Technical Analysis - Red Hot Chili Peppers Live in Milan "By The Way"

There is one location for this video and that is in Milan where the Red Hot Chili Peppers are playing live. The band don't have a specific costume but when they play live the do normally have a specific look that they where. There are four performers in the video and they are just the members of the band. Flea (Michael Balzary on Bass), Anthony Kiedis (Vocals), Chad Smith (Drums) and John Frusciante <3 (Guitar).

Above is the Red Hot Chili Peppers L - R = Flea (Michael Balzary), Anthony Kiedis, Chad Smith and John Frusciante

The video starts off with a close-up on Anthony Kiedis whilst the introductory guitar chords are playing. As Kiedis comes in with the singing the camera jumps to an angle where Flea, John Frusciante, Chad Smith and Anthony Kiedis are in the shot from a side-angle. During this first verse it changes back to close up of Anthony Kiedis and then has a long shot of John Frusciante and Anthony Kiedis. As soon as it goes into the heavy bass line that everybody loves the camera zooms in on Flea jumping round and switching between him and Anthony Kiedis. Occasionally the camera jumps to a zoomed in shot of John Frusciante's beautiful guitar (Fender Stratocaster - Sunburst). The editing is just jumping between the band members on different beats of the song. There is a pattern to the editing because when there is fast up-beat parts of the song the editing switches between different band members quite quickly whereas when there are the slower parts of the song it focuses on just 1 or 2 members of the band. What we can learn from this video is to edit it differently in different parts of the song for example when it gets to the chorus edit between shots a bit quicker than in the verses.

http://www.youtube.com/user/friskyfritatas?blend=3&ob=4#p/u/2/8fiuDAjLzoc

Above is a link to the video on youtube.

Contacting Little Man Tate

I sent an e-mail to Little Man Tate saying that we used there song for our music video. Unfortunately they haven't responded but they might do in the future. I mentioned who we were and why we were making the video. We also said we would send them a copy of the final cut when it's finished.

Extra Footage

Me and Nathaniel shot some extra footage and were planning to upload it and put it into final cut but the tape that we recorded the extra footage was broken so we couldn't upload it. We plan to re-record this extra footage with a different tape so we can successfully upload it and edit it in Final cut with our video.

Facebook Group

I created a Facebook group with our music video on it today entitled "Christain, Nathaniel and Alex's music video. Feedback please". The reason for this FB group is so that people can comment on the video and give us feedback on how we can improve the video and what's good about it. So far we have had comments from Scott, Tom, Leanne and my friend James from Australia. My sister has also posted the video to her profile so that a wider range of people can see it. 

Feedback

We got some feedback from the class about our music video. Positive and Negative. The positive feedback is as follows:


- Good lighting
- Good camera work
- Good performance


The negative feedback we got was:


- Slow motion perhaps doesn't work on the bass?
- When Nathan comes in to do the backing singing it looks like he comes in from nowhere
- We should have a story for our video
- We need more shots of the drummer

Goals

Goals for today (Friday 18.03.11).


Short term goal - Our short term goal is to get the guitar in the introduction synced correctly. At the moment it shows the guitar playing one part of the song when the audio file is playing a separate part to the song which makes it look out of sync. The guitarist is playing the guitar solo when it is just the introduction so it looks like the guitar is playing more than it needs to be playing.


Medium term goal - The medium term goal is to get the rest of the footage into Final Cut and to finish the editing the performance video. So far we have done the Introduction, First verse, first chorus and the beginning of the second verse. We need to finish the video with the Rest of the second verse, second chorus, guitar solo, bridge/middle 8, and final chorus.


Long term goal - Our long term goal is to have a final video that we are pleased with and Nick is pleased with uploaded to Vimeo. I think the goal is not impossible because the editing we have done so far is coming along really well. Alex is our top editor and he is doing a fantastic job of editing. Myself and Nathaniel are helping in any way we can though.

Editing 17.03.11

Today we have been continuing with the editing for our performance video that's due in tomorrow. We are having a problem with the intro though because it shows the guitar playing one part of the song when the song is actually playing a completely different part. The video shows the guitar playing the guitar solo during the introduction which makes it look wrong because the intro is a lot slower than the solo.

Learning the Song..

I learnt the song for our music video to make it much more realistic when recording. It worked a lot better when filming because I'd learnt the lyrics to the song and I knew the guitar part. To learn the guitar chords I went on www.ultimate-guitar.com and searched the name of the song and it came up with the chords. The song is incredibly simple In the introduction the chords are G, Bm, Am, D and are the same in the verse. It changes when it gets to the pre-chorus because the chords become Em, D, Em, D, C, D, C, D and then it goes back into the chorus which is the same as the intro and verse (G, Bm, Am, D). To learn the guitar riff at the beginning I just played around the notes in the key of the song (G) and eventually found the order that the notes are played in. I didn't learn the guitar solo so I just played the chords that the rhythm guitarist plays during the solo which are again just G, Bm, Am, D.

15.03.11 Conclusion

We re-recorded the drums for our music video today. We have decided that we will need to also re-record the bass as well. The reason for this is that the clips we have of the bass are not very well lighted and are quite short. unfortunately Nathaniel didn't have his bass with him today but he's bringing it in tomorrow so we can record the bass line again. We need to sort the lighting out because it was to dark before so if we just shine it a bit higher then it should be okay.

Plan for 15.03.11

Today our plans were to start filming at 9 through until 11 but Nathan has fallen ill so we will be starting a bit later. We used an HD camera for our original recording but we didn't film it in HD so we need to re-record some of our work. Alex has bought his flag back in and I have my guitar with me. Nathan will be bringing his bass and we just need to set up the lights, microphone and drum kit so we can start recording again. This is quite unfortunate considering we have been asked to have a performance video by tomorrow. 

Loss of lights

We weren't able to get any lights off of the company from Dry Drayton because they didn't deliever them as they said they would. Nathaniel went to pick them up and they weren't in so he came back to College and they said they would deliver them, unfortunately they never did. We managed to get round the problem by using college lights and stands. For a mic stand we used a telescopic pole and we put a part of a drum kit on the to and taped the mic to it. This goes with the theme of Do It Yourself for Britpop.

11.03.11

I left a voicemail message to the company in Dry Drayton proving that it would be within college grounds that we'd be using there equipment. We have to wait for them to get back to me and they are hopefully dropping off the equipment to the college later today. This has put a spanner to our plan of filming today because we don't know if we our going to have all the equipment.

Light Testing 10.03.11

We have tested some lights on the College stage today. We learnt how to make the video in black and white by adjusting the contrast. We had a light at the side of the stage so that half of my face was lit up and the other half was dark. This is really effective in black and white. We recorded some footage on the HD Camera which we'll be using tomorrow when we start recording.


We also too some stills of the stage so we can show where we are recording.

Evaluation of Progress

Schedule - Taking photos of possible locations on Wednesday morning. On Wednesday afternoon we will be doing advanced research and sorting out the lighting for our video. On Thursday we will be filming the video and we will also be filming it on Friday morning. By Friday afternoon we should be able to start editing.

Problems - We were going to use a smoke machine that we could hire from Nathan's friend but we discovered that the smoke machine is out of order. We did some research on Safari to find out where we could hire a smoke machine from in Cambridge and conveniently on my village there is a company that can rent out smoke machines. Another problem we expect to encounter is the transportation of the drum kit. Hopefully if we get to record our video on the stage at the Junction then there will be a drum kit we can borrow from there. If we have to record our video on the College stage we are going to really struggle with getting a drum kit to use. The final problem we thought might be an issue is the lighting. We need to hire out some lights to use and sort out exactly how we need to have them and at what exact settings we need to have them on.

Location, Props and Performers - For the location we are hoping to use the junction but if that is not possible we will have to use the Community Centre in Over. If we can't use either of these we will use the College stage. For the performers we will have Alex playing drums, Myself singing and playing guitar and hopefully one of Nathan's friends from his band will be able to play bass for us while Nathan is on camera duty. For Props we need to use A Drum Kit, Electric Guitar, Bass Guitar and Microphones.

Filming - We are planning to film on Thursday (All Day) ad Friday (Morning).

Editing - We hope to be able to start Editing on Friday (Afternoon) and continue on Monday next week.

The main inspiration for our video is the video for "Sorry" by "Life in Film"

Music VIdeo Treatment

A music video treatment is when production companies or directors work with the artist to form ideas. It outlines the information needed for the vide and tells the reader what the main concept is about. It also helps production companies gage the budget of the video.

3 Main Concepts

1. Performing to a live audience wether it's solo or with a band. It is focussed on the talent.

2. A Storyline i.e certain events or situations that happen in the video

3. Experimental parts such as random images that compliment the music.

Essentials


1. Location

2. Situation

3. Stories/Narrative

4. Look and Feel

5. Tone

6. Pace

7. Colour

Our treatment is an idea of us performing on a stage with a few lights and it's going to be quite dark. Because this is quite a simple setup we can use the college's stage for our recording. It's quite a medium paced song so we can edit it not really quickly but not slowly either. The lighting will mainly focus on one thing at a time so it will start with the bass and  then when the vocals come in the light will go on to the singer.

Music Video Storyboard Timeline

We made a timeline of the song for our music video. This will help us because it shows where certain parts of the song are. We were introduced to this idea by music video producer Chris Cunningham. This will help us because it shows us where we can add cuts and edit it.

Chris Cunningham

In 1989 Chris Cunningham worked on "Spitting Image" with special effects. A year later in 1990 he went to work on "Alien 3" also doing effects. In 1994 he was working on "Judge Dredd" and contributed to the Judge Dredd magazine. Cunningham Produced 19 music videos between 1996 and 1999. In 2000 he went on to working with Commercials, Video Art and Short Films.

A technique that Chris Cunningham uses is called the graphing technique. What you have to do with the graphing technique is listen to a song and break down each individual part and picture where you can put edits. You draw a graph of what the song would look like on a timeline and write in where certain parts are that stand out.