Domestic Abuse and Make Up

We had an idea that we should use domestic violence in our film, as it would be more impactful on the audience.  However a problem soon cropped up that the song No Light by Florence and the machine wouldn’t work, because the song is about her cheating on her partner. If the protagonist was being abused and was cheating this would tie the two together but would also overcomplicate the film which is the problem we had in the last film. Also after studying music videos we have found that they usually have very simple plotlines. So I came up with the idea that instead her betrayal is that she tells someone about the domestic abuse (i.e. a friend) and with this conversation it will explain everything clearly if it wasn’t clear before. I am more leaning towards this idea because it isn’t the typical betrayal ideas that are betrayal within a relationship, we want to push the boundaries and do something different with our theme. After deciding this something occurred to me, to show the abuse it may be easier for me to take make-up instead of costume, I am of yet not sure if I can combine the two, because if I can that would be easier so for now I may be changing what im being assessed on because I will get more marks and we have changed our idea.

Smudged Mascara

 Original:

 Breif smudging under eyes, looks like eyes are slightly bruised, may use this later

 Mose smudging with fingers sown face

 Mose mascara added for a darker affect

 Final result, I may develop this and make it more darker, as I still feel it isont dark enough, and I think I need some above the eyes as well, so I need to use a black eye liner brush as well, to add more depth,

Final view from the side:

I am not fully haoppy with this result,it isont dark enough and it dosent look very msuch like tears, and it needs more definition above the eyes as well.

Heart

I had an idea that the protagonist draws a heart on her chest in the black paint, and I took some pictures of possible ideas shown above:

I also thought this could link in with one of our influences being Christine Perri- Jar Of Hearts music video, however after this we decided to scrap this, as we found it too complex and was not really needed in the video and would look a bit cheesy.

Interactive ?

We have decided after other people started the topic officially in Expressive Arts that the examiner was looking for more interactive performances. We had a think about this, and we immediately decided that neither of us wanted to talk so we decided to think about other options. We eventually came up with an idea of a set within a set. So in our film we hope to have a white room set within our film and we will re-create that in the drama studio when the film is shown, so the audience will be inside the actual set. We then decided to develop this, and we came up with the possible idea, that the protagonist in the film does not die, but is fatally injured, and then she stands up (in the actual drama studio) and walks between the audience in a mock catwalk seating. She will be stumbling and you will be able to see the wound, then when she gets to the front of the stage she will collapse. (Initial sketch will be uploaded later) We think we will stick with this idea however we may develop this farther, for example we had the idea that once the protagonist has fallen to the floor dead then all the lights in the room will go out, because the project is called “No Light”. We also had the idea that the protagonist when she is in the performance room will be wearing ghostly make up, and maybe she doesn’t die on stage, and she dies in the video, and that she is a ghost when she is in the performance room and she doesn’t fall to the floor, she just stands their and the lights go out. This lead on to us to think about using glow in the dark make up when she is the ghost, as this would look very impressive and would amplify the fact that she is a ghost. However we also want the room to be pitch black because it’s “No Light” so we will have to decide which we prefer more. We also have to take into account that it will be difficult and possible expensive to buy the glow in the dark paint, so this is a discussion for later.

This is our intial idea mind map

This is our first plan of the film

Our current storyboard part 1

Part 2

Influences General and Editing

After watching the Britney Spears video Circus, I found that i really loved the shot at 2:11 where Britney stands their and the sparks fall down in slow motion, and when it comes to editing ‘No Light, No Light’ I hope to use this technique when the protagonist has paint being thrown at her. http://youtu.be/lVhJ_A8XUgc  Keeping on the subject of Britney music videos, in the music video for ‘Break The ice’ although it is animated it shows of some good editing techniques, like the slow motion fall, was what I wanted to do when the protagonist falls into the white room, but from a different closer angle: 1:18 http://youtu.be/eQFIKP9rGhQ  . Also at 1:07 where you can see her leg moving, and still see the frames before is how I hope to get the part where she throws Paint ‘blood’ across the floor and you can see the trail of blood/paint. However this will be done not in editing like it was in the video, but in real life because there will be a real life trail of blood/paint, On the other hand I will slow down the clip to show this more effectively.  The point from earlier of the slow motion falling is also demonstrated in this video at 2:33 when Britney slow motion falls backwards, that’s how I want the falling into shot to look like, however she will be falling forewords not backwards, but This is the shot I invisdgioned for this.  I also like the fact that they have blurred the clips when there is a beat in the song, which I really like and I may use this at the fast parts of ‘No Light, No Light’ and I think this will look effective as well as the white room is supposed to be real and be fuzzy blurry and out of focus. This video ahs mainly taught me that you have to change the shot on almost every beat of the song, and this makes it a snappier powerful video, especially at the fast paced parts. This is something I will bear in mind, and will use to adhere to the conventions of a music video.  I also think this will work in the fast places of the song however this does mean that im going to have several shots for each section of the song. This may be a problem in the scene where paintballs get thrown at the protagonist, as we hope to have two cameras’ set up, but it’s going to be hard to stop and reposition the cameras to get a different shot, so what I will have to is something i call scene cutting. Its where I will get one short scene, and another, and split them each into let’s say 5 small parts. Then I will put one of the five clips of Scene A ad then B and so on, like in my own video i made here: http://youtu.be/SE9hn8pM7Oc (0:21-0:35). Then that way I can make it go faster or slower as the music tempo is faster or slower, also this will make the scene look less real, and fills up time and looks impressive without people realising. I will not use this for the whole clip, I would estimate around 10-15 seconds like the slip above.  The idea of it fitting the tempo of the music is demonstrated more so here at 0:53-1:02 which are in time with the music and uses scene splitting at the beginning.  However it will look better in ‘No Light, No Light’ because this video was made 11 months ago. For this video I intend to use all of the editing techniques I know, and use Serif Windows Movie Maker and Windows live, to get the broadest range of editing software’s, and editing effects. I also intend to focus heavily upon syncing the beats in the song to the film and using editing techniques, but only ones that suit the video. I also am taking sinpriation from the Britney Spears music video Criminal, where at 4:26 they fire the bullets, and its slowed down to show the bullet hitting the walls and showering the couple in debirs. So i though we could copy this but instead using our black paint and have the same positioning of the charecter in the centere of the room. http://www.akilli.tv/video/573461/britney-spears-criminal.aspx

Problems

We had a rethink of the “No Light, No Light” idea and we have decided that the concept is too complicated; we have decided that the idea of the protagonist cheating is very complex when combined with the wedding idea. So we need to have a rethink, possible ideas are that we scrap the wedding idea (which would be good as it would save us a lot of hassle with making the wedding scene and the hassle with set dressing and costume and venues).  However the alternative is to cut the flashbacks with the person she has cheated with. This was Anna’s thought that we don’t want to become as complicated as it did with Meet Me in the Dark and the plotline became confused. I think the best way to go about this is to cut the idea of a wedding, but that the Protagonist and her partner are engaged, so the idea of a white wedding dress would still work, and in one of the flashbacks it could be the proposal scene. Anna also felt that she didn’t like the idea of showing the person that the protagonist was cheating on with. She mainly felt like this because of her aversion to acting and I think that without the flashbacks the film could work, however unless there was dialogue used (which I have an aversion too) the film wouldn’t work.  So this is a juggle and something we need to sit down and talk about on Friday’s expressive arts lesson.

No Light Wedding ideas

At the begining of the prodject “No Light, No Light” we had decided that the protagonist was being cheated on by their partner, however we later decided after listning to the song “No Light No Light” we decided that the protagonist was the one who was cheating. Over the weekend Anna called me up and we had a discussion about her idea of it being set at a wedding, I liked this idea that at the begining in the first flasbacks her running away from her wedding this is apparently from a Dixie Chicks video (yess again) called Ready To Run. We have decided that possible we will film outside Saint Mary’s church in Conwy, and I personally thought this new idea of a weddding would fit because you associate a white dress with a wedding.  Because we will have to show the indside of the wedding it gives me good oppurtunities for costume and gives Anna good marks for set dressing.  However at present I do not have any editing ideas to do with the flashbacks, however I would say that it would have to look different to the stuff in the white room, however I do not want to use Sepia tone again. I also hope to use many diffrent editing softwares to edit the film when it is filmed, I will edit and crop each individual scene/shot at home on Windows Live/ Windows Movie Maker and save it as a movie file. From here I will bring the files into school on a memory pen and use the editing effects of Serif and will continue to use WMM and WLMM (Windows Movie Maker and Windows Live Movie Maker) to add effects. I was also thinking for maybe when im falling out of the wedding scene and into the white room scene that we can film it as a film, but I can can take screenshots of each frame and I can edit the frames in Serif photo plus x3 so there can be more effects their, and I can use it as an animation. We also took the idea of the running from the Florence and the machine video ‘No Light No Light’ when Florence runs away from the demon chasing her down when the protagonist will be runninga way from the church.

Costume Ideas (initail)

These are my intial costume ideas taken from: http://youtu.be/8v_4O44sfjM
http://youtu.be/pojL_35QlSI
and the ideas behind them of being savage and returning to primeval bloodlust if from the novel Lord Of The Flies by William Golding.
The idea is also party taken from: http://youtu.be/5jaI1XOB-bs and they do have a ballet style theme to them, and the movie takes svaagery within it, later I may also use aspects of make up from the film also.

Betrayal Ideas (Is the oldest post))

Betrayal Ideas

The next word that we have to create a piece form is ‘Betrayal’ and so we had a few ideas, but almost immediately we decided that we would use the idea of betrayal within a relationship, and the idea of a cheating partner. We then came up with the idea of there at first being a flashback to the protagonist finding out that her partner has cheated, and him leaving. We then used an idea that we had both had for a video for quite a while, which is the protagonist being in a white room, and in a white dress, and their being black paint (blood) being thrown by her at the walls. The idea of the white dress and the black paint is taken from this music video by the Dixie Chicks: http://youtu.be/pojL_35QlSI

We also took the idea of a cheating partner, betrayal and costume and black blood/ paint idea also from this video by Christina Perri: http://youtu.be/8v_4O44sfjM We loved the way that the black and the white costumes in this piece contrast and how this shows the good and evil at work in the music video. We also loved the effect of the black water expelling out of their bodies showing their jar with their hearts inside, and this is what gave us the idea to use the black paint as blood.  At this point we also decided that we were going to make a music video for this project so we started researching songs to use. We tried songs such as Your Betrayal by Bullet For My Valentine http://youtu.be/IHgFJEJgUrg however we both and trouble deciding on a song, and plus we felt it wouldn’t work as it was male’s singing and the protagonist was female. However we did take from this that editing techniques and colouring is very important in music video and is widely used.  Then we also thought about using some Evanesance songs as the singer of that was female, http://youtu.be/Ih61MJ72v1Y (fan made video) however this song is unrelated to the idea of betrayal, and is too slow and we felt like it was unconnected to our video so we quickly looked for different songs.  Then soon we found the song No Light, No Light, by Florence and The Machine, we really liked this song because the lyrics were perfect and the song was the right tempo, and off course sung by a female, and easy to decide upon as we both love Florence.

However upon listning to this with the lyrics:

You are the hole in my head
You are the space in my bed
You are the silence in between
What I thought and what I said

You are the night-time fear
You are the morning when it's clear
When it's over your start

You're my head
You're my heart

No light, no light in your bright blue eyes
I never knew daylight could be so violent
A revelation in the light of day

You can choose what stays and what fades away
And I'd do anything to make you stay

No light, no light
No light

Tell me what you want me to say
Through the crowded islands
Crying out at me
In your place there were a thousand other faces

I will disappear in plain sight
Heaven help me
I need to make it right
You are the revelation
You are to get it right
And it's a conversation
I just can't have tonight

You want a revelation
Some kind of revolution
You are the revelation

No light, no light in your bright blue eyes
I never knew daylight could be so violent
A revelation in the light of day

You can choose what stays and what fades away
And I'd do anything to make you stay

No light, no light
No light

Tell me what you want me to say
But would you leave me,
If I told you what I've done

And would you leave me
If I told you what I've become
'Cause it's so easy,
To sing it to a crowd
But it's so hard, my love
To say it to you, all alone

No light, no light in your bright blue eyes
I never knew daylight could be so violent

A revelation in the light of day,
You can choose what stays and what fades away
And I'd do anything to make you stay

No light, no light
No light

Tell me what you want me to say
You are the revelation
You are to get it right
But, it's a conversation
I just can't have tonight
You are the revelation
Some kind of resolution.

You are the revelation.
You are the revelation
You are to get it right.

But, it's a conversation,
I just can't have tonight.
You are the revelation
Some kind of revolution
Tell me what you want me to say

So we decided that because of the lyrics the protagonist would have to be the one that cheated, which shifted our video and so we had to devise a new way of performing the video and with the flashbacks.

Love Tiny Alien (Hannah Griffiths)

Plan, No Light No Light, plan:

Flashback of argument between protagonist and other about the protagonist betraying the other person, until 0:41

Freeze frame, quick pan around characters, Protagonist falls out of shot and into the next set. (Starts falling at begging of word ‘heart’) 1:01

Protagonist gets up, throws water balloons filled with paint against the white walls of a white room set. Black paint splatters on the walls, and some splash back onto the white dress. Possible small elements of dance, or movement. Small flashbacks to the argument previously 1:36

Protagonist calms down, sits on floor, relives memories via flashback, will use identifiable editing technique on flashbacks. Smudges the black paint on the wall with hands like in Dixie Chicks video (see previous blog) and writes the word ‘betrayal’. 2:02

Pan up body, the scene will be split on editing and so flashbacks will go of during the panning at certain points when the clip is split. Like shown below. Until 2:17

Balloons filled with black paint are thrown at the protagonist from of stage, aimed at the walls, but some at her, so very much like in the Dixie Chicks video. There will be panning shots, slow motions put on with editing, and lots of work when it comes to editing techniques and syncing, (will make a storyboard later).  3:07

Tinged with flashbacks, repeated and played faster and faster and faster then comes back to the white room and then at the end the protagonist falls to the floor, in slow motion.  3:20

Protagonist lying on the floor now, hands smudge on the floor, smudging black paint across the floor, like in Dixie Chicks, you see protagonist miming words of the song, small element of dance. Protagonist goes crazy start banging fists on the floor, slams palms down on the floor, hidden water balloon under hand, black paint spools out from under hands looks like blood.  Goes back to first scene, protagonist trying to get the person to stay. Then back to the white room, where the protagonist lies on the floor, looks at her stomach and sees black paint spilling out from under her dress bleeding through like in Black Swan seen in the film (will insert clip when can extract it from the movie as there are no clips on YouTube) until 4:01

Back to the first scene, part walks our slams the door, END 4:15