Second Day of Filming

Today we filmed for the second time, making more progress with our production. Today we chose a different location from our previous shoot, Red Rocks. The plan today was to shoot some of our lip Singing shots. Despite the terrible start to the day with torrential rain the setting was actually fantastic, the tide was in giving an extra feature to our filming and the sun was shining. However it was extreemely windy as you can see from the video. This did cause us a few problems as we became cold very quickly and had to take a car break to heat back up. Moreover as we were in a public place we had a few problems with pedestrains who despite seeing us with a camera and tripod didn't realise we were shooting. This wasnt a major problem as we could easily reshoot shots. There was no need for us to take any lightin equipment as as you can see the natural light was perfect. All in all it was a good day.

Costume- Luke

Our genre wis Pop, a very mainstream idea, gaining its name as it refers to “popular” music. Typically the Pop genre uses branded lavish clothing and stereotypically displays males, well dressed in branded styled clothing and females in short tight clothing’s displaying their features, in many ways pop music sexualizes its music videos. As it is visible from the image, Luke adheres to this stereotype as he is wearing a jacket from Top Shop and a T-Shirt from River Island, as well as jeans from Next, all mainstream clothing brands. We chose to dress Luke like this as our typical female audience would wear the female equivalent of Luke's costume therefore creating a connection with our fans. Furthermore we wanted to portray Luke as norma, so he is relatable to our audience, enhancing the availability of the media theory the "two step flow." This makes Luke more relatable to our audience, in turn making our narrative and the decoding of our narrative more relatable as well.

Equipment Used during filming

We started filming last Tuesday and have already used a variety of equipment: Canon Camera DSLR, Dolly, Tripod and for the first time a Lighting Rig.

The camera we used was actually mine as it has a larger lenses with a clearer zoom and a greater resolution from the ones offered in school. As you can see from the picture it is primarily a DSLR used for taking high definition photographs. However it does have the recording function which we used. There are many different features on the camera such as reducing the shutter speed which we may use when filming the car scenes to increase the light exposed within the shots, therefore creating a streak of light from the car rear lights. We do have one concern, the cameras zoom function is actually incorporated within he lens therefore automatic zoom is not an option therefore the zoom may jump an not be as smooth.

(Excuse the caption)

We began to use a Dolly but mainly to increase the height and manoeuvrability of the tripod. They are very expensive. Which is why we had to borrow one from the school, the idea of the dolly is to accommodate all DV & HDV cameras, tripod and rigs. The dolly is skilfully made and the set up is quick and easy. Our swift dolly track can also work with other dolly systems because the outer diameter of this track is the same as of the standard. The dolly provided dynamic shots and aided in tracking shots as we were able to move the camera mounted on the tripod. This helped as it made our filming diverse as we don't have to use still, planted shots or match on action.


The tripod we used was very basic, it did the job of stabilising the camera. The manoeuvrability of it was increased because of the dolly however it was very fluid in its movements when static and aided our project very well.


We introduced a new piece of equipment that we have never used before. The lighting rig... as you can see on the left we used an artificial lighting rig. This has dramatically enhanced our project! Last year we had problems keeping the same light levels throughout the horror movie however with this rig we have a chance to keep the levels almost similar. As we were filming in the dark the lights offered the camera some exposure, allowing us to see Luke's face. We did have some small problems where you could see the lights obviously on the reflections of windows and the car however this isn't a major problem. Once we realised this problem we angled them so the reflection wasn't as obvious. Moreover we plan to use both lights when doing the lip syncing, one in the background to create a silhouette effect and one in the foreground to display the mouth visibly.

Why did we pick Shine by Years and Years for our Music Video?

Shine premièred on May 11, 2015. Olly Alexander, the vocalist of the band, explained that the song uses light as a metaphor to pertain to the "overwhelming and unstable feeling of falling in love". We were intrigued by the idea of using super natural elements and the idea of nature as the Wirral is a picturesque area with lots of different locations of natural beauty and we feel like we could use them to enhance the lyrical value of the music video. Also, we thought that we could portray the instability of love, in a different manner, from the perspective of a broken hearted boyfriend. It is a symbolic song as it has strong connotations and reference to light. Moreover as Years and Years are a new band we presumed that a music video has never been recreated for them unlike older more popular bands therefore we can make it our own and create a completely unique production.

Shot Types

Mid Panning shot - Luke walks out the house
Close up crab shot - Luke's feet
Mid shot high angle - Luke getting in the car
Long shot - Luke driving off




Close-up - Luke driving
Tracking shot - car

Mid Shot - Luke singing (red rocks)
Close up - Rocks
Long Shot - Random Rock Scenes

Medium shot - Luke driving car
Tracking shot - street
Tracking shot - street
Side-view medium shot - driver


Close-up - parked car; character in background
Medium shot - Luke screaming
Low-angle wide/long shot - skyline
Long shot - Luke with car and candles
Close-up - Luke crying
Long shot - Luke sitting on beach
Long shot - Luke with girl
Close-up - lantern
Medium shot - girl kisses Luke
Long shot - girl with sparkler
Wide angle long shot - living room
Medium shot - Luke enters
Back on wide angle - living room (shot reverse shot)
Medium shot - hallway
Close-up - Luke crying

Story Board

This is our groups first original story board, we pulled all of our individual ideas together to create one master copy. Of course it may not be plausible to do everything that is on the storyboard, but we will give it our best try and try to stick to it as much as possible. As you can see the story entails a broken hearted boyfriend leaving his girlfriends house after she has broken up with him, he then gets into his car and drives off angrily, screaming in heartbreak and singin emotionally in certain sections.

We do plan to add sections into the music video which you will be able to see on our Final Story Board. We intend to include silhouettes singing Infront of a big back light as well as sections of actual couples from all different demographics being cute, walking togeather and maybe kissing. This will allow us to have a unique edge to our video so it doesn't follow the same routine as many monotonous conglomerate productions.

First Day of Filming

Today was our first day of filming and it got off to a promising start. Luke, our hair and make up specialist, got ben looking prim and ready for the first shots using all kinds of hair gels and waxes. We new the light faded at 16:32 today therfore we had to be ready to begin at this stage. We thought it would be sensible to practice a few of our takes in the light before we resorted to using the artificial lights and this proved advantageous to us as when the time came Luke performed brilliantly allowing us to finish our shots within and hour and a half. There were some technical difficulties such as lightbulbs going out, the memory card being full and of course a few acting errors but todays filming went really well.

Location Scouting

Conventions of a DigiPak

A DigiPak is a patented style of CD or DVD case or packaging, registered by the media conglomerates AGI Media and MeadWestvaco. The purpose of a Digipak is to entice a wider audience as it is a special or limited addition item produced by an artist or group. Even though a high majority of the population download their music online, Digipaks tend to be popular as it is it boasts exclusivity for consumers, as they can actually feel that they have a special production of memorabilia. The concept of each Digipak is also unique and will only be available for the consumers, rather than those who download music online only receiving the music and maybe the album art.

    Digipaks nowadays  are creative which is popular for certain genres of audiences. Since Digipaks mostly have a type of conceptual art, it is more enticing and attractive to all types of audiences.  They typically have a gate fold seem which causes them to fold out like a book would. Generally the outer packaging is made of plastic and acrylic which offers some protection of the CD however they are brittle and easily shattered under minimal pressure. The front and back panels are the main ‘promoters’ of the CD and are very much used to draw in the customers. The inside of the DigiPak is used more for information and extra information to do with the artist/song/album. The theme of the inside packaging normally is more subtle compared to the outside packaging however it still adheres to the theme of the song and its lyrics.


Typically the front of the DigiPaks tend to have a large eye-catching picture on it which entices the consumer. The picture, as you can see to your right, illustrated on the front panels tend to have some relation to the songs or artist. To your right is Rhianna's "Loud" album, there has obviously been some editing on the image as the lips have been reddened to match her cherry red hair.It also captures her face in a close up where she looks rather seductive therfore trying to adhere and encapsulate a male audience as well as the obvious female audience.

First Day of Filming! (FOG OFF)

Well today we tried to film our first peace of footage for our music video today however there was a big problem! We actually couldn't see anything! We arrived at Meols/ Hoylake Promenade all ready to film, with our lighting, camera and lip singers but there was no chance that our footage would have been usable and it would have damaged the camera with the amount of water vapour within the fog. We are meant to be using smoke in our video but not that much!!!