PHOTOGRAPHS THAT HAVE INFLUENCE ME.

Taylor Swift Analysis

ANCILLARY TASK PLANNING.

We are starting to plan our ancillary tasks and we are already starting to talmk about what we want to include in the poster and CD cover. We have been looking first of all at a man called Tom Leishman who is a young talented photographer from london. He has produced work of his own including the saturdays and other big bands. His work is wonderful and we would like to research him and maybe take some aspects of his work and produce them in our personal way.

We looked at the majority of his work and we have found some artwork that caught out our eye.

Here are some examples.

Example 1.
Example 2.
Example 3.
Example 4.
Example 5.
Example 6.
Example 7.

As me and Charley looked at eachothers work, we realised we had similar tastes in album art. this makes things a lot more simple.

NOT ABLE TO FILM.

Today we were not able to film because of the weather. As it is pouring down with rain today the outdoor filming cannot happen. The weather has been like this for a few days now and we are waiting for a day when it is not. Therefore, we are going to plan out what we need to get done over the next few weeks and reach a target for what needs to be done.

Target for the next few weeks.

- Filming needs to be completed as the weather is getting worse and it wont be long until we are unable to film at all. ( This includes both performance shots and narrative shots). The performance shots we have taken so far have come along quite nicely and work weel with eachother so there is not much that we need to film in this department. On the other hand, the narrative shots are nowhere near finished as we need to go out and refilm because parts are quite iffy and dont match up very well.

- Start researching for our ancillary task. For this we need to look up different cd covers and poster that is similar to our style. We need to plan our photoshoots and plan the costume and the layout of both of them. We need to look up about the different colours that we could use and different posistions and techniques that we could use.

FILMING 2.

Today we filmed some more footage but it was the narravtive side of the music video. This time, there was a group of 5 people including Charley. We did the scene down in the bottom field undeerneath a tree full of leaves. This part of the video is hugely influenced by Lisa Mitchells video- Clean White love.

I set up the camera in the corner of the field using a tripod at the right height. I posaitioned the camera so there was a big tree to the left of the screen. To me, this filled the screen and framed off half of the scene. it also showed the location well and it was obvious they were in the woods. This shows them to be adventurous and fun. i film a three minute sequence of the 5 teenagers throwing leaves around and having fun. I wanted to show them to be having a good time and for it also to be personal. Therefore i asked them to get close to eachother and have no fear. I used a long shot through out the whole sequesnce and did not use any camera movement. This will work fine as i will be braking down the sequence when editing as we will be fading different parts in together and merging it.

Also as we want it to be a flashback, i have got all of the actors and actresses to wear winter clothes as it will show it to be a different part of the year. the sun is also beaming down and forming a lens flare which is very appropriate for this part of the music video.

FILMING 1.

We have now started filming properly. We wrote a quick note to what we wanted to achieve in the whole lesson. We wanted to take 3 or 4 different shots to get as much footage as we possibly can. We picked up a video camera and a tripod and went outside onto the apple orchard and took some simple shots. First of all we experimented with a shot with symmetry. Charley ran down tot he bottom of the orchard and i set the camera up where the shot shows the trees coming out from either side of the frame. She put the song "Ghosts" on her phone. she walked up slowly singing the song. Our teacher told us to only film simple shots and dont do anything to complex yet. Therefore we only filmed the first verse because we wanted to see how it worked and if we could use it for our fimling. This worked well. We then tried a close up shot of her singing the whole song. This also worked well as it was a simple shot that we could use throughout the music video. This shot was similar to the shots that we saw in Clean white love. I find that in the music video, they worked really well because it showed the emotions of the actor as we are so close to them. It also shows the faciall expression which will also determine the mood of the video. We then went a little further and sat Charley into a tree . The camera was then set to the tree and her being the only objects in focus and the camera then filmed her singing the lyrics. I was very happy with this footage as it was a detailed and interesting shoot to look at. We will have to crop it however, because part of the tennis courts are in the shoot and we want the focus to be aimed at Charley. We will crop it so that the camera is more zoomed in on her, leaving out all the important parts. We then had to come inside because it started to rain and we were not longer film. One, because the camera would get wet, and for two, the video would be ruined. Therefore we came inside a\nd uploaded the footage. We uploaded the footage and then looked over it. As we looked at the footage and analysed what we could use. We found that the tree was a good shot but we could only use the shot in certain pieces of the video as it is quite a techniqual shot and it couldnt be merged together to make the video constant.

We then decided it was time to film some more footage, unlike the lesson before we were more prepared and knew what we needed to do. So when the classroom was emptied we set up the sames shots that we had done the previous lesson and filmed the mid shot of Charley singing and looking out of the window. We had to do this a few times as the first time, charley wasnt looking at the camera very much and it wasnt a good look. therefore we shot it again with her looking at the camera more often and showing her emotions it was a little bit touching !!! We continued experimenting with different shots including a close up of a book that she was holding. We tried pull focus again on the book and it worked well. The colours are also a big part of the shot as it needs to be interesting. Therefore she wore blue tights and a hat as it is winter outside. The book was red and it clashed with the colours of the outside which was a combination of orange and browna nd blue and then the wall inside which was plain cream. This worked well. We then took some narrative shots of Charley looking out of the window so that we could have some different shots. We then uploaded the footage and looked through the different shots. We realised that Charley was slightly out of focus when looking on the bigger screen. Therefore next lesson we will film again and ensure that everything is set up correctly.

FINALLY MOVING ON.

Today we started planning what shots and angles we will be using for filming our video. We also chose the actor that will be playing the leading role in the video. As we couldnt find someone we could both agree on, we decided to use Charley. She has blonde hair and the wacky look about her, which will work well with the planning we have already done. She also acts and knows the song very well meaning she will be able to sing the song without messing up and us having to constantly re film.

Before we started filming everything, i wanted to get used to the camera and figure out what all of the icons did and how to pull in out out of focus. I also wanted to figure out what it could do, so we took some practise shots. Charley sat infront of the camera and i filmed some footage of her in the position she would be in. I pulled in and out of focus but for some reason it wouldnt work. The camera was always focused on her face. We then tried with a bottle and it focused out of that. We believe that the camera we are using is face sensitive. We played around with getting the composition right as we didnt want any unnessisary object in the shot. We realised that the tennis courts are right behind were we were filming so we had to angle the camera up slightly to be able to not catch it in. We were all ready to start filming once i had got used to the camera.

We decided to use a mid shot of charley sat on the window sill looking outside wishing she was out there. I filmed the scene and i experimented with different techniques such as pull focus. I tried focus out of her and into the background which is full of leaves but for some reason that wouldnt work. Therefore, we just played around with focusing out of the background leaving on Charley in focus. We then uploaded the footage after a few duifferent takes of Charley on iMovie. We watched over our footage and were pleased with how much we had come along. For a good influence we used Lisa Mitchell's music video "Clean White Love" and watched it over a few times before filming. This helped me a great deal by looking at all of the camera shots and how well they worked when connected together.