Back up plan

Me and Harley have been thinking about the fact that we have two days to get his whole thing done, and we are seriously struggling for time and loctions etc. So me and Harley have searched the school for back up locations if worse comes to worse. We found a small office looking room with a board which we could stick illuminati related posters. it looks like it could make an ok location, providing we can make it convincing enough so that it doesent look like it's in a school.

Major setbacks

our progress was crippled yesterday by god himself, who has decided the night before the day we film was the best time to make Harley ill. This left me with little to do yesterday, as there was no filming to do without Harley. He says he feels well enough to come into school today, and he is on the way to school right now so that we can get our filming underway in Jack's house, our main location. There is a lot of work to do in just two days, and I'm working for most of one of them. that means were going to be forced to film everything and edit it in just two days. Obviously I'm not blaming Haley for becoming ill, but this could be our downfall. as soon as Harley arrives i think we will be heading out to film straight away, the clock is ticking.

Progress

Even more changes to the story have now been made, this time even more dramatic ones. There is no longer a protagonist character, and the band will now take up the main lead as well as the performance shots. The agents focus is now on the band rather than a particular person e.g. jack. this is making things a lot easier, as well as possibly increasing our potential. We are retaining the file shot that Harley uploaded a still of onto the blog, and we are still following the agent who is keeping watch on the band. The files and projects that the Agent will be holding is still called project uprising, and the video is still going to be limited to indoor shots, including some over the shoulder shots of the agent on the computer. Today we filmed some of the inside shots, including our agent answering the phone, which will initiate the story of him watching over the bands activities. We also discussed tomorrows filming session, our editing needs and certain variables about the video such as the mise en scene of the computer monitor when he sits down, e.g. what should be on the screen when the agent sits down.

Mise en scene 2

I really support Harley's efforts on mise en scene and i think he's more or less hit the nail on the head. The pictures he has chosen are really good ones, but i think they should have some sort obvious flaw in the picture to show that they are conspiracies rather than just posters of remembrance e.g.

I think annotated pictures like this give much more effect and would clue our viewers in a lot better. With writing or obvious connotations of conspiracy. these are the kinds of things which would turn our mise on scene from poor to excellent. Obviously these would not look like actual posters, but rather home printed pictures. they could be accompanied by Illuminati related movie posters, e.g. posters for films such as Illuminati, angels and demons etc.

New storyboard is go

Me and Harley just visited Mr Smith who confirmed that the storyboard was dramatically improved and showed a lot more hope in creating a successful music video, with it's simpler shots and settings and it's more hopeful looking performance shots. Also he said that for an overnight project Harley was especially efficient with his work, which shown very promising potential. Following this Harley will soon upload a photo of the new storyboard to the blog, and that will in turn be followed by an animatic. i also intend to do a post on mise en scene, as this is one of the main problems with our plot based side of the video.

Total reboot

after deducting all of the information and feedback earlier today, Mr smith suggested, amongst other things, me and Harley should shoulder some of the more important stuff in the making of the video. the Video has been given a very low mark, due to lacking of shots and being drastically unclear. heeding Mr smiths advice me and Harley have began to put together what we think may turn the project around and show it in a new lite, however retaining the defining qualities of it's storyline.

Some of the main things were picking up on for our failure last time are lack of organisation (big time) as we were sometimes when filming saying for example "OK then we'll just film what we can here, get a variety of shots and then we'll pull something out of it afterwards", which is now clearly not good enough - our storyboard is there for a reason and we need to stick to it with total accuracy. Also, an animatic would be nice. Which brings me on to my next point: Some of us are taking to much responsibility; this is a team for a reason, and the tasks need to be shared out equally - taking as much responsibility as possible doesn't generate marks for yourself, it brings the entire group down because of lack of fulfilment. This isn't a dig at anyone, but we all need to stop making promises we cannot keep because it doesn't do us any favours, just makes us fall down in key areas.

Also, we need a decent amount of space and props, and we have to be certain that we are using the best available location for our filming before we go there to do it, as this has been the downfall of our band scene filming, and has therefore cost us a big chunk of marks. we now have a good idea of where we are filming this, however we have suffered because of poor organisation for our first draft. we all need to agree on an area which is sufficient and has the necessary qualities to fulfill the requirements of the scene we are shooting. Which leads me to the next point: Mise en scene needs to be immaculate, anything less isn't good enough. the scenes of the protagonist didn't have the right mise en scene, neither did the bedroom or the suburbs of braunstone. the best mise en scene in the video was probably the subway and the CCTV shot, as they both connote the right messages e.g. enclosed short spaces, cloudy and gloomy, being watched etc. the bedroom scene could have been massively successfull if our mise en scene was bang on, e.g. without any knowledge of what we were going for, viewers wouldn't have been able to tell that our protagonist was who he was and was looking for the truth, e.g. no projects or posters visible in the bedroom. This is one area i intend to focus on, to take the strain off of the group and because i think i have quite an eye for mise en scene and some good ideas which connote to the symbolism of our video.
We also need a better storyboard this time, as last time ours was to sketchy and slightly inaccurate. also, Mr smith warned us it was lacking in speed and shot variety, but we did not have time to change this, so we were filming on impulse rather than keeping to a decent set storyboard. Also, it would result in a bad animatic, if we had one. All of the things i have written about seem to be the main downfalls of this group, and we have already started to fix what we can by taking even amounts of responsibility, and me and Harley have began to take on the storyboard, and i intend to make a start on the animatic by the end of today hopefully.

Poster ideas

The following posters have effects which i think we should use, for the eerie effect they give off would potentially follow our theme and support our iconography:

This poster gives the band members more identity and makes them look like something more than us, like they are empowered with something. For our band, they are singing about the uprising of the Illuminati to control the world, and they clearly know something that the audience does not, meaning this empowered effect could fit our band really well. Also, the song "uprising" is sung from the perspective of a protester amongst some kind of rebellion. You can hear this from lines such as "they will not control us" e.g. "they" meaning the Illuminati, will not control "us", the rebellion, almost like Crystal lake are leading the rebellion against the Illuminati. This would also work with an empowering effect to show they are leaders amongst lesser people, such as levitation.

There isn't that much to say about this one, but i like the effect that is given by the deep blues gives. it gives a feel of mystery and uncleanness, rather than the black and white in the killers poster which suggests everything is either one thing or another and straight forward. I think the clouds in this poster would go particularly well with crystal lake because it suggests mystery, and in particularly the earth is shrouded by the cloud, which to me seems almost perfectly in sync with our bands iconography. even though we wouldn't be able to do it to such a great standard, i believe we could possibly create something similar to an acceptable degree.

For our poster, it is likely to have some sort of Illuminati mention on it, so below I've shown some of the symbolism i think would go best with the poster, as well as my opinions on it:

This is the biggest Illuminati symbol out there, and is easily the most well known, after films such as angels and demons featured it. This is a powerful piece of symbolism, and should at least reach out to our target audience, as is our goal.

This symbol is less popular, as it is actually the freemasons symbol, who are often suspected to be in joining with the illuminati by beleivers, which obviously offends them. even though we could use this on the poster just for the sake of bigger fans, i dont think we should because if the audience is unaware of the conspiricies at the level we have studied them then it will make very little sense to them.

Having taken into account all of the studying we have done and all of the symbolism we have been using, i think we are better to use the all seeing eye symbol, because of the people who are less aware of the conspiracy would not recognize the significance of the masons symbol. The all seeing eye is a symbol that clues in a lot more even on veiwers who have less of an understanding of the illuminati because of films such as angels and demons, the da vinci code, and other forms of media such as gaming etc. Also, the all seeing eye has another advantage: we are creating a music video designed for mass international veiwing. one of the main areas of veiwing the original music video for uprising is the USA (information sourced from the chart below, from youtube):

The darker areas of the graph are the places in the world where the most veiws are being made, clearly the USA. The all seeing eye, is pictured on the American dollar bill, which means it will still represent goverement to some of this audience. Therefore, the all seeing eye is the best symbol we could use.

Draft (in low quality unfortunately)

Note that any blank spaces will be filled with band shots, and any un-colour corrected scenes will be corrected for the final.

MORE prop problems

Okay, just to bring up to speed, the police officer is no more. We have tried and tried to get hold of some uniform form many different sources, and it's becoming clear that we are not going to be able to impersonate a police officer, so that idea is gone. However, we are still intent on a chase scene involving the protagnist bumping into someone, probably another agent.

Vlog no 1

Post production

Aidan has now brought his laptop into school with Sony Vegas on it. we have not started to edit the footage into a music video, but Aidan is fitting effects to all of the clips ready for when we come to edit it into shape. so far Vegas is proving to be well worth it, showing much stronger capabilities than Imovie, and the effects of the software are much more effective in scenes such as the CCTV shot and various others. hopefully the software will allow us to really create the right feel for the video e.g. contrast changes etc. also when using Imovie slowing down and speeding up effects can be very sensitive, and hopefully Vegas will prove better than this, if anything needs doing. One scene in particular which i favour with it's added effects is the CCTV scene in which the agent, Harley, appears behind our protagonist. The way in which this is done, is by adding an effect to the original clip towards the end of it where the CCTV shot starts to blur (an effect which is used often). the same effect is then used on the take of Harley stood behind jack, where it starts to blur to show that he is there, then it goes back to the effect into the original clip without Harley. Vegas made this a lot easier to do than Imovie with it's effects. also we had to edit and upload the Vlogs, one of which is now on the blog. Vegas made this easier and more efficient than it would have been to use Imovie. Once this is all edited and handed for our first draft, we will be going over it to look at what needs doing over and improving, and then we start storyboarding the new shots for our improved product.