Filming...

And so we began filming at 10am. The weather was perfectly sunny and so the lighting was exactly the way we wanted it, making the surrounding environment look alive and happy. We all met in the carpark and luckily bought everything with us that we required in order to make the day run smoothly. This included the preproduction pack. 

The shot list proved very useful, especially when it came to the end of the day and we were able to check off each shot again ensure that we hadn't forgotten to do any and adding on any extra shots that we managed to capture. Due to Lauren and I being in the music video, we had to leave some of the filming to Desiree. This meant that there was opportunity for it not to work out right, due to this not being her role in the production team. However it was good to hear and get her point of view on things and it ended up working well. We filmed the squirrels part first, ensuring that we filmed more than we needed and then followed the same structure for each of the other animals and then the group shots.

There were a few shots that had to be filmed severals times including the lighting of the matches due to it not being lit properly or at all, this was difficult but with many attempts, we finally managed to get one in which it worked.

We finished filming at around 4 o'clock and so packed up and went home.

Logistics- instruments and more

As well as the location and costumes we had to make sure that we had all the other props that we would need when it came to filming. Instruments were vital for making the music video and so we had to search for 3 guitars, a keyboard and a drum that we could use. This was a task that was easily accomplished as it turned out that we had these instruments within our filming team. Now we just had to ensure that we brought them all with us on the day. For the drum we settled on using a box, as this was something we had seen done in several music videos and would be easier to set up in the woods than a full equipped drum set.

We then told our actors (including Lauren and myself) to wear jeans and a plain white, round neck top with trainers for filming. We chose this outfit as we felt it was quite unisex and therefore people wouldn't necessarily be able to tell our gender... making us able to fit into the role of the band members.

Casting

At the beginning we thought that casting was vital and so our preference for actors were: average height, male, and medium built. However this proved hard to achieve because although we knew people who would match the wanted profile, they were not free on the day to take part. From here we had to start thinking more realistically. I had a couple of friends who already said they would help and so we just had to look for a couple more guys. In the end we found Ollie who was a great help in playing the owl and then Lauren and I casted ourselves as the bear and the fox. By being in the music video ourselves would enable us to get extra ideas for filming.

Shotlisting

Shotlisting is one of the most improtant parts of the preproduction stages as it states exactly which shots are needed to be captured and any other information e.g. lighting that is to be sorted out with it.

This makes it easier to remember what to film on the day, by just following it. On these sheets we wrote down the specific shot types that we needed e.g. close ups, extreme close ups and midshots. We decided to shoot mainly closeups as these were most frequent in the music videos that we had viewed during the research stages and are also commonly found in our genre of music. This is because they allow more emotion (facial) and precision (instrumental) to be seen.

 

 

 

Storyboarding

We decided to start creating our preproduction pack by making a storyboard and a treatment to match.

 

The treatment: the band members would travel in multiple way to reach the spot in the woods, where they would all join together and play as a band. This would represent them as belonging together, like friends and family. The fox would walk, the squirrels would also walk together, the bear would run and the owl would cycle. The main part of the action in the music video is when they are building the campfire at the end of the day.

 

The storyboard: We drew out in chronological order everything that would happen in the sequence and what type of shot we wanted to create this. We also included mise-en-scene, including the masks, and any other titles that we wanted to add in during post production.



 

 

 

 

Costumes

Once we had agreed upon the idea for our music video and had thoughts on location, we decided to look at costumes. We had decided in the planning stages that we wanted the actors playing the members of the band to be anonymous and so figured that by placing animal masks on them we would be able to do this. Due to the band being named Eliza and the Bear, we had thoughts of putting all the band members in bear masks. However by doing this we wouldn't be making them each an individual of the band but all the same. So from here we began researching other animals that would be found in a wooded area.

We chose:

• Squirrel
• Bear
• Fox
• Owl

We decided upon for animals as we decided that the two guitar players would be squirrels together. Now we just had to find the masks.
After doing some research online we found a website that was able to supply us with all the masks that we needed for a cheap price.

Explored concepts and visualisations

From the lyrics of the song we were able to draw upon the idea of carvings being made and staying there permanently and the idea that maybe friends and family were similar as in they can be there forever. This strengthened our visualisations of filming in a wood and so began looking for locations that were available.

 

Maidenhead- The thicket

This would be a perfect place to shoot as it is open to the public and has alot of wooded space as well as open land. It was also in the perfect location which meant that we could all easily access it on the day that we chose, due to being in our town.

Lyric Analysis

Eliza and the Bear- Friends

 

Cause I've got friends, I've got family here

They say these kids are diseased,
But we've got love to share
Cause God knows where we've been,
But not where we're going
And when the water is too deep to swim,
We still swim

Cause I've got friends, I've got family here (x2)

I will sleep down on the beaches,
And you will swim from shore to open shore

Cause I've got friends, I've got family here (x2)

Cut me down to firewood and carve our names (x2)

Cause I've got friends, I've got family here

 

When first looking at the lyrics we noticed that they were repetitive, and are initial thoughts were to create a story with them focusing on friendship. We then picked out the key words (which are highlighted) and sorted them into relevant groups. By looking at the words we were able to work out that we wanted to film our music video in the woods due to there being nature and wood involved in the lyrics of the song. As well as this we decided that we wanted to shoot it on a summers day due to being happy.

 



Promotion and Marketing

Promotion in the music industry is extremely important with record companies ensure that they advertise the band/artist and their products as much as possible and as best they can. This is to ensure profit through sales. Ways in which this can be done are magazine articles, through the use of social media, preview clips online, merchandise, bill boards and other such mediums.

About the band

Eliza and the Bear are an Indie Rock band from London formed in 2011. They have recently been signed to the worldwide recording company 'Universal Music Group'. There are 5 male members in the band. They have released several songs including 'Upon the North', 'Brothers Boat' and 'Friends'. Friends is commonly used in television adverts.

The bands record company

Eliza and the Bear are officially signed to Universal Music Group in London. The recording company are American and is the largest corporation of its kind worldwide. Alejandro Fernandez, Bastille, Dr. Dre, Eminem, Enrique Iglesias, Fall Out Boy, Gary Barlow are also signed by this company.