Shooting the Moving Sections

There are going to be moving scenes in my piece as seen in my previous Storyboard and Shot by Shot Breakdown which is good in varying the shots but it raises some concerns in the execution of the scene.

Firstly, Without a Stedicam the shots may come out shaky if we are not careful, because of this I have personally spoken to the Individual who will be holding the camera in that scene to see if they can keep it still, hopefully they can then keep it still enough that the mild shake left behind can be removed with Premiere Pro CS6's Warp Stabilizer tool which I have actually used before and can confirm that it is effective in altering certain shots to make them steadier.

 

 

Secondly, Because of where the moving scenes take place, which is next to a main road, There are some health and saftety concerns that need to be adressed, Essentially since the Cameraman will be moving backwards while holding the camera, there is a great worry that he may accidently drift into the main road. However in order to help prevent this, I have asked another friend to stand behind them with a hand on their shoulder to stop them walking into the road and also to press down into them to try and keep them from shaking.

Shooting Locations

In my piece it will feature a variety of Locations but they will mostly be between Suburban Areas (Main Characters Home/Incineration Scene) near the country , Durham City Centre and Walton Park (Redemption Scene at the end) and Durham Car Park (Suicide Implication Scene).

Music Video Treatment

Music Video Treatment – ‘Castle of Glass’ by A Familiar Picture

The purpose of this writing will be to clarify exactly what I am doing and to make it clear to the audience and to myself. It will outline the basic concepts of my piece and allow me to express my reasoning for said piece.

The Piece itself focuses on the life of a young man who is implied to have recently fallen on hard times; this includes the loss of his wife/girlfriend, although the exact nature of the relationship is irrelevant, the ambiguity helps to connect the target audience to the main character by allowing them to exercise their own interpretation. As the video follows on there is a mood and tone shift from a dark and gloomy set of shots to lighter and more dulcet tones indicating the characters return to happiness in what is intended to be something of an emotional adventure.

The video will begin on a fade in to a moving shot through a high level car park in a slow and smooth forward fashion, Followed by a series of moving shots around the main character before returning to the moving shot through the car park, these shots will take place in succession and they will shift after one another, to the other. These series of shots will last for approximately 1:30, in the sections with the main character there are a series of shots to indicate he is in distress or saddened including a shot of a teardrop falling on his hand, a short section with blurry traffic sound indicating a slip from reality and a scene of the main character visibly gripping a guard rail tightly. Together these first few shots should appropriately express the characters distress and depression.

Following this is the first few lines of the song accompanied by the lead singer standing alone on a stage, hopefully the actor can dictate the lines with little feeling and emotion to begin with as it will help accompany the narrative theme just shown. For now the band will not be present but they will appear in due time. This section will last longer than most and will probably be 3-5 seconds in length.

This returns us to the narrative section where the main character is standing in front of a large fire, the scene is set at night so that the glow of the fire appears ominous on the main character and almost sombre to reflect his mood (5 Second shot), from a POV shot the main character can be seen dropping a photograph of his Partner (Level of Relationship is not highly explained but is not required) into an incinerator fire, the shot is continued with the photograph being seen to be dropped from a side perspective, after the photo has been burned the main character drinks from whiskey bottle he has in his hand and slumps it’s to his waist level loosely, a quick shot of the bottle swinging down to his waist helps to punctuate the main character loose and intoxicated nature which together when shot quickly in sequence will last approximately 5 seconds. after a short singing part by the bands lead singer on stage for 14 seconds we return to the main characters grip on the bottle visibly getting weak, as the band ups the tempo in a short scene where the emphasis is on the guitar playing strumming more harshly for 3 seconds , we quickly return to seeing the bottle drop and get smashed from two different angles in slow motion which I believe will be quite visually impressive especially when accompanied straight after by a strong band section with heavy use of guitars.

Moving on, this scene is followed by a moving shot of the main character walking down a side walk from an over the shoulder shot and a front facing medium length shot with the character walking towards the screen lasting in total 10 seconds, I have made it clear in my intention that there will be something to bridge these two scenes, the strongest of which will be a scar, cut or burn that the main character has sustained in the previous scene. In this scene the main character walks past a church with disinterest or care, in a deeper meaning this helps promote the sombre tone but its key meaning is supposed to represent the main characters situation, and how little the concept of death bothers him in relation to the implied preparation for suicide in the first scenes, the camera stops halfway when it reaches the gates and pans up the building, showing the height of the church.  Immediately following this is another section with the band lasting 6 seconds but it then leads to another scene, in which the main character walks carelessly past a homeless man from the front in an upwards facing ground shot for 3 seconds, indicating aggression from the main character, as the main character walks on in a tracking shot that walks in front of him facing towards his face and body for another 3 seconds, the homeless man in the background is blurred out to indicate a lack of caring from the main character in his current depressive state.

There is a quite long section with the band directly after this which is essentially the band playing out the end of a chorus, it’s a series of shots starting with the lead singer, moving onto the guitarist and then onto the drummer then ending on the lead singer again, this quick succession of shots will mostly be medium shots which will in total last 11 seconds.

What follows after these scenes is what I refer to as the ‘Emotional Redemption’ of the character, emotional scenes from a park bench show the main character sitting contemplating and gripping his leg to show frustration from a POV Shot, he is however interrupted by a female character seen walking up to him from a medium shot with low length focus set on the camera, she extends her arm to him in a friendly gesture and leads him away from the bench in a side medium shot, this scene will be done with a short set of mid-range shots and POV’s of the two characters looking at each other. This is followed by a short section of the band playing. But immediately returns to the two of them walking to a large rocky structure on a sunset, the implication of which is to show the main character the beauty he has been missing in his life. As they are looking over the sunset, their hands come together in unity and he lightly squeezes her hand slowly, this is seen from a shot from behind but it moves to a smooth tracking shot where it ends at where there hands meet.

Finally, the scene returns to where the piece started, the main character simply walks away from the railing in slow motion, and the scene fades out, at this point background noise of cars and people can be heard much more strongly indicating a return to reality proper.

 

Shot by Shot Breakdown of Piece

Cut from 00:00 – 00:10 off the original song to better time the Introduction

00:00 – 00:05 Fade in Camera in a moving shot through a car park in a straight line

00:05 – 00:10 Camera slowly moves up from ground level to the characters waist in a close up shot.

00:10 – 00:15 Camera Returns to continue previous motion shot. Still moving through car park.

00:15 – 00:20 Camera continues to move up past the characters waist to see the back of their head and a city view past them which is blurred slightly.

00:20 – 00:25 Camera still moves through the car park for another 5 seconds

00:25 – 00:30 Side shot Main characters hand can be seen on a railing gripping it tightly.

00:30 – 00:35 The Camera continues on with the moving shot through the car park for another 5 seconds

00:35 – 00:40 Droplets of water can be seen falling on the main characters hand, indicating tear drops, the shot is a close up.

00:40 – 00:50 Camera moves round a corner to reveal the main character standing at a distance still moving in a smooth fashion.

00:50 – 01:00 Side shot mid range. Of the main character tilting his head up, he begins to turn around

01:00 – 01:30 The Camera continues to move towards the main character however the main character has now turned around slightly, as the camera moves on, he casually turns back to where he was looking and moves closer to the rail, as the camera continues to move right up to him, it moves over him into the bright light, the bright light shines brightly and moves into another scene.

01:30 – 01:48 in the other scene the Lead singer begins to sing the first few lines of the song

01:48 – 01:53 Character can be seen from behind with a fire being in front of him.

01:53 – 01:58 Character goes to POV and sees a picture of a couple, one of the persons in the picture is the main character. He extends his arm over the fire to drop the picture.

01:58 – 02:02 from the side he can be seen dropping it in the fire and drinking from the whiskey bottle. Then dropping it down to his waist

2:02 – 2:05 Close up of waist level shot shows his arm coming back down harshly with the camera being close to the whiskey bottle, the grasp on it is light.

2:05 - 2:19 return to the Lead singer on the stage

2:19 2:22 from the waist shot the main character can be seen struggling to hold the bottle

2:22- 2:25 Quick moment of the band upping the harsh tempo

2:25 – 2:28 Glass bottle smashes at the feet of the main character slowly

2:28 2:36 – Band Plays out half of the next lyric line. Camera work is quick moving to indicate strong rhythm

2:36 – 2:38 Moving over the shoulder shot of the main character walking down a side walk.

2:38 – 2:46 Changes to front facing shot which then rotates around him and stops at a set of gravestones while he continues onwards

2:46 2:52 – Band continues to play

2:52 – 2:55 Main character walks past a homeless man from over the shoulder

2:55 – 2:58 The Main character is seen walking from the front, the homeless man can be seen in the background.

2:58 – 3:01 The Homeless man blinks lightly and then closes his eyes from a side shot close up shot.

3:01 - 3:12 Returns to the band playing with the singer at the forefront elongating a note, Rapid shots change between the band as the tempo of the guitar increases.

3:12 - 3:17  Main character sits on a park bench and runs his hands through his hair

3:17 - 3:23 Band plays once more with special focus to the lead guitarist.

3:23- 3:25 Main Character Grips his hand tightly over his leg from a close up side shot.

3:25 - 3:34 Return to the band with the Lead singer taking the key focus in a mid range frontal shot.

3:34 - 3:41 Female character walks in toward the main character, the shot is a mid ground level shot and the focus is set to the foreground, while she is blurred in the background walking towards the main character.

3:44 - 3:48 Lead singer continues song section with an enthusiastic shot of the drummer

3:48 - 3:58 POV shot looking down on Male character from the POV of the Female character, Then a switch to the other side with the Male POV of the Female. Then a close up side shot of the female character extending her arm and hand to the male character.

3:58 - 4:02 Return to the band briefly to say another line of the song.

4:02 - 4:09 Main character and Female character walk up to a rocky structure and look over the town, with a nice sunset scene.

4:09 - 4:13 Final Band piece with the lead singer taking center stage to strongly sing last note

4:13 - 4:18 Close up shot of the two characters hands coming together then the camera moves up and fades into the final scene.

4:18 - 4:25 Main character shot reminiscent of original few shots on tall building, he turns and slowly walks away from the railing towards the camera to a fade out/Main character walks to the side and out of shot. Faint car sounds and people can be heard.







 

 

 

 

 

Music Video Idea Progression

My concepts for this piece are coming together well and I am definitely coming to a stage where I can plan out a strong series of shots and establish a narrative structure. Expect a more detailed post soon.

Style of the Shots

Narrative Scenes

In the Narrative scenes the main character will have a wide variety of shots used and they will differ between the two main moods in the piece.

NEGATIVE SECTION

In the section where the shots are indicating a gloomy and depressed interpretation of reality the shots will designed to artistically show corruption and a general sense of gloom. As a result the shots will include darker imagery, a less diverse color scheme and shots of the main character in a somber mood.

POSITIVE SECTION

In the positive section of the piece the colors used will be brightened to indicate rejuvenation and the embracing of life by the main character. The imagery will be lighter and smoother, shots will be much cleaner and less shaky.

New Media Concept Simple form - A Journey To Find Meaning

The new concept that I have come up with after discussion with my teacher follows the story of a man finding meaning in his life after a depressive time.

1. Music Video Begins -  Main character is seen standing on top of a large structure, the bleak setting gives the audience the impression that he is about to jump off of it and end his life, this scene however cuts to a different scene before such an action takes place.

2. The Main character begins a slow moving journey through a suburban street, the area is in something of a desolate and worn down area. He then begins a journey through a series of depressingly bleak areas.

3. Intersected is sections with the band playing as usual on a stage area.

4. The main character eventually experiences as complete change with his perception of reality to a more positive outlook by seeing parts of the world that are much brighter and cheerier.

5. Main character is seen once again standing at the original point, he walks away from it and moves to a much brighter scene.