Album Artwork Research: Taylor Swift

I edited in the other lesson
- in sync again
- new chair bit
- bed bit
- not happy with that

Tomorrow I have a free period at the same time the other A2 media studies class has their lesson. Apparently, the editing station I use is always vacant during this time so I might go to their lesson and edit a couple of things and try to get the odd frame more in sync, as although Amy and Sophie think it's fine as it is, I still think it's a little bit out. I won't change much, and I'll make sure I remember what I've changed in case Sophie or Amy don't like the alterations. I might also try to experiment with new transitions and effects as we've been purely altering the speed of clips so far, and cutting.

We edited stufff lol

As we got to class today our editing station mac had "don't touch" on it, so we weren't allowed to use it for fifteen minutes due to other groups converting files. Amy and Sophie began logging onto their blogs, but it was taking a long time to load, so I suggested quickly asking to borrow a picture camera, and walk around to locations we shot in last week to take still images to add to our blogs. We also took a group photograph so that you can see who we are and a photograph of Rhys. We're now waiting for them to transfer from the memory card, before spending the next hour and a half editing new footage.

Today I found Amy period one which we both have free, to discuss today's filmings. Yesterday she had said that we might as well get some filming done, so I brought in the list of what we have left to do. I ruled out anything outdoors as the weather was bad, we couldn't do the band or corridor things, so that left just the rest to film in the bedroom. We agreed to do it at a later date though as Amy had a history test to revise for and therefore didn't want to give up today's frees as she needed them for revision, so we decided to use the time to catch up on editing instead.

In order to keep track of what we have done so far and what we have left still to shoot, I went through my notes and higlighted the lines we haven't recorded anything for yet. I then categorised the lines into location categories. This way I can comprehend easier roughly how long each section should take, and therefore which sections will take an entire filming session and which we can combine. Doing this also showed that we have a lot more to do.

Bedroom
"Won't make you many friends" - sat at a desk screwing up paper into balls and throwing them at a caged, already-full bin
"I'm just another thing for you to roll your eyes at honey,you might have him, but I always get the last word" - (see storyboard for details)

Diary
"The story starts when it was hor and it was summer and, I had it all I had him right there where I wanted him" - High angle in field, inventive camera work - a mix-match of shots
"I never saw it coming"
"Soon she's gunna find"
"And, she thinks I'm psycho cos I like to rhyme her name with things" - Wide eyes, camera revolved around her head and focuses on the writing on the diary pages. Possible jump cuts here?
"Soon she's gunna find" - looking up from the diary
"She took him faster than you can say sabotage" - Slam diary shut, looking more upset and tearful than angry

Band
"Nor did I suspected it"
"She's not a saint"
"Oh they don't teach you that in prep school"
"She's not a saint, and she's not what you think"
"There is nothing I do better than revenge"
"Woah" (after "but I always get the last word")
"On the playground"
"There is nothing I do better than"
"Let's hear the applause"
"Cos you're so much better"

Taxi
"Revenge" - Getting into taxi, very drunk
"Cause I don't think you do" - blurred - sped up footage from out the window (dark, lights) Zooms out to reveal my face
"Oh" - Jump cut
"Do you still feel like you know what you're doing" - Face-on to camera, singing into the lens, clear that she's drunk
"I don't think you do, I don't think you do" - Looks down, still miming, nearly crying/crying

Prom
"C'mon show me how much better you are" - Walking behind Amy "COME ON!"
"See you deserve some applause" - Face on tp Tayler, clapping, aggressive
Turns up at the prom, completely drunk, a mess. Rhys looks concerned, feeling guilty. Blackout as a door slams - The end

Corridor
"She lives her life like it's a party and she's on the list" - either at a real party, or we'll compose one in a concrete, indoor school corridor to imitate one

Editing monday's lesson

Filming Session 3
Yesterday we managed to achieve an awful lot more than we thought was possible.

During period one, me and Amy had a free period whilst Sophie and Rhys had a lesson. We used the time to:

• collect the camera and tripod and check that it was all good to go
• get Amy's bag of clothes for filming from her car in a nearby road
• get Amy changed into her first costume as she'd travelled to school in uniform
• do her heavy makeup (to suit her character)
• share my plans of what we could fit into the time and contextual factors and should therefore do that day
• make sure that we were fully prepared for the start of period two to make full use of our time
• film a section on the bench that didn't need anyone but us involved in

At the start of period two, we were supposed to meet Sophie and Rhys in the common room. Rhys showed up first so we explained the rough outline of the storyline and locations we'd be using today. Then he went off to get changed into his first costume. He'd brought jeans, converses and an american-style t-shirt which was suitable for his part. He phoned me after almost ten minutes saying that there were younger students in the changing rooms so he couldn't get changed, so I said to just get changed in the boys toilets as we didn't have time to wait. By this time Sophie still wasn't in or around the common room, and after asking around, nobody had seen her in school at all. Rhys came out in his costume, and with Kelsie who also had the same frees and wanted to take part in our media piece. We said yes as we could use an extra anyway, and she would fit in the car. Amy said that Sophie wasn't answering her mobile, but perhaps she'd forgotten we were filming and would be in our media class, so we went up there. She was there, so we got her and explained what we wanted to film and where, and said that we'd film random things as extra footage along the way. Sophie then took the camera and filmed me and Rhys walking down the stairs together in case we could use that for something. From watching the footage after, it was obvious that this part had been spontaneous, as the lighting was terrible.

As we were leaving the school grounds to walk to a local side road where Amy's car was parked, Amy and Sophie took turns in filming random footage of me and Rhys with the intention of converying a 'harmoneous' relationship. We talked through possible editing techniques and effects we could use to enhance our work - jump cuts to add to the post-modern feel, and increasing the saturation to provoke a warm, summer/love code.

As we got to the car Amy and Rhys got in whilst me and Sophie found a suitable lampost for me to walk into, which allowed Amy's car able to also be visible in the shot.

We soon realised the difficulty in what we were about to do. As we were outside without any prepared means of playing the track, I had to try to get the timing of the line purely from memory. Also, as it was a backstreet with cars parked on both sides of the road, it was narrow for Amy to get through so she couldn't go much faster than 5mph, we said that's okay as we could speed things up in the editing phase. We filmed me miming words walking towards the camera with the lampost in the foreground coming from one direction, closely followed by Amy and Rhys driving past, however it wasn't ideal. Amy and Sophie said that we could approach it from a different angle, so as Amy reversed back up the road, I switched to the other side of the lampost and we re-filmed that line. Although it went okay, I wasn't convinced it would work - it wasn't know I'd pictured it anyway. The others said it would be fine though, so we continued. Sophie filmed a bit through the passenger window with Rhys having been told to "look uncomfortable" by me, in the foreground and Amy looking pleased with herself behind him; driving. Sophie then filmed from Amy's window and then from infront - through the windscreen, for a wide variety of shots we could choose the best from. I pointed out that we'd have to speed up the shots as Amy couldn't drive very fast at all so as to not hit Sophie with the car - so it's important that Rhys and Amy don't make any sudden movements otherwise our editing would be obvious, and although we're constructing a post-modern music video, we'd rather this part was smooth so that we could feature a fast mixture of varied camera angles and effects. Finally, Sophie recorded me walking into the lampost. First of all i naturally put my hands out infront of me as i did it which of course didn't look realistic, so we figured that although it would be painful (and was!), I should actually walk into the lampost. After doing this a few times it wasn't looking right, because I was looking in the wrong direction. We then did it a few more times with me looking in the right direction.

Next, Amy drove us to Ray Park, about 5 minutes from our school. To get to the part itself we had to walk down a long path, so along here we filmed random shots of the greenery and eachother to have as back-up material. One clip in particular I thought was good, was recorded as I was walking along talking to Rhys. I suddenly had the idea to film him talking to me and messing around, as we do normally, but with the idea that Taylor would be filming Guy - I thought that we could put the red border around the image with REC in the top right corner, to add some postmodernism as well as realism, to remind the audience that it is of course a text, a music video, but to make them buy into the storyline more. It's important to be different and engaging from the start.

When we got to the park there were a few children in it, so to avoid complications we stayed outside of the park and filmed in the opposite direction, clips of me and Rhys playing "it", etc.

After a short while, all but one child left, so as the park was large we could easily record in one corner of the park without affecting anybody else at all. We managed to record on some outside gym equipment, baby swings and a seasaw. We saw a roundabout and swings that would be ideal to use, but two more children and their guardians arrived, so we felt it would be necessary to ask their permission to film in the park, highlighting the fact that their children wouldn't  be in our recordings at all. The first parent was 100% fine with it, however the second one didn't speak English, and kept saying "no". Although she explained she didn't know what I was saying, I couldn't get the message through to her so we had to accept "no" as her answer, and left the park.

When we got back to school we filmed a spontaneous piece on an abandoned armchair, left outdoors at our school, surrounded by rubbish and a giant mound of dirt. This we thought would make interesting mise-en-scene and suit the main character's state of mind - a mess basically. We recorded me sat on the chair, jumping on the chair in anger and then grabbing Amy and going to shove her face in the giant pile of dirt (but stopping just in time). We realised that it would be hard to make this look convincing, so we both tried to exaggerate our facial expressions to make them as obvious as possible. I think we pulled this off.

After uploading the new recordings in class however, our teacher disagrees with what we think, and stated that she decoded Amy's facial expressions as happy and laughing. I know Amy and can read her facial expressions and body language, and know that that's how she reacts when she's scared which is why we'd seen no problem with it, our teacher however doesn't know Amy that well which is why she took the negotiated reading. Other viewers of our music video may also take our teacher's view when watching it, so we'll have to carefully consider this when tweaking it - whether we just cut part of it to avoid confusion, or refilm it, or even to scrap it altogether. To do this I've suggested asking around in our class to see what everybody thinks, but we'd have to be subtle in order to not influence their answers by mistake.

Today we did manage to film for our music video right up until lunch. Overall everything went to plan, and we even recorded a few extra scenes to possibly feature if we get stuck on parts. It's always better to have too much footage than too little. I will write in more detail about today, tomorrow.

For the last hour or so I have been going through my notes and highlighting key outdoor recordings we need to carry out, and grouped them into four main locations. One, is to be located in a field, for the diary scenes - judging by the quantity of this it will probably take the best part of a day to complete, so it wasn't really realistic to try this in less than three hours. The other parts were located: in school (on and around a bench, in the common room, on stairs and out by the front of our school); across the road and in Amy's car, and at Ray Park (a large, local child's park). I thought it would also be a good idea to record random footage of us in character throughout the morning, in case it could then be used - as fillers or as a new fresh idea for the odd frame. I've thought about what I need to wear first, and what I need to bring with me - several changes of clothes to show temporal progression, and I've kept my costumes lightly western and closely iconic to Taylor Swift. I'm also going to use black eyeline to draw '13' on my left hand, and go over it in different glitters to represent the fact that she changes it each day. It's unlikely that any audience would notice, or even if it will show up on each frame, but it will be there in case it does. For the diary scenes I plan to make sure that it can be seen as I'm holding the diary, so that it is guaranteed to be in the video. I've also been looking around for white horse nail design stickers on the off-chance that they exist, as a self-referential alusion to another of Taylor's tracks - White Horse, but so far I've had no luck. I've decided to only use light make-up so as to be decoded as natural and wholesome, to exaggerate the juxtaposition between myself and Amy.

For a fair part of tomorrow's filming we need 'the guy' to be featured in quite a lot of our recordings, and as it is me that has to act all content and in love, we have decided it would be more believable if my boyfriend, Rhys, played the part. Luckily, he has free periods whilst we have our media lessons, so he's available and willing tomorrow, and said that usually he would be available if we have to re-shoot anything at a later date. Whilst going through what parts to film tomorrow, I made sure that every part that Rhys is in, in these locations, will all be filmed tomorrow so that we don't mess him about. He asked what to wear so I said casual American. He knows of Taylor Swift so he understands her 'look'.

I spoke to Amy at break time today to catch up on things. She said that neither her or Sophie had done any editing or group posts as they didn't want to do anything without me. I then said that I thought that we should film tomorrow, and as the weather has been improving and exams have now finished we could film some outdoor footage. Amy agreed and said that she'd organise booking a camera as her form room is in the media block. I facebooked Sophie once I was home as I hadn't seen her around school, and told her our rough idea about filming during our double media lesson tomorrow, and arranged to meet her in the common room after period one's lesson.

The next lesson, period 4 on Monday 7th of February, I was absent as I had an interview for Oxford Brookes so later on today I need to find Amy and/or Sophie to see what progress they've made. I also intend to suggest filming tomorrow morning during our double lesson; similarly to last week. I know it's last minute so they might not be able to make it, and even if they can we might not have access to a suitable camera, but it's worth a try. If not we can continue editing the footage we recorded last week.

In addition, I'd like to suggest going to see a drama teacher as soon as possible to set a solid slot for us to use the drama studio, with the guarantee of access to appropriate lighting.

(02/02/11)
More Filming
Today we have organised two more filming sessions. Sophie unfortunately has a psychology exam over our double lesson on Wednesday, so me and Amy are taking the entire morning to continue filming in her bedroom, and hopefully outdoors in the field as it's becoming sunnier.

(07/02/11)
Overall, today was productive.

(08/02/11)
Filming Session 2
On Wednesday morning, the weather was unfortunetly far too cold to film outside, especially as the clips were supposed to take place during the summer. My costume for that involves purely a thin white dress - so it was a no-go. Instead, we continued recording in Amy's bedroom, and managed to complete filming footage for the lines:

She looks at me like I'm a trend and she's so over it
I think her ever present frown is a little troubling
Sophisticiation isn't what you wear or who you know
Or pushing people down to get you where you wanna go
But no amount of vintage dresses gives you dignity
She's not a saint and she's not what you think she's an actress, woah
She's better know for the things that she does on the matress, woah
Ha ha
 
That Wednesday afternoon, Amy had a free period so she went to the media department and transfered our morning's recordings to our designated imac work station, so that the footage was ready to convert and import early the next morning and we could focus more on editing rather than all waiting for the data to transfer - wasting time.The next morning, me and Sophie converted and imported the videos to Final Cut Express. This ended up taking the majority of the lesson as the files had combined with our old files so we tried seperating them again, and converted and imported some, before realising we'd missed some vital footage. Then, we decided to start from fresh and convert and import all the files so that none were missing. This was more thorough but time consuming. By the time this was done, we only had time to view the videos and begin cutting and editing a few lines, and not to the standard we're aiming for.Just these eight lines took approximately four hours to produce. We had to reconstruct the mise-en-scene to look identical to how it had been at our previous session; details from which dresses go where, to my hair being curled in the same way, etc. This took long enough; then figuring out how to transfer our ideas to reality wasn't all smooth. We had planned for the line: Sophistication isn't what you wear or who you know, to take place infront of the mirror, with a sequence of jump cuts to create the impression that the outfits are changing in sync with the music - a post-modern idea in the hopes that it's preferred reading would be that the main character is trying on different outfits; adhering to the stereotypes and ideology of gender - females are forever trying on clothes - materialistic society.




Thursday 10th however, it turns out, is being used for A2 drama rehearsals and performances so it's unavailable to us being media studies students; meaning that we'll be set back another week.In order to keep things going and continue making progress, we have agreed once more to continue filming at Amy's house on Wednesday 11th to hopefully finish off our need for that location. If the weather is warmer, hopefully brighter, and more promising, we will take advantage of it by changing our plans to film the diary footage over some open fields situated near by to mine and Amy's houses. Our next filming session had been booked for later that day after school, Thursday 3rd February, however as Sophie at the last minute could not make this session, and there was a chance that we may not be able to access the lighting needed for an ideal construction of our "live performance" footage we decided to postpone it until the following Thursday.