Track: Crazy Cool
Artist: Flamboyant Belle
Genre: Indie/Electro/Pop
Links: Myspace
You Tube


The Band!!

The Lyrics...

I'm quite aware that smoking kills,
But this nicotine addiction,
Is helping me deal with any stress I'm feeling,
If I get live failure before I'm 30,
Then I've had a good time,
So I guess its worth it,

I don't need to pop no pills,
The music's where I get my thrills,
When I shake, I shake it like I should,
'Cause baby I rave good.

I ain't got no rules 'cause I'm crazy cool,
And I dance like I dance 'cause I got the tools,
Got no rules 'Cause I'm crazy cool,
And I dance like I dance 'Cause I got the tools.

I ain't got no rules 'cause I'm crazy cool,
And I dance like I dance 'cause I got the tools,
I'm a crazy fool,
And I do what I do 'cause I like it.

Take some time to breathe,
Pick it up, move your body 'til you're senseless,
When we move, we move relentless,
We do, we do.

I don't need to pop no pills,
The music's where I get my thrills,
When I shake, I shake it like I should,
'Cause baby I rave good.

I ain't got no rules 'cause I'm crazy cool,
And I dance like I dance 'cause I got the tools,
I'm a crazy fool,
And I do what I do 'cause I like it

This is a screen grab from the band's myspace! ... where they interact with friends and promote their music.. etc

Initial Ideas

Our initial idea was to base the whole video around a 50's theme, but we then thought a bit realistically and decided to introduce the theme into our modern world.
Handbags and Gladrags shows the effect we are hoping to create. The black and white background and the colour in the foreground is something that we wish to achieve in our video. We would like the girl and the boy in colour and the background in black and white. This will make the 50's theme stand out in our modern day.

We would like our video to start off with this logo:

and then the smarties in the logo turn in to real smarties in a big bowl, of which the girl in the video is eating. As she takes a smartie from the bowl the camera will follow her hand so that we see her face. The girl is in her living room smoking a cigarette in front of her disaproving mother. She is flicking through the tv trying to find something to watch bt is unsuccessful so she turns on the 50's radio

1950's inspiration...

The 50's look!

We are hoping to achieve this look within our 50's part of our video. The radio and the couple are the only part of our video that will be in the 50's theme. This is because we want to show the comparison between today at the 50's, also people's attitude towards life.

Hairspray...Our Inspiration!! =D

We used these images because we felt that they would fit in perfectly with our protagonists time. The diner would generally be somewhere where people of there age would hang out, this would have been an ideal setting for our video. But as this proved to be difficult to find in Cambridge without spending alot of money we decided to involve it in our blog. We have also made the plan to have punting involved in our video if possible without spending too much money, but as this is an initial idea we might not do it.
The car we thought would be a nice touch as the protagonists could travel in style which would emphasize the 50's theme.

Milburn...Another Inspiration

We like the way this video has the band performing and also has the whole mime act.
We thought the way that the band had juxtaposed the footage of the band and the mime, the narrative was being acted out whilst the band was playing which emphasized the meaning of the words within the song. When the speed of the song increases the cinematography and the actual movement on camera also increases. As the narrative is in black and white the band is bathed in light tones of colour which provides a contrast and helps the audience distinguish between the narrative and the band.
Certain specific objects in the narrative are particularly highlighted by hints of colour which could prove to help us in our video when trying to show the audience important and relevant objects or people.

Top of the pops December 1978 (3)

The video is really typical of the 1950's and the energy, charisma and the characters have all the aspects that our two protagonists should posses. This is an influence which will also be introduced in our music video to provide intertextuality. We tried to incorporate Mise en Scene such as the style of clothes and location which would have provided the 1950's look we were trying to convey to the audience.

Happy Days Season Two

I thought this video really shows the carefree life of teenagers in the 1950's, it also shows what sort of clothes were worn during that time and what mischief they got up to. This is something that we will incorperate within our music video.

Pleasantville trailer

This is just one film that uses the black and white contrasting with colour really well, which is also another inspiration.

The use of colour in this movie really emphasizes the contrast between the two colours. This is what we hope to achieve with our music video in order to point out the difference between the two protagonists and the other insignificant people. This is to show the audience how much better it is to have the song in your lives and to have a little fun instead of being miserable and ordinary like everyone else.

Another example is shown below in handbags and gladrags by stereophonics:

Pleasantville

pleasantville is a film made in 1998 which incorporataes black and white footage with colour.
Many of the colours were used to highlight certain areas or objects that were important.

We chose this video to evaluate because it has many of the qualities we would like our video to have.


camera- we like the way the camera is always steady, so is obviously on a tripod for the majority, if not all the video. they have used a variety of different shots (long shots, close ups and also medium shots), for example when there is just one of the singers its close up and when its all the band they are pretty much always long shots.

editing- they have lots of different clips that are shot and that go to the beat of the music. the haven't done many transitions apart from the beginning where they used fading effects. we like the way the editing is used to emphasize the beat in the rap part of the song, so it makes it feel more upbeat compared to the slow editing in the slower part. they also used green screen for the car which worked well because even though the green card they used wasn't big enough it wasn't easily seen as the clips weren't very long and the shots were always changing angles.

setting- they used lots of different settings which made the video interesting. they used a golf course (we think), what looked like a subway with the graffiti, they also used a staged area for the performing part and the car garage for which they used the green screen. the subway went well with the change of music, when they were rapping because it had lots of graffiti which set the scene for the particular part of the song. the video was very interesting and didn't get boring because of the different settings... this is something we'd like to achieve in our video.

performance- the group all performed really well.. they all looked like they knew what they doing and when they were dancing they were in time with each other which showed they had spent a lot of time perfecting their moves. a couple of them looked a little nervous but they still pulled it off well... it was clear they had all learnt the words well because their lip syncing was all in time. it being quite a cheesy song it must have been hard not to laugh while performing so we think they did really well to create a serious video like they did. the protagonist performed really well and didn't mind acting like a typical boy band member.

genre conventions- the genre used is a love song by a boy band which shows all the typical characteristics of a boy band and their members. they all had matching outfits which showed them to be good boys and that they would be good enough to take home to the parents of the girl but then they also show they have a rebellious and wild side by using the gangster look (graffiti and hoodies). to make the video match this genre they used dance routines and the facial expressions while looking 'deep' in to the camera to make the girl fall for them.

animatic group 43

this is our animatic that we would like our final music video to look like roughly.!!!
feedback on animatic
Our initial idea was to introduce the band through the T.V and the music through the radio but this proved to be difficult as it wouldn't introduce them well to the audience. So therefore we just used the television in order to present the band. We found incorporating the band within the current footage that we were initially going to use was a difficult effect to achieve. Introducing the band in the music video is the most important goal so the narrative shouldn't dominate the video. We cut the 25 second introduction to a more snappier one to keep the audience interested as 25 seconds is too long. Now clips from our animatic are in time with the music we have also used clips with fades in order to intergrate the footage.
†

Filming...!
On the 4th of October we filmed the first part of the footage which consisted of filming smarties in a bowl that will work in conjunction with the first sequence which is the title of Flamboyant Bella. We also filmed the main character in our narrative watching TV and flicking the channels. We found that our filming was a bit shaky and most of our footage looked a bit dull in terms of contrast.

This is our Rough Cut!!!...

Filming the band!!

We (Faye and Lois) went to Hitchin to film the band on their practise session (Thankyouu guys!)
it started of a bit of a nightmare as we could only film the band on a monday night therefore we had to arrange a week that we were both free and the weeks went past fast!!! therefore we were a bit behind from here on.
we tried to make the most of the space and lighting that was avaliable as it was a member of the band's house...we felt rude asking to change too much!! =| the room was very little therefore we were filming from the door way so we couldnt do many different angles and the lighting was pretty dull.
Flamboyant Bella were really easy to work with and were willing to perform however many times we needed, however we were rushed for time as we needed to get the train home and the band had meetings the same night.

even though the footage was a bit rough!!.... we made good use of it and there were some really nice shots that made the video look really good!

Rough cut feedback

*no lip syncing
*no real variation in shots
*shots too long
*start is too slow
*Good use of camera angles
*Some shots too long
*Good idea could be developed
*Editing is confusing
*Random black and white shot
*Unclear Narrative
*Performance good
*Introduction sets the scene in an interesting way
*Needs to be more upbeat
*No relation to music
*Clothes of girl changing good


People in our class gave comments and suggestions about our music video.
Many people mentioned that we didn't involve lip syncing which is true as this is the introduction and start of the narrative. We are later going to involve the band playing and the rest of the narrative.the shots in the rough cut are much slower than we intended, making the video lose its fast pace feel, in the real video the shots will be made a lot faster to ensure the video is suited to its genre. We also intend on shortening the footage so it will be more pacey and interesting to watch.

final version-crazy cool

The Final Piece Feedback =D

The feedback we got was generally really good!....
*Nice use of angles and tracking shots.
*Good variety.
*Parallel editing was effective.
*Nice use of black and white on performance side.
*Good performance of the band-good idea to use the actual band-suited the genre.
*Good ending.
*Liked the beginning-clever idea (creative with the smarties).
*Band performing was the best bit.

We also got some criticism...
*The setting could have been decorated (We as a group appreciate this comment but it was a band members house and their own practising space).
*Acting was a little awkward.
*The narative was a little random.
*Slow beginning.
*Too much footage of the band.

We have noted all these comments...but obviously its too late to change it now .. = .. thankyouu anyway!! =D
if we could go back and do it again we would arrange for the practise room to be tidied and made to look more professional. Also we would have thought seriously and practically about the beginning as we had some unrealistic ideas which in the end proved to be a struggle to carry out! Another thing we would have done is filmed more senarios in town with the two protagonists so we would have more footage to place in the video.

This is a screen grab of our timeline and we have shown some of the images that we think are the nicest! .. =D

Searching for lyrics

Try this cool site for finding lyrics:
LYRICS007

Steve

GROUP S2-43 MUSIC VIDEO TIMETABLE

3-5 Sept THIS WEEK Get into groups & listen to the CD tracks.
10-14 Sept WEEK 2 Plan pitch & start storyboards.
17-21 Sept WEEK 3 Storyboards & animatic.
24-28 Sept WEEK 4 View animatic / planning & shooting.
1-5 Oct WEEK 5 Shooting.
8-12 Oct WEEK 6 (Shooting) editing & roughcut.
15-19 Oct WEEK 7 Feedback week (directors visit & view roughcuts).
22-26 Oct Half term Cameras available for any re-shoots.
29-2 Nov WEEK 8 Final editing & DEADLINE (Evening editing slots).
WRITING 1 due.
5-9 Nov WEEK 9 Feedback (for writing) & Picture House viewing.
12-16 Nov WEEK 10 WRITING 2 due / 2733 finished.

Planning 40 - Blog / Storyboard / Animatic / Locations / Props / Production design / Organisation

Construction 60 - Filming & Editing

Production Report (3000 words) 40 - Goodwin / Analysis / Examples / Production detail / Feedback & Reflection

Group S2 CD Tracks:

01 Camera Obscura - Suspended From Class
02 Candie Payne - I Wish I Could Have Loved You More
03 Cherry Ghost - Mathematics
04 Flamboyant Bella - Crazy Cool
05 Howling Bells - The Wild
06 Jaymay - Gray Or Blue
07 Johny Panic - I Live For
08 MIA - Bird Flu
09 Optimus Rhyme - Just Forget it
10 Ra Ra Riot - Dying Is fine
11 Self Service - KnockUOut
12 Sia - Sunday
13 Ting Tings - That's not My name
14 The Whip - Frustration

MUSIC VIDEO PROJECT 2007/8

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