Evaluation

Within this music video I had numerous roles, I worked closely with Lauren throughout pre-production, production and post-production. We decided to divide all the jobs evenly to make it quicker and easier.

For pre-production we completed all tasks together (excepting one or two.) We both collaborated on costume design as we knew we both had to be on the same page with the direction the video was going, this meant we both went shopping for all costumes and props together. The only character that I designed wholly by myself was the cat. I knew id be the one painting it so I researched design myself. We both completed all forms necessary for pre-production ( Call sheets, location recces, health and safety and contingency plans) together but with storyboards and proposals, they were done separate. We took parts of the audio visual script and broke the scenes down between us so we were creating the storyboard for each part equally. The only other thing I did separate was the annotation of the lyrics.

During production I was on camera, director and a make up artist. I also participated in a few scenes as a dancer. There became a routine of if I was in a scene Lauren would take over on Camera and film, and vice versa. For a few scenes I had to go do the make up for a few characters so Lauren became Director and Cameraman. For the most of it I was directing whilst being on camera as Lauren had to be in the scenes. I found this challenging but in a good sense. I enjoyed it.
As with the majority of the work, the editing was split between us. Lauren would edit the parts that were her strength e.g. transitions whereas I would edit the sound and sync up the lyrics. When Lauren was absent, I would edit and contrariwise with herself.

I believe that my communication on this project was of a good standard. At times it became essential. I was able to secure actors for this, free props from certain places and I managed to gain gels for the lighting on location. When directing communication was the key way of ensuring the shoot flowed without a hitch. I guided the actors through the scenes and helped them with blocking. The blocking aspect of the shoot also meant I had to ensure the cameraman knew exactly what was about to happen and where to position herself.

There were numerous "speed bumps" that we hit. The first being the reliability of the actors, the first person we had secured for the lead had to pull out due to family issues. Fortunately we had a contingency plan in place and was able to replace her straight away so it didn't interrupt a planned shoot. Another problem we had was trying to find a day where all of our actors could film but this was solved relatively quickly as we were ready to film earlier than most people giving us that advantage of filming during the holidays where most people were available. We did have to plan the shoot around the times people would arrive though as most had to leave early or couldn't get on set till after they had finished work. It was a challenge but we saw it more as a learning experience.
     The main problem we had came from editing. We had finished filming earlier than anyone but for weeks we had to sit on hours of footage as the programme used to edit wasn't working properly. For the first week we couldnt view footage as the lag on Adobe Premier was bad. The second week wasn't much better either. On the third week we managed to view some clips but it was hard to mark in and out as the lag meant clips were showing at 3 second jumps. Meaning it took about half an hour just to edit a 5 second clip. Another problem arose in the form of zooming on Premier. For some reason it decided to zoom in on each of the clips, we eventually solved the problem but it meant we lost another session in editing. The final cut did consist of over 107 individual clips so this was probably why it was running so slow.

Personally the main success of this project would have to be filming in the small amount of time that we did. Originally when we told people of our idea they were skeptical that we were going to get a big idea done in time. We filmed in two days and I believe this is an achievement because we had to film enough scenes to last a song that was over 5 mins long but on top of that it wasn't a straight forward story. Another success is finding all the costumes and creating the characters we did whilst trying to create that intertextual link with Alice in Wonderland.

Originally we intended to create a video that was of the "Home Video" style by using different shots that were either 16:9 or 4:3, we didnt do this but we did create the style by having some grainy shots. This was created by the lights used in the room. We put pink gels on the main light and it caused the camera to film in a grainy style and we loved it.
    We also wanted more characters but this wasnt possible due to casting issues. We did still manage to keep some main characters from Alice in Wonderland though; The White Rabbit, Alice, The cat, Tweedledee and TweedleDum in the form of dinosaurs and Absolem.`

If I were to redo this brief I would still stick with the same idea but make the party scenes animated. This would have made it less reliant on actors and cheaper to pull off. I'd keep the scenes of Alice waking up but whenever she was in the living room or kitchen I would have made them animated. It would have kept the storyline the same and still give characteristics of the EDM genre. It would have been easier to show Alice "Tripping" as well. It would have made shooting longer but editing easier. To do this though I would have needed much more time in pre-production.

We showed this video to numerous people to gain their opinion. One of the criticisms we had was that the intro was too long and could have just cut to where the lyrics have begun. This isn't something I would take into consideration though as the EDM/ House genre isn't about short tracks, I wanted to keep the track at its 5:27 minutes length as that's the duration House tracks are meant to be. If I cut it down I wouldn't believe that I was being true to the conventions of the genre. They also said it was confusing that the main character was a girl but it was being narrated by a mans voice, again it adds to the "trippy" effect of the video so I wouldn't change this. Another criticism was they would have liked to see more characters. This is something I agree with but as previously stated, I couldn't do.
    Positive comments about the video is that they liked the unusual storyline of the video and could see how it would appeal to the genre. The editing was also done well with transitions and it cut to the beat perfectly.

The key skill I have developed in this production is communication. For the first time I had to direct a large group of people whilst making sure it went smoothly. I also had my first experiences of bartering for props, trying to bring production costs down.
   I also learned skills in creative thinking. The whole thing started from reading a few lyrics and trying to create a storyline to a story about a modern day Alice in Wonderland. We filled a video with semiotics and hidden metaphors along with intertextuality in order to appeal to the conventions of a genre, and I think we achieved that.
    My teamwork skills improved as well. By dividing the tasks we were done with pre-production in next to no time.

The finished product

This is the final cut of the music video. Overall I am happy with how it turned out. I believe we met our criteria of having a grainy, looking home video that showed someone "tripping."



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pStV3J-5spA

Editing Process

With editing came the arrival of a few new problems. The main being the computers were extremely slow, viewing simple footage became hard because it would load at an incredibly low frame rate. This meant we couldn't tell if the footage was usable and we didn't know when to mark in and out of the clip. Premier also decided to zoom in on every clip meaning we lost another session trying to rectify that problem.

We filmed relatively early in the assignment but we were now behind as we couldn't edit. For two weeks we sat on over 100 clips which we couldn't see.

Second Shoot

The second shoot took place on the 25th February. We started getting ready for our shoot at 2.30pm. We picked up our first actress and headed to location. We arrived on location at 3.45pm with two of our actors, a third followed promptly after. I started the make up on our first actor, Anna, who would be the cat, whilst Lauren filmed the two other actors for scenes they were needed in. The fourth actor turned up and he joined in Laurens filming whilst I continued the cat make up. I then had the problem of fitting coloured gels over the existing lights in the living to try and make the room look more "club like." I made a cone out of the the gel and taped it around the light, taking care not to touch the bulb with the gel to prevent them burning. We used a pink gel to flood the room and blues and greens for different scenes.
Myself and the Cat then went to pick up our lead actor, Sian, and then we could start filming properly, by this time it was 5.30pm.

Whilst I prepped our actors Lauren filmed the scenes of Alice coming down the stairs and eating the "Upelkuchen" cakes with Sian. We were now ready to film scenes 5 through to 6. This was mainly the dancing in the living room and getting numerous shots of the actors. As Lauren was the Rabbit I was on camera. We didn't really face any problems at this stage, it was just straight shots with no complexity. With all the solo shots and the group dances it took about 1 hour in total. It was now 7pm and one of our actors had gone.

We then went to shoot the scenes of Alice on the phone outside. This was shot similar to the scenes with the fridge. The song was played in the background to make it easier for our actor to know when to speak. Fortunately we had took out a big LED light for outside filming so the darkness wasn't an issue. This took no longer than 15 minutes.

The outside rabbit scenes would then be filmed, followed by the cocaine scenes. We used Icing Sugar for our cocaine, it gave a similar effect and just looked like it was cut.

At 8.30pm we filmed our final scenes of the cat walking down the stairs followed by Alice.

First shoot

The first day of shooting took place on the 11th February. We started filming at 10 am, at the house location. We decided we would film scenes 1,2,7 and 8.

We started with scene 1. Alice is sleeping in bed, she hears music and wakes up. This would be simple to film, room had been organised the day before so we knew this would not take long. However, the first issue we encountered was lighting. We realised that as we were filming so early it would not look like nighttime. Luckily the bedroom we were filming in had black blinds and a black curtain, so we shut them. This got rid of the lighting problem, but now the room was so dark that we could see anything to film. Eventually we decided just to film with the lights on, these scenes would be in black and white so we hoped that it would not make any difference to how it looks. We finished filming these scenes in half an hour.

Scene 2 consisted of Alice opening the door and finding a Rabbit standing there spraying her with silly string. We filmed the silly string going on Alice first. The camera was placed over the shoulder of the Rabbit. This shot wouldn't be as easy as we first assumed. Firstly, the rabbit mask was hard to see out of so the actor (Lauren) wasn't entirely sure where she was spraying, but we found that she could move the mask up to see and it would affect the shot. Now she was able to see we tried again but when you sprayed out of the silly string its not always predicted where it will go, it can be facing forward but still go left. It took a total of about 15 shots to get it right. Now we had to reverse it, the camera was placed where Sian was standing and the Rabbit in front. We had the same problem with not being able to see out of the mask so we had to guide Lauren's hand. Then we found a clear rectangle of glass to place in front of the camera lens so it would be damaged by the silly string. This also took about 15 takes and 1 hour.

Once we had those right we moved to the next room (the kitchen) and started filming scenes 7 and 8. We encountered the same problems with lighting. I found a sheet of black plastic and taped it around the windows and any entrances that gave off light. We could have the lights on for this scene so that wasn't an issue. We played the song in the background so the actress could time the words right with the song. With all the numerous angles we got it only took about half an hour to shoot both scenes.

We finished filming at 2.30pm.

Costumes

This is the creation of the costumes after designing them.

Alice

Changes we have made: Alice now wears a short white cardigan. This adds a more modern twist to her look. She also now wears make up.

The White Rabbit

The only change we have made to this is that the rabbit now has a red tie rather than purple. We also decided to give him one glove.

The Queen of Hearts

 We decided to add a new character in based on the Queen of Hearts. She has normal clothes but sports this face design.

Actor Profiles

Lead Girl/ Alice

Name: Sian Boultby
Age: 19











White Rabbit

Name: Lauren Rudd
Age: 18











Dog

Name: Kym
Age; 9












Cat

Name: Anna Schmelich
Age: 21



Partygoers

Name: Emily Moore
Age: 18


Name: Adam Rudd
Age: 16




Name: Ashley Porter
Age: 19


Queen of Hearts

Name: Natalie Hewing
Age: 19