Each person in the group which is Me and Ella have be allocated job through pre production. This is so one person doesn't do all the work. It also gives us a guide individually as to what we must do and what we have to do together. The task have been split equally so its fair on both people in the group.
This week was a week of challenge as i had to decide which genre of artist i wanted and then find a song of an unsigned artist which i found to be a hard task. I first used http://www.unsigned.com to look for an artist and a song however i didn't like any of the songs and i didn't feel that any of the songs would make a strong music video. So i searched on YouTube to find Once in a lifetime by Landon Austin which i loved from the moment i found it because i could see the music video i wanted. Even though the genre was completely different from my first idea this song worked for me as i could see my ideas. I chose this song mainly because i liked the tempo and the feel of the song and i felt like i could make a music video which kept peoples attention but subverted common ideas. I am also familiar with indie genre making the song easier to picture a idea. The lyrics of the song are meaningful and i feel like my audience would be able to relate to the lyrics and understand the song.
I then had to get permission and analyse the lyrics of the song which took up the second half of this week. I got permission by emailing the artist directly and asking for permission, he replied quickly making it easier to move on with the next task of analysing the lyrics.
Deciding the song i wanted to use was the biggest decision this week by far as i had to be sure i could make a video for this song. The key concept which we have been focusing on this week was genre where we had to analyse different music video by looking at the genres.
This is my pitch which i presented to the focus group, it allowed me to show my idea to a small population of my target audience. I am using Landon Austin as i like the genre of the song, i want to create a hipster/ indie video mixing ideas from different videos which have inspired my video.
The focus group allowed me to see what people thought of my idea for my music video, I also got people in my target audience age range so i could see how they would be able to relate and to see if they like the idea or not. The focus group helped me improve and reinforce my current ideas which i thought about.
A strengths of my focus group was that they said they liked my idea overall as they strongly felt that my idea matched the genre and the idea matched the voice and style of the artist i want to create to be in the music video. Hardeep at 0:12 said that she think the song and my idea is cute and she liked the song. They also liked that the song i chose was about a male artist singing about his feeling/ love, they felt this was different as normally we hear female artist singing about love. I agree with this, i wanted to use this to subvert the idea and change indie music video genre by using a male love song. The group also liked the idea of my locations, especially the natural settings in the forest as it created a natural mood which gave the artist a calm persona. Another strength of my idea was that they all felt that my idea would be able to relate to people in their age group.
Before i presented my pitch to the focus group as i knew i still needed to improve my idea, however the group made stronger improvements. A big improvement which i felt stood out which the group gave me was i should be careful that my music video doesn't look like the one my artist has created by not including my studio scene. I personally really liked the idea of having a studio scene in my indie genre music video as i felt it added a conventional indie aspect. At 1:34 Chanel said that i should be careful that my video doesn't look like the video which is already made which i agree with. I will find a way of making my video new, i will have a twist on the narrative.
It allowed me to see what aspects of my idea i could change to make my music video different, as the guys said i could have my artist in the narrative. By showing him as a homeless guy, who has a dream of being with a pretty rich girl who walks past him every day but he has no chance. I felt this was a good idea for a narrative because it was different to other indie videos therefore subverting the conventions.
Another improvement which i agree with is trying to make my video appeal to male artist. Akif was the only boy in the focus group and said at 1:03 that the video might not be able to appeal to him as he couldn't relate to anything in my idea but still liked the idea. So i suggested if i was to add a pretty female character in my idea, what ever idea i do i will include a pretty looking female for males to be attracted too. Chanel suggested at 1:57 that we have our artist as a tramp, i like this idea and so does Ella. It makes the video different, we will take this idea and keep it in mind when planning our idea.
I will take the strengths and improvements and use them to make my idea for my music video better. I agree with the strengths and improvements, i do especially agree with the narrative however i want to include like bright lights and studio because i really like the idea.
At the end of last year we completed a video remake which was a really fun task for us to understand different music video styles. Me and Ella got Parody as our style, we found this hard as we couldn't think of anything funny at first, we realized we had to take something everybody knew and made it our own and funny. We used the harlem shake and made it funny using props and performance. When we was planning the video remake we had to research by looking at parody videos on YouTube and we also created a storyboard which meant we knew visually what we wanted to create, so we could go out and film what we drew by using the information. I personally would use a shot list rather than a storyboard as a storyboard is much more time consuming. I personally feel that shot list work better in terms of sticking to them as we used shot list in our BSR films.
The video remake i believe will help mainly when editing our real music video because we practiced using final cut which we haven't really used in depth, we used final cut when editing the music parts but slightly with our BSR films. I feel more confident with the program since the music video however i still need to expand on my skills to create the best edited video i possible could make. When creating the music video we also had to think of new camera movement and shots when filming which will also help when filming the real thing better. We also used the tripod more when filming the mash up video which will help if we are in the video otherwise it hasn't helped much. The main technical skill which i learnt was final cut.
We created this mash-up music video at the end of year 12 to get an understanding of different music video styles and also to have a go editing our parts on final cut. This helped me get an idea of my music video and what kind of style i wanted to use. I also found that final cut was much different to IMovie, final cut is much more technical and has much more thing to do when editing a music video.
Lady gaga Alejandro in my view is a very different music video in terms of the concept and theme. Lady gaga has almost created her own style and conventions when she creates a music video. Her music videos in general are very crazy and over done, In the video above we denote men dressed up as women, however Lady gaga always has something that surprises the audience, she likes to use a lot of twist. Her costumes are very explicit in terms of what she reveals to the audience, this may be the oppositional reading, where parents believe she is a bad role model for being on screen half naked. The costumes however may attract the audience to talk about her and create publicity and a buzz. The colour of the costume matches the mood and the lighting as we denote her in black, black connotes mystery. The lighting is low key which also helps set up the mood of the video and gives the audience a real feel of the video. The video is lady gaga performing to the audience in different concepts, this shows she has different talents and much more to her performance then the same thing. It also allows the audience to see what she can do without going to a concert. However the performance may get boring after a while to the audience, so if i was to use a performance i would be careful not to have the same thing happening. However she does have a dark performance as we denote people with chains on and a ripped out heart in her hands. In my view lady gaga creates her own conventions for her videos but the style of the music video is a performance.
This music video would help me with my work as it lets me see what kind of routes i can go down with performance, performance doesn't have to be the singer singing to the audience you can tell a story using the performance and have the artist dancing to show the audience other skills they have. Lady gaga gets the audience talking about her song as well as the video.
Please don't let me get me by pink is one of the best videos in my view as there are many concepts with in one, we denote a performance, narrative, interpretative and green screen. They use all these in one music video and make it work with the song. The genre for the song would be pop rock, however they keep some conventions as we denote a bad on stage playing to crazy fans but they also use a narrative which has a story. Pinks style is normally crazy. She reaches a young target audience by using the story of dreams of being a artist/growing up. We denote her in her school PE kit which shows that she growing up, this also allows young people in school to relate to her. She also uses interpretative style at the beginning of the song when she talks about her teacher and her dirty socks, this works well as it shows the audience she's creative and doesn't use the same style through the video. This video is very creative as it uses many different styles to tell a story to the audience, without being boring or overdone. I would like to do something like this in my video which has many different styles without being overdone. I also like the camera work in this music video as its never really static giving the audience a real feel of a music video, when we denote the performance on the stage the camera movement involves everyone to get a real feel of the Pink's band and the singers. I also like when we denote the change in faces but everyone is still singing the lyrics it adds a new style to music videos and also connotes to the audience that the song can be related to everyone. This represents Pink to be someone who doesn't conform to social roles and is proud but finds in difficult in this day and age.
Fatman scoop- be faithful subverts the genre music video style as we normally see the artist in the music video with half naked women around them in big mansion. Using animation adds a twist to the video stops repetition within the genre. The style attracts the audience because its different and allows them to question the style and genre. As well as the artist, as we expect to denote the artist in baggy clothes with gold chains rapping/singing to the screen. The animation isn't overdone in the video, we don't denote any costumes on the characters in the video, however this allows us to focus on the facial expressions on the heads. However we do denote a female characters who is the only one with a body, this is typical view of a body with females in music videos, this connotes to the audience that females are important but they are only good for one reason. There isn't much of a narrative as we denote the animated characters singing along with the lyrics however the video does seem like king kong when we denote the character on the top of the building with the women, this gives the audience an advantage as they are already aware of the reference. We see the buildings moving to the beat which creates more excitement for the audience. Using this style would be hard in terms of my genre however if i was to try as use animation i would use animation to re create the lyrics as i feel thats a main convention of animation. I don't see myself using this style as it seems to complex and i don't think i could make animation creative enough for my style and keep the audience engaged through out the video. This represents the artist to be someone who cares about everyone as the lyrics engage everyone, the animation isn't to complex for people to understand either.
Don't you worry child swedish house mafia, This video is beyond simple but so effective in terms of the music and the artist. The music video is shots of the last concert the band did, this music video would fall under a performance as the band are performing to the audience, this gives the audience watching a very good understanding of how the band are live. The fact that they only use concert footage really interest me and makes me like this video because as the audience we don't really denote videos like these. Also allows people to get a real feel of the atmosphere as we have hard focused shots on the crowd through out the video. The costumes are very basic, the artist are DJ's so we don't expect anything too over done, however we do denote a common theme with all the artist, black. This has become a convention in costumes within the hip pop and rap industry. There isn't a narrative which doesn't give the audience a story to remember the song/music video by, however we denote a very strong performance with a crazy crowd which connotes them to be very big and high demanded artist which will show the audience they don't need a big music video to promote their song. I would use a performance like this in my video if the artist was mainstream as it shows they don't need a music video which people remember through narrative, however i could mix a performance like this with a narrative or an impressionist music video as i feel that would be a new route for an audience to see. I could also use a performance in my video by getting the singer to sing to the female to connote the string romance and help empathises the lyrics. If i wanted to use a concert crowd i would have to use a really good green screen affect which would be a new challenge and skill. I would also like to edit the video how they did in this video, even though they have shots of the crowd the video is still edited to the beat.
Conor maynard- R U crazy. The music video interest me as its a mix to me as impressionist with performance. However the music video is really well edited to the beat, and i like how the lights go on and off with the beat. It creates more excitement and makes you want to focus more on the video. The video is also very modern to attract the audience. The video has the common narrative of a romance between a girl and a boy but its mixed with him singing to the screen in different locations. We also denote her in the back which could connote he is always thinking about her. However we do denote a scene when his walking past flower pots and they all smash whilst he is walking this connotes that he has too much on his mind and is over thinking but this allows the audience to get a real feel about the artist and allows them to have their own ideas on what he is trying to express.
I also really like the camera movement through this video as it keeps up with the artist and is not static, this means the video is more exciting, the shots also make the artist look more excited rather than boring and simple. The lighting changes through out which i like as it makes you want to watch more to see what happens as when its dark you think something will happen or pop up. The costumes used are very simple which the audience may connotes as the artist wanting to focus on his song rather than clothes, but the colour scheme stays consistent through out the video. I would like to have a video which is the same in terms of editing and lighting as i feel they give the audience more excitement and makes the audience want to watch till the end because you don't whats going to happen, the consent change in camera movements also makes the artist look more energetic even if they are not. However i would like to empathises the narrative as i feel a narrative gives the audience a story to remember the video by.
The Dominate reading of Stay by Rihanna is that she is vulnerable, she's stripped down naked and is very simple. We denote her very sad making us the audience feel sorry for her. The mise-en-scene is very simple, its just her in a bath and the background is plain black. The simplity of the video connotes that she is in a sad place as well as the pace, we feel sorry for her. She is denoted to very natural who needs to be helped. The lyrics say she needs saving.
However the negotiated reading could be that we feel sorry for her as we see emotion in the video but she may not need to be stripped down in order to show the audience what she means even though she is in a bath.
The last oppositional reading may connote her to be a bad role model for the audience especially if she has little kids as fan due to the fact that people may think that she thinks its okay to be naked on screen even though she is in a bath tube. People may also connote from the video that she may be depressed but she likes it as the lyrics say i want you to stay even though she singing about a bad relationship. The video denotes a dark place to the audience which people may not like and may associate Rihanna too since the public saw her go from good girl to bad.
Laura Mulvey
N dubz 'Girls', i believe objectifies women as we denote the main singer in the band Dappy getting kissed by different girls connoting that individually the women don't have an value, there just there to make him look cool and for him to have good looking girls around. The lyrics as say GIRLS i tell anything they wanna hear. At the beginning the girls are a product for Dappy, a little fun. The video conforms to Laura theory the Male Gaze. We denote girls with very short dresses on in the video to attract male attention.
Most of the time women are objectified however sometimes men are objectified. We denote this in Superbass by Nicki Minaj, she has complete control over the men in the video. They are there to make her look better in terms of rep. We denote her with men without their tops on in the video, the men are in the background with only their underwear on. The male gaze has been reversed, as men are being objectified as the female target audience will only care about the males bodies in the back not them as an individual.
Some music video tend to empower women, this is very rear due to the society we live in. We see empowerment in sing;e ladies by Beyonce, Beyonce embraces being single in the music video as some people think life depends on being in a relationship, she is breaking the representation. She believes women are strong individuals in and out of a relationship. The video is simple, however does still objectify women due to her costume, this may be to get view and people to by it but the overall music video and song empowers women.
Andrew Goodwin
Voyeurism is used a lot in music videos as they tend to highlight features of women so that women are seen to be sexual, for example we denote parts of Rihanna's back in Stay. It teases the audience, mainly the male audience as women are the target when voyeurism is used in music videos. Voyeurism is when it appears people are looking, we mainly see people looking through a window or a mirror, however our picture we made shows the main feature which people look at in music videos, women have to look in a way which will attract views.
A summer rain is passing over And it feels like a dream I could run and look for shelter but you hold onto me Im under your skies
Im caught in your eyes Dont you know you stop the room and all that I can see is you I'm standing where the lighning strikes I know this doesn't happen twice You must be my once in a lifetime, in a lifetime You must be my once in a lifetime
There's so much that I have told you But its all in my head Ask me anything you want to Cause the answer is yes I'll spend my whole life Just being caught up in your eyes Dont you know you stop the room and all that I can see is you I'm standing where the lighning strikes I know this doesn't happen twice You must be my once in a lifetime, in a lifetime You must be my once in a lifetime So before the storm is passed I just want to ask Can we make this moment last? So before the storm is passed I just want to ask Can we make this moment last? Dont you know you stop the room
and all that I can see is you
I'm standing where the lightning strikes I know this doesn't happen twice You must be my once in a lifetime, in a lifetime You must be my once in a lifetime
Neale created 'Genre as a system' he said that a system of orientations, expectations and conventions which circulate between industry, text and subject. Neale believed we have expectations with each genre.
In Biggie song 'Sky's the limit' we denote a big mansion with a big swimming pool, The locations looks expensive. We also denote expensive brands, in most song like this genre we denote big brands which connotes this genre has a lot of money. We expect artist in this genre to have these big brands in order to get the audiences attention. We also denote the artist wearing big gold chains, this is beyond common and expected in songs in this genre, this connotes street cred and how much money the artist has. Women like bags, rap artist like their chains. We also denote random women dancing in the background, who are half naked. This is common in video of this genre to show that the artist can get females and shows how big they are to other male artist. The costume of the artist aren't overdone, men tend just to wear all black in rap artist. Men in this genre don't tend to over dress which is expected in this genre. This video backs up Neale's theory of expectation.
Repetition and differences
Repetition and difference play a big part in music videos as this can lose or gain audience views on the music video. If the genre or artist videos become the same people tend to lose interest in the video. Repetition is things we denote all the time in music videos where as differences are twist which the audience don't expect like in call me maybe when he gives his number to the man rather than the women.
The band all most make a parody out of male bands, we denote them making fun of other bands and the conventions that male bands have built up. The video is made of a performance, the genre is rock with a sub genre in my view of pop. In the video they have a typical set up like a rock band where we denote them playing their guitars and singing to the screen. But the big twist is when they are making fun of other bands and we denote them dancing and playing with flowers. The parody is very clear in the video which makes it different and attracts new audience. I would use this theory in my work to keep my audience interested as the video is 3 minutes long and you don't what the audience to be bored.
David Bordwell
David Bordwell genre themes believed that any theme may appear in any genre. This theory means i can put what ever i like in my music video, but also means i can mix two genres in my music video and have a valid point to back it up. This theory means my audience won't lose interest in my music video because it won't be the same genre on screen for 3 whole minutes. I think a performance mixed with a narrative would keep the audience interested as it lets them see the artist and denote a story/meaning to the lyrics which people like. This theory also gives us more area to develop the video as there are no limits in terms of how many genres i can mix to create an original music video. My main themes will be narrative and performance because i feel they will be easy to do but i can expand on theme to create a challenge for this task.
My initial idea for my advanced portfolio would to have a music video with short takes and quick edits with a male artist dancing and rapping. I wanted to create a typical RnB/ Hip Pop music video, conforming to the male gaze theory. I also had the idea of having a long take of my performer performing to the audience and then have them dancing to the beat with edits and costume, i don't want a narrative because you have to find a new original idea so the audience have something new. But i wanted to find a song that wasn't over done by a upcoming artist. My idea meant that i would use a black backdrop and a sharp light hitting the rapper when he raps and then have a low key light when he is dancing, and also have him with a girl dancing for him. My idea would be typical hip pop, however this is my first idea and i have room to develop on it to create a music video which is new and original. My inspiration came from the music video by Justin Bieber as the edits and the performance made the song stand out to the audience more.
I would like to work with Ella as we worked together last year so we know each others strengths and weaknesses so we work well together and Ella works hard making the task easier and more enjoyable.
However my hopes are that the music video turns out like the way i want it to and can edit it to have fast cut. I also hope that the audience can relate to the artist in terms of age and appeal to the music video, hopefully the performance inspires them and they enjoy it. Hopefully the partner i pick will have roughly the same idea.
My fears of this project is that i create a music video which is very similar to all the other music videos which means the audience lose interest. I also fear that i wont be able to get a person to be my artist who can perform in front of the camera and be a good performer. Also the editing will be hard as i want it to be very fast and match the beat and i have to use final cut which is a new a software even though we used it a little bit last year to make our mash up videos.
Last year I feel like my creative skill really progressed as we had to create our own shooting script when we filmed our BSR film where as our first task on continuity we had the shooting script, we had to film what was on the sheet. I progressed as we had to make sure that we had everything perfect on the shooting script so we could just film. I also feel like i was more creative last year as the camera movement and shoot we used in our BSR film were different due to the genre, we experimented with a lot of different ideas. Also when editing we decided to move away from continuity editing as we felt it become a bit boring, we used a montage which was very creative as we put a large amount of different shoots of a prostitute trying to make money. http://tarayear12mediastudiesblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/final-opening-sequence.html We also had to be creative in terms of trying to make a theme of BSR films original and new for our target audience of teenagers. We also had to be creative and original with our continuity exercise which we did at the beginning of last year, we had a list of things we had to film however we were allowed to film them how we wanted. http://tarayear12mediastudiesblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/blog-post.html We had to think for our self's with the task we did last year and try to make them stand out using different shoots and themes by using all the skills we learnt in GCSE.
Digital technology
I used a lot of digital technology last year than in previous years of doing media. I never used blogger until last year which allowed me to upload my work easier and always have access to my work. I also used final cut and live type which were completely new to me. Using final cut to overlay our credits meant we got a slight taste of final cut for A2, we then used final cut to do our mash up of music videos styles which gave us more area to explore final cut. I created the actual credit in live type as it had different styles and allowed movement with the credits. They both gave me a new experience which will defiantly help this year with the music video and final cut will be easier to edit in. We also used a flip camera and a camera which we used in previous years. We had to upload most of our work to YouTube to give teachers access to our work, as well as analysed work on YouTube which was slightly new as i have never analysed on YouTube before. I learnt how to use new aspects of the camera which i wasn't aware of before.
Post production
YouTube played a big part in my post production in year 12 as i felt i was always uploading work or using YouTube to find inspiration or analysed different opening via YouTube. YouTube gave me easy access and also helped, i had to film my evaluation and upload it to YouTube. This saved me writing the whole evaluation up. I also used Free
music archive to get my soundtrack for the opening, this was a copyright free website, the website had a wide range of songs to pick from. http://tarayear12mediastudiesblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/part-7.html
I Movie played the biggest part in post production year for not only our BSR film opening but also out preliminary task. This program allowed us to edit and work with what we had, the program allowed us to take our shots and create a story. Last year we was introduced to the new I movie which was a new skill and will help when we create our music video this year.
Research and planning
Research was a huge part of last years work as i never seen a BSR film before our lessons. The biggest way of research i did was watch videos and opening on YouTube, or watch the movie on Netflix. Planning then helped me build on my idea, however my planning was inspired by my research into the genre of BSR films. The biggest piece of planning we did was our vox pop with our target audience as it allowed us to see what the audience wanted us to create.We also created a treatment and shooting script, which meant i knew what i had to do when filming. We also analysed other peoples work to get an idea of what we had to create, i will analyse peoples work this year as it really helped me see what i have to create and at what standard.
Conventions
Conventions in BSR films are very clear, as the conventions make the film. We see run down areas, no brands, hand held shots, poor lighting, extreme topics dealt with, kitchen sink drama and non escapist topics. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=KpJiSQ00pWU
However towards the end of the year we explored conventions and styles of music videos which helped me think and draft up a small idea for our music video. I think a narrative music video would be easy to create as telling a story is easy in my view. Also most people expect a narrative in music videos. I also like the idea of a performance music video as it gives the audience a small idea of what the performer can do if they go see them in concert.
