paper background."














A couple of generic digiboxes.


This is news to me, as I had no idea that a digipack was different to a standard jewel case. This source does not mention that digipacks can also be DVD's, however, which is the first choice I will need to make when deciding what to make. The advantages of digipacks are that they can easily be customised, and can unfold several times without being thicker than the average CD/DVD jewel case.
It is worth mentioning that I would have a maximum of three disks, one for the single, one for the video, and one for bonuses and extras, although this really should be a part of one of the others.
I found some websites which make digipacks, including the creator's brand, Digipak.
http://www.digipak.com/
http://www.agivdsteeg.com/
http://www.hellmanproduction.com/
http://www.discpack.co.uk/
http://www.mpo.co.uk/
On these sites are examples of interesting and unique designs, showing how they can unfold, revealing several pages of information, as well as place for at least one CD/DVD.









Some more interesting takes on the style, featuring one with magnets, another with holes, some interesting shaped designs, and one which doubles as a book.

After deciding the 3D aspect of the product, I will need to decide on the 2D, namely the front cover, and the designs on the inside. My first thoughts are to look back at my previous post "Motifs In Cover Art", which showed me that single covers (if I choose to release a CD single) nearly always have the same theme as on the CD the single came from. This leads me to light graffiti using sparklers, and inverting the footage. I could use the figure on the cover, and change the style, but this is uncommon, and also does not fit with the theme of the video, which should count for something. Possibly a figure written in light doing parkour? this leads me to DVD. If I chose to do this, I would have to revolve the design around the style of the video, keywords of which are: twilight, parkour, light trails.




















Some are styled to the point of pretension (the U2 one was bound to be). The first, U2 one is proof of a style being carried though to all aspects. Working the design of the actual CD into the box is something to think about too. A couple of examples (which google images cannot find) are guitar hero (3?)'s CD being made to look like a vinyl. Another game, Metroid Prime, had a disk which looked like a circular character from the game.

Brendan

I chose my actor a few weeks ago, Brendan ____. I found him on the Norwich Parkour Forums, where I asked for an actor for my film. I received several applicants, most of which from Norwich, which would have made things far easier and more flexible, but I thought Brendan was the most competent at parkour (he has been doing it for over 5 years), and he also has experience acting in plays, films and parkour videos. He is also 22, which means he will not look like another stereotypical teenager in a student film (something I would really like to avoid, as it makes the film look cheap and put together by a bunch of friends - not what I am looking for). Here are some the videos he stars in below.

It is also worth mentioning that this video was filmed well over a year ago, and so he has greatly improved during this time.

Storyboarding

Normally I would post several pages of storyboarding on this page, however, due to both the complexities of music videos and the main problem - I need the actor with me when finding locations to tell me what are his limits, and what he could do with them. This is a serious problem, especially as I only have 8 days with Brendan to do nearly all the filming. Therefore, I will spend the first day, or possibly two days scouting for locations and tricks in those areas. I will storyboard roughly then, as well as filming some things in so to remember them and to use them in case of emergencies. The parts I can storyboard (the intro scene and ending scene) have been posted below

Lack of band footage

If you've seen my plans for my video, you will have noticed that I have not included any space for footage of the band playing. This is deliberate. In most music videos, the band is present, but this is nearly entirely dependent on the genre of music. In almost all rock, pop, rap, metal or dance videos, as well as many other more popular genres, the band is present. This can easily be verified by a quick sample of some of the videos from songs of these genres. I chose a random song from each of these genres from my music library (a biased source - this was a very flawed experiment, but should be apparent anyway), and each song featured at least one member of the band, for at least a minute. What has led me against doing this with my video is the style of music, which for "Helsinki" is an alternative/electronic/ 80's rock song (It is hard to pin a genre to that song). I thought that given the electronic side of the song, which is most of it, it would be a bad idea to get footage of the band playing - it only works well with instruments, which are largely synthesized. On top of this, the band live in London, which would make it hard to visit them, never mind setting up a place to play (which would need to fit the theme, so maybe a rooftop of a tall building)and getting time to flm it. However, I ave decided that for the uncut version I will do for the band, which will last over the 4 minute limit for the media project I will ask the band to set up some footage of them playing themselves, which I could then merge with the final media project to extend the length.

Part of the trend

Lately, I have been noticing more and more videos using similar light effects to mine pop up all over the Internet.

It makes me happy that what I am choosing to do is being picked up by professionals, although the issue is doing it as well as them.

As well as this, I noted that this advert uses a very similar style of light to the one I am using, and noticed that the video makes use of both light and shadow, although the latter is to a lesser effect. In short, I am interested in using shadows in my piece now, although as of yet I am not sure where. I also liked that this video had close ups of the light, which I found worked well, making it look very pretty. I might also employ this effect.

Odd music video

I found this video accidently while searching for some new Moby sounds, and was amazed by how perfectly the idea worked. Ignore everything which isn't the train track scene. Although there isn't much to say about it, I find it mesmerising and hypnotic, and watched it solidly for a good 4 minutes before stopping (it did get old eventually). The way that the track stays in the center of the screen constantly is fantastic, and creates a contrast between the apparently still path, and the moving images, especially the winding track, which has a vanishing point which never goes away, which is both weird and wonderful, making it seem that all the scenery is coming out of that point. All of this mixes perfectly with the track, which stretches endlessly, and seems to go on forever. There isn't much to learn from this, being so simple and straight forward, but I love the simplicity and uniqueness of it, although if there is anything to learn from it for my film, I will do my best to grasp it.

Golden hour

I needed a "look" to my film, and so have decided to give it the Golden Hour look. I chose this because the tone of the song and the plot reflect imperfection and ends on a depressing note. I thought the soft oranges would create a reminiscent effect - in a similar way to the sepia "old film" look, but a lesser version of this. This gives the viewer the idea that the the video is about the past - which in the narrative, it is. The ending of the film is also a soft, sad ending more than a cold dark one, and so I feel the colours fit.

I thought briefly about filming during twilight, but that would not work due to most cameras being unable to take in enough light at that time, and so creating bad quality footage. Therefore, I decided to do what I did with one of my test videos for the light effect, and use special effects to make it look like twilight - although at the time I did not think I would use the effect again. To test this briefly, I used Photoshop (very similar to After Effects and Premier) to artificially change the look. I feel it was fairly successful and fast, and I learnt some things about how to shoot footage to later edit.

Don't shoot when the sun is strong and out - overcast weather is easier to work with, and strong prevents shadows appearing which would show the effect to be false. It also prevents strong reflections which would ruin the effect.

Shooting during twilight is inadvisable, but shooting late in the day means shadows are longer, which is vital. It can also give a slight orange glow as the natural effect is just starting - this is very much worth doing.

Interestingly, even though the nature of the effect is to reduce contrast, my effect looks far more realistic and professional with high contrast.

The colourful clouds seen during that time cannot be easily faked, especially in video, so I will have to ignore this - it does not always happen, and depends on conditions, but it is a shame to miss out on it. I will try to cut down on sky shots due to this.

Narrative for my video

Since deciding the foundations for my video, I have been trying to figure out an idea. Here is a list of all the ideas I have had, showing how they lead to my current one.

My first idea was to have someone doing parkour, and a trail of light following them. However, I could think of no way to expand on this, and the effects side of it would restrict me from doing several things. However, I still like the idea of the trail coming from the person.

Next, I contemplated having a man sitting down, when the light goes through him, and leads him to something. This is an idea I later expanded on, although it was abandoned at this point.

With some help from some friends, we came up with the idea of having the first idea, but at the end of the video/each section zooming out on the area and revealing an image, possibly using several people for different coloured lights. However, I could think of nothing worth showing as an image, and it would be hard to zoom out to such scale, so I gave up on this one.

Next, there was the idea of having an object that created the light streaks, starting with a football, which people would carry and play with while doing parkour, but this didn't have an interesting narrative, and would have gotten dull fast.

After, I was recommended to have the light come from a package which is passed from person to person before reaching the destination. I still like this, but is too far from my current idea to use.

Then came the idea closest to my current idea - a man follows a light trail leading him to a woman. This has been expanded on the most since due to the ease of creating such a video, the lack of major limitations and the relation to the lyrics.

Ric from the band had the idea of two people trying to get to a person in a dark room, with both of the people leaving trails, before reaching the middle person, who then runs away, showing he has both trails.

A friend from the parkour group then came up with the idea of having several different people running towards the same object, but I thought that this would look confusing and people would get mixed up, unlike the last idea, which could have worked using the 180 degree rule.

Man runs towards the train station for most the video doing parkour and things on the way, reaches it to find his lover/similar coming towards him. She then slowly fades away, presumably because she has died a while back, and the man is having visions of her and hopes to be with her or something similar. Emo-y shot of the guy, fade to black. Light trails are in the film because they are cool, or symbolise a path through life. This led to my current idea.

The film follows the path of a ghost, who is doing parkour. Never expanded or thought too much about this.

Guy follows a trail of light, leading him to (presumably, as shown through short flashbacks) his lover. Trail takes him to her grave. Thought this was a little depressing.

The video is a guy doing parkour alone, with the light trailing behind him. Somehow, the narrative will explain how he lost his lover, and he ends up throwing himself off a building. As his falls, we see the light trails die, or after he dies, the light remains.

I was encouraged to have the man chasing the woman, but both have the light trails, but I gave up on this early after having no luck finding any female traceurs.

My current idea: It is twilight. Fades from black to show a depressed looking man sitting down, where his friends are doing flips around him and having fun, while comforting him and mentioning a girl. Full diegetic sound here, and the song has not started. The music cuts in as the film cuts to a woman's silhouette against a bridge above a river. The camera, now zoomed in on the left side of the back of her head, pans down to show her hand, where she is holding a necklace. As she starts to walk away, the necklace in her hand flashes. Cut back to the man. A light bursts out of his heart, and the man chases it. His friends get up, confused, and chase after him, trying to pull him back. The protagonist uses parkour to get around quickly, and during the chorus his friends, unable to keep up, drop off one by one (like in the parkour scene of "Banlieue 13"). The parkour continues, and during the second chorus, the man dives forward and touches the light, shocking him into replaying several memories as flashbacks, showing his relationship with the girl from the start inbetween parkour, and as the end of the video nears, the relationship is seen to start failing. At the end, the man finds the necklace from the start lying on the floor, and the light fades, destroying his hopes of seeing her again.

Silence intro - intro man
0.00 Intro - intro woman
0.08 Intro - light bursts out, man runs away, and friends give chase
0.14 First verse - running from people and parkour starts. Light parkour for now (catpasses ect)
0.46 First chorus - escaping people (one at a time over 30 odd seconds) using large jumps and walls to scale.
1.17 Second verse - more exciting parkour than first chorus
1.55 Second chorus - catches the light. Flashbacks of the couple are used here
2.25 The light escapes (although flashbacks continue), leading the man to the necklace - most interesting parkour here.2.50 See the necklace lying on the floor. Possibly end on a flashback of the couple in their happy days.

Ideas for the flashbacks.

Will need short shots - almost pictures of the couple being happy, likely in slow motion.
Photo booth scene
Flashbacks often have perfect shots to accompany them - I will do and exaggerate this best I can.
Silhouettes of hugging/arm round shoulders
Have the "ghosts from the past" in some of the end shots as Brendan runs past them, using the
Use memorable locations from the parkour scenes in the flashbacks. A "memory lane" type route.

I chose to use this idea (as well is simply liking it the most) due to the practicality of it - there is nothing about it which will be particularly hard to do, which reduces the limits of what I can do. I also like the idea of using the girl - it gives a decent purpose to the video, and is also very generic of this sort of song. The way the video moves on is also vital, given the progressive nature of the song, and how it never stops going - which is another vital aspect - the parkour is constant too.