RSA Films

When trying to find some examples of music video adverts I stumbled upon this music video.
The video demonstrates a proper use of visual tempo, it cuts from one scene to another with only a few seconds in between leading to a smooth and flowing piece.
  The only way in which I couldn't borrow ideas from it is the effect given by focusing on a small intimate setting.
  This would not portray my song as it is about the country and the land and so while people make an appearance this is not the focus of my music video. Scenes in my video require a little more of a broader scope, the effect of it not being so intimate means the viewer may feel slightly detached and therefore not respond to the video so well.
However, if the video can match the songs rhythm I think this will create a more primal connection relying on the viewers eyes and ears, meaning the inappropriate/ over use of people could actually be detrimental to the outcome of the video.

King Charles

Not the filthy monarch.

Whilst up late the other night I was watching Q music channel and King Charles video Bam Bam came on. I'd seen this before, but noticed that there were some similarities to my own video, he has a focus point and images (or clips of road journeys going by).
  This makes me wonder if having the whole video constantly moving forward is the logical way of progression, certainly in "Bam Bam" the flow of moving forward helps keep with the rhythm of the song.

Special effects

There is an element of fantasy in the song which I think visually could be enhanced through use of special effects, light as a lightening bolt coming from someones hand. Furthermore these effects could use the song itself to correspond with the beat/rhythm.
  I have started to play around with this effect with the help of the tutorial found here, Guru lesson 2.

StoryBoard

The timing of the story board was left ambigious because I felt that Alot of shifting would be needed in the final product anyway. That and I new as I worked more scenes would end up making there way in to trump the original 16. This was a remake which unfortunately lost a few of the original scenes and therefore I was forced to redo most of it from memory, the woes of not carrying important documents in the rain and wind in a waterproff cover. Allas here is the storyboard to be viewed upon.

Scene Breakdowns

Scene One:  An isle so fair, a isle so green,
Known by many names. The scene will jump cut a few times to other driving sequences then back to the main clip
Feel the pulse, the pulse of the land,
The blood boils within your veins. The video will shake frantically when he says ,"Boils within your veins.
Someone go down to the Holy Well 
and raise the Spirits there! The end of the main clip will lead into the scene below, to give a sense of driving into the scene, similar to the white stripe music videos.
Lay a feather on a stone, 
with a flame, and a lock of hair. This will be a relatively calm scene of the aforementioned on a stone in my back garden. By being a still scene this would connote the end of scene one of the song.

Scene Two: (Chorus) The Crane, the wolf, 
the bear and the boar, The crane the wolf the bore and the bear will pop up individually as they are mentioned (cut outs from the album art.
No longer dwell upon these shores, The image will fly off into the distance across he ocean.
You say that the Goddess and God 
have gone,
Well I tell you they live on! Here images of pictures of tree carvings as well as faces found in objects will be flashed up on the screen in quick succession roughly in time to the song
For in the cities and hills, Take a screenshot from the image of the main playing on the bridge and transition it into a screenshot of a big party in the wild.
And in circles of stone, Three separate videos of stone circle clips will pop up one after the other, each playing a view seconds then pausing letting the next one pop up and then the final one, until a montage covers the screen.
The voices of the Old Ways,
The Spirit of Albion is calling you home! A super imposed image of Damh the Bard rises from the centre of stone henge with a clip of him singing this part of the song. When he says calling you home a thunder effect could mask the screen transitioning to the next scene with an explosive effect.

Scene Three: From Manwydden's crashing sea, Crashing sea could be in time to a clip of the scene crashing against the rocks in Tintagel.
To the moor and the Highland Glen. This will be a pan of bodmin moor into a shot of Frensham pond to represent the highland glen.
From the Faerie Hills, home of the Sidhe,
To the veins of the Broad and the Fen. This is mainly consisting of still shots of hills in Wales and bodmin and then moving to a shot of the river way representing the Broad and Fens.
Someone go down to the Holy Trees 
of Oak and Ash and Thorn! Here I will use a clip of walking up an outdoor stairway which will lead to a cutout mask in which the images of ash and thorn will be shown.
Utter a charm in the verse of three,
Till the Summer King is born! The shot will zoom through the branches of the trees above into a picture behind taken from the summer solstice at Stone Henge, I will add a glow effect to the sun so that as the verse gets closer to born as well as the zoom the sun will gradually appear to get brighter, thereby representing being born.

Scene Four: Ride the white horses 
carved into the hills, Here I will use a picture of the white horse of Uffington as seen from ground level. Movement will be created by having the picture scroll to the side will the focus point zooms out revealing more of the picture.
Walk to the Hanging Stones. This will transition into a scene of me walking round a stone circle. As I turn there will be in the distance an image of hanging stones.
Bow to the might 
of Cerne Abbass' height,
Feel the peace in the Ancestors' homes. The shot will scroll up the picture of the Cerne Abbass's giant.
Someone go down to Wilmington 
where the Giant guards the way! After filtering on top of the last Giant this will be a pre-zoomed in and so will zoom out to show the full scene.
Step into the Otherworld, 
into the womb,
Where centuries pass like a day! This will be from "Step" to "day!" I will use a super speed up clip of the car journey in which I was filming behind the direction the car was heading in, as the song drifts off the video will pace down until coming to an abrupt stop and focusing on a point of interest.

Ideas for shooting editing

Shotting:

Video of car journeys to give a visual representation of the song continually moving on.

Video shots of still scenes like a candle (The flame) a feather and lock of hair which represents the corresponding lyric of Spirit of albion, or perhaps a still image of a local lake such as Frensham.

Panning round a scene.

Hand cam shots to give the effect that walking, such as a video of me walking round a stone circle could lead to seeing a superimposed image of hanging stones in the distance.

In some cases i'll be using pictures along with editing effects without any physical footage. This will only be in cases where I cannot fully represent a scene with my own footage and require pre captured video/ or past taken pictures. These will be noted in the credits and anyones footage will be credited for.

Editing:

Programs used for editing will be Photoshop, Adobe After Effects and Premiere Pro.

Transitions such as swipes, diamond cuts and swirling the view round in a spiral into a new scene are all possibilities.

Slow motion as well as speeding up video will be used to link the video to the tempo of the song.

The drum beat in the song is perfect to allow use of jump cuts, which with the driving scenes could help to keep the it fresh.

Special effects like lightening may be used to represent magic in scenes. These effects could possibly be linked to a certain beat in the song.

Lighting effects to make scene exaggerated or dulled, such as a scene that is made into black and white with the exception of green or red in the video retaining it color to create a specific point of interest.

Analysis of adverts, examples, conventions and influence

This is an interesting article I found to help me in designing my own advert for the music video i'm producing.  This may help too.

Tvadmusic seems a good data base to find adverts with music applied to them. These commercials seem to deal with an exterior product such a good which uses an artists track, this is a clear example of media convergence in which the product endorses the song and the song make the product more appealing meaning the product gains as well.
  While my own music video isn't endorsing a product like fairy washing up liquid, it is promoting the song "Spirit of albion". This makes me think that when creating the add it might be good to make a video which is in most cases separate from the music video in terms of narrative.
 My initial concept is to have a scene filmed from inside the van, having clear shots of the album cover I have created. Then when the CD has been put on the video becomes a prelude to what is in the video, which will be the point where clips of the music video I've created will start to appear. I'll write this idea up and refine it in a separate blog post.

Personnel

The people that will be helping me in making my concept real are mainly consisting of my family.
To this point mainly my father, who is an old school photographer and will be helping me in conceptualization of scenes as well as filming some of the shots.

For the most part I will be in control of the editing, taking some guidance from my dad.
I will be using a mix of shots from the present which are mainly landscape shots and images of nature, as well as previous footage I have taken in the past which may have been at stone henge solstice in 2006 for instance.

There is some footage I will be using from the internet, but this will be commented on in my video overview at the end. The reason for this is that there are some shots which are too hard to reproduce to any meaningful standard and that I feel would compromise the integrity of the video. For instance It would be hard for me to gain footage of the lead singer "Damh the Bard" before my video has to be in, so in this instance I will be using footage from one of his previous concerts mixed in with some video I have shot myself.

In my video overview I will explain who the people are in the shot if I know them, otherwise I will explain the situation I was in at the time, for instance a festival full of strangers to me would make the perfect scene to represent togetherness ( a large concept I feel is pushed on in the song and therefore needs adequate representation).

Mise en Scene

From my locations list I feel you will gain an insight into the Mise en Scene of my music video. I am focusing more on the land, images of the wild and shot of nature so as to convey the songs message of ,"The spirit of albion". In this I am attempting to capture the feeling of Britain.  This doesn't mean that I will only have shots of nature, I will have some man made settings (for instance the scene from the bridge in london). However all of my scenes convey a feeling of the land and a connection to it, in london this is represented by the hurry people through the concrete jungle metropolis. Stone henge has this but in a contrasted sense of unity, of people dancing together in merriment.
*Bodmin Moor/stone circles there

*Stone Henge

*Tintagle

Puttenham Common Surrey

*The sea near tintagle/Merlins cave

*Rivers of the broads and fens(This footage may have to be supplemented with footage from the local river way, due to funding and time constraints). 

*Cerne Abbas (giant)

*Wilmington (giant)

*Frensham Pond

*Surrey the downs silent pool

*Natural History museum

*Welsh valleys

*Northumbria (possibly)

*Scotland (possibly, if the past footage I have can be worked in)

*Guildford surrey woodstreet common pinks hill along the long woods http://www.timetravel-britain.com/articles/1photos/castles/tintagel2-bov.jpg

 (replace with picture of the longewoods later)




*Guildford surrey woodstreet common pinks hill along the long woods http://www.timetravel-britain.com/articles/1photos/castles/tintagel2-bov.jpg

The cd cover design

So ill update this tomorrow once there is more of the cd cover done, for the moment I have done the initial back cover design seen below. The way I did this was by taking several pictures (as seen in the original) and then modified them with various effects in photoshop, smoothed the edges of the collage out using liquify and then repositioned and resized them. I use transparency effect throughout.

original:

The edited and near final back cover (lacking obvious things like advertisements and basic cover elements, but the near finished background picture):

Things that need adding are price tag, blurb, perhaps some shots from the video itself overlaid, bar code etc.

UPDATE:











Here is the near finished CD cover with front cover and spinal colume assembled.

UPDATE:

Below I will post the new CD cover content, including red done outside, new inside and CD art design.

Change of plans

So, in the realization that what I was trying to achieve wouldn't be feasible with my resources,skill and time I have decided to change the song for the video. This also means changing the scenes to fit more to the new song, which by the same artist Damh the Bard and is called Spirit of Albion.

Part of the problem with the first song choice, sons and daughters was that it required me heavily using shots of actors, actors i just don't have. So rather than change the theme completely it will be similar, just a different song. The main point is in this song I don't require actors, meaning I can focus my efforts on getting the right shots and using what footage Ive already taken. There will still be footage of people in video, this will be taken from other sources though, such as concert footage of the bard himself.
The plan for this video is listed below along with the lyrics:

Spirit of Albion by Damh the Bard

An isle so fair, a isle so green, ( )
Known by many names. ( images of signposts zoom past semi transparent upon a recorded bit of footage from Bodmin)
Feel the pulse, the pulse of the land, (The video begins to pulse )
The blood boils within your veins. (The screen transitions in an urupution into the next scene, reference to the blood boiling )
Someone go down to the Holy Well (Either, go down to the blue pond and capture from multiple angles )
and raise the Spirits there! (Or create a well in the garden use a stone a hose pipe )
Lay a feather on a stone, (The water crashes into a transitional semi transparent filter to the next scene of a feather landing on a stone next to a lock of hair and then stop start editing to make the illusion that the candle lights itself  )
with a flame, and a lock of hair. ( )

(Chorus)
The Crane, the wolf,
the bear and the boar, ( Each of the animals flashes in as each is said transparently)
No longer dwell upon these shores, ( Upon a shot from the shore near Tintagel, then image then fades towards the “no longer” )
You say that the Goddess and God ( This section will be the video footage from the London musician on the bridge)
have gone, ( )
Well I tell you they live on! ( )
For in the cities and hills, ( )
And in circles of stone, (a video of walking into a stone circle pop out from the centre of the last scene to transition creating the effect that the audience is walking into the video/scene. )
The voices of the Old Ways, ( )
The Spirit of Albion is calling you home! ( As that scene merges into a video of people at stone henge as well as ravers dancing)

From Manwydden's crashing sea, ( )
To the moor and the Highland Glen. ( )
From the Faerie Hills, home of the Sidhe, (This scene will run along each other, with the screen being split into three shots, first starting with the crashing sea from tintangle to a shoot from bodmin moor to a shot of a mond, poping up on the scene consecutively  )
To the veins of the Broad and the Fen. (get some helicopter shots of the net of rivers in norfolk and rivers in the fens possibly near the island of ely )
Someone go down to the Holy Trees ( )
of Oak and Ash and Thorn! (Take footage from up the long wood of each type of tree )
Utter a charm in the verse of three, ( )
Till the Summer King is born! (super impose an image of a rising sun behind the trees, coming up, maybe an animation for instance )

Ride the white horses ( )
carved into the hills, ( )
Walk to the Hanging Stones. ( )
Bow to the might ( )
of Cerne Abbass' height, ( This and the previous four lines will be a collage of images/video still shots to match the scenes described)
Feel the peace in the Ancestors' homes. ( warm sun shots shown)
Someone go down to Wilmington ( )
where the Giant guards the way! ( )
Step into the Otherworld, ( )
into the womb, ( )
Where centuries pass like a day! ( )

The songs lyrics

The Sons & Daughters (of Robin Hood)

(Damh the Bard)


(Verse 1)
  We all watched you on our TV, (here the scene would show two actors watching two other actos in suits on a tv. The actors on tv would be representative of government/the elite which is being commented on in the song)
Right Honourable Gentlemen, apparently,
  Different voices with only one aim,(The actors on the tv aim a bow at the actors watching)
To win my vote, to win the game.(arrow flies through tv and hits dart board in the bullseye behind them)
  People have died to pave the way,(actors lay on the ground like a path of dead, with sheets layed over them.)
So we can vote come polling day,(at the end of the dead path is a representation of a fruit slot machine)
  X marks the spot that gives us our voice,(camera points to one choice on ballet paper)
But how do you vote when there isn’t a choice?(actor rips up ballet and shoves it in the machine)



(Chorus)
If you thought that we would do nothing you’ve misunderstood…(actor pushes over machine)
  For we are the Sons and Daughters of Robin Hood!(a wall of two actors and two actress's march off in union out of camera shot)



(Verse2)
See I remember exclusion zones,(actors have a bubble of thought while marching showing scenes from stone henge fence being erected or something simliar)
  At Solstice time around the Stones,(thought bubble changes to people standing at stone henge at solstice time)
Poll Tax riots at Trafalgar Square,(bubble changes to consume entire screen with severe riot footage from the riots)
  The rich they got richer, the poor were stripped bare.(line of rich people consume the thought bubble, which gets smaller until actors can be seen holding their pockets empty to mimic the poorness of being "stripped bare")
Building new roads with no thought for the land,(footage of new roads being constructed, trees being ripped out the ground)
  And the blood of the Beanfield is still on your hands,(one of the actors dressed as a wealthy person with blood that won't wash off their hands no matter how much they try, whilst a thought bubble plays footage of the battle of the beanfield)
Now drilling off Shetland will do just fine,(actor and actress dressed in suits signing a contract)
  And you’re selling off forests like you closed down mines.(beautiful green forest footage transitions to desert footage)


(The bridge will consist of flashes of british images from going to war, car journeys around the country, scenes of lakes, people being sacked, police using tazers etc)
(Bridge)
Nothing to see, there’s nothing to see, there’s nothing to see here…
Nothing to see, just look away, there’s nothing to see here…

(Verse 3)
England’s green and pleasant land,(scenes of england with peaceful country green roads
Is not there to put cash in your hands!(scene changes to a set of hands exchanging a large sum of money in notes)
  I see your symbol is the English oak tree,(still frame of footage of an oak tree...)
    Is that your idea of irony?(...which then continues to being chopped down)
Now thousands of eyes will fall upon you,(flashes different closeups of eyes staring at the camera)
  Each watching closely what you will do,(scene from taken from behind as a person frantically tries to decide which button to press)
   All are ready to spoil your game,(camera focus on a clock on the wall as it nears the 12 in slow motion)
   For the blood of an outlaw flows in our veins!(three actors come from behind as the clock reaches 12 and put a sack over the person choosing the buttons head)


(Chorus)
If you thought that we would do nothing you’ve misunderstood…(actors marching again only this time they have a sack (which represents the person they captured) and a sword)
For we are the Sons and Daughters of Robin Hood!(as the actor/es's reach the top of the hill they are marching on they thrust the sword and sack to the sky as the final note rings out).

Final Idea

My final idea is as follows,

The video will play around the song,"Sons and daughters of Robin Hood" By Damh the Bard.
The concept is that it will be very political but with a slight humorous satirical element from way of the acting.
  There will be sections of video taken from riots and wars as it would be very hard to replicate any of these events to any noticeable degree without violating health and safety.I also feel try to physically reenact these events would be tasteless and appear like i'm mocking the murder/violence of innocents which I do not wish to do in the slightest, so this will be sampled from real footage to give the truth.

During instrumentals I will be displaying abstract scenes of british nature I've taken and this will be edited in certain ways to match the beat of the music (quick cuts, transitions, video effects etc).

I will have a limit of four actor/actress's in the video with the edition of my self making five during the credits. I think by having less actors during these scenes it will make the video less cluttered and people will develop a closer bond with the actors on screen, rather than having loads of different actors that the audience would find hard to connect with.
This also means it is less effort to organise everyone meaning I can focus more on the quality of the shoots and more time for retakes of those shots.

The videos length will run just over the length of the song. However because the native song is six minutes long I will be using a edited version so as to not bore the viewer. What I will be taking out are certain sections of instrumentals as well as shortening others. To mask any harsh cuts I will make a fade in the song to a stop where a short section where you can hear the actors saying something or sound from a war/riot, so as to act as a musical transition, then fading back into the song only at a later point in the song, most likely where the singer is singing.

A short update...

Checking my email today I saw reply to a message I sent last week (see blog post on contacting artist).
  The email went as follows,

"Hi Tom,

That sounds great! Please go ahead, and I would love to see the result too!

Peace

Damh"

Not only did I get a reply, but I got a rather positive one and now the artist is interested in my project.

(See screen capture below)



   

Time Plan of the next 6 weeks

(Note, I will be blogging progression, editing past posts and adding in any more relevant research and development whilst I'm doing the following).

Week one:

This week I will be compiling a near final draft of my music video for critical response.

Week two:

I will be fixing the editing of the music to prepare it for first viewing.

Week three:

Taking on board critics views from the previous week I will edit and re upload at the end of the week

Week four:

Create cover/poster and any other potential advertisements/packaging.
Upload at weeks end for critical response

Week five:

Edit above and re upload at weeks end taking on board critical reception.

Week six:

Upload evaluation as well as any other final analysis of project.

Locations

(In regards to which ever song I choose to do this post will be update to contain the locations used, but I will still state all the possible options).

1. Bodmin Moor and Wales, here I have already taken footage in cars and of stone circles, this is the sort of footage that can easily be used as filler during instrumentals in any of the songs ( and there is more than enough of this footage).

2. I have taken several videos of the ocean, this I feel could come into play nicely if i use the Merlin am I song (the shores of Tintagle, Cornwall).

3. The hidden valley over in Puttenham Common in Surrey, this would be a good place to shot video with actor/actress's for any of the videos and its fairly quiet and there is a lot of open space to move around in. It is the perfect stage for songs relating to nature and Britain.

4. The long woods up the back of the common where I live in Woodstreet would be useful in capturing footage of trees such as the three mentioned in Spirit of Albion as all three exist there in one space, Oak Ash and (Haw)Thorn.

5. If I use any footage from the news or related media to represent a point in the song, e.i the song talks of great war, then I may get footage from vietnam, Libya, The battle of the bean field etc. If this is the case I will state any locations used in this section, so far this is theoretical.

The list so far:

*Bodmin Moor/stone circles there
*Stone Henge
*Tintagle
*Puttenham common surrey
*The sea near tintagle/Merlins cave
*Rivers of the broads and fens
*Cerne Abbas (giant)
*Wilmington (giant)
*Frensham pond
*Surrey the downs silent pool
*Natural History museum
*Welsh valies
*Northumbria (possibly)
*Scotland (possibly, if the past footage I have can be worked in)
*Guildford surrey woodstreet common pinks hill along the long woods

Song ideas

Before I start mixing and editing video for the music video I need to choose which song is most appropriate.

There are many songs by Damh the Bard which would fit perfectly for the video I've already taken. My favorite three are Spirit of Albion, Sons and daughters of Robin hood and Merlin am I.

Spirit of Albion has I think the right tempo and correct lyrics to fit the theme of the video shots I've taken. I can cross the message of british landscape quite easily because the song is about Britain's isles.

Sons and daughters of robin hood would entail a slightly different approach. I feel with this option I would need more of a story, smilar to how Adam and the Ants do the video Stand and dilever make the abstract tale of a lone highway man. This would therefore require some costumes and reliable actors to pull off effectively, while also have the actors filmed in the right place, but seeing as guildford is fairly wooded around it this wouldn't be a great problem.
 The benefit of this option is in the lyrics, the strong political messages would allow for some interesting diversity in the screen play side of production (possibly a humorous sketch involving one of the actors imitating a famous politician)...

The third option, Merlin Am I is my backup. It lies somewhere between the two above options in terms of difficulty, and is quite a solitary song so only I and one actor would be required to make it happen. however it has an overal sad theme to it and the references to war may actually be quite effective in this current climate (war to the left of us in the east and war to the west of us in Wall-street).

The best option may be to create a story board for each option and then decide which would be the best to do in terms of time scale, cost and how much extra footage it would take to shoot.

Attempt to contact record company for permission

I've contacted through email the song artist Damh The Bard as i will be using one of his songs in my video. There is a picture below demonstrating this attempt.

This is a recently sent email so I wouldn't except a reply any earlier than in a weeks time. Therefore If I get a positive response I will upload it and update this post, or if I get nothing I will update the post saying that I got no response.

Mood Board

So i'm going to upload the mood board in a jpeg.

Folk Music

Folk music, or more specifically British Folk music has quite a distinctive feeling and sound. Obviously the classic british folk singing style is capitalized on here, but with soo many different accents the outcome of each artist can differ greatly.

So whats the point of this post?
 Well I need to look at some examples of different folk songs to see which would best suit my music video. Since I've mostly taken quite peaceful, natural setting video clips, the song really needs to reflect upon this.
Iv'e taken quite a view clips containing trees and so it would probably be appropriate to have a song which at least mentions trees (This creates visual motif from video to lyrics).

I'm fairly interested by the folk artist Damh the Bard. In most of his song he has some message regarding not just nature but also the corruption of government among others. This would be a good avenue to draw upon, perhaps feeding in exterior footage from news clips of war, again creating a motif between the image and the lyrics.
 Songs by Damh the Bard which show this well are,
Sons and daughters of robin hood
Spirit of Albion

Take me home Country Roads by John Denver might actually suit the footage iv'e already taken and even contains small reference to trees. The only thing is I think to capture the feeling of the song I would need to take footage of people or at least a person to get the feeling of traveling home.

The song by Clannad called passing time could work in reference to the car traveling footage i've taken. Its quite a relaxing, smooth flowing song which would be quite simple to fit with the video. I think if this option where taken I would have to focus heavily on timing the video to the tempo at which the vocalist sings the lyrics to create a visual match (or a purposely placed out of sink image to draw the viewers interest by doing something they don't expect to see).