Filming Schedule

Location Scout & Risk Assessment

 Here is our teams location scout & risk assessment. This blogpost is made by me (Rara) & Kalista

Link: locations scout & risk assessment

Self Reflection: This was pretty easy for me to do as we've done this multiple times for other projects. 

However I hated the part where I had to figure out what could go wrong cause its so unexpected and usually might not even happen which is why we repeated some points as most of the hazards that might happen will always come out of no where, but this does ensure our whole production team to be safe as this case we will more more actors & actresses. Then again I quickly got it done with kalista and it just helped us predict any problems and also helped us manage the locations on where to go so we don't spend too much time surveying different places. 

Song Research

Here we will look in detail at our song choice "The Weekend" by BIBI & 88rising released in 2021. This blogpost is created by me (Rara)

The Weekend - BIBI

1. Song Background

"The Weekend" by 88rising & BIBI seems to be about a relationship in which one person is not fully committed. The first verse describes a woman who parties all night and is only interested in being with the singer when it benefits her. She expects special treatment just because she is with him. The chorus suggests that she only contacts him on the weekends when she wants to be intimate, and he feels used. He is jumping off the deep end to be with her, but then she disappears until the next weekend. The second verse implies that this behavior breaks the speaker's heart. The bridge indicates that the singer is willing to be available for the woman when she is lonely but knows that she is not a good fit for something long-term. The outro is a repetition of the earlier lyrics and perhaps a reflection of the singer's feelings of being used and wanting more from the relationship. In sum, the song is a critique of a partner who only wants a casual relationship and does not want to invest in a genuine connection.

resource: https://www.songtell.com/88rising-bibi/the-weekend#google_vignette 

2. Why we choose it

When I initially heard this song, I was surprised by how intimate and sexual the music video was. And at first I wasn't really into how dark and neon the MV's aesthetic was, but me and my group decided to subvert the whole music video, as we all were only fans of the song itself, not the MV. We enjoyed how the music wasn't too slow-paced but also not as fast-paced as others; in my perspective, it was quite neutral. With parts that were empty, leaving room for us to add scenes that we believe would fit our target audience and keep it engaging. As we wanted to evoke a more bold response toward our audience, we believed that having a strong and complex narrative would make the audience think of how each scene would portray our artist to be 'bad' in the end. 

3. How your music video will be different 

As we can see from the music video, it's quite graphic and sexual for our target audience (teenagers), which is why we will subvert the whole MV by adding a narrative throughout our whole music video, as in this MV it just depicts the artist being the bad guy due to her only contacting the guy on the 'weekend.' Thus, we will mainly focus on our artist having a soft girl vibe during the beginning half of the MV, which will be shown through mise-en-scene (e.g., hair, location, clothes, and makeup), and then slowly nearing the end of the MV, she will have a whole different vibe, which is going to focus on her being a playgirl depicted through mise-en-scene and our whole narrative. Due to us wanting our visual elements to fit the upbeat melody this song has, by adding a strong narrative, it keeps the audience engaged due to it having a twist of the artist being a soft girl -> playgirl. 

Additional Research 

Grease (1978) this is what narrative we will most likely follow as it showcases the girl mc being a soft girl -> cool girl and the boy mc being a cool boy -> soft boy. But in our MV we will only showcase the girls perspective as she is our star and we want to focus the limelight on her, having our boy mc in the MV only being shown for a couple scenes to indicate how our artists feeling has changed for the boy mc overtime. The use of outfits of the girl in this movie is also similar to the approach were trying to go for, for our artist once her playgirl side gets shown. 

Self Reflection: Creating this song research was actually quite tedious in my opinion as we have so many  different scenes and I wanted to show each scene with clear descriptions but it was quite hard to compile everything to 1 paragraph. Our group also decided on this song for quite a while because we started off with many slow pace romantic songs but we ended up wanting to go for a more fun and creative narrative while still having romantic aspects to it as from the beginning we still want our MV to have some type of love scene because our group was more drawn to that concept. Because according to the binary opposites theory it is the conflict of these opposites that drives a narrative forward, so by having the artist being in love to not caring at all creates a conflict between her 2 personalities this then allows the audience to understand that she became cold hearted due to her being heartbroken by her situationship. 

Classwork: Stardom

Here is a summary of a theory we learnt at class today with our Media Studies teacher (Mr Nick).

It’s about the Theory of Stardom by Richard Dyer which helped us build our star’s image for our music video project. This blogpost is summarized by Rara and Audrey, however some of the celebrity research was done by Kalista and Chelsea as well.

Richard Dyer’s theory suggests that celebrities are constructed by media institutions to attract their target audience and promote their product. The celebrities are portrayed as a mix of relatable qualities (to appear ordinary) and unique traits (to appeal to fans). It focuses on how the image of the star is vital to the marketing to build both commercial success and a deep emotional connection with fans.

Celebrities are appealing due to 5 main reasons: 

1. Love: We are fascinated with the love lives of the stars, can also feel a romantic affiliation with them

2. Ordinariness: We like to see them doing routine things, living normal lives just like our own

3. Success: We like the idea of overnight success, and failure before success. This appeals to our

4. sense of fair play. (Why we like reality TV so much)

5. Consumption: We are fascinated by the huge material wealth brought by media success. Not just

6. luxury homes and cars, but also strict dietary regimes set by expensive nutritionists, holidays etc.

7. Dream turned sour (downfall): fascination with the exploitation of their misery

Self Reflection: This theory lesson allowed me to delve deep onto what I want my artists persona to be as Each star's identity was purposefully designed to appeal to and drive audience engagement by creating a recognizable brand with which viewers may emotionally identify with. This will then allow me to effectively promote my artist towards the target audience were aiming for. Overall me and my teammate enjoyed doing this classwork as we admire the chosen celebrity and believe that her work is admirable as she is one of the most famous kpop idols to exist. Through this classwork it will be easier to find our stars persona because I want to make sure that our star has a strong public image and confidence so that she stands out and can be easily recognisable towards any audience. 

Storyboard

Here is my teams storyboard created by Chelsea & Audrey

FIXED STORYBOARD COMP 3 - THE WEEKEND (BIBI, 88RISING) by Audrey Soedargo

STORYBOARD COMP 3 - THE WEEKEND (BIBI, 88RISING) by chelsea tirta

Link: storyboard file

Self Reflection: This storyboard was made by my teammates Audrey & Chelsea. However, I helped in giving out inputs and insights on what ideas we should add, as I mostly gave the reference clips from different music videos or scenes from different movies, which allowed us as a team to visualize what we want each scene to look like. This time around, our storyboard was quite different from our last project due to us not needing to add a duration to each scene, as there will be many jump cuts in an MV from one time to another or one performance back to a different scene. However, we had a particularly hard time managing our time as we had many other deadlines and blog posts to finish up, but Audrey & Chelsea were able to finish it with maximal efforts, as the result is very detailed. We initially wanted to give them more time because drawing is very time-consuming, but we were only done with our lyric sheet the week of the deadline, so I'm very grateful that they got it done on time, as now we can continue our work smoothly due to us already having a visual outlook on our entire MV, minimizing any complications during our production stage. 

Screen test

To find a star for our music video we need to conduct a screen test. Here is a video of our class's group audition. This blogpost is created by me (Rara) & Chelsea

Below is the video of our class's group audition. We did this as a class, where we all simultaneously acted & lip synced to the song, "Don't Stop Me Now" by Queen. Although this song (rock) does not fit with our genre (pop), we chose this song because the lyrics were familiar and the song overall was quite upbeat (matching many of our chosen songs). 

Link: screen test

Brief overview of screen test 

According to studiobinder.com, a screen test is a filmed audition in which an actor demonstrates their suitability for a role, in this case, a music video. Generally, actors are given lines of the lyrics to lip sync and perform on camera. Other than that, screen tests are also utilised to see how clothing, makeup, colours and other accessories may appear on an already casted actor. 

Benefits of using a screen test includes:

-> To see how actor performs on camera

-> Testing wardrobe, makeup, accessories on the actor to see if they fit the visual style 

-> Determining chemistry between 2 actors

-> Having audition footage to help make decisions later 

Advantages: 

- As a class we were able to get around 20 people or more to do this screen test, which allowed me to fully comprehend what I was looking for, for my artist

- Our teacher was able to encourage all of us to lipsync even if some werent in frame in order for some students that are camera shy to still feel comfortable infront of a camera

- Gave me a genral outlook on what a screen test should look like 

- It was time efficient as it only took us 10 minutes as a class to record this screen test

Disadvantages: 

- Not all 20 students or so remembered the whole song which would cause them to not perform their best as they dont feel comfortable with the song their trying to lipsync to infront of the camera 

- Going through 20 students meant that not everyone got the same amount of screen time thus not allowing me to see everyones full potential in their performance 

Overall, this screen test allowed our class to take a break from project lessons letting ourselves let loose since it was quite fun doing. However I felt as though that no one really fits the image for my artist in this screen test meaning that me and my group will conduct our own screen test with the possible stars we already have in mind

Self Reflection: Having this video has allowed me to grasp the context of why having a screen test is so important when trying to find our artists style and persona, since it shows us if they are comfortable around a camera or if their camera shy. Because different MV's have different narratives and characters which is why our artists persona needs to shine through it as my group will be needing our artists to do a lot of performance and acting so in the end we do need someone who is lively and charismatic around a camera. As we want to look for someone that is feminine yet confident and bold. However, according to the screen test, the majority of the girls here are quiet and reserved, which does not match our primary star's personality.  So even though my group has some people in mind to become our artist, conducting a general screen test allows us to have a brief overview why our 'chosen' person fits the role even more and maybe even gives us more options on who our star can be because its important to me that my stars 'real' and 'reel' persona is not that far off because we need our audience to relate to our artist and that is by having them be their true self. 

Classwork: Technical Elements

Here I will summarise the technical elements I learned during class (most of the material are taught by the teacher). This blogpost is written by me (Rara) and Audrey 

4 main technical elements: 

-> camera 

-> sound

-> edit 

-> mise-en-scene

Camera

Camera angles and movements are fundamental as it shapes interpretation on how the story is told and how the audience experiences it. Every shot taken builds up an implied meaning to direct the audience’s response (emotionally).

Camera angles

1. Long shot: Main subject is captured from a distance with their body fully visible. This shot is usually used to show action.
   
2. Extreme long shot: Captures the subject from a greater distance to make the subject appear small. This shot is usually used to showcase insignificance or isolation of the subject due to the comparison between the small subject and vast setting. 
   
3. Establishing shot: Shows the entirety of the setting which gives a context on the location to the audience. Frequently used in the beginning of a scene.
   
4. Medium shot: Captures half of the subject (from the waist and upwards). This shot is commonly used for dialogues which shows and focuses on both facial expressions and body language. 
   
5. Cowboy shot: Cowboy shots are usually taken on a lower angle and frames the subject from mid-thigh upwards, the subject usually appears bold and confident. This technique is usually used in action movie characters.
   
6. Close up: Captures the entire face (head) of the subject emphasizing on the facial expressions and emotions of the subject. This detail creates an emotional connection for the audience.
   
7. Extreme close up: Captures an even closer focus on a specific detail. The shot usually connotes that the subject is important as it creates tension.
   
8. POV: Captures the events/scene in the eye of a subject and makes it appears as if the audience is experiencing what the subject is. Usually creates a bond between the audience and the character, evoking a sense of empathy.
   
9. Over the shoulder: Captures a subject from over another character’s shoulders. This shot is frequently used for conversations.
   
10. High angle: Camera is placed above the subject and is tilted downwards which makes the subject appear smaller and vulnerable. Connotations: Weak and vulnerable.
    
11. Low angle: Positioned below the subject and is tilted upwards which makes the subject appear larger. Connotations: Power, dominance, and control.
    
12. Dutch angle: Tilted sideways which creates a vertigo-like effect to create a sense of uneasiness from the audience.
    

Notes during class

Camera Movements

Fixed	Camera remains static	Calm, peace, normal
Push in	Camera moves slowly toward subject	Brings the audience closer, more involved, getting more serious.
Pull out	Camera moves slowly away from subject	Takes audience away from the action, leaving a character. Detaching from subject
Pan	Side to side, camera fixed	Reveal information, mirrors natural head movement of the audience.
Tilt	Up and down, camera fixed	Same as pan, just a different direction
Dolly	Camera moves around freely	More immersive, we are moving inside the subjects world, we feel part of the action
Tracking	Camera moves around on tracks	Similar to dolly, but smoother.
Crane	A tool that can move camera horizontally and vertically	Reveals the epic size of the setting, landscape.
Handheld	Camera is shakey	Very natural, immersive. High energy
Zoom	Zoom	Brings audience closer to budget. Draws our attention to something.

Sound 

Description	Effect
Diegetic sound	Sound that can be heard by the characters within the media text.	Add a sense of realism. Reveal information to characters (and then audience)
Non diegetic sound	Sound that can only be heard by the audience.	Enhance meaning, create an emotional response in the audience
Trans diegetic sound	Sound that transitions from one to the other.	Creates a link between the audience and the world. More immersive

	Description	Effect
Melodic	Positive and pleasing connotations	Enhances a positive scene. Create positive emotions in the audience.
Discordant	Harsh and unpleasant connotations.	Enhance negative scenes.  Create suspense, tension, anxiety
Contrapuntal	Has an opposite tone to the on-screen visuals.	Adds deeper meaning to scenes. Insight into the character's thoughts. Maybe they seek pleasure in doing bad things.

Edit 

Mise-en-scene

 

Sample answer during class

Theories

Binary Opposites - Levi Strauss

We all understand the world in terms of opposites. It is the conflict of these opposites that drives a narrative forward. The winner is often the ideology of the producer. 

Cultivation Theory - George Gerbner
Exposure to media over time will reinforce existing ideologies. People will choose to consume media that already agrees with their opinions. 

Desensitisation (Compassion Fatigue)
Occurs when an audience is repeatedly exposed to shocking or violent content. They become less compassionate about what they are seeing anbd the events become 'normalised'

Five Narrative Codes - Barthes
- Hermeneutic Codes - Enigma, deliberately withheld information to create mystery
- Proairetic Codes - Action, plot points that move the story forward
- Semantic Codes - Connotation, Codes that have a deeper meaning than their denotation
- Symbolic Codes - Thematic or structural devices. Aided by Binary Opposites. 
- Cultural Codes - Prior knowledge to help the reader decode all of the signifiers correctly.

 
Genre Theory - Steve Neale
Genre is a matter of repetition and difference. A text must conform to the conventions enough to be recognisable, yet subvert them enough to be different and interesting. This is to:
1) Provide pleasure and meaning for the audience. 
2) Offset against financial risk
Genre is useful because it gives the audience expectations, provides a template for the producers, and provides distributors with an audience to target. 

Hypodermic Needle Theory 
Not really considered a working theory any more. The belief that the audience is a sponge, and accepts any message from the media without any question. 

Reception Theory - Stuart Hall 
Media producers encode their texts with meaning. The audience decodes the text to understand meaning. However, all audiences are different and so receive the message differently. (Preferred, Negotiated, Oppositional)

Representation Theory - Stuart Hall
Media does not reflect meaning, media creates meaning. 
Stereotypes are used as a result of a lack of diversity in production. 
Meaning is created by hegemonic groups (rich, white, straight men) in order to maintain power.

Social Learning - Albert Bandura

After consuming media, the audience might go on to repeat what they have seen (in particular violent acts). Bandura admitted that there may be other processes that contribute to behaviour)

Two-Step Flow
A development of the hypodermic needle theory. The media is untrustworthy, so the audience has their interpretation formed by opinion leaders (trusted members of the community. Think celebrities, influencers)

Uses and Gratification - Bulmer & Katz
The audience is actively using the media to satisfy some of their base social needs;
- Diversion - A form of escapism from the stresses of everyday life
- Personal Identity - The media supplies us with role models
- Social Relationships - 1) People make connections with people they see on screen. 2) People can build their own social relationships
- Surveillance - People use the media to inform themselves about the world around them.

Notes during class

Self Reflection: This classwork really helped me understand and remember all technical elements as well as different theories. Although it took a while to complete, this will be really useful to me because I can simply refer back to this post to recall certain information. As I reread and write everything, I am able to thoroughly retain all of the knowledge that was presented to me, allowing me to readily recall the information when I have a theory class.

Lyric Sheet

Here is my teams lyric sheet for our music video. This blogpost is created by Chelsea 

After finalising our chosen song, our teacher helped us to print our song's lyric sheet, and we began by verballing discussing our thoughts and ideas as a group after each of us had proposed our own ideas and brainstormed which of the concepts we all agreed with. We all agree that, because of the upbeat rhythm of the song, we want our music video to feature both performance (dancing or lip-syncing) and a little bit of narrative elements as well. 

Below is the lyric paper sheet we've discussed during class: 

At the beginning we all have various perspectives and thoughts, which leads to some misunderstandings and uncertainty. Audrey and I imagined the music to be angsty in terms of mood, and the star will radiate the vibes of a stargirl (confident, bold, and unconcerned about what others say), dressed in bold colours like red and black and wearing heavy makeup. Meanwhile, my other teammates, Rara and Kalista, thought the entire music video would feature a sweet, vulnerable, innocent-looking star wearing white or light-colored clothes and light makeup, which contrasted my and my other teammates' ideas. 

This idea clash took a long time to resolve, but we eventually came up with a satisfactory solution. To resolve this, we all went through the song's lyrics and original music video again, searching for the song's meaning (which will be explained further in the song research blogpost), and then we came up with an interesting idea. Given that the song revolves around a one-sided relationship in which the female star is being "played" (taken advantage of or manipulated) by the man, we want to add a twist to our music video. We decided that during the first half of the song, we would represent the star as innocent, fragile, and desperate for love (aligned with Kalista and Rara's idea). The second half of the song reveals that the main star is not as innocent as she appears, and that she is actually the "player" (aligned with Audrey and my idea). We also wanted to incorporate various connotations throughout the music video.

We were unable to annotate all parts of the lyrics on time since gathering thoughts that we all agreed on took up a significant amount of time in class. And, because meeting together face to face to work on this would be ineffective, we decided to change our lyric sheet discussion method by utilising digital media tools, which makes discussion more efficient, rather than one of us bringing the paper home and having to write all of the notes on their own. 

Below is the lyric paper sheet we transferred and gathered our ideas on Google Docs:

Link: lyric sheet file

We choose Google Docs to discuss and annotate our song lyrics because it is easier to highlight a part of a lyric and then adding comments to it. It is also more effective because it will not be a burden if the idea needs to be changed (which we have done several times); it is as simple as deleting and commenting on a new one, compared to doing it on paper, where you we must repeatedly erase and write a new one, which can be time consuming. It has also been easy for us to give comments and additional notes for a specific scene, especially if a member was absent while working and can be checked later, so not all members must be present at the same time but still collaborate together.

Selecting a part of the song lyric: 

Adding comments & additional notes: 

Here we also utilised Google Meet to discuss our ideas together via online:

Unfortunately, embedding the Google Doc file to this blogpost does not let viewers to see the comments we've made. Hence, we tried to find another alternative solution for this problem. 

I began searching for whiteboard online applications that we could use and embed, and I came across one called Mural. I had no prior knowledge with this application, but I was able to figure it all out quickly because the user interface made it simple and guided me through the lyric sheet development process. So, I transferred all of the lyrics and annotations we made on the Google Doc, and my teammate Audrey helped me out with this. 

I used different coloured sticky notes to make it easier to differentiate between each part of the song (e.g., purple for verse, yellow for chorus). Aside from this feature, I discovered what makes this application stand out compared to Google Docs. Aside from the vibrant visuals we can use, I can also embed YouTube videos (since we got a loads of inspiration and references from other music videos and movies), so we can easily refer back to the inspiration simply by just watching the embedded video in the same window. 

Below is our final lyric sheet using the application, Mural: 

Link: Mural lyric sheet file

Self Reflection: During this task, discussion played such an important role in finishing it on time with a result that would satisfy everyone's ideas. This took the longest to finish, as we needed everyone present to discuss everything and complete it, which is why I mostly engaged in online and offline discussion, giving out my ideas, as I already had scenes that I wanted to recreate, giving us a more visual outlook on how the lyrics would match the scene, so I was able to participate in putting out my ideas and whether or not specific ideas would fit well because our narrative in itself is already quite tedious. However, at some point our ideas had clashed with one another, but we quickly solved this issue through an innovative approach by merging each of our ideas together, as we had 2: playgirl & soft girl. We decided this to be our whole narrative, making our artist start off with a soft girl personality, but later on her true colors will show. Even though this plan is quite complex to execute, I believe our team can achieve this as it keeps us outside our comfort zone to challenge our capabilities as we always do. Having this lyric sheet also saves our team so much time during the production stage as we already have the scenes we want to make and recreate, allowing us to be more effective when filming with our artists and side characters. Although our team encountered a problem when trying to transition from paper to digital, we easily fixed this issue by finding other platforms to finish our task. And since we experience many creative blocks for this task, especially during the chorus, I'm happy that we all didn't give up and continuously tried to find different ideas to incorporate in our music video, so in the end I'm very happy with our result.