Construction

Using digital video cameras we started filming our project and editing it on imovie hd. The video starts with a very slow tempo where the shots are long and slow paced. In the first 25 seconds we establish the scene, iron man lives on his own and we are introduced to the lead singer also on his own. As a music video we knew that it was vital that we matched the tempo of the music with the video, this is shown throughout our video. In the first shot we see a calm see with a sunset, this matches the calm and peaceful tempo of the music, this makes the music video more captivating for the audience. When a music video does not match the music it seems out of place and tacky. We emphasized this with the slow shot of iron man waking up. It is a slow and calm just like the music. These slow shots in contrast to the upbeat and fast paced music and the very quick colorful shots that match it, as the music picks up so does the atmosphere, the colors become more vibrant and iron man him self becomes happier.



From the start of the video we tried hard to show the audience that iron man is vulnerable and not happy, we did this using techniques we had been taught throughout our A level course, for example at 0:43 seconds we used whats known as a ‘birds eye view’ shot, as you can see iron man is filmed from above, giving him a smaller appearance and generally made to seem more vulnerable. This kind of shot is often used in horror movies to make he victims seem more scared. We felt that not only does this shot make iron man seem more vulnerable and emotionally weak. It also enables the audience to feel sad for iron man and connect with the lead character. As we have been taught the audience need to connect with a video to enjoy it, and for a music video to be successful the viewer must enjoy it and want to watch it again. I feel that our video is very original, has action, has romance and is very vibrant and eye catching. All of which would make a viewer want to watch it again. In comparison to the birds eye shot we needed to remind the audience that iron man is still a superhero and physically strong. We also filmed the majority of the band from a worms eye view, this shot is the opposite of a birds eye view and is used to make a character seem more strong and reliable, it is often used in action films when the strong hero is around. We felt that by using this shot it shows that the band is in control and singing the story of iron man.

Furthermore, to enforce the fact that iron man is miserable and cant live life like he wants to we added some humour in, you get to see iron man make some toast only to find he cant eat it as he doesn’t have a real face, you get to see this with a moving close up as he walks into the kitchen at 1:12. At 2:02 we decided to do something that we hadn’t tried before, we decided to use a technique that would prove our abilities in film making. We overlapped multiple clips that from exactly the same position, this would challenge typical conventions of a film, it also suits the video as iron man is super human, and this shot makes the lead singer super human as well. Super powers are a typical convention for a superhero themed video. The effect would give the appearance that the lead singer would be able to teleport. This effect was extremely difficult as even the slightest movement of the camera would spoil the effect, we used imovie hd to cut and overlap these clips.

As well as these techniques we also used a lot of improvised techniques, for example we did not think the fade ins were what we needed, so we used a technique we kind of stumbled upon, if the sun is shining on the camera and you block all light, we had the character walk out from the camera it takes a while to adjust to light which gave us a quality fade in.

We ha to choose many different sets that would suit the conventions of a superhero video, for the superhero part we chose many bright settings such as a party and a play ground, for the performance section we chose a stage, typical convention of a band, furthermore we chose to reverse the atmosphere by choosing a run down war bunker covered in graffiti. We feel that it had the desired effect. It suited the character very well.

We tried to make the video interesting and make the viewer want to watch it again, so we decided to put some action in it. We used typical outfits for the good vs bad conventions, such as colourful outfit for the good guy and black and dark grey for the villains. It makes it clear to the viewer who the hero is.

Furthermore, we decided to match the lyrics with the video, so as the singer sings ‘tell me you’ll open you’re eyes’ we decided to get clips of people opening their eyes, in addition we decided to match it to the music. It also was divider between the bad depressed iron man and the cheerful and happy iron man. The fast paced eyes then cuts to the party, it is here where we decided to focus on matching the music to the video. We felt that it would make the video flow and seem smoother, which in our eyes was crucial. The whole party was bright and happy, fast paced. This pathetic fallacy gives the whole section video a cheery atmosphere. This technique can be seen in the first half of the video, with the boring kitchen and the dull bedroom.

At the very end of the video the music suddenly turns very slow and calm, with that we decided the video needed to go very slow to match, as the music slows we decided it was time to summarize the video. As it was a superhero movie based music video and movies usually end with the credits ‘The End’ we decided it would be fitting to put out closing credits as well. We chose the words ‘the incredible snow patrol’ there is a lot of thought behind this, one as iron mans comic is called ‘the invincible iron man’ this is where we got incredible. Snow patrol were the band so we decided it would be fitting as it was their song we were doing a music video for. We didn’t want to use invincible as it wouldn’t make sense, so we decided incredible would some snow patrol up. We also decided to show how iron man got a happy ending after all when we see the old iron man on his own fade into the new iron man with a girlfriend.

We wanted to keep the continuity throughout our entire project, not just the video. So as it was an iron man theme video we decided to go for an iron man themed project, in our subsidiary tasks as well as our main project. As we were told to design a dvd cover we realized the proportions were the same size as the iron man comics we had been looking at for our research. We felt it would be fitting to make our dvd cover as a mock iron man comic. We still needed to connect iron man with snow patrol, so instead of using a simple iron man design we decided to put snow patrol into the cover as well. We looked at many old iron man covers that we could use to improvise snow patrol in and we finally found one with iron man picking up a tank. We improvised this by removing the tank and putting a sofa with the band on it instead. Once we had made the cover look like a comic cover we needed to focus on the website. We also felt that as the dvd cover was old school iron man we would make the website a more modern thing as the internet is modern. We used the new television iron man instead of the drawing iron man. We embedded both the new iron man with the new snow patrol logo and name. The overall project, the video, the dvd cover and the website all go together very smoothly. They all keep the continuity very well. We were complemented on the professionalism of our tasks, the dvd cover especially.



We combined the indie band scene, with the iron man comic cover.