Treatment Feedback

Today we presented our treatment for our music video to the class and received feedback from all the other groups. As a group, we were told what the other groups liked about our music video ideas but also what we could improve on and some questions which overall was really helpful. 

Here's what the other groups liked out our music video ideas:

- They liked the idea of the split screen 

- They liked the idea of the contrast in the characters between happy and sad

- They thought our overall narrative was unique and well thought through 

- Good location planning

- Good application of theory

- Good consideration of characters and their impact upon the storyline 

- Good idea with the ending (the bench idea)

- Post-production ideas of colour grading should work well

- Good connection between song meaning and narrative idea

Here are the suggested things that we could improve on:

- It could be difficult to get a good focus on the camera if it is steamy inside the shower?

- Lip Syncing may be hard

- Come up with a plan for the lighting outside

- Think about the specific shots and editing techniques you will use

- Think about your target audience

- Consider how you will incorporate genre characteristics into the music video

- Try to have a variety of shots, not just all at home 

- Make sure you film all footage bright and colour grade into dark to prevent grain 

Questions we were asked concerning the treatment:

- How are you going to ensure that the narrative is clear? We will ensure that the narrative is clear to the audience through the use of props such as the Polaroid pictures that will show the audience that the two girls were once friends. 

- Are you going to do the whole song? The song that goes with the music video is around 8 minutes long but obviously we wouldn't want our music video to be this long and the brief would not allow it anyway. We will use the original version of the song which is around 4 minutes long. 

- What are your inspirations? 

- What costumes will the characters be wearing? Our characters will be wearing casual clothes so their costumes link with the narrative but also relate to the audience. 

- How do you plan to make sure you've tried a bunch of techniques such as playing with focus, varied angles. editing effects beyond split screen? We will most probably book the camera and equipment out before we start filming to we can get to grips with using the cameras and equipment whilst also playing around with the focus, camera angles and we will experiment with special effects after filming the footage. 

What we need to improve on:

- We need to do a recce of the park around sunset with the equipment to have a look at what the lighting and quality of the footage will look like to ensure there is no problems with lighting when it comes to production

- We also need to rent out all the equipment to play around with it and understand how to use it (during this we will also test out using the go-pro in the shower)

-  Most of our other feedback of what to improve on we have spoken about on our treatment but we didn't have time explain everything during the treatment presentation

Conclusion

This treatment feedback session was really useful in terms of giving us things to improve on so that our music video is a good as it could be. We were also able to find out more about everyone else's music video ideas. 

Treatment

Treatment Outline

We have chosen to use the song 1-800 by Logic feat. Alessia Cara and Khalid and the genre is R&B. Our target audience is teenagers and young adults and our main characters will be two teenage girls played by Becky and Allanah. Since we have decided to produce a narrative style music video, it will be linear as we will start at the beginning of their day and follow it to the evening. It will be an illustrative narrative as there is a obvious link between the lyrics and the visuals. The main themes that will be present in the music video are: friendship, happiness, sadness and nostalgia. We will be using the original song off YouTube which before using we will attempt to contact the artist/s asking for permission to avoid copyright issues. 

Synopsis

Becky and Allanah will be playing our two main characters who are both teenage girls who live very different lives from each other. Becky's character has an unhappy home life, relationships with her parents, isn't getting good grades and has recently lost her closest friend leaving her with no one. In comparison, Allanah's character has happy home life, good relationships with her parents, good grades and a supportive group of friends. The narrative will be presented using a split screen showing a day in their lives and how different they are however, near to the end of the narrative they experience similar problems and these problems are what leads them to cross paths and become friends. A key piece of information concerning the development of the narrative is that both girls were once close friends but this will only be revealed to the audience in the middle/towards the end of the music video. 

Characters

As I mentioned previously, we have two main characters who will be played by Becky and Allanah. Other characters may include Allanah's character's friends who will probably be played by our friends Sara and Tyreke and also family members of the characters so Becky's mum will feature in the opening sequence and Allanah's. Richard dyers star theory apply's to our music video as he states that 'stars are constructed to represent "real people" and "real emotions". This relates to our music video because we made the main character with the intention of making her relatable to the audience through her emotions. 

Location

Our main filming location will be: Allanah's house, Becky's House, school, various roads and a nearby park (possibly Richmond Park). Our main aim is to film the house scenes in the daytime so we have automatic good lighting whereas we will aim to film the scenes in the park in the evening, specifically just before sunset so that it will be clear to the audience that it is towards the end of the day. For the scenes inside the houses, to be specific we will be using the bathroom for the beginning/opening scene and perhaps a bedroom for another scene. 

Visual Elements/Mise-En-Scene/Style Choices

All of our footage will be shot in colour and we aren't 100% sure what we will want the footage to look like in terms of colour - for example, for some scenes we may want the lighting to be a bit darker to reflect the mood. As we are filming the majority of the footage in the day, lighting will not be a problem, filming at sunset might be difficult so we will need to film quickly but mostly importantly experiment beforehand to see if this would work in terms of how the footage will look on camera as we still need it to be good quality. Possible props that will be involved in the music video include: Polaroid pictures, headphones which will overall contribute to the feel of the music video and make it realistic to the audience. In terms of costume, all of our actors and actresses will be wearing casual clothes like t-shirts, trainers and jeans) which will link in with the narrative. We will be using elements of performance, to show our skills and add transitions to the piece. 

Equipment and Resources

In terms of equipment and resources, we will be needing a camcorder from school along with an SD card and the charger for the camera and a tripod. We will also need our costumes which shouldn't be hard to get a hold of as they are basically our everyday clothes anyway so we will already have them. As for our props, we will need a Polaroid camera which we have access to and a pair of headphones which are easy to get as we all have a pair anyway. After getting all of our footage, we will then need Adobe Premier Pro to edit. 

Possible Struggles and how we will overcome them

A possible struggle that we could come across would be lighting in the case of filming at the park at sunset. Since it is the park, we wouldn't be able to use the lighting kit as there would be no sockets available. To overcome this issue, early on in production (as soon as possible) we will do a recce of the location and see what the footage would look like at sunset - based on our findings from doing this recce we can either go along with production assuming that there is no problem or decide to film this scene in the middle of the day so lighting isn't a problem. Another big problem that we could come across would be if the camera ran out of battery whilst we were out in the park because it would be a waste of time to go home and charge it up again - to prevent this issue we will make sure that the camera is fully charged before taking it out of the house.

Blog Update

All of the following documents for my Planning Portfolio can be found on my group's blog which I will link down below or here: ABA Group Blog

• Song Choice
• Lip-sync and Green Screen Task
• Moodboard
• Location Research
• Costume Research
• Treatment
• Storyboard and Shot List
• Production Schedule
• Risk Assessments and Contingency Plans 

Link to Group Blog!