Final edit:
Monday, 13 May 2013
Sunday, 12 May 2013
Website
Our website was designed using Wix. Wix was extremely useful in making our website quite easily as we were worried about making a rather amateur website. Wix allowed us to add in background information about More Than Conquerors, as well as add band shots, their previous songs and albums, as well as link the song and video we were working on. We are really pleased with our finished outcome of the website. We didn't feel the need to link the website to our music video as we made a general website for More Than Conquerors, and not just one focused on the music video.
Here is the link to the website: http://sunnywithachanceofri.wix.com/hearthandhome
Here is the link to the website: http://sunnywithachanceofri.wix.com/hearthandhome
-Ceára
Digipack
After researching More Than Conqueror's artwork, and the artwork of similar artists we finally set out to design our digipack. The first cover we designed was the front cover. This was inspired by More Than Conqueror's artwork, the narrative and also the symbolic meaning of our music video and love.
For the front cover the background consists of the lyrics of Hearth and Home repeated over and over again, almost to symbolise the insanity of our main character as he is lost his mind, and thus keeps repeating the lyrics, just as in the video there are flashbacks therefore demonstrating how his mind is looping the death of his wife for him. The knives are there as it is a knife which is used to kill Niamh in the video. The eye at the top is a link to the video and to the idea of an omnipresence which will be the final judge of our main character, as well as being the symbol for our audience's judgement. The skeleton symbolises the afterlife and is a link to the "heaven" scenes in our video.
The next cover we created was the back cover. We wanted this cover to be just as dark, and a little more eerie than the front cover, so we took inspiration from Tim Burton's "Nightmare Before Christmas" and designed this:
This Cover has links to our running scene in our music video as our main character is hiding in a forest, and we shot it at night time, thus explaining why the moon is out, although the moon is also a symbol for the torches of Danny's pursuers. At the bottom of the digipack we simply wrote the name of our production company, which is "Sunny with a chance of riot".
The next covers we created would be the inside covers. After a while of trying to design these we finally came up with the idea of having the Wife and Husband's hands.
The reason behind these photos were in a typical relationship it is common for a couple to hold hands as a symbol for their love. Therefore we felt this links very effectively to our music video. The hands however are not intertwined but instead facing away from each other. The wife's hand which is to the left, is in a distorted position which links to her murder. Around her hand we wrote the marriage vows: "In sickness and in health" which is symbolic of how a marriage must be kept in tact through the ups and downs, although the irony is this marriage was destroyed through the husband's mental illness, leading to him murdering his wife.
The husband's hand isn't in a distorted position like the wife's, but is however in the position in which he is looking at it, thinking "what have I done?". We believed by having the hand in this position is is showing the husband's remorse for the act he has committed. However, through the words, "Til death do us part" we felt that we conveyed what he is done is finale, and he cannot take it back, thus he is destined to face the consequences of his actions. The use of wedding rings on both hands links to the video, as well as the marriage vows. We felt that through these symbols we were able to keep all the images in conjunction with each other, thus creating fluidity.
After designing these two covers we set out on completing our last two covers. The next one we created was the middle cover in which the C.D would be placed on top of. This is how we designed it:
We designed the cover to look like smashed glass. We did this as we felt that as soon as the husband murdered his wife his entire life smashed and cracked into a tiny million shards of glass, as well as his identity. He was once a loving husband who is now on the run for the murder of his wife. We also believe that is symbolises his cracked mentality and how he is not in a sane mind frame, but with no refuge to go it only cracks further therefore leading him to believe his only way to be safe and healed is through killing himself.
The last cover we designed was made up from photos and turned into a collage. This cover links the music video, the symbols and also our progress of filming.
This was designed through a use of photos we took from filming our band performance. However we used photoshop to distort the images and make them blurry and greyscale. It was through these effects we were able to convey the idea of our main character not being able to see things clearly and having the colour metaphorically drained from his life as the one he loved has been murdered by him, thus falling into a state of depression and self-hate all angered by his guilt.
Our entire digipack is done in black and white, with the only exceptions being the hands, which we did however drain colour from. This was to symbolise the dark and eerie effect of the video, as well as the depression and guilt our main character is consumed with.
The next cover we created was the back cover. We wanted this cover to be just as dark, and a little more eerie than the front cover, so we took inspiration from Tim Burton's "Nightmare Before Christmas" and designed this:
This Cover has links to our running scene in our music video as our main character is hiding in a forest, and we shot it at night time, thus explaining why the moon is out, although the moon is also a symbol for the torches of Danny's pursuers. At the bottom of the digipack we simply wrote the name of our production company, which is "Sunny with a chance of riot".
The next covers we created would be the inside covers. After a while of trying to design these we finally came up with the idea of having the Wife and Husband's hands.
The reason behind these photos were in a typical relationship it is common for a couple to hold hands as a symbol for their love. Therefore we felt this links very effectively to our music video. The hands however are not intertwined but instead facing away from each other. The wife's hand which is to the left, is in a distorted position which links to her murder. Around her hand we wrote the marriage vows: "In sickness and in health" which is symbolic of how a marriage must be kept in tact through the ups and downs, although the irony is this marriage was destroyed through the husband's mental illness, leading to him murdering his wife.
The husband's hand isn't in a distorted position like the wife's, but is however in the position in which he is looking at it, thinking "what have I done?". We believed by having the hand in this position is is showing the husband's remorse for the act he has committed. However, through the words, "Til death do us part" we felt that we conveyed what he is done is finale, and he cannot take it back, thus he is destined to face the consequences of his actions. The use of wedding rings on both hands links to the video, as well as the marriage vows. We felt that through these symbols we were able to keep all the images in conjunction with each other, thus creating fluidity.After designing these two covers we set out on completing our last two covers. The next one we created was the middle cover in which the C.D would be placed on top of. This is how we designed it:
We designed the cover to look like smashed glass. We did this as we felt that as soon as the husband murdered his wife his entire life smashed and cracked into a tiny million shards of glass, as well as his identity. He was once a loving husband who is now on the run for the murder of his wife. We also believe that is symbolises his cracked mentality and how he is not in a sane mind frame, but with no refuge to go it only cracks further therefore leading him to believe his only way to be safe and healed is through killing himself.
The last cover we designed was made up from photos and turned into a collage. This cover links the music video, the symbols and also our progress of filming.
This was designed through a use of photos we took from filming our band performance. However we used photoshop to distort the images and make them blurry and greyscale. It was through these effects we were able to convey the idea of our main character not being able to see things clearly and having the colour metaphorically drained from his life as the one he loved has been murdered by him, thus falling into a state of depression and self-hate all angered by his guilt.
Our entire digipack is done in black and white, with the only exceptions being the hands, which we did however drain colour from. This was to symbolise the dark and eerie effect of the video, as well as the depression and guilt our main character is consumed with.
-Ceára
Wednesday, 24 April 2013
Filming narrative
Despite the story being told backwards and dealing with problems we adapted to and solved we filmed chronologically with our murder scene being filmed first, then the running scene and fire with the climactic suicide of our husband character.
Before we filmed we wrote out what we needed done, what time was required and when best to do it. Due to our tight schedule we pushed to film the majority of our narrative in the one night. Filming commenced around 8pm but soon we encountered a prop problem of finding a suitable liquid to serve as blood. Ultimately we went with red food colouring as our 'blood' and it worked out well enough.
In regards to the falling over shot we decided to change the shot from something like this:
1:12-1:16
to more of a slower collapse where our character drops to their knees then drops in front of our husband character.
At around 9 o'clock at night we headed out to Black's Path to film the scenes in which our protagonist is on the run. We started out with the fire scene as we felt that it made more sense to start with our most difficult scenes as they would consume the most amount of time. It took us a while to start the fire and find logs for Danny to sit on, but after arranging our set and setting up the camera to get the perfect image, we started the fire, but all the while making sure we kept it under control, as well as keeping Danny at a safe distant from the fire so that he wouldn't get burnt.
After extinguishing the fire, we wanted to film the torches scenes straight away as the police stumble across the fire just shortly as it was extinguished. To film this two members of our group climbed up a hill to reach a point just overlooking the spot in which our protagonist was resting. Here we filmed several takes of the lights discovering the spot so that we got the right angle, lighting and effects. After this lighting scene we moved onto the scene where the torches are almost on our main character. We had to film this several times to make sure we knew the exact moment the torches would land on our character, as well as how far he would run before getting caught. All in all, filming the torch scenes went very well and we are extremely pleased with the footage we attained.
After the torch scenes we set out immediately to film the running scenes. These scenes took the longest to film, and were also the most difficult. Due to filming in the dark we had problems with lighting, so we decided to use the torches as lighting. The running scenes were set in different locations so we had to figure out where would be the best position to film so that we could create a fluid panning shot for both clips without the scenes jumping.
After all the running/chase scenes were filmed we only had the suicide scene to film for that night, and after a solid 5 hours of filming, we were all extremely tired, yet dedicated to filming this scene perfectly. After a slight hike up a rather steep hill we finally found a spot that Danny could fall from in which it looked like he was jumping, when in reality he was falling onto the slope of the hill. Before we filmed it we had to clear out the area Danny would fall onto so that he wasn't injured. Then we walked back up the hill and filmed Danny running to that spot from a wide shot, mid shot, and different angles so that we were sure we found the perfect clip. Due to it being very dark we once more had to use the torches for light, but we worked them in with the narrative by making the conscious decision of having Danny get caught.
Unfortunately we couldn't film the Heaven scenes in the same day and due to the typical Irish weather being rain, it was a short while until we could film on a sunny day. When we finally filmed the Heaven scene it went smoother than we imagined and didn't take very long. We shot the scenes from a wide variety of angles and used many different shots using handheld and steady cam.
Before we filmed we wrote out what we needed done, what time was required and when best to do it. Due to our tight schedule we pushed to film the majority of our narrative in the one night. Filming commenced around 8pm but soon we encountered a prop problem of finding a suitable liquid to serve as blood. Ultimately we went with red food colouring as our 'blood' and it worked out well enough.
In regards to the falling over shot we decided to change the shot from something like this:
1:12-1:16
to more of a slower collapse where our character drops to their knees then drops in front of our husband character.
- Danny
After extinguishing the fire, we wanted to film the torches scenes straight away as the police stumble across the fire just shortly as it was extinguished. To film this two members of our group climbed up a hill to reach a point just overlooking the spot in which our protagonist was resting. Here we filmed several takes of the lights discovering the spot so that we got the right angle, lighting and effects. After this lighting scene we moved onto the scene where the torches are almost on our main character. We had to film this several times to make sure we knew the exact moment the torches would land on our character, as well as how far he would run before getting caught. All in all, filming the torch scenes went very well and we are extremely pleased with the footage we attained.
After the torch scenes we set out immediately to film the running scenes. These scenes took the longest to film, and were also the most difficult. Due to filming in the dark we had problems with lighting, so we decided to use the torches as lighting. The running scenes were set in different locations so we had to figure out where would be the best position to film so that we could create a fluid panning shot for both clips without the scenes jumping.
After all the running/chase scenes were filmed we only had the suicide scene to film for that night, and after a solid 5 hours of filming, we were all extremely tired, yet dedicated to filming this scene perfectly. After a slight hike up a rather steep hill we finally found a spot that Danny could fall from in which it looked like he was jumping, when in reality he was falling onto the slope of the hill. Before we filmed it we had to clear out the area Danny would fall onto so that he wasn't injured. Then we walked back up the hill and filmed Danny running to that spot from a wide shot, mid shot, and different angles so that we were sure we found the perfect clip. Due to it being very dark we once more had to use the torches for light, but we worked them in with the narrative by making the conscious decision of having Danny get caught.
Unfortunately we couldn't film the Heaven scenes in the same day and due to the typical Irish weather being rain, it was a short while until we could film on a sunny day. When we finally filmed the Heaven scene it went smoother than we imagined and didn't take very long. We shot the scenes from a wide variety of angles and used many different shots using handheld and steady cam.
-Ceára
Tuesday, 23 April 2013
Inspiration for running shots
One of the main inspirations for our sprinting/chase is the music video for 'my hero' by Foo Fighters. The handheld following of the main character is somewhat what we want to achieve with our chase but from the point of view of our pursuers.
-Danny
-Danny
Saturday, 23 March 2013
Filming Performance
As we had planned, we met up with More Than Conqueror's at Conway Mill to film their performance for the video.
As we had previously arranged the set the day before, we were almost fully prepared to start filming. We used different furniture pieces and arranged them in order to create a home-like setting, such as a large rug which occupied the space in which we filmed the band, a sofa-chair, candles, an old television, a tall lamp, a treasure chest, and a table and chairs with flowers. We wanted to create quite an old home setting, and we felt this setting was appropriate in conjunction with the song 'Hearth and Home.'
(pic)
We used LED spots for our lighting, and also created a black back drop in order to block out any sunlight from interfering with our set. We used a halogen light and red tinted lights to give the set a darker, more eerie feel, and to symbolise the murder within the narrative and the blood. Candles were also placed around the perimeter of the set to make it appear more homely.
(pic)
When it came to filming with the band, we wanted to to make sure we knew what we were doing, and what we would want from the piece. We moved the camera around the set to find our ideal shots. Once we found the perfect spot we taped X's on the carpet so that we could find our camera placements quickly, and also so that More Than Conquerors could see their placing easily. When More Than Conquerors arrived we helped them to set up their instruments and amps, and brief them on our filming schedule, and the certain shots we would need, as well as where we would be placing them. Unfortunately members of our group had to leave to go to work during the filming, so there was extra pressure on the rest of us to film the performance perfectly. After a moment of panic between each shot, we successfully managed to film the song from 12 different angles/positions. These included: Mid-shots of the guitars, a close-up of Kris singing, an over the shoulder shot of Jamie playing the drums, and a panning shot of the band playing. Before we shot each clip we asked the band for their opinions of each shot, and then asked for their feedback an critique on the clips once they were filmed. They were more than thrilled with the clips we shot, and seemed to really enjoy themselves. After several hours of filming and getting to know the band, we successfully completed our shot list, and were even personally invited to their gig the following week.
(pic)
(pic)
When it came to filming with the band, we wanted to to make sure we knew what we were doing, and what we would want from the piece. We moved the camera around the set to find our ideal shots. Once we found the perfect spot we taped X's on the carpet so that we could find our camera placements quickly, and also so that More Than Conquerors could see their placing easily. When More Than Conquerors arrived we helped them to set up their instruments and amps, and brief them on our filming schedule, and the certain shots we would need, as well as where we would be placing them. Unfortunately members of our group had to leave to go to work during the filming, so there was extra pressure on the rest of us to film the performance perfectly. After a moment of panic between each shot, we successfully managed to film the song from 12 different angles/positions. These included: Mid-shots of the guitars, a close-up of Kris singing, an over the shoulder shot of Jamie playing the drums, and a panning shot of the band playing. Before we shot each clip we asked the band for their opinions of each shot, and then asked for their feedback an critique on the clips once they were filmed. They were more than thrilled with the clips we shot, and seemed to really enjoy themselves. After several hours of filming and getting to know the band, we successfully completed our shot list, and were even personally invited to their gig the following week.
-Niamh
Friday, 22 March 2013
Planning: Performance
Once we had received word that More Than Conquerors liked our idea and wanted to go ahead with it, we all got together to discuss filming locations. We all agreed that we needed a semi-run down building to convey the destruction and desolation the main character feels in our narrative. After a wide variety of possible locations Ceára remembered the storage unit at the top of the Conway Mill nearby that she had been to once. Ceára set out straight away to phone Conway Mill and set up a meeting with the manager to ask about using the space. After she explained what it would be used for, the manager was more than thrilled to assist in the making of our music video, and welcomed us and More Than Conquerors with open arms.
As soon as Ceára returned to school with the great news, we needed to make a decision on appropriate dates that we could film the performance. This was the most difficult part as two members of our group didn't live near the Conway Mill and another two members had part-time jobs that prevented some days. After agreeing to film in Conway Mill we set a date to film on, however on the date we were planning to film Conway Mill were busy, so after coming together and trying to find a new date we finally decided to film on the 20th March 3013. After checking with Conway Mill and More Than Conquerors if this date was suitable, and getting the okay, we decided that we needed to make a list of all the shot types needed and what equipment we would be needing to film.
On the 19th March 2013 my group and I went down to Conway Mill to clear up the location and also set it up. Originally we had planned to have a bare set although when we arrived at Conway Mill we saw that the storage location was full of old rundown furniture. When we originally saw the furniture we were planning to just move it out of the way, although we then decided that the furniture would fit in with our narrative, and also with the idea of the song, being "Hearth and Home".
As soon as Ceára returned to school with the great news, we needed to make a decision on appropriate dates that we could film the performance. This was the most difficult part as two members of our group didn't live near the Conway Mill and another two members had part-time jobs that prevented some days. After agreeing to film in Conway Mill we set a date to film on, however on the date we were planning to film Conway Mill were busy, so after coming together and trying to find a new date we finally decided to film on the 20th March 3013. After checking with Conway Mill and More Than Conquerors if this date was suitable, and getting the okay, we decided that we needed to make a list of all the shot types needed and what equipment we would be needing to film.
On the 19th March 2013 my group and I went down to Conway Mill to clear up the location and also set it up. Originally we had planned to have a bare set although when we arrived at Conway Mill we saw that the storage location was full of old rundown furniture. When we originally saw the furniture we were planning to just move it out of the way, although we then decided that the furniture would fit in with our narrative, and also with the idea of the song, being "Hearth and Home".
-Ceára
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