I just listened to the song again and when she talks about a superman sweeping he roff her feet I think we should have the car/drain bit?
Anyways it was just an idea, and I'm off to France now so no internet for 2 weeks, but I put the song on my ipod so might have more ideas to post when I'm back
Emma
x
10 - Green tree thing between tall buildings
1 - Near Embankment station
2 - Nearer to Waterloo station
3 - Opposite the Eye
We'd have the girl in the centre of the Eye though so it would be symmetrical
4 - Big Ben/Westminster
I've numbered them all so we can post comments with numbers for specific locations.
More will be up in following posts
Emma
Well, he seemed like a good subject... for me anyway! :P
Before:
After:
Overall, I'm quite pleased with that really! It doesn't look exactly like him, but it's relatively similar. And I think as a comic type image, it works quite well. This one's about a million times better than an earlier attempt I did and it didn't really take as long either...
Opinions?
Angelie
just checkin in to say hi before i go on hols (no internet for a week!) but wanted you to know I'm following all this with interest.
Angelie just keep going even if it doesn't work, at least you'll know, but for what its worth I like the effect you did to the wonder woman image. looking forward to seeing the photos Emma.
Well done girls, great blogging!
... was quite successful actually :)
We found some good locations. In particular, one fountain with the London Eye in the background. That one's SO amazing, but we'd have to get permission first. Also, nice fountains near City Hall which would be perfect for running through.
So all in all, a great success I think :)
Emma's going to post location pictures when she gets a chance, but it could take her some time, since the files are rather large and we did take quite a few pictures!
Right well, I've spent about 3 hours trying to turn a photo into a Lichtenstein style image (using the tutorial posted previously) and I'm nowhere near finished yet. Also, it looks really poo. That's probably got a lot to do with the fact that this is a first attempt, but still...
So I'm wondering, is it really worth all the time and effort if it's not even going to be that good anyway??
I'll continue to practice when I'm in India anyway though, since there won't be anything exciting going on over there most of the time...
Oh and I'll post the line art/dot thing that I've done a bit later :)
Over the past two days I've watched Batman Begins again and seen The Dark Knight. I know this is a male superhero but it's given me an idea about shots that we might like to use for our cartoon dissolves that are typical of heroes.
Firstly there's the obligiatory feet shot
(no screen shots found atm)
Then there's the CU of a face which is usually masked
(I can't find any screen shots of this atm but I will later)
There's also the HA shot of them flying/catching a helpless person
Another shot used is them on/in their mode of transport (either from the side or infront, or tracking them from behind)
Also there's the over the shoulder looking out of a tall building shot
(a bit closer than this image though!)
Finally, the frequent shots of the hero's logo
(again will be found later)
Basically what's shown in The Dark Knight trailer
Here are some videos depicting some ideas we could use in our music video if we used Wonder Woman instead of Supergirl. I think it would be alot easier for us to do.
This first video below we could maybe try and imitate the spin that she does where she changes clothes into Wonder Woman.
In this video she use her tiara to stop the bad guy and it magically flies back to her.
This one is where she fights some men which we could also easily incorporate in some way.
I found this tutorial for how you can use Photoshop to turn your photographs into Lichtenstein comic-style images...
To add to Angelie's post about Jazmin & shooting after school, we need to find out when Jazmin's free after school and the group too.
There's also the possibility of shooting in our free periods if we have any the same as each other, my house isn't that far away so if we had 4 & 5 off we'd have about an hour's shooting time plus travel, or free afternoons
Emma
I spoke to Jazmin on Monday, and she was WELL excited when I told her that we'd like her to be the singer for our music video. She seems really enthusiastic about the whole thing, so I think once we give her some time to learn the song and stuff, she'll be great :D
I also found out that she only works on Saturdays, so we'll probably have to shoot with her on Saturday evenings and Sundays, which is pretty much what we expected really. There is also the possibility of shooting during the week in the evenings, especially for the interior shots (e.g. our superhero helping Ava pick out her lipstick and stuff).
Today was our last group meeting before the end of school where we had to make some decisions about actors, style and summer meetings.
Our summer meetings can be found in the blog post entitled "group holiday dates", which will be updated as we progress.
We have reached a unanimous agreement that we need to change our casting choices. We will now have Jennifer as the superhero, who may now be Wonder Woman instead of Supergirl, and Jazmin will be playing Ava. We will have to check with Jazmin her availability, the current suggestion being that we shoot all of her scenes on Saturday nights and during the days on Sunday or shooting locally so that we can shoot at lunch and in our frees.
We have also created a list of possible alternative actresses in case Jazmin is not able to do the shoot dates:
Deli
Amy
We have now got a rough plan of our starting sequence for the first verse of the song:
We'd start showing the hero receiving her mission (not opening the comic as was suggested today). This would then cut to Ava facing a decision between lipsticks with the camera showing the mirror's POV, where the hero would walk into the frame and make the decision for her. Ava would be wearing a baggy tshirt with dishevelled hair and no make up on, basically a blank canvas. The hero would appear at the lyrics "white knight".
Somelocations we want to visit are:
Canary wharf
Tower bridge
London eye
South bank
Oxo tower
Tate Modern
Covent garden side streets
Millennium bridge
Westminster bridge
More bridges…
The Group
Angelie - 30th July to 25th August
Jennifer - 21st July to 26th July, 4th- 8th August, 24th - 31st August
Emma - 30th July - 13th August, 20th - 25th August, 28th - 29th August
Summer meetings:
Sunday 27th, 12pm at Turnpike Lane station, Emma & Angelie - location reckies - still & video camera
Monday 28th, 12pm at Enfild Chase Station, whole group - more location & moodboard/supergirl tests - as above
More to be agreed later
The Group
girls, we need to see your reflections on yesterday's feedback on your individual blogs asap. Based on what was said, it seems to clear to me that the succesful areas were the overall idea, and the comic book style; less successful was the plausibility of the actors, roles and so on.
I felt that your feedback was extremely useful and made things much clearer. the sensible and obvious way forward appears to be for Jennifer to play the much more dynamic, significant role of the super hero, which plays nicely with conventions and works to her strengths/personality, and for you to find a performer more suited to playing the victim eg Jasmine who was very keen to be involved.
Compromises will be needed now, if this is to happen. There must be group agreement on a way forward by Sunday, if this is to be resolved before Jennifer goes on holiday. You must all understand that I will not give approval for the original plan for the actors roles unless the whole group were adamant that creatively this was the right way forward, and could convince me that this was the best solution for the project.
If no agreement is reached, it's back to square one, I'm afraid.
At the feedback seesion the idea about cartoons was well received, and there was teh suggestion of including more cartoon strips throughout the video.
The issue about us targeting a predominantly white audience yet having an entirely black cast was also raised, as well as the idea about having a very confident actress playing a shy part, which wouldn't work
Questioons ove rthe style of our video were raised as we have not yet made this clear
These three points will have to be discussed at our next meeting
Emma
With our idea we want to emphasise the importance of female power and dominance. We want our video to portray the idea of an independent woman who doesn't need to rely on men in her life, she knows what she wants and she is determined to get it on her own. She starts of in a confused state but slowly progresses to rely on her own strength. We think Supergirl is a perfect hero to try and portray this concept as she is independent and relies on her own abilities. As the video above shows, she is able to defeat those two men who try to take advantage of her. It doesn't even take much for her to overcome them and this idea of a strong female is an important theme for our video. Here at the start she is confused about where she is and is unable to get her bearings in a new environment. However by the end of the video her dominance is asserted over the men she is presented as the victor. This is an important concept that we want to come through in our music video.
Jennifer
We've developed our Superman idea further to create a slightly 
different version featuring Superwoman/Supergirl rather than Superman.
Ava's character would be in a bit of a state since she's lost her confidence and as a result, is having a difficulty making decisions. So, Supergirl would be sent to help her regain her confidence.
The start of the video would be similar to the Superman idea, so it would be comic book style. showing Supergirl receiving her mission.
Ava's character would then be shown having difficulty making any kind of decisions, no matter how trivial they are. For example, she would start in her bedroom in front of a large mirror, having difficulty deciding which lipstick to wear. Then Supergirl would appear and help her make this decision. She would also be having difficulty making other decisions, for example...
White Town - Your Woman
Ms B suggested we watched this video to see how a woman is portrayed as being sad yet the audience laughing with her. This may help us in our portrayal of the girl being suicidal but taking it to the extreme to make it comedic.
Emma
http://www.thespeedingbullet.com
Thisis an archive of Superman newspaper strips from 1939 onwards. It has some really good scans which could be really useful for both research and maybe production too.
During a discussion today at lunch I mentioned the alcohol awareness advert currently being shown on UK TV as an idea we could use to show the transformation of the girl into a stronger person. We'd use the same concept as the advert but reverse it so the girl goes from being a mess to being perfect at the end.
Emma
Today we had a meeting with Ms B & Ms T at lunch where we discussed a possible new idea that maintains the original concept of heroism.
The video would start with a sequence of comic book images depicting Superman receiving his 
mission (to save the girl) which would appear on screen too (in a 'Spooks' style way). There would then be a couple more comic book images showing Superman flying through the air and then his feet landing in London. This would then dissolve (in a Roy Lichtenstein style) into our real life Superman's feet. This would then be followed by a sequence of events we are yet to work out but the gist of it is that he would be saving the main character from herself and ultimately making her a stronger person after the love of her life dumped her. Her transformation would be shown through symbolic actions as well as her appearance (see following post for that inspiration) which would transform from being a total state to being perfect in the last shot. The ending of the video would be the girl being a stronger person and going for a kiss with Superman but him disappearing just in time so she shuts the comic book to symbolise closure for her.
We also discussed using clips of actual Superman films to show stuff that we can't film, such as someone falling from a window, which would then cut to our own footage of the girl being caught by her hero.
Between the shots of Superman being a hero we'd show the girl singing by the river on a bridge with her appearance slowly improving. We'd also show her attempting suicide at one time, probably by jumping from a window (as mentioned above).
For this idea we'd have to buy some Superman comics to take photos of for the comic strip at the start as well as watch a lot of Superman films to select clips we could use.
Emma
great development work here girls, both on ideas and locations well done. V. exciting meeting today as well!
References to different superheroines in comics and on TV series...
Batwoman
Wonder Woman
Superwoman/girl
Angelie
this is really coming on girls, well done
regarding locations, can i suggest that you really push the boat out and go for the best. for example, the central london parks have some stunning bridges and other iconography that would work really well. enfield's ok, but it is, well, enfield!
Song - Frou Frou, I Need A Hero
After:
