Wednesday, 21 December 2011
Location
Oh Land Shotlist
Oh Land Shotlist
- ECU of single eye, darkness surrounding it.
- ECU of both eyes looking scared. (Shot from the left)
- ECU of both eyes looking scared, looking in a different direction. (shot from the right.
- ECU of both looking straight on at the camera, again looking scared.
- ELS of girl up on balcony, holding onto banister, looking around.
- LS of girl in corner of theatre again looking around scared.
- MLS of girl behind curtain in theatre, looking out from behind it.
- LS of girl weaving in and out of pillars on her tiptoes, ballet style.
- MLS of girl in the centre of the theatre floor, suddenly attempts to run and trips and falls.
- CU of girls face looking frightened.
- HAS of her on the floor looking upwards, directly at the camera
- ECU of her eye. (large pupils to small pupils.)
- Birds eye of busy central Manchester. Fast zoom in on a busy street.
- OTS handheld track of the same girl
- Wide shot of girl running into shot around a corner, pans across and she runs out of shot- continually looking behind her and stumbling.
- Flash second of a grinning clowns face, complete with striking traditional clown make up.
- OTS handheld track of girl entering into china town and running down an alley way.
- CU of clowns face, grinning and licking its lips in an evil fashion.
- (17)
- (18)
- 21. MS of girl from behind down an alleyway attempting to open a door.
- CU of girls hand on a different door handle across the street.
- ELS of girl running to different doors and trying to force them open.
- 2 shot of girl and clown, clown further behind, looks like he’s floating. Girl is looking behind at him.
- Girl struggles with a door on the left and it swings open. DARKNESS. OTSS.
- Cu of her facial expression turn from frightened to confused. Street in the background out of focus.
- OTSS of girl walking into doorway. Darkness around but a faint ghostlike figure of a mans face smiling innocently. She leans in to kiss him putting her hand around his neck but her hand simply slides through the doorway.
- (from outside) The door slams on the camera. Camera then zooms into keyhole of darkness.
- CU on clowns face laughing and rotating, black background.
30. Girl falls into black frame as she tries to stand uporizontal curvy green ‘bass lines’ knock her over and she begins to bounce around and fall on the lines (which will mirror the sound of the music. (ANIMATION)
CROSS CUTTING WITH
- A ballet/street dance interpretive, aggressive, silhouetted- behind a sheet- dance routine with a guy and a girl- (clown and her_
- Animation
- Silhouetted routine
- Animation. Curvy horizontal lines straighten out at a declining angle creating a slide for her to slide out of the frame as opaque girl…
- HALS of girl sliding into frame into tall grassy fields. (NOW IN WHITE DRESS)
- MS of her on the ground looking around confused. She quickly turns her head to look behind her- deep focus as we see nothing there but green fields.
- POV shot as we get a glimpse of the same faint guy from the darkness. She begins to get up and starts to run toward him
- OTSS of her running through the firld (shallow focus) the image disappears (deep focus).
- ELS from in front of girl running.
- LS from the side of girl running
- LS of girl running through trees
- Wide shot of a lake- man on the other side, slightly more opaque but still ghostlike. Girl walks slowly into shot. Still camera.
- Side angle CU of her face, her breathing is heavy.
- Same wide shot as before. Girl takes jewellery off and cardigan off and begins to walk into the water and swim. Man is out of focus but still in blurry view.
- Getting out at the other side of the lake
- (from other side) CU on her face as she pushes up out of the water.
- OTSS of guy shallow focus, girl walks into frame.
- 2 shot of them face to face, he touches her face and she moves her head into his hand instinctively. He moves his hand to the back of her neck and then moves the other one too.
- CU on her arms wrapping around his waist.
- OTSS of her putting her head on his shoulder.
- OTSS of her as her head falls into nothingness.
- ECU of her eyes looking confused. (he has disappeared)
- POV shot as she looks down to a dark head of hair, looks at her dress, stained with colour and lifts up the childs chin to find a clown child crying.
- Same wide shot from across the lake but there is no one there with the girl. She is alone with her arms wrapped around nothing.
- Close on her stained dress with no one there. Fast zoom out, across the river, though the trees across the fields, to the first shot in the ‘white dress’ scene where she is sitting amongst the tall grass.
- Close on face with clown make up on it. The girl tilts her head upwards and has an evil smile on her face.
Inspiration
Inspiration
Once settled on the song, Florence and the Machine was a big influence for the initial thoughts of the music video. In terms of themes and ideas we were, of course, influenced by Oh Land and by the song lyrics of Numb. However, Florence’s music videos also inspired us in terms of Craig Davis’ theory. Florence usually has music videos that fit into the amplification category and we liked this idea for the surrealism involved and the creative interpretation possible.
We took some general themes from Florence such as the idea of nature and the natural, and the idea of the surreal, which we were certain of from the start.
Costume-wise, I wanted something shocking and unusual as to uphold the surrealism that the video involves; also something to represent the metaphors and connotations in the video. The costume of the clown for example, the clown primarily, has been used to represent a sign of death. The white make up represents loss of life and the colored make up over the top represents the emotion. Therefore the clown is a combination of both the deceased male in the video and the emotional, deluded female protagonist. Another thing that the clown could denote is society, society looking down upon mentally ill women (big political statement, however, this connotation would be for the past eg. The Rest Cure ect.)
In the first, second and third scenes our female lead is wearing a black formal dress. The black here connotes loss and is associated with death, evil, and mystery. Black is a mysterious color associated with fear and the unknown. It usually has a negative connotation (blacklist, black humor, 'black death'). In heraldry, black is the symbol of grief, which could possibly insinuate (as well as the mysterious white glow of the male) that her assumed husband is dead.
In the second section of the video she wears a white wedding dress. White is associated with light, goodness, purity. It is considered to be the color of perfection. White means safety. As opposed to black, white usually has a positive connotation. Therefore the sudden wardrobe change is to highlight the fact that she is closer to ‘him’ and finally she reaches ‘him’ and is euphoric.
Initial Song ideas.
Background information on Oh Land
Background information on Oh Land
Oh Land is a solo artist from Denmark, her original name is Nanna Oland Fabricius. She is the daughter of Bendt Fabricius an organist and Bodil Oland who is an opera singer. She was born in the capital of Denmark, Copenhagen on the 2nd may 1985.
Oh Land was originally a ballet dancer but due to an accident which resulted in a spinal fracture her dance career ended suddenly which kick-started her career in music.
Her first debut album was called Fauna and was released in her native country Denmark on the 10th November 2008 and was published by a Danish independent record company called Fake Diamond Records. Fauna wasn’t a hit or really that noticed around, however her follow up album titled Oh Land made up for that, as it reached 5th in the charts in Denmark and 184th in billboard 200 charts in US, the album also served as her debut in US. The album was released in US on the 15th march 2011. On the 7th of April 2011 she was given the brink of fame: music artist award in the ‘NextNowNext’ awards.
Oh Land is still a young artist as she is only in her late 20’s, and still got a bright future going for her, she has already toured with some famous people such as Katy Perry who is a well-known and successful artist.
The song that she was most popular for in the US was Son Of A Gun and it was White Lies which was one of her other hit singles and they were both from the album Oh Land.
Alternate idea to Oh Land Numb video
Alternate idea to Oh Land Numb video
1st minute of Foy Vance- Indiscriminate Act Of Kindness.
Extreme Long Shot from her side. Walking down the beach, Long shots, getting dark, windy, starting to rain. Close on tear falling down her cheek as she struggles across the beach. (Handheld) Direct close up on her front profile. (Song begins).
Cuts to the exact same shot but with a different background, mascara running down her face and her soaking wet. At the door of an old farmhouse/inn. Side shot of her in focus, a door opens with orange light denoting warmth out of focus in the corner of the shot. Framed Long Shot of girl silhouetted before an huge arched door, her head is dropped and light is all around her from the doorway. Old man appears and reaches to take her bags from her, she instantly wraps her arms around herself. He enters and stands to the side beckoning her in.
Over the Shoulder Shot of girl with man a couple of metres away lipsynching “It’s alright I got a room here you ca share mine.” Camera tilts upwards and focuses on mans eyes, lense adjusting as if a Point of View shot from the girl.
Thursday, 15 December 2011
Problems we faced
When planning our music video an important aspect to consider was the cost. We originally decided on our budget to be around 20 pound, however, we soon realized that to get to the locations we needed, the budget would have to be increased to around 50 pound, the final cost of the production was as follows:
Transport: 20 pound
Theatre rental: 10 pound
Clown makeup: 5 pound
Costumes/outfits: 10 pound
Other expenses: 5 pound
We split the cost between 3 of us and it each paid around 16 pound.
Time:
Time was another factor which went against us, due to conflicting work hours, there was a limited amount of time available where we could all work, therefore we had to sacrifice some filming time to make way for other priorities. Also, as it is the winter months, we had to do all our filming before the lighting got too dark at around 5pm, this again put further restrictions on our available filming time.
These limitations meant we also had to change our original shotlist, we originally intended to have an animated sequence in the middle of the video, however as we had less time to edit as we needed more film time, we replaced this instead with the dancing sequence.
To combat this problem we would next time also plan our time needed and if it seemed unlikely we would have time, make our plan simpler
Weather:
The weather was also an issue, as to avoid disrupting the continuity editing we needed the same weather throughout, this was difficult as the weather proved unpredictable and we therefore couldn’t film on certain days.
Editing:
Editing was also an issue, some of the effects we planned to do proved difficult, and as each of us had limited editing experience we couldn’t achieve some of them, and therefore had to again modify the production plan.
Digipack research
(Picture)
The front cover of the digi-pack features a close mid-shot of Florence amidst a flowery background; the image is typical of the indie genre and has a vintage almost hippie-ish feel, which appeals to their typical audience. The gory fake Lungs hanging around Florence’s neck are juxtaposed to the serene backdrop and have a shocking effect on the image, making it striking and eye-catching and helping to promote the album. It is also relevant to the album title, “Lungs”
(picture)
This is the back cover of the digi-pack, it features a song list, typical of most albums, as ours is a single, we will not be mimicking this, besides this the design is fairly minimalistic, with a diagram of a lung (again relevant to the song title). The monochromatic colours keep the minimalistic feel. The illustrated lung is labeled with numbers 1-13 as the album contains 13 songs, each component of the lung a separate song. We liked this design, as it is less invasive and easy to look at.
(picture)
This is the design on the booklets on the inside of the digipack, the dark colours again keep the retro feel and the quoted lyrics on the left side add a poetic touch. Again the picture features Florence with lungs around her neck, her nudity is understated and suggests the freedom associated with her album and type of music, the lungs providing partial cover make sure the image is not seedy.
Sunday, 11 December 2011
Florence And The Machine - Cosmic Love Lyrics
I screamed aloud, as it tore through them, and now it's left me blind
The stars, the moon, they have all been blown out
You left me in the dark
No dawn, no day, I'm always in this twilight
In the shadow of your heart
And in the dark, I can hear your heartbeat
I tried to find the sound
But then, it stopped, and I was in the darkness,
So darkness I became
The stars, the moon, they have all been blown out
You left me in the dark
No dawn, no day, I'm always in this twilight
In the shadow of your heart
I took the stars from my eyes, and then I made a map
And knew that somehow I could find my way back
Then I heard your heart beating, you were in the darkness too
So I stayed in the darkness with you
The stars, the moon, they have all been blown out
You left me in the dark
No dawn, no day, I'm always in this twilight
In the shadow of your heart
The stars, the moon, they have all been blown out
You left me in the dark
No dawn, no day, I'm always in this twilight
In the shadow of your heart
Florence + The Machine - Cosmic Love video analysis
the genre of this song and music video is kind of like a modern indie pop, this is mainly represented by the well known artist as well as the costumes she wears
Genre of Music- modern indie/ pop
Monday, 10 October 2011
Initial Idea.
Our idea begins in a darkened theatre with shots of a girls eyes looking scared and anxious. There will be a spotlight travelling around the theatre. Our female protagonist will then be changing positions in the theatre on each jagged cut. The last shot of her in the theatre will be her falling on the theatre’s main floor and looking up suddenly. Next scene is the same girl running through town’s backstreets in the daytime. Her costume will then become apparent and we will see her in a scruffy white dress. She will continually be looking back and when we enter Chinatown’s backstreets we will see a clown that is chasing her. He corners her down one alleyway and she struggles to find a door that is unlocked (all the while cross cutting between the two characters). She finally finds a door and in the darkness there is the faint outline of a man. As she leans in to kiss the man he disappears and she falls into the darkness. Which then turns into our animated sequence. A black background with green, blue or white horizontal, moving curves. She is turned into an opaque minimized version of herself in the chosen colour. She is being bounced around by the bass waves which will match the bass of the music hopefully. This will be cross cut with a scene of what we believe to be her and another male, who is not the clown, dancing behind a sheet, they are doing a mixture of ballet and street and it is going to seem very interpretive and emotional, they will be silhouetted behind this sheet. The lines of the bass will then straighten out at a downward angle and the animated girl will slide out of frame. The next frame will show the girl falling into shot; which will be our final location of Fletcher Moss Gardens. She will fall into a sea of tall grass in a new clean white dress. The clown is no longer following her. She catches a glimpse of the man in the darkness from earlier and runs towards it, she loses him but continues to run toward a lake where she finally stops as she sees him across the lake. Taking off her cardigan and letting her hair down she descends into the lake, her dress floating around her in the water. She swims over to him and gets out embracing him. As she embraces him he disappears and is replaced by a sad, young child, who is clutching onto her. Her dress begins to become stained by a variety of colours and when she lifts the childs chin, we are shown clown face painting smeared by the child’s tears.
Music video for "Numb" Oh land
Lyrics of our song choice "numb" by Oh land
She is shy
While we are waiting for her message
Constantly graping in her darkness
Firefly came
All expectations make her heart feel
She got a local anesthetic
And the light fainted
She heard the siren calls
From the shadowy side
She built a house in the darkness
As the light fainted
In an open country
And her heart was
Numb
So Numb
She is dancing in her grass skirt
While we are waiting for her silence
Thunder and rain
will weigh on her shelter
Morning rise
All expectations make her heart feel
She got a local anesthetic
And the light fainted
She heard the siren calls
From the shadowy side
She built a house in the darkness
As the light fainted
In an open country
And her heart was
Numb
Production treatment
Production treatment: Matt Moran, Anoop Selvin, Yemi Moses
Music video Oh Land - Numb
Duration: 4 minutes 38 seconds
Audience: The main target audience for our music video will be primarily females in their late teenage years (15+), this is due to the genre of music and theme of the video, but may also appeal to older audiences, particularly the experimental, more individual types, as opposed to typical mainstream audiences, again due to the genre of music.
Resume: The song Numb by Oh Land has no straightforward narrative within the lyrics, as the lyrics are more poetic and have no obvious meaning. The lyrics are open to interpretation, this allows us more freedom in creating the music video as it allows us to interpret it visually ourselves, we intend to recreate the artsy feel of the music by creating a loose metaphorical narrative of a woman’s escape from her emotions/grief, symbolized by her running away from a clown in the video, the clown representing emotions, and her white dress representing her being emotionless.
Suggested elements Our music video is going to be like amplification/disjuncture type of music video as it wont have an obvious link to the lyrics or the music video. The music video we will be doing is going to be a mixture as it will be narrative/art video as it will contain no lip sync but will be telling a story through the video. The main character of our video will be a female ballet dancer running through the backstreets of china town in ragged white dress, but when the mood changes she will also be wearing clean white dress to symbolize purity happiness and to show that inner beauty. The video is going to include a lot special effects, however the main sequence including special effects will be later on in the video. The main actress will fall out of the frame and the video will enter an animation-like sequence, in which a silhouette of the woman will be sliding along lines on an background created in Adobe Photoshop, this will last for around 20 seconds, then the woman will slide out of the frame and back into reality on a slide. There are a few key location in the film one is the back streets of the china town where the female actress is running to show her distress and the other is in the Hulme co-operative theater and 2 more important one which we are unsure about which is 2 park location, one is Tatton park and the other is Fletcher moss gardens.
Recording days
To complete this music video we would need around 1 week, depending on the weather and other arrangements (booking the theatre…). We would need around 3 weeks of college time to complete the overall video, editing inserting transaction and other SFX, the blog would be done in-between and as well at home time and we would have a lot of time spare to add the finishing touches and also to complete the CD cover and the poster
Budget Estimate
The hulme Co-opreative theatre booking – 15 pounds (max)
The clown (costume) – 10 pounds (max)
Transport – 10 pound (max)
Total – 35 pounds
Costume plan
Costumes Plan: Written by Matt Moran.
Clown:
One important aspect of our music video is the appearance of the actors that appear in it, as our music video is heavily reliant on symbolism, the costumes are chosen to represent different feelings and changes within the narrative. One character will be dressed as a clown, as clowns have symbolic origins of death and new life, the clowns white face is said to represent death, and the bright colours painted on top connote new life. The storyline our narrative will be loosely linked to is that of a woman trying to cope with her grief, and as she is running away from the clown, she is running away from her grief. The clown costume will also be in shocking contrast to the bleak background colours of the video, this creates an attention-grabbing effect and will also help to get our music video get noticed.
We researched different clown-looks to choose one that we could model our character on. We did this mainly through the internet search engine ‘Google Images’. A few potential choices that stood out for us were:
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This is the clown in the horror movie ‘It’, we liked this choice as it has strong elements of fear, and we think the clown needs to be scary to fit our ideas for the video.
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This child-clown really stood out to us, due to its
Controversial aspects, we also liked that the child was crying, as it suggests grief and sadness, both of which are elements of our narrative. The fact that the clown is a child has connotations of innocence and purity.
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The idea of a black clown appeals to us as it is unusual, clowns are stereotypically white Europeans. Therefore, a black clown would break this stereotype and make our video more noticeable.
We decided to incorporate elements of all three of these clowns, the clown chasing the woman throughout the video will be of black ethnicity, however the costume and face painting will more closely represent that of the clown in it, as the white face, red wig, lips, and nose will be in harsh contrast to the characters skin-colour. We will rent the clown costume from a costume-shop in Manchester Arndale center; a professional who is a friend of one of our group will do the face painting. The wig will also be bought from a costume or wig shop.
The child clown also provided inspiration for a section of our video, in which a sad child clown will appear to be crying, the face paint will run onto the main actress’s white dress, symbolizing her finally feeling her grief.
Main female character:
<!--[endif]-->The main female actress will be wearing a dirtied white dress throughout the video, this was chosen as white is symbolic of purity and innocence, and also emptiness and simplicity. The dress will be borrowed from a member of our group. Her hair and makeup will be simply done, preferably she will be petite, blonde and white-skinned, to further the image of innocence, however we are unsure if we will be able to find a suitable actress, so this may be different. She will also be barefoot.
Adult Male character:
The male character in our video will not get much face-time, as he will often be in the shadows and only vaguely and briefly shown, however is costume still has to be relevant, therefore we have decided to show him in ordinary clothing, the colour of which will be black to represent his death and to be juxtaposed with the woman’s white clothing. He will be a young (18-25 year old) white male, quite attractive, with black hair.
ß This image of Leonardo dicaprio is a good image to loosely base the character on
Numb- Why we chose it
Oh Land – Numb
The song Numb by Oh Land fits into a variety of genres dissimilar to her usual, stereotypical work that can be classed as alternative pop.
Instead she experiments in the electronica genre and on the basis of this lies our interest in her.
This song currently has no music video which also attracted me to it because it prevents any ideas being borrowed and encourages originality and a blank page to start from.
When searching for a song I originally had no idea on a possible idea, however when hearing this song for the first time, ideas on narrative, character, cinematography and location all became apparent. I think it is the electronica and alternative vibe of the song that gives so many options for a video. We thought that the song was quite dark and ominous so hopefully our final music video will mirror this. Our idea also has aspects of fantasy and surrealism due to the unique sounds of Oh Land.