Directors Commentry on the Music Video

note form directors commentary

Open scene establishes location- house.

Pan shot to show audience the characters/actors.

Cough symbolises somethings not quite right- Symbolic domains are identified by signifiers assumed by audience.

Grainy effect on screen due to poor quality of handycam camera. Could have used a better camera.

Over-the-shoulder zoom shot into zombie video game, subtle signifier of events to follow.

Drum and bass song-'Drop'- emphasises the transition from human and normality to a state of zombie and distopia. Also represents the transition into 'Act two'.

Aerial view of fight scene, takes an omniscient relationship.

Chest view shot, represents a sense of tension and urgency. Creates a relationship with the audience as it puts them right in the midst of the action.

Shot-reverse-shot of boy and adult, quick shots to enforce the pace of the text.

Slow zoom into fight scene increases the fury of attack.

A series of shot reverse shots follow of boy and zombie after another fight scene.

Lighting effect- A strobe light used to stimulate the audiences visceral pleasures as it may raise their heart rates. By having the flash of light it may induce feelings of hope as the cliche says 'there may be light at the end of the tunnel'. From having a glimmer of light in such a dark time could represent good overcoming evil, human overcoming zombie, survival.

A jump shot to the actors show them to be the protagonist opposed to the antagonist (the zombie) through the signifiers of their uniform influenced by american style shows such as; reno 911. The mise en scene consisted of such costume as aviators, "CZU-counter zombie unit" slogan (this being a reference to the show '24'- being counter terrorist unit.), guns, oversized moustaches and black trousers.

Slow motion rugby tackle inhibits any more action from zombie.

Low angle shot from POV of zombie looking up at police, reflects authorative power.

Sound effect of gunshot used to intensify action along with blood splatter effect taken from this site.

Dolly-in, zoom-out shot of boy actor at end creates a disorientated image and enforces the look of shock struck upon his face. Central point of focus on face, area around face becomes distorted and blurry.

Ariel shot of blood on snow and police walking through it, emphasises contrasts between purity and murder. Walk over the blood portrays heartlessness, doesn't regret what he just did.

Music video run through

Final Ancillary tasks

The black and white effect created around the actor and not the reflection was made by using the magnetic lasso tool and selecting the area surrounding the actor, double clicking to select the area made by the lasso tool. Then we selected the option black and white in the edit. This therefore distorts the reality of the image as its contrasted with colour and black and white. The purple colouring in the image was done by changing the hue of the image and therefore disrupts the sense of normality even further. The text was entered on top of the layer in non-busy areas of the piece.

I used Adobe photoshop CS4 for the editing of these pictures, I started off by cropping the picture to get the square shape as this is how albums are formatted. The contrast in light across the actors face is the most aesthetically pleasing part of the cover, so by emphasising this by changing the 'contrast' by going in to 'Image' and change the 'contrast'; this made the dark, darker and the light lighter. The contrast make the light more vibrant and bring the audiences attention to the lighter parts. Then there was the task of making the eye look 'zombiefied', The first task was to use a white paintbrush effect but with a softened edge brush as this blends better into the picture, but putting it on a low transparency so its' For this image we wanted to create a contrast between the front and back cover so therefore had the back to be primarily white with black area's within the composition. We changed the the colouring by using the lighting edit tool on Photoshop. To get the grainy edged look on the piece we made the contrast extremely high. Then we cropped the image into a square shape to create the mode of a CD . Text was then inserted ontop of the image to create the tracklisting and band name, using black font to contrast the background and emphasise its presence. The bar code along with the production logo was additionally added ontop of the composition by adding another layer onto the piece.

Additional Projects

We made this project in the summer between As and A2. Our school, Highdown, then showcased films produced in our year at a Film Festival, this short film we made won the 'Best Sixth Form Film' category. Click Here to watch the film.

Another Additional Project: this was made before we made the music video, it was a chance to practise editing and getting use to using the software. CLICK HERE to watch the video.

LINK TO THE FINAL MUSIC VIDEO

THIS IS OUR FINAL MUSIC VIDEO.

Production Company Logo

We decided to make a company logo to follow conventions of real media CD covers it follows suit from production institutions. From our prelim task in summer where we made a practice short film to ready our skills for production we came up with the company name 'Banana Suit Productions'. We placed white text upon a black background to increase the severity in which it stands out. Laying the text over and in between the image allows the text to be easily readable. Moreover, having the image outside of the black box could represent the power in which the production team has. It cannot be contained in a box. It breaks the conventions and drives forward. We then took a picture of one of our friends in their banana suit costume and use the clone stand tool to take the yellow from the rest of the suit and stamp it over the face to cover the hole. Then using the magnetic lasso tool selected the area around the existing body and then deleted the rest of the body out of the image. After this using the 'Cut out' effect in Photoshop created the plastic look it has. By cutting the rest of the body out but the arms makes it look as if the man has been consumed and trapped by the suit with no escape. In some ways it represents the way in which we want our production to work. Through passion you become completely consumed and overwhelmed by the production and you find yourself right in the middle of the piece.

We got inspiration from such artists as "Banksy", click links for inspirational photographs: 1,2 and 3