Asking the right questions.

We have been very busy asking several teachers around our school for help and advice for the production of our video. Our school has a huge amount of resources available for us to use at our disposal. Here are some of the things we have been asking:

Drama Department

We have been meeting up with our schools drama teacher, Mrs McGivern once a week for the past few weeks in order to ask questions about what lighting we could use that the school could supply us for our green screen and other band footage to be shot in the school assembly hall. She has been giving us tips for the best lighting conditions, and has arranged for one of the A-Level drama pupils to set us up with a lighting board and lights for our filming day. This is great news to us as it will help us to create a better quality media product.

We have also arranged with her to have the set that is currently taking up space on the stage removed. 

The set is from the school play and has remained there as it is not due to be removed for another few weeks. However we have arranged to bring this date forward and have got confirmation that it shall be removed over the mid-term break, in time for us to prepare the stage for filing when we get back.

School Bursar

With the help of our media studies teacher, we spoke with the school Bursar, Mr.Drumm and he has kindly agreed that the school will contribute the whole cost of the green screen. This is great news for us as it removes the cost from our pockets and the school has been very helpful in covering us on this occasion.

Technology & Design Department

I have met regularly with my Technology & Design teacher, Mr Donnelly, in order to discuss plans for the frame of the green screen. We have looked at several designs in order determine what would be the most stable design, easiest to build, yet still delivers a great quality screen and focuses on important details such as removing crinkles, keeping it steady and tight for even light distribution.

We have created some computer aided design drawings to represent what our final design idea could look like.

The group have agreed that this idea should work and will be used as the design for the green screen. We will now need to source the materials to build all 3 green screens.

Art Technician

Our in school art technician, Tom has been giving us hours of advice on creating a great looking set. He recommended many different types of materials and paints we could use. He has allowed us to use the large canvas sheet in the school assembly hall as the backdrop for our video. We plan to paint the logo design over the top of this in order to create our own backdrop. He has also provided us with some assistance for the green screens. The two long strips of MDF at the top and bottom will be donated from the school, and Tom has offered to cut them to size for us too. We now know exactly how our set will look and how we will achieve that goal.

ICT Technicians

We have met with the ICT technicians in the school to discuss the possibilities of using the sound system in the schools assembly hall so that we can play the song through these speakers whilst recording the band. This would be helpful as it will allow us to create a higher quality video. The band will be able to hear the song adequately and therefore keep in time with the song. This makes post production easier as we will have to mute the video tracks and just play the audio track along with the video.

They have allowed us to use the audio system and will instruct us on how the system works. They will also provide us with a projector for painting our planned backdrop onto the canvas we have obtained from the art department.

We cannot give enough thanks to all of those involved who are helping us to create a higher quality media product. The level of knowledge we have been provided and the willingness to help has been second to none.

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Final Storyboards

Shot 1: Starts with band from front

Shot 2: Boy and girl walking into shop

Shot 3: Font greenscreen shot

Shot 4: Girl putting a drink in the boy's pocket, boy realises after and puts it back.

Shot 5: Shot closer in of the singer and bassist.

Shot 6: Girl spray painting and boy trying to get her to stop.

Shot 7: Close up of singer shouting into the mic.

Shot 8: Girl sitting on bed, takes out pills 

Shot 9: Girl sits up to take pills, boy hits them out of her hand.

Shot 10: Greenscreen shot

Shot 11: Girl slaps boy and storms out of the room.

Shot 12: Point of view shot of girl in toilet, empties pills into her hand and takes them.

Shot 13: Boy bangs the door, then sits down with his back to the door and dials 999.

Shot 14: Final shot is a close up of the 'Empires' logo.

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Storyline Shooting Script

Shot 1: Boy and girl walking down a street, medium shot.


Shot 2: Boy and girl walking into a shop, long shot.


Shot 3: Boy and girl walking down an aisle in the shop, medium shot.


Shot 4: Girl picks up a drink from the shelf.


Shot 5: Girl hugs the boy and slips the drink in the boys pocket, tries to do it without him noticing, then walks on.

Shot 6: Boy recognises what she did and looks before setting it back, doesn't say anything to her. We see him looking very unsure about it.

Shot 7: Under a bridge, girl has spray paint can shaking it, boy standing back not getting involved.


Shot 8: Side shot where we can see the spray paint coming out but cant see the wall, boy walks up to behind the girl and tries to pull her away by the hand she isn't using.

Shot 9: Shot of boy and girl sitting in a bedroom, girl on bed, boy on the floor.


Shot 10: girl takes a bottle pills out of her pocket, close up on the pills with an over the shoulder shot.


Shot 11: Girl empties the bottle into her mouth, close up of the girl (or a POV shot from the boy).


Shot 12: Boy gets up and smacks the bottle out of her hand.


Shot 13: She looks at him shocked and punches him in the face and runs out of the room.


Shot 14: The boy, shocked too, runs feels guilty and runs out of the room to get her. He has a bloody nose.


Shot 15: He opens the door and sees that she is stumbling into the toilet and locks the door, over the shoulder shot.


Shot 16: He runs over and bangs on the toilet door.


Shot 17: He continues to bang the door before turning and putting his back up against the door, looking upset and fed up. He slides down the door to sit on his bum.


Shot 18: Over the shoulder shot shows him getting his phone out and calling 999.

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Location and Background

For the background for the performance part of our video we are using the assembly hall from our school, as stated before. To do this we have had to ask permission from teachers around the school to ask about the background we will use and clearing the stage of the desks, chairs, and set from the recent school music in preparation for our recording. The stage will be cleared before the 14th of February when we go off for mid term. We will be using the massive canvas at the back of the assembly hall as our background. The canvas will be painted black by us to get rid of the scene that is currently painted on the material. Once the canvas is painted black we will paint over it with spray paint and possibly put posters up to give a background with a punk feel to it. In the middle of the canvas above the drummer we will have the logo for the band we have chosen to use of the cassette tape, pictured below. We will be painting this logo on with white (and possibly gold) spray paint onto the black canvas.

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New story idea

The lyrics of the song we have chosen 'Ambulance' by The Empires are centred around a girl who is always going to mess up in the relationship the singer and the girl are in. These lyrics could learn towards a few possible stories, one of which being the girl taking drugs at a party and passing up, but we have decided we may go for a new angle on our story. 

This new story idea shows a relationship between a guy and a girl where the girl is a constant bad influence. The girl tries to get the guy to steal things and vandalise and the guy, although reluctant doesn't speak up against it. The girl tries to get the guy to take drugs after she has taken them herself and he finally stands up and refuses. Taken back by this and high from the drugs, she hits him and runs out of the room they're in. He immediately feels bad and chases after her back to her own house where she's ran in and locked the door. The last shot is him getting to her door and banging on it to no answer, he puts his back up against the door and slides down to sit on his bottom. 

This story will feature inbetween in the shots of The Empires performing thier song in our school assembly hall with the different effects we will have in, as well as the variety of shot types used in recording them.

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