St. Michael's and All Angels Church Slideshow

Changes to Storyboard

As we began to create a storyboard in sync with our song, we realised that we needed far more cuts than we first planned, and that the confession box idea was unlikely to work. The first reason for this was that the churches we had found did not have a confession box, and as we had been working in final cut, we found that the video was working well without the confession box idea.

The first of the changes was to remove the confession box idea, as we were not finding it prominent in the music video. We then had to draw new shots to fill the gaps that the confession box idea left.

The second change came when we showed our original storyboard to our teacher. She felt that the opening shot of the video was good and the cuts after the start of the chorus were in time, but the opening needed to be more precise. She recommended cutting on certain notes of the cello, so we decided to rearrange some of our shots. As we had dropped the images into final cut it was easy to move them around and we found that this opening worked better.

After seeing how much better the opening of the song looked with more cuts, we decided to implicate this on the rest of the video.

We changed our method of storyboarding, and began to draw shots as we needed them, dropping them into final cut and progressing int his way. We needed more shots and cuts than we thought when we were just listening to the song and drawing. By individually syncing each shot the music, we built up a more precise storyboard.



Here you can see a screenshot of the layout of FinalCut and how our storyboard is coming along.

Learning Final Cut

Elliot used a CD and book to learn the basics of Final Cut, and then showed us what he had learned.

Storyboarding

After finalising the setting and picking the various actors for the video, we had to begin storyboarding. We had little idea how long this process would actually take until we got down to doing it. Here you can see various pictures of us working on the storyboard.

1. Initially, we sat down as a group and simply listened to the song, and imagined which cuts, shots and angles we could use. The hard part was then recording our ideas, and agreeing on them as a group. We had to continuously listen to the song, sometimes only a second at a time, and then write down what cuts and shots we should use. There were many disagreements during the process but eventually we found something that pleased everyone.

2. We then had to draw out the ideas we had already written using the storyboard sheets. Alfie and I listened to the song, whilst I drew the angles and shots he was describing. Aflie also made note of the timings for each shot and their duration. Elliot then listened to the song along with the images we had drawn and pointed out flaws or weaknesses.

3. The image on the right shows some of the progress we have made with storyboard. You can see the images we have put together and the piece of paper we used initially to record ideas.After we made it to around halfway through storyboarding the song, we took photographs of the images we had drawn incase we lost any sheets, and then began to upload them onto the computers. We then began to edit them into final cut along with the music, to see how it was looking so far.

Church Options

St. Michaels and All Angels Church

After our e-mail back from the church St Michaels and All Angels, we visited the website to see if they had any images of inside the church.
We found this:
Our first impressions were that the setting was ideal, and we all particularly liked the large window as we had planned for this sort of church. However Alfie said that he was unsure of the space below the window that we could use to film, so we e-mailed the church back asking if we could visit and look around for ourselves.

The image of the stained glass window that we found proved to be very promising, as it was the type of window that we were looking for.










Stone St. Mary's Church, Greenhithe

This is the church that Alfie's friend Ollie can gain access to, but there were now pictures of the interior on the website. We then arranged with ollie as to when we could go and taken pictures of the church and ask a few questions regarding the filming.

Both churches have many perks and it will be difficult to chose. St. Michaels is a 10 minute walk from school, so an ideal place to film and a place that is local to the entire group. However, the problems we are worrying about at the moment are that there will not be enough room or objects may get in the way of filming. This is only based on the picture we have seen from the website, so we need to visit to make sure. We would also have to check specific dates with the church which may become a problem if we need to re-film some parts, but the vicar seemed happy to help us in his e-mail. Stone St. Mary's church is further away from where we all live, and may pose problems for actors getting there. However because Ollie can get keys to the church, it would be ideal as we could film almost whenever we wanted to.

Finding the Actors

We began to look for people that could play the desired instruments in our video. The most tricky role to fill was the cello, as it is quite rare that people play it. We began to ask around and see who is reliable to perform in our video.
We decided that the band members should be wearing smart/casual clothing, ideally blazers and shirts or shirts and ties. This formal look will fit better with out video and also with the church setting.
Here are some examples of how clothing changed with the setting of a video:

We began to fill the roles of our music video and came up with this list of actors:

Mike-Drums
Dan-Lead Singer
Ollie-Cello/Violin

Luckily, Ollie can play both the cello and the violin, and also knows people who play the violin. This was very handy because it means that we had a choice of who to cast, something we didn't think we would get with the violin and the cello. Ollie also knows a church in Greenhithe that would be happy to let us use the church as a setting, and Ollie could get keys, so gaining access when it suited us best wouldn't be a problem.

Finding The Right Setting

We began to look for an ideal church to set our music video in. We need to find a local church, preferably with a stained glass window, and we need to ask permission to firstly look around the church and whether we would be able to perform inside the church.

We would have to ask what day would be best to film on and whether everything we want in our music video can be filmed there.
We decided to email a few churches local to us and see what their responses would be to our ideas.

We decided that the churches needed to be local to us and easy to get to. The e-mail above is to a church near to Alfie's house, which made it ideal because it was so close.

The church close to Alfie's house was our first reply, and we decided to ask whether we could look around and see whether it was an ideal place to set our video.

We looked at our timetables and decided that the most convenient time to go would be on a Tuesday afternoon, and we could all meet after lunch at school. The church is only a 10 minute walk from our school so this made it easy for us to meet.

Thankfully, Richard e-mailed back saying that this was a good time to meet, and that he would see us on Tuesday. When we visit the church, we will take pictures of the setting, and ask various questions about setting up in the church.

Instruments and Camera Shots

When we began to think about the types of shots we were going to use in the video, we first had to think about who would be most priviledged in the video. The video is a way of promoting the band, so longshots of the entire band must feature in the video. Close ups of the drums, lead singer and key instruments need to be shown to show the dexterity of the band and comply with traditional conventions of music videos.

Through research into music videos of our genre, we knew many ways in which singers and drummers could be presented in a music video, however we had not come across a cello before. Therefore we began to research into some ways that the cello is performed and depicted in music videos.

Here are a series of images from a band called 'Murder by Death'. They are a cello rock group, similar to the genre of our song choice. The images of the cello are often very close up with images of the strings. Longer shots are used as the pace of the music picks up, and the person who is playing the cello is seen moving quicker.

Close ups of the strings and a small part of the hand is one of my favourite shots, and something we will be looking to use in our video, particularly at the beginning of the song where the pace of the music is slow.

Longer shots and medium close ups can be used when the pace of the music increases, and the faster movements of the person playing the cello can be seen clearly.

 These are some images from music videos put together by the Piano Guys. The images above show longer shots and the types of angles that can be used when filming a cello. My favourite is the image on the left, shot from a slightly low angle, and I feel it gives a great emphasis on the importance of the cello.

These medium close up shots become more prevalent as the speed of the music picks up. I think that the image on the left we could incorporate into our own music video. The image in the center shows the person playing the cello rather than a medium close up of the cello strings or bow. There is a focus on the persons face and left hand in this shot.

The series of close ups of the cello are very interesting, and I particularly liked the one on the right that has a blurred hand and an in-focus cello. The image in the center is interesting because the close up is not of the bow, it is of the left hand nearer the top of the cello. This shot is not as common and I think it would be good to incorporate this into our video.

This shot is interesting because of the angle that the cello is shot from. I cannot see this working in our video because of the pace of the song but this does show the range of shots that can be used when filming a cello. 

Despite this shot not relating to the cello, I found this image of the drums in one of the Piano Guys' videos. when story boarding, we planned to include a shot just like this one in our own video.