Kid Harpoon Replied

what a brilliant video.
great job.
love to you all.
tx

Final Version Feedback

After finishing our video and uploading it to YouTube, we had the rest of the class watch and give feedback on what they think is effective, and what they think we could have changed. Here is what they thought..

Most people commented on the transitions and how effective and creative they were, such as the change from the pales and the stars emerging into a thought bubble. The action followed the narrative well and because you could hear the lyrics clearly, there was a clear link between the lyrics and the action. It was effective because we took it very literally. This follows the convention of music videos. People also mentioned that there was good attention to detail, and the small effects such as the floating notes worked very well. The small use of lip syncing was also entertaining to watch and most people thought that this was done cleverly. One group also said that the video looked effective for an amateur video.


Overall, we are extremely pleased with the feedback because it is clear that people understand how much hard work was put into it. We followed music conventions and it seems to us that people really enjoy watching the video. A lot of hard work went into the transitions and the fact that people found them so effective was praise enough.

An e-mail to Kid Harpoon

Hey Tom,

We are becky, louise and kirsty (group q110) at Long Road Sixth Form College,

At the beginning of September we started creating a music video for a media product using the song of our choice. We chose your song Milkmaid.

We finished our project on friday and enclosed in this email is the finished product. We hope you enjoy watching it as much as we enjoyed making it!

........................

http://uk. youtube. com/watch?v=4zzRGH47A5Y

Loadsa love

q110 x






We are waiting for a reply!

Final Version

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4zzRGH47A5Y

Our Props

The Milkmaid

Stars & Thought Bubbles

Moon/Sun & Cows

Music Notes, Strong Hands, Ceasar Crown & The

Audience

The Director, Mum, Brother & Milkmaid Superstar

October 24th

Long Road had a inset day today at college, but the media department invited us in so that we could continue to film our music video as we still have plenty of footage to film. We took this time to our advantage and tried to complete as much filming as possible until we came to a suitable place to end that we could easily pick up from the next time we film. Today we managed to complete only a small part of the video, which took a lot of work. We found that we did not have enough props to fill the time that we needed, so we had to make them from scratch. This consisted of a "Milkmaid" sign, and banners that appear with them in order to make a spectacle out of the Milkmaid's stage scene. This took more time than expected, but looks extremely effective and we therefore feel that it was worth the time it took. Unfortunately, a fire drill interrupted our filming which also slowed us down and meant that we lost track of what we were filming. But overall, we feel we have achieved a lot today even though we only got to film a small amount of footage.

Drawing List

Roses
Stars
Backdrop House
Van

We are half way through filming now and we are reviewing what we need to make in terms of props as we are planning on filming the whole day on Friday. This is important as we want to make use of the time for filming as much as possible.
The filming we have produced already is really good and is better than we had ever thought it could be. So therefore we hope to continue this and keep in time with the music too. We are trying to keep as consistent as possible with the drawing and making sure every thing is outlined with a black pen.

Rough Cut Feedback

1. How effective do you think our use of istopmotion is?

• They all siad it was very effective and worked well with the narrative

2. What advice can you give that would make it stand out more?

• They thought it stood out already but needed extra dimentions such as more camera angles and different backgrounds
• They also said that lip sinking could be a possibility to make it more impressive

3. Do you think following the narrative is efective?

• They all said it was very good the way we followed it as a narrative as the lyrics were very clear and easy to follow along too.
  
• They also said it gives the effect of following a story book
  

4. Do you think this appeals to a wide target audience?

• Yes it does appeal to a wide target audience as it's very appealing and makes you want to watch more to see what else might happen.
• It's associated with innocence and makes you think of childhood memories

5. Do you think there are any other improvements we could make?

• Make it brighter
• Make sure there are no shadows
  
• More dimensions

They asked to watch it again!

Rough Cut

Rought Cut Filming

We experienced many difficulties whilst filming our video in 3D, such as lighting. We found that one light did not work as the shadows on the objects standing closer to the camera were cast on the backdrop and make the video look unprofessional. We therefore tried to add a second light, but further difficulties came when our own shadows were effecting the video, this we could not prevent. In addition to lighting problems, our props were difficult to manage due to gravity issues. The Milkmaid was held up by strings, and the other objects stuck down by blue-tac. We found that the additional objects in the background would fall over, and were not strong enough to hold themselves up or support other props which were being held against them. The Milkmaid's strings were tangling often and would fall off. Hanging objects such as the sun and pales would twist and turn backwards which made them look less effective as all artwork was done on the front. All of these problems proved very time consuming and it was difficult to shoot one section of the video in one lesson. To try and overcome them all would be virtually impossible and we therefore came up with a new idea, to shoot in 2D. This meant putting the backdrop flat on the table with the camera facing down onto it. The props could therefore rest against it and shadows would definitely not be a problem, except our own. The props are much more easily movable and capturing it with istopmotion made it look very effective. This also gave us the opportunity to add more scenery such as trees and grass, and this added more depth to the video and they were not drawn on, but glued on. This proved to be much easier as we were not restricted to the box, and it was more stable. By shooting it in 2D we were given more versatility and came up with some very effective ideas that you can see in our Rough Cut (e.g. the moving musical notes).
To demonstrate the issues we experienced filming in 3D, here are a few videos of what we filmed.



As you can see, the problems we experienced stood out and would take time to fix. The shadows are extremely obvious from both the props and us handling them, even with lighting. There were many jumps between the different actions which would have meant that it was not smooth, which is what we consider a convention of music videos. The strings are easily visible and at one point one of our hands is visible. Problems like this were hard to fix because we would have to delete all of the footage afterwards in order to film it again as everything would still be moving. Timing was more difficult to predict as we tried to capture everything we were moving as quickly as possible. By filming in 2D, we can watch it back as we are shooting and decide whether we need to make the current action last longer or shorter.

Overall we have made a group decision to film the actual video in 2D. Although this will compromise the effectiveness of the video, we do not have the time to try and fix all the problems that will occur by filming it in 3D. We also think that because there are so many problems with 3D, it would not look as visually striking because the audience may be distracted by the errors. Therefore we are happy to film it in 2D because of the added versatility it gives us.

Equipment we are using in filming

The computer where we use istopmotion
The camera to shoot our video
The tripod to keep the camera very still
Two lights so shadows are reduced and it seems brighter

Risk Assessment

We have completed a risk assessment which highlights all the possible dangers that could occur whilst filming. We have indicated how they would be controlled and the consequences they could create.

Planning blog Assessment

This lesson we had the oppourtunity to go around the classroom and view the blogs of other groups. this was very useful as it inspired us to update our blog in a number of ways. The other groups also viewed our blog and assessed the ways in which we can improve, and what our strong points are.
Overall, most groups thought that our analysis of other videos is very good and detailed, and that most of our blogs have enough detail in them. They thought that we had a good amount of background research, such as inspirational images, but a weakness is that we do not have a detailed prop list. We feel that this is important to work on because our entire video will be made up of props. Another thing we need to work on is a Call Sheet to show that our group is organised.

To Do List:
- Call Sheet
- Upload Animatic
- Detailed Prop List
- Risk Assessment

More Video Analysis

My Boulder


This is a band called 'The King Blues' which has been suggested to us that may make our video have another dimension. This would mean that it wouldn't be istop motion all the way through which is going to be very time consuming and stressful. We could combine istop motion with live action so we can maybe incorporate a band into it. In this video it switches from puppetry and animation to live action by zooming in on something and then zooming back out to a completely different scene. It also shows the animation side of the video through different camera angles such as looking through binoculars. This creates a great effect and something that we will take into consideration.

LETS HANG THE LANDLORD by THE KING BLUES


This is another video by the same band who have looked at another way to create a cartoon effect. This works well and adds an comedy element to the video. I thought this is a good way of intergating two different dimensions to make it more interesting.

Ideas in photographs

A what to build list!

We are starting to prepare ourselves for filming our video, and therefore we need to make all the necessary props. We plan to make a list of all the objects needed, and divide it equally so that we can make them as efficiently as possible. We are therefore going to annotate the lyrics, and decide upon all the objects that we need to make.

Here comes the milkmaid with her firm shoulders and the attitude of Caesar for one so disposable she's never been that way inclined.
Her hands are strong like the night we all sung her song.

Through the days, the night confides in her, her pales are filled with stars, fallen from the sky.
She day dreams, the day that she leaves, to become an actress, the milkmaid superstar.
And her hands stayed strong like the night, we sung this song song.

Here comes the milkmaid with her, firm shoulders and the attitude of Caesar for one so disposable she's never been that way inclined.

Her father long since gone, left her with nothing, to live upon.
But a brother too young to learn.
Her mother too old to work.
The milkmaid goes on.

Here comes the milkmaid with her, firm shoulders and the attitude of Caesar for one so disposable she's never been that way inclined.

One night a show came through town, the milkmaid in the crowd, was standing out.
A director took her hand, "I understand you'd like to act" her made her try, she tried with all her heart and she left with the show and a leading part.

Here comes the Milkmaid with her firm shoulders an the attitude of Caesar for one so disposable she's never been that way inclined.
Her hands are strong and tonight we sing this song


What we will need:
A milkmaid, her pales, crown, big hands, cows, grass, trees, director, brother, mother, a young milkmaid, stars, an audience, a sun, a moon, thought bubble, a "famous" milkmaid, a coach.
Our backgrounds will include, hills, a stage, a night sky

Test Footage

This lesson we spent some time testing iStop Motion and the different conditions we would need to consider. This was a very useful task as we feel we are now much more prepared to film our video. We have uploaded the videos as shown below.














Overall, we have learnt a number of things that will help to make our video a success. We learnt that zooming in with the camera does not work, an the camera automatically zooms out by itself. Although we might be able to change the settings, we found that holding the camera manually and moving in closer to the object makes it a lot easier and it flows better. The other thing we learnt that would make our video flow better was by capturing the images faster, and moving the objects slower within the frame. This stops the objects from jumping too far and confusing the audience. Another problem that arose was shadows. We need to be sure that all shadows are out of the frame before taking the still because this makes it looks unprofessional and focus is taken off of the objects in the video. Another problem we experienced was the backdrop falling over and having to set up our objects over and over. To prevent this we will have to make sure that all equipment is in place and sturdy before filming. We all hope that will have enough patience and understand that it will take time to make it look as effective as we would like it to. We will make sure to set aside enough time in order to be able to pay great detail to what we are filming.

Our Productive, Production Team Meeting!

We decided to call a meeting with our technician to discuss when and where we will be able to film our music video. We asked him whether it would be possible to take our computer from the classroom and take it into a controlled condition and be able to film our sequence there. Our technician however, stated that there are a number of different groups using the computers at other times, and therefore removing a computer from the classroom would be impossible. Instead, thankfully our computer is positioned in a place where it would be possible to film during other lessons where the computer is not being used. Therefore we have compared time tables again, and worked out when this computer is not being used, and have come up with a few hours a week where we can film.
Our technician also pointed out, that our video might look more effective if we use a still camera as it would be of better quality. We do not need to use a video camera as we are not filming anything moving. We were really pleased with this idea as it was something that we had not considered but will improve our video immensely.
We also discussed the possibility of doing all our filming after college where the other groups would not be there, but we are not yet sure f we will need this time, or if we will be able to stay in college.
We overall felt that this was a positive meeting, the only downside being that we can not film in controlled conditions in our own time. We understand why this is not possible and are fine with filming during our frees and taking time out after college to put extra effort into our piece.

'Milkmaid - Kid Harpoon' Official Video

This is the official music video which is mostly all preformance based and doesn't really tell the story which we will try to do.

Our milkmaid idea

This is a picture of a milkmaid that we will try and copy in our video. This is a olden version of a milkmaid which we are going to use instead of a modern look.