Last Week

Tomska is a youtuber with over 4.3 million subscribers, with a side channel called dark Squidge (645,000 subscribers). On this second channel, Tom posts a weekly vlog series called last week, where he records various parts of his week and puts it all into one video for the start of each week. As Tom gained his fame through making comedic short films and sketches, and has built up a small team over the years to help run his channel and content; it is incredibly interesting to see the inside view of the creation of youtube videos and the maintenance of channels.

However, The vlogs don't purely focus on this; they also focus on Tom depression, obsesity, relationships, self doubt, worry, his life story, all forming into a well rounded video each week. So, not only is it a deep insight into the inner workings of a youtube channel; it also provides the creator with a greater connection to his fans which he otherwise wouldn't be able to achieve due to his other content (Sketch comedy) not having that lenience. Below are two examples of videos showing the range of emotions and experiences carried through last week.

Even though Tom tends to put a comedic twist on everything in these videos, there is still evidence on the fine line that they have to walk in order to stay in this line of work. Even with short, quirky remarks like "have we been fired yet?" when addressing their trip to Hungary show some of the possibilities faced by content producers. 

This second video also carries a very important message that, if you are suffering with depression or other mental illness, it is important to build strong support networks of friends to make your life easier to deal with. And that's exactly what Tom has done as displayed by the video below. So, while also providing an insight into a creators life and their different styles, he his also creating an escape for people, and giving them meaningful advice and proving that it works. 

Stop Motion With Live Action

Stop motion is a technique where lots of photos of an object or scene are taken where minute movements are made in the scene between shots. Typically, this technique is used with clay figures and scenes to make films and TV episodes such as Wallace and Grommit and Flushed Away. But stop motion has been used in live action. Popularly in scetches on youtube and in indie films to create an interesting effect in a scene.

This video illustrates how stop motion can be a cheap tool that can be used to create intriguing visuals that can compliment a song well, and also create visuals without the use of animation. Taking inspiration from some live action stop motion videos, i've decided to include a small scene of stop motion in my production. While it won't contain anywhere near the amount of frames as some other small scenes of stop motion as i want it to go with the rhythm of the song, it is still classed as stop motion.

Its interesting to me how well older stop motion videos hold up compared to newer ones. For example "sledgehammer" by Peter Gabriel. What was a groundbreaking piece of media for the time can still be considered just as groundbreaking many years on.

I believe the reason that this video from the 1980's can still hold up to newer stop motion videos is down to the fact that the fundamentals and technique of stop motion haven't changed. While they have been refined over the years, as can be seen in the Wallace and Grommit films when comparing the first and latest films together, they are still all about taking a sequence of many shots and putting it together to form moving image.

BBC Three

BBC Three is a rather unique case study of what the future might hold for television channels. This is because BBC Three used to be a TV channel, but in 2016 moved to be completely online to act as an extension to BBC Iplayer (the BBC's catchup service). On this new platform, the BBC are now able to create exclusive shows for the online space. These include documentaries, comedies and dramas; making it more into a netflix like platform just without the subscription.

The move of BBC Three from terrestrial television gives us a glimpse into the future. I feel the BBC used this move to break into the market of catch up and on demand TV which has grown exponentially in the past few years with platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime. We can see that BBC Three being online has given the BBC a chance to advertise some of their internet exlusive shows such as Taboo and the Asian Provocateur (my personal favourite).

But with more and more TV channels making the move to online due to the popularity of netflix, is this where TV will be going in the next 10-20 years? personally, i think no. While i agree that streaming platforms are stealing the show at the moment, for channels with as high a reputation as the BBC still having significant foothold, and the markets for TV's still booming, i feel there will always be some live television rather than it all being located online. Below is a link to the BBC 3 site

BBC 3 

How Suspense is Built in Film

Over school holidays, i tend to find myself watching quite a few horrors and thrillers. There's something about the atmosphere and the tension created in both of these genre's that i can connect with very deeply. It was only until recently where i began to understand it after stumbling across a few interviews of Alfred Hitchcock where he define's the differences between suspense and mystery. To describe this, he used his famous analogy of the bomb, which is explained in the video below.

 While this is a very  good description of what suspense is, it doesn't describe how this can fit into a film. One scene from the recent film "the conjuring 2" carry's quite a lot of suspense using the pre-requisites of a suspenseful film.

Warning: this is a scary scene. Viewer discretion is advised 

This scene exhibits some elements that are common in suspenseful moments in cinema. Probably the most prolific in this particular sequence is the pacing, lighting and sound track. Suspense normally relies on the scene to be slow, but gradually gain momentum as it carries on. This is exhibited by the shadow walking towards the picture and the placement of the portrait in the background of most of the scene. This gives the audience a focal point of the scene- they know that what is going to happen will be related to that picture. This is aided by the music. Because there is virtually no music, or little sustained notes on the strings or something, it keeps the audiences attention purely on the visuals of the scene rather than overwhelming them. 

top five Best- Top five worst

One series on youtube I've been getting into recently is Walter Banasiak's Top five best/ Top five worst. In these videos, he comprises a list of 5 of an actors best and 5 of an actors worst performances in his opinion.

Part of the appeal of these series for me is the fact that it shows even some of Hollywood's most beloved actors (such as Ben Affleck, Johnny Depp and Jennifer Lawrence) have bad days and don's always put there all into a performance. And this can has such a detrimental effect on the final piece. It also introduces aundiences and fans to films that they may not have seen, even though they are considered fantastic films. This is the case for me watching "Ed Wood" after i saw it on the top 5 best of Johnny Depp's performances. Linked below are the Top five best and Top five worst videos for Jim Carrey.

 

This has proven to be quite a valuable tool for me as i always love finding new cinema experiences and widening my knowledge and skills through absorbing this medium. And with this third party presenting films that people have probably never heard of either supporting or destroying these actors work, it can help you to form a more critical view on many actors seen to be at the top of their game. This was the case for me and watching their top five best and worst of Tom Hanks; and actor who i previously thought was untouchable. But looking at some of the performances they bring to light, it is clear to see that every actor has the ability to have a bad performance.

Change Of Idea

Due to various factors linked to logistics and the availability of cast and the location, i have had to shelf my previous music video idea for "Don's forget me". Without delay, i jumped straight back on the horse to try and produce an idea with similar levels of complexity and story, without the previous issues of the first idea. I decided to move to the song "The past six years" by Deaf Havana. Below is a powerpoint i created to display my current thoughts.

The Past Six Years by Ben court on Scribd

Narrative in music videos

It can't be ignored, the story that some music video's carry. And this isn't more true than in the videos of 30 seconds to mars; a band fronted by Jared Leto (actor in Suicide Squad, Dallas Buyers Club and Fight club). It may be due to the singer's connection to film that means that the band lean to more story driven videos. When talking about this story element, one video in particular springs to mind; and that is for the video "The Kill".

This video links is clearly heavily influenced by the shining, as it features some of the iconic characters and scenes from that film- such as the bar scene and the bear mascot; But does bring in some rather unique elements into the mix.

While this video contains both performance and narrative elements, it is clearly more weighted towards telling a story. It even features little inserts of acting and drama to further the story such as at the start when Jared is filling his band members in on the hotel. This is rather common place in more narrative music videos. Some even featuring bits of action midway through the song. an example of this is "From Yesterday" by 30 Seconds to Mars.

While i can see the attraction of a strong narrative in music videos, especially when mixed with performance elements (much like my product) i feel that sometimes it can actually be detrimental to the overall feel of the music video as too much of it is separate from the music itself; which, after all, is what the music video is designed to accentuate. However, from these two videos i can take a lot of inspiration on how i can layout my music video in terms of shots and the blend between performance and story telling.

Set Planning

With my location sorted out, i started to process of how i want the music video to act in the space. As it will mainly be filmed in a corridor and a room coming off of it, i felt it would be easy for me to make a paper replica in order to get my head around it. So, i got my scissors, blue tack and an A4 sheet of paper and set to work. The results were rather... Interesting... i would love to post the videos of me working with this paper set, but i'd like to end this week with at least some of my dignity intact. So, instead, i will post some pictures below of how it worked. Enjoy.

While this may have seemed ridiculous while i was doing it; it did prove useful to the development of my staging in the location. The one thing that this technique didn't give me was a true idea of the scale of the location. But something like that will have to wait until we can use the space. I'm hoping to get my cast and props down to the location at the end of September in order to start the production phase and to give me a greater idea  of how to carry on and use the space more effectively.

Palette and Treatment

Palette and treatment are two things that need to be heavily thought about at the start of any production; as these factors help determine the edge and the representations created in the production. These can turn an ordinary production into one of many things.

Palette normally refers to lighting, props and the set used in productions to help the overall suggestion carried through. While treatment is more closly linked to how the factors discussed in palette will actually effect the emotion of the viewer.

For example, if we look at this video for Calum Scott's "dancing on my own", we can gain a clearer understanding of how these two factors can influence a production.

From this video we can see various themes start to emerge, creating a rather somber an gloomy mood. The costume, set and filter are incredibly washed out, lending to the topic of the song draining the artist. The use of the amount of people along with them all wearing plain white with blank expressions links to how they aren't the focus of his eye as he is too drawn to watching his lover or crush being taken away. 

My Main task presentation

Before the summer, we were tasked to create a power point and present our idea to the class. is an incredibly value stage in the formation of an idea as it gives us a platform where we can receive constructive criticism in order to further our idea and understanding of the undertaking. i presented my concept of a music video of "don't forget me" in this session and it was rather well received. But some questions were brought up with it. mainly linked to the treatment how much work i have to put in to create this performance based hybrid music video.

below is my presentation;

Main Task Breif by Ben court on Scribd

Can't Stop & Sound of Silence

I think the most ticky part of this pre production for a music video is trying to get an idea of how you're going to edit it and treat it. But with so many examples out there of pretty much every treatment style and editing techniques, it is easy to imagine and apply these different techniques and styles to our own videos.

Examples of completly contrasting music videos with vastly different editing styles and treatments are the video for Red Hot Chili Peppers- "Can't Stop" and Disturbed's cover of "Sound of Silence". Both of these videos compliment the songs the follow incredibly well, which shows the real breadth of treatments and editing styles.

On the rather random, crazy end of the treatment and editing section is "Can't Stop". It features the band in some of the  weirdest and crazy activities and props to carry the incredibly random nature of the song, and the band themsleves. There isn't really any Chronology to the video. Instead it just jumps between shots of the band doing rather weird activities; such as when they are popping in and out of Wheelie Bins, or when Anthony Kiedis (the lead singer) is in that weird body tent. One technique i like is how they use the tunnel at the begining to amplify the build up of the song. This paired with them matching scenes of vocals with the song form a closer link to the source material, which i feel is important for a music video.

On the other end of the spectrum is disturbed's cover of the "Sound of Silence". This song does feature some elements of story telling and chronology, and also links to the source material very well either through close ups of the singer, or what is being displayed on the screen. What I mean by this is that there is often links between the lyrics, instrumental and the video. An example of this is when the singer sings "In restless dreams i walked alone" we see a man walking alone in the video holding a guitar. This links further because it is this line that triggers the guitar to start in the song. Infact, this is where the video gets its sense of story telling from. It chooses to display what is going on in the lyrics on screen. It also links to the music too; such as when the drums come in on the verse starting with "fools said i you do not know" it includes shots of the drummer do his two strokes on the timpani.

Looking at these two videos has given me greater insight in the way that i could treat and edit my video. I'm thinking of leaning more towards "the sound of silence" as it links closer to the mood i'm trying to get across. However, i may go more towards the pace of the "Can't Stop" video in the choruses when the song gets heavier.

Wong Fu

Wong Fu is a Youtube channel and company that creates incrediby well made short films. It was created by Weseley Chan, Ted Fu and Phillip Wang in 2006. Their primary genres for videos tend to be romance, coming of age and comedy. One thing that shines in all wong fu productions is the production value, writing and cinematography. An example of where all of these factors are in full force is the video below called "The Last"

Wong Fu also create comedy shorts, like the video below:

below are links to their website, and then their youtube channel. The website is useful as it advertises new projects coming up, such as "everything before us"; a new mini series that the company are bringing out. Through these projects, Wong Fu is able to collaberate with many youtubers and other experts in other fields to create the best product at the end.


Wong Fu's Website

Wong Fu's Youtube

My main task idea

The push for us deciding on our main task was thrust upon us last lesson. While many people were still running through their options, I decided rather quickly and started to develop. I decided on making a music video for the Red Hot Chilli Peppers song "Dont Forget Me".

This song is based and written around a drug addiction. But, rather than focusing on the traditional view, it is taken from the addiction's perspective. This is shown through the lines "come again, get me exited" and the fact that a majority of the lyrics focus on the writer being aspects of the addiction, such as "i'm the bloodstain on your shirt sleeve".

The next task for the class is to make a presentation on our ideas.

Below is a link to the song: