AOB1 - Production Plan + Schedule

Production Plan

Working Title: Feeling Good – Muse

The product to be made is a music video, and this will suit the clients needs as it will include close ups of the artist, and it will also be kept in the genre of the band which is rock. It will keep to the bands conventions from their previous videos, as the main theme of our video is darkness and we will also be showing the lead singer as a guy who is suffering from insanity, thus keeping in the same genre as their previous videos. Our target audience will be primarily fans of Muse who are use to their edgy style of music videos, but to those who have a taste for unusual and querky videos. The video is male orientated but it’s not definite, females can enjoy this too. The target age range of this music video would be for the under 35s, who stereotypically would probably have more interest in this style of video and music.

The video begins with a black screen, slowly fading to reveal a man/woman sitting in a spotlight, surrounded by up-turned chairs and black mannequin hands reaching upwards – this will be a cohesive feature throughout the video. To keep with the narrative, we’ll have short clips (lasting no more than 3 seconds) at different points of the video that relate to the lyrics. This will show the tempermental nature of the man’s mind. A camera will track around the man at the beginning of the video until it reaches him again, moving backwards until the chorus begins. At the peak of the first chorus, paint will begin to fly against the walls, with paper streamers flying around and a projection of old, sepia videos of a child when he was younger, then an older man looking through coffee stained papers scribbling hate-fueled words and circling words such as ‘death’, ‘psychotic’, much like that of the opening to the thriller – Se7en. The next verse, things will calm down but we’ll have the camera circling around the person in the middle of the chairs quite close revealing hands peaking through the gaps in the chairs as if they’re trying to grab the person, then next, the shot will cut to the person sitting away from the circle of chairs, looking calm as if his mind has returned to his normal state. The next chorus, he’ll be sat in the middle of these chairs looking worried with the camera whizzing past him, almost like the affect that ghosts and birds are flying past. Throughout the video, we’ll cut to the clips we see on the projector and make them last around 4/5 seconds, of him when he was younger and older. The variety of the video will consist of shots put together, to show how insane the man is. Transitions in the video will be as if the camera shakes to the next shot, almost like an earth tremor. This will convey and edgy look and will suit the genre of the artist. The video will finish of the man looking overcome in the centre of the circle of chairs, with the camera tracking away, it will then fade out, the same as the beginning of the music video.

We have both decided to be Directors as we would both like to have a creative input into the video. We will also edit the video together as we can bring our knowledge of Final Cut together and create something original. We both think that sharing the roles is fairer and it will also cause less arguments between the group.

We have estimated our production process including editing to be from the 28^th February to the 28^th March, and our estimated costs should be under £30 as we do not need to pay for the hiring of the building that we are going to use to shoot in and we do not need to pay for our equipment. We will be using a Canon Hi-Def camera, as well as a dolly, a track and a camera crane to shoot our video. A projector will be used as part of the narrative which we can borrow from ICT. We will require lighting and tripods from Media to create the right shadows, and to keep the camera still, this will be free as we will borrow them. 

We need to order a DV tape and a projector to project images into the black room. We will also need to create mannequin hands or buy some to create the creepy effect that we are after.

We have decided to shoot the majority of our video in the school’s media room, which is a black room that is used to shoot videos, and do photography. And we will also use a derelict barn to record the projector part of our video. We will use our college’s Mac’s to edit our videos, as we do not need to pay for editing software.


Barn Moodboard

Black Room Moodboard

AOB2 - Production Diary

18th March 2011 - Brett and Sophie

We had filmed the barnyard scene and edited it and we have started to film the rest of the video in the black room. Filming is going well, and we are nearly complete, which means that we can spend more time in Final Cut editing our videos.

21st March 2011 - Brett and Sophie.

Today we uploaded the footage that we had recorded throughout the past week, this includes the black room. We will be coming in at lunchtimes and frees to edit our video and make sure that it is up to the standard hat we want.

28th March 3011 - Brett and Sophie.

Today I finished editing my video, and I have uploaded it to Youtube, where I can now put it n Blogger. Brett has nearly finished and should be done within the next few days.

Updated Production Schedule

Booking Forms:

AOB3 - Recce + Risk Assesment

Abandoned barn. This is to be used for the film played on the projector. This will be an ideal place to film part of our video as it is pretty isolated and it is in ruins. Much like the man's mind in our video, they compliment each other well.

This is a black room, where the remainder of the video will be shot. This is also an ideal place to shoot the majority of our video, as it is very small, cramped, and again isolated. We will use a variety of sots to make sure that this looks creepy and odd. 

AOB4 - Production

Sophie Gillott - Feeling Good

AOB5 - Evaluation

I think that Brett and I worked well together as we both decided to have a creative input into the ideas and creation of the video. We both came up with the idea to make the video pretty creepy and make it a play on 'Feeling Good,' rather than feeling on top of the world, the man in the video would be losing his mind and looking agitated and possessed. We were able to contact each other quickly and organise when we were going to film almost instantly. We both knew that we wanted to film as quickly as possible, so we could focus on the editing as a lot of effect would be needed, and we aren't the best at using Final Cut. We were able to meet deadlines and were ahead of them for the majority of the time, therefore our time management was good, I completed the editing on my video a few days before the deadline was due. We had decided that to make sure our video was of professional standards as this would give us more marks. The video had to be of the standard of the other Muse videos, such as ''Muscle Museum,' which are high quality and edited to perfection. I think we did the best we could with our videos, as we obviously don't have as many resources as the Media Industry does have. We filmed in two separate locations to show the two states of mind that the man is in. One, the black room, showing the isolated, lonely, depressed man and the barnyard, to how the creepy more evil side. We asked our media teacher, and technician if we could use the black room to film and they let us have access to the studios in lessons and also a few after school sessions, where they trusted us to be left alone for an hour and a half each time. We asked the owner of the disused barn if we could film in his property just for an hour, and he let us do so. The recording of that part of the video, did only take us one hour as we knew exactly what we wanted to do.

I think that our video is close to professional standards as we have used a HD camera for the majority of the filming. We have also included many different camera angles and shots that are used in the professional industry. These shots include long, close ups and mid shots, as well as panning. We used the trolly, dolly and crane to create the professional shots that we wanted and to help make the video look professional.  The video meets the original proposal as we had decided to keep the video very dark and sinister and to show the mind of a mad man. The video is original as I have researched creepy, quirky music videos and I haven't found any that match our style, we have also made a lot of the props used (the black hands used as shadows on the chairs) and used props that were already in our college. I think that the shot of the projector coming through the gaps in the mask was original as I also haven't seen it done before. The video satisfies the clients needs as it is aimed at under 35s, and it carries the unusual, quirky style that Muse have in their videos. We did film what we said we were going to do in our proposal, but in the editing process I decided to move things around and make the video more interesting by inputting earthquake like shakes and using the vignette to make certain parts of the screen darker. The subject matter of our video does not include any sexual, violent images, neither does it include anything illegal, so the video fills fits the legal and ethical requirements.

Overall I think that our video was successful as it allowed us to take advantage of tour Media departments supplies. I also think that if Muse's record label were to see this, they would be impressed as we have taken on a different view on the song's title. I feel that the creation of our video was successful was there was only two of us filming. In the shot where we are both in the video, Brett has actually got old of the camera and is moving it back and forth.