Evaluation.

For my project I decided I would do a music-driven production based on Bob Dylan’s song “Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts”. My strong emphasises were on mise-en-scene and editing. I wanted it to be thrilling and hoped the strong, fast-paced narrative would help this.
To get what I wanted for mise-en-scene, I had to do hours of thinking about set design and trying out different things at the venue where I filmed. The bar scene where Big Jim and the Jack play cards took about an hour of trying things out to get a set I liked. We had brought lots of different colours of table-cloth to try and had three different tables to try too. In the end we settled for a maroon colour for the table because it had the feeling of darkness and mystery, and it had the connotations of blood. Also it wasn’t too bright and didn’t pull the audiences attention away from the action. Looking for places to film was quite hard. My main base was The Puppet Theatre Barge on which I had asked to film. This proved excellent, as it had an atmosphere of drama about it, being a theatre, and also had several different, good places for sets too. I used the foyer, backstage and the auditorium.

I also had to get hold of all the costumes by asking friends & family, and going around charity shops & costume shops. Make-up was also a big feature I had to work on make-up design for a long time and had to portray my creative vision to Anastasia Davis who did make-up for me. This was good except that every time I wanted to shoot even one odd shot somewhere, make-up had to be put on, and this could take up to 30 minutes.
Overall though, I felt that the mise-en-scene I worked so hard on actually paid off at the end.
Watching the film, the influences on mise-en-scene from Shelly Love's 'The Forgotten Circus' are clear. The Make-up i've used is very carnivalesque and many of the costumes reflect this theatrical theme. In the second verse especially, you can see these play a big role in creating a situation and setting for the film.

Filming was hard to organise. There were roughly fifteen people in the cast, and to organise them all was very difficult. The second verse was the one I needed the most people for, so I did that one all on one day. To organise that, I phoned all members of the cast a week before and then a day before too. Then I told them exactly how to get to the Puppet Theatre Barge and let most of them make their own way there. On set, controlling a group of people who were all my friends and who I would normally be messing about with was hard. I had to play a firm but pleasant role and tried to get them to do what I wanted without being aggressive or making them feel like I was ordering them about. I got better at this as the filming went on. I saw how these skills improved because the last scene I shot was the scene with the backstage manager character. The actor playing him was very reluctant to do anything exposing and I had to work hard to get him to act. I know that if I had shot his scene first, I wouldn’t have got out of him what I had once I had honed my directing skills.

Originally, I was going to use Bob Dylan’s version of the song, as it would have been easier. But then I decided I wanted the production to be mine and not a compliment to someone else’s work. So I decided to record the track myself. I did the guitar, organ, harmonica and vocal parts to the track leaving two music teachers doing the bass and drum parts. I recorded the backing first, and then the vocals. I had trouble with levels, and spent a good hour in the studio mixing the song and getting the different tracks to the right level. For instance, the drum track was much too loud and you couldn’t hear the harmonica at all to start with. Once this had been done I converted the track to an Mp3 file and imported it into Final Cut Pro. I then edited the film in time with the track. This took a long time and I encountered problems when speeding up and slowing down footage because when I did this all the video tracks would move slightly, placing them out of time with the track. This was very annoying but I solved the problem by editing the speed before placing it in the timeline. This worked fine.

Watching the film, I see parts of it which are exactly as I saw them in my imagination. The atmosphere created by the film is how I would have liked it. The desaturation I put on in, and the video noise and soft edges worked together to make an overall feel of mystery, ambiguousness and made the film feel old. This was what I wanted. Audience who watch it give me this feedback. One big decision I made half way through doing the editing was to change the saturation. Initially I had decided to do the film in black and white. I felt this made the film feel more old and reflected the old charlie chaplin films. However, when I discovered more uses to the desaturation tool, I realised I could desaturate 80% as opposed to 100%. This gave the film a hint of colour, which seemed much more mysterious than just plain black and white. It no longer looked like an old-style silent movie, but it had a new mystical air which reflected the plot and lyrics. I liked this a lot more and have kept to this.
I only discovered how to do the video noise about halfway through the project. I had wanted an effect like Jonathan Vardi's in 'Somedays' by Regina Spektor but not been able to achieve it either through lack of knowledge in Final Cut Pro or lack of effect in the standard program provided. So i decided to put a layer of semi-transparent video-noise over the top of everything. This gave it a grainy effect which wasn't quite what i'd seen in many of Jonathan Vardi's videos and wasn't perfect but it was all i could achieve and it ended up quite good seeing as it wasn't too intrusive.

I felt overall that my film was a success. It achieved my aims in telling a story and creating an atmosphere of ambiguity, mystery and old-style film and the audience reacted with the rapt and captivated air which I was hoping for.

Mood Board.

Storyboards.

Filming Photos

'Rosemary' played by Anastasia Davis - a still shot i will use for the slideshow in the song intro.


'The Jack of Hearts' played by Callum Flood - another still i will use in the slideshow in the song intro.


'Big Jim' played by Rhys Hollis.
























'Rosemary' played by Anastasia Davis.


Anastasia Davis putting on false eyelashes for the character 'Rosemary'.




Callum Rangecroft-Davis in costume at the 'dressing room' set.




Myself as director.









Conor Skilbeck in costume as 'performer'.













Two performers in costume - Letty Thomas (left) and Lara Preiti (right)


The photographer Louis Carpenter in costume as 'performer'.


Callum Rangecroft-Davis (left) and Lara Preiti (right) in costume as 'Performers'.






Anastasia Davis doing makeup for a dancing girl (Lily Cooper).


















Makeup being done for one of the performers.

Synopsis.

I plan to do a music video. The song i am using is 'Lily, Rosemary and The Jack of Hearts'. I chose it because of its strong narrative line.

It will all be shot in black and white, possibly with a scratchy-style effect too. I have decided to set around the 1920's in a cabaret theatre.

In the story there are four main characters:

Lily - the attractive, popular, Cabaret girl who is married to Big Jim. she is described in the song as a 'princess, fair skinned and precious as a child'

Big Jim - the richest man in town. described with 'body guards, silver cane and every hair in place'.

Rosemary - A mysterious, member of the cabaret, who is quite unpredictable and in the song it says she 'She had done a lot of bad things, even once tried suicide"

The Jack of Hearts - A criminal who travels around and visits the cabaret on occasion to have affairs with Lily. He is a smooth character and quite mysterious

Gantt

The Chart that freaks me out.

Statement of Intentions.

The aim of my project was to create a music video. I wanted to make one with a strong narrative and well-developed characters.

I had to chose a song with a narrative and ideally one that I could play myself so as to avoid using one track of sound that I hadn’t edited at all. I had the idea of:

‘Minnie the Moocher’ – Cab Calloway – Strong narrative, good characters and good atmosphere, but I couldn’t play it myself.

‘Postcards From Italy’ – Beirut – Easily played and recorded by me and good atmosphere but vague narrative and characters.

‘Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts’ – Bob Dylan – Very strong narrative and highly developed characters. Also it was feasible to play and record myself.

Understandably I have stuck with the latter option. I then studied various Director/Filmmakers to explore different styles of film and the conventions of music videos. I liked Charlie Chaplin and decided the i will put a black and white, old-style quality to my video. I liked how, with the absence of sound, expressions of characters and visual atmosphere can be heightened to great effect. This made me want to put emphasis on the expressions and appearance of the characters, as well as the mise-en-scene and atmosphere of set in my video.
Watching some music videos by Johnathan Vardi (jonathanvardi.com) I liked the scratchy quality he uses in most of them, especially in his video of ‘Somedays’ by Regina Spektor. I think to have black and white and scratchy effects on the screen will give a real atmosphere of old film. Since the mise-en-scene will be themed around 1920's america the old effect will reinforce this idea. I have decided to add to this even more with an idea from Johnny Cash’s video ‘Personal Jesus’ which uses blurred or ‘soft’ edges. This made the old-style effect even better. These soft edges should narrow the audience's field of vision and will hopefully focus their attention on the central action of the shot. The scratchy effect, black and white quality and soft edges combined will hopefully unite to create a vision that is quite hard to make out, mirroring the ambiguity of the song.

Another big influence is the short film ‘The Forgotten Circus’ by Shelly Love. The big influence of this was the mise-en-scene. I love the carnivalesque atmosphere, costumes, set and theme and as my video is to be set in 1910’s/20’s cabaret/music hall. I think I will incorporate this into it. I have a scene in my video now that takes place backstage in a dressing room and it will be heavily influenced by the costumes and characters in shelly love’s ‘The Forgotten Circus’. What i liked about the costumes when i watched this film was their flamboyance. I felt they give a great atmosphere of drama and theatre. I will use many aspects of the make-up too which is all highly exaggerated. I think these make-up effects (e.g. totally white faces) give the performing vibe too.

I have decided to combine these old-style effects and this atmosphere with a conventional music video edit style (cuts in sync with the beat of the music, lines relating to lyrics). I want this to make it different and hopefully unique.

Doing my Production exercise was very useful because it allowed me to try out the lighting and other practicalities. It helped me to sync the sound with the beat of the music which will be a necessity when it comes to the real thing. I also got a taste of directing which I think I will warm to.
I will storyboard every shot in the video rather than just the keyframes because this will make filming a lot easier.

I will record my own version of the song and put into Soundtrack Pro, this way I will use multiple tracks.

I also had another idea from the video ‘Beat It’ by Michael Jackson. In the video, the music doesn’t start for about 20 seconds. During this time there is a little bit of live action of two men walking out of a bar. I liked the idea of not starting the music video immediately but having a short passage of live action that leads into it. I also had the idea of doing the same at the end of the video. I think I will have footage of some people putting on a film on a projector – the music video, and after it has ended, them laughing about it and talking. I think this will be good as it will give my music video a context.