Skateboarding Videos

NIKE VIDEO:
This video is really good for the audience, as it creates humour, and cooperates the product and sport with an iconic artist- Ice Cube. I think the name is quite humours in itself 'Today Was A Good Day' and it foreshadows to the audience, the type of commercial it is. I also think the beginning of this is effective as it sets the typical suburban American street by a Crane Shot. This shot is very effective when opening and ending scenes etc, as it sets the location and the story from different points of view. The mise en scene of this video is beautiful, it shows the man in LA as being free from all, and it differentiates what is beautiful about the location. This is as some people would see the Graffiti and urban streets as unglamorous and ugly, but it portrays them as a Free place to Rome, to skate, and to get away from the city. The sense of Freedom is also created as their is barley any traffic of congestion of cars etc, or even people. This is produced especially when he is on the bridge where there is a huge sense of power (empowerment) made from him, looking down at the location and how he is alone, and enjoying every minute to his own will. In this commercial it keeps filming close at the skateboard and the Nike product. This product is very useful as it is highly associated with skateboarding. This links to our main priority in our video, to keep continuity and close ups of the skateboarding as it is our main aspect to please the audience. Our product (The drumsticks) needs to always be seen because it is the motivation of the video, and it creates a type of voyeuristic experience to the audience, to keep track of who has it and where it is.

This video is also very effective as it not only keeps the music at a steady level, fitting with the visuals, but makes it clear enough to hear the skateboard. I want to incorporate this in our video as there are many tricks we are shooting, I think the audience needs to be able to hear the diegetic noise of the skateboarding as it will add to the anticipation of the chase and reality of the video. We also are going to shoot Jake and Daniel on the phone just before they enter the gig venue, so we either will fade out the music or keep it low enough to hear.


I love this high angle when he oli's (jumps) over the girl's bike, I think we could use this, or even better let them oli (jump) over the camera itself ,filming them at a high angle showing their importance and talent. The is one part which I like especially, is where he stops the skateboard at a halt just before the steps where he meets his friend. You are able to see the bottom of the board, showing 'Nike' stickers and other sports related sponsoring.


I think this shot would look very good in our video, as the skaters boards are covered head to toe in many stickers and it would fit in well as either an ending or a beginning or our video. This is a good way of advertising and selling the product throughout the video , also the director has found a way of showing the peoples clothes (all Nike) to the video without looking like it was forced. For example a passer by's hat in the distance, or a low angle of a trick showing a Nike trainer. The theme in our video is also quite humorous and upbeat and we are aiming for it to seem like their having a laugh, for example we want a skate boarder with the drum sticks to wave them to the camera laughing, or teasing the other skaters to chase after them.

The visuals in this perfectly fit with the lyrics... "saw the police and they rolled right past me". In this scene, the boy skates right past the police who don't seem bothered but more intrigued by his skating and stunts in public places. The location is spot on with the video, its set at urban places, desolate car parks, railed stairs and long smooth roads to skateboard along. In our video we are going to shoot at Anglia Square which is perfect for skateboarding in. It has many winding paths, small walls, stairs and slopes to film on with the skaters and will add to our different locations. The forum is also quite good as its showing almost an innocent rebellious side to the video, as people skate here even though they are not supposed to. This is useful in our video, as the meaning of Ska can be heard or interoperated as 'Freedom Sound' (wikopedia- Ska) and promoted Jamaica’s independence. As the genre of the band is Ska, we thought the sense of freedom should be present in our video.

The lighting in this video is very important. The screen throughout has an orange tinge to it, and is often reflected from the sun, showing a good representation and feeling of LA. This is because when something has a slight orange tinge is projects a warm feeling, as to the Africa Shox where there is barley any colour is implies and makes us feel ery and cold. This would be convenient in Ours as we are aiming to film Norwich's cultural and urban areas as places of entertainment and also music. As Norwich is renownd for its music scene, we are purposely shooting Sound Clash and The Art The Centre, to reinforce this idea. The ending is very amusing, as even though his board has broken by 'Ice Cube' he still carries on with his 'Good day' even is he has to walk home. It's emphasising that you don’t have to have a fast car, money etc, to have this sort of life of freedom and power, and still ends in a good feeling. The video is strongly associated also with friendship and having companions to share your dream with.



CAMERA ANGLES AND AIMS FOR OUR MUSIC VIDEO:


We are really hoping to catch a lot of close ups and a variety of angles to shows emotion on the characters face and to make it amusing to watch as an audience. We want a lot of location showing in either the background, or stills for our music video and we also are considering fast forwarding parts in the video to fit with the fast paced music. our intertextual references are 'Ghost Town- Specials' and The Nike commercial. We are hoping to able to have as many angles and variety as the Nike commercial 'Today Was A Good Day' as it is extremely good.

FISH EYE LENS:
I really like the idea of filming with a fish eye lens, this is commonly used for filming skateboarding as a 'fish bowl' effect is made making everything curve creating a better stunt on camera. These four images are from outtakes of the Nike commercial and I think the filming with this lens looks incredibly professional and would be excellent in my music video. Filming with this lens is very effective when shooting at a high or low angle, this is because when shooting from a low angle it will create the person to look surreal and even higher up than they already are. This creates more emotion and enticement in the audience as the stunt looks more effective and dangerous making the audience feel more gripped than usual. This type of lens may be very hard to get hold of and we may have trouble with it when filming but would be very beneficial with our video. I also really like the one of the guy skateboarding down the stairs with the fish eye lens as there are many stairs similar to this in Norwich which would look really good in our video like this.



CLOSE UPS:

This extreme close up above shows fine detail in the pavement and creates the precipice as significant. I like how the background has been unfocused, creating a difference in focus pulls or the depth in field. This shot is a shallow focus isolating the subject from its background, making it sharper and more significant to the audience.

Close ups are really important in film making and will benefit our product immensely. They allow the audience to come up front to the characters, and see their facial expression more clearly. This will be useful in our video as we need close ups of the characters facial expressions to show their emotion, this is because as its a relay the characters will show signs of anger, amusement, teasing and concentration which need to be presented well to the audience for them to view.




FILM LOCATION EFFECTIVLEY: (Pan, Track, Mid Shot, Close Up, Long Shot, Worms Eye etc)

This shot above is the opening shot to the video and starts of with the camera panning downwards showing the American generic suburb. This type of shot could create either an beginning establishing the location immediately or could create a good closure to our video.

This is one of my favourite stills from the video. I really like how LA is portrayed, maybe not as glamorous, but desolate and free and the tall buildings really add power to this shot. I also think the long shot angle is good, as the mise en scene here is vast and has a lot of details, making the man look insignificant against this place. I also think that having graffiti in our music video would look good, as we are creating an urban video and this would fit with the mise en scene perfectly like how it is accomplished here.

This shot is fantastic as is creates a sense of someone getting nowhere as this roads seems to go on literally forever. The angle is quite high up and i like how it is set up to lead straight to the inner city. I think this would look effective in our video, but would impossible to carry out unless there was a roof or small building we could film off.


PROPS:
After thinking of having a bus in our video for a method of transport, I also considered having a retro or old car. We could get hold of quite an old unglamorous thriller style car which would look quite effective in our video. I got this idea from this Nike video with Ice Cube running over his skateboard in this flash retro car.