Filming Schedule

Location Scout & Risk Assessment

Classwork

 This part of my blog will demonstrate my understanding of technical elements and how to utilise them

Camera

Shots

Here is a video that helped with my understanding of camera shots

Establishing shot

Master shot

Wide shot

Full shot:

Cowboy shot:

Medium shot:

Medium closeup shot:

High closeup shot:

Extreme closeup shot:

Angles

Movement

Sound

Mise-en-scene

Editing

Song Research

 This part of my blog will examine our song choice: Catch Me in the Air by Rina Sawayama. This was done by me and my teammate, Regine.

Catch me in the air by Rina Sawayama does not currently have an official music video but does have an official visualiser. A visualiser differs from a music video by being less focused on storytelling and instead simply being an abstract representations of music that enhances the experience through dynamic visuals. 

 

1. Song Background;
Genius.com, a lyrical database and digital media company, has provided a small description of the song
“ 'Catch Me In The Air' is the second single from Rina Sawayama’s Hold the Girl album. The song details Sawayama’s relationship with her single mother, and how they have supported each other through difficult times."

Rina also introduced the song on her Dynasty Tour with "I wrote a very special song and it's about my relationship with my mom who's a single mom. [...] I just wanted to write the fact that we have caught each other when we're falling, and so this song is called 'Catch Me in the Air'." (information found on a website called the Rina Sawayama Wiki)

 

We can conclude that this song is about the relationship between a single mother and her child as each other’s support system and how their relationship has evolved now that they’re both on their own.

 

2. Why we choose it

The song was suggested by a friend who's a fan of the artist. We liked the song as it had consisted of a narrative that we can easily follow and develop upon. The song is also really heartwarming which will allow us to more easily invoke an emotional response from our audience, making it easier for us to keep our audience engaged as they will have a stronger attachment to our music video. These reasons are why this song in particular stuck out to us among all our other options

3. How your music video will be different

Genius contributors mentioned the first verse of the song is written in the perspective of Rina's mother but we plan to subvert this idea by exclusively sticking to the artists' point of view. This way, it will put the audience in the artist's point of view which would create a stronger emotional reaction more effectively. 

Additionally, we choose to subvert from Rina Sawayama's usual style. In the music video she is seen wearing more modern chic clothes, which is a convention more strongly associated with pop artists, whereas we choose simpler rural-like clothing which is more frequent in indie pop artists. This is because our star's persona conveys her more as a simpler girl, keen on keeping close to her roots

Reflection:

• Doing this song research was really helpful as it helped me gain a better understanding of the song. This lets us create a better narrative and gain an emotional connection to the song that can act as a motivator.
• It was a bit hard as this song is lesser known and by a small artist so finding information (by the artist or fan interpretations) has been quite hard. However, we can twist this to our advantage as this would allow us more creative freedom and, by doing that, offer a new perspective to the audience

Progress + Development

 This part of my blog will detail our progress and development

The first task of our development was to of course pick a song we wanted to do. I was fine with doing mostly any song but regardless I was worried we may struggle to pick a song due to conflicting tastes. 

Here are our text messages showing our discussions when picking a song:

[first image]

We came to the conclusion that we did not want to do a romantic song as we feared that it would feel awkward and we thought that it would be hard to find people who wanted to be a part of our music video this way.

At the time, none of us really had any suggestions so I picked out the non-romantic songs from my research as suggestions. These included:

• I DONT KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME - Leave Me Alone
  
• Pavement - "Harness Your Hopes"
  
• Will Wood - Tomcat Disposables
  
• girl in red - rue
  

[image 2] [image 3]

We then discussed which song we felt would be best but none in particular still stuck out to us.

I then looked into more indie pop songs I know as well as consulted my friends for some which led me to Rina Sawayama's catch me in the air. 

Reflection:

• To be honest, the song selection felt a bit rush. Part of this was our fault, as we discussed this quite late, however I had been thinking about what song to pick for a long time since our project started (I just didn't have any that felt like the 'right' song) so perhaps had I prompted a discussion earlier, it would feel less rushed and I would feel more sure of the decision as I am the type of person that needs to think things over for a long time before coming to a definite conclusion.
• I really enjoyed discussing song options with my teammates and I was relieved to learn that we share a lot of the same opinions regarding what songs we could pick

Screen Test

 To find a star for or music video, we needed to conduct a screen test. This blog will detail our class's group audition that we did as a class

We decided to do this as it was effective and saved the time of needing to find willing participants and individually record a screen test. Unfortunately, none of the people here stook out to us and were quite what we were looking for but I still find doing this screen test valuable as we are now able to conclude that no one here fits the role of our star and can now focus on extending our research elsewhere.

Here are a list of advantages and disadvantages for having done our screen test in this way:

Advantages:

• Quick -> saves time
• Easy
• Reduces workload
• A lot of participants all at once

Disadvantages:

• Less individualistic so participants are examined in less detail
• Some people were uncomfortable
• Some didn't know the song
• Unprofessional: Not the way it's done in the industry so makes our pre-production process feel less professional

Reflection:

• I think that ultimately this was helpful but I personally really didn't like doing the screen test this way. Not only because of the disadvantages listed above but also because I personally just wasn't comfortable with it. I wouldn't mind doing it like this again but, if we were too, I'd prefer it to just be people who want to volunteer
• I was assigned to do the screen test for pre-production and doing it this way means that I have a lot less work to do which is an advantage as I can focus on other work but I want to contribute more to the team