Wednesday 14 December 2011
Friday 9 December 2011
32) Analysis of old student Digipak/s
When creating our Digipak we thought it would be in our best interest to research previous students efforts in an attempt to recognise any potential things to avoid or develop to create a better end product.
Above is the first DigiPak we looked at; although it contains all of the typical conventions of a digipak they have opted for a minimalist black and white colour scheme which although challenges typical covers with regards to colour and composition we felt it may not be in their best interest to choose something with such little appeal, for instance when a shopper is looking in a store for an album they may not have typically listened to before, a colorful cover is much more likely to catch their eye and encourage impulse buys.
This is the second DigiPak which chose to look at, its look although colorful and eye catching is very basic and messy, the images of the band members are edited well, as part of a composition they seem like they've been placed anywhere, in addition to this the use of text was not executed with very much detail, on the 5th track for instance it overlaps onto the black background.
In conclusion by looking at both of these Digipak's we learnt in order to have a successful digipak design it would need to Colorful to catch the consumers eye, it would need to contain all the typical iconography such as "Parental advisory", Barcode, Format logo and finally we learnt that we need to take time to ensure that all aspects work together properly and set aside time where we can go over the whole thing fixing small mistakes and generally cleaning it up ready for consumption by the public.
Wednesday 7 December 2011
Monday 5 December 2011
Script For Commentary
Overview;
We wish to present our direcotrs commentary in a way we feel will not only look proffesional but will also be thouroughly engaging to the audience, the way we feel this can be achieved is through the use of a green screen with myself and the rest of our group in front of it whilst our music video is played behind, this gives us the ability to stop it , and easily convey our feelings through clearly shown examples.
In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Dom: In order to answer this question successfully we first need to establish the genre of music of which we feel our song falls ino which after much reseach we believe to be 'pop rock' reasons for why can be seen in depth on our blog, a band of which that plays similar music to our 'band' is a band called 'McFly'.
Ben: This song, '5 colours in her hair' shows all the conventions that should be used in a music video of 'pop rock' genre. These are: Performance Footage, Bright Colours, extensive editing and Story-line, In some ways our video does use the convention of performance footage in our video as we have a lot of lip syncing. However, we also challenge this convention as we have no use of instruments in our video.
James: In a lot of McFly's videos there is extensive use of bright colours, coming in many different forms, the clothing is all very bright, so is the general style of editing. We feel our video challenges this conventions as we adopt a dark style of editing and as you can see behind me such as the saturation effect and de-saturation effect. But there is also editing techniques that change the size of the video and make it appear in different areas of the screen. This is used in both our video and McFly's video. As seen behind us, this therefore is a further way in which we follow the conventions of th 'punk-rock' genre.
Joe: Storyline/ narrative is a further convention of this genre shown In both McFly' video and our video, there is a storyline and performance footage, therefore showing that we are using this convention, a convention that I believed we used successfully.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
What have you learnt from audience feedback? -+
Joe: When we created our final product it was given to a test audience, all of whom produced feedback on what they thought about it and possible changes to make which they felt it required to be successful.
James: They felt we followed the conventions of our genre effectively they also we're impressed by the editing and did not make any bad comments, however some felt the lip syncing was not 100% accurate in places which overall we agree with.
Dom: Our peers also felt the jump cuts and words we're timed well with the beat of the song and matched the on screen actions, we were told it was slightly abstract and harder to read at times, however this was intentional to keep the audience interested and on their toes.
How did you use new media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?
James: Throughout the production of our Music product we have used various types of new media technology, such as the obvious; blogger of which has helped us publish our project in a professional manner shown through the incorporation of both images and videos which have the ability for us to easily convey our desired effect and explain/ analyse easily, professionally and efficiently. Also the ease of use such as the ability to edit, add and access from any browser in the world.
Dom: Finalcut has been a superb tool in both planning and research as well as the completion of our final video, and the directors cut version also, firstly final cut was taken advantage of in the initial research for the blog post on fillers, as well as lip-syncing with both the words to the music as well as the actual lip movement, this maximised our confidence for the editing for our final cut which we feel is also successful, as it enabled us to successfully convey the desired effect, shown through the use of fillers, fades and emphasis on certain sections portrayed through the on screen lyrics.
Ben: Google Streetview was in fact also a help shown in the blog post for our location recce, the way in which this helped was it enabled us to show our ideas and scout for ideal locations a lot quicker and efficiently opposed to manually doing, especially when the weather was against us.
Joe: Photoshop was a further form of digital technology that we took advantage of shown with our digipack and magazine advert which allowed us to take seemingly plain and simple images and manipulate them in such a way which successfully conveyed the desired and professional image.
We wish to present our direcotrs commentary in a way we feel will not only look proffesional but will also be thouroughly engaging to the audience, the way we feel this can be achieved is through the use of a green screen with myself and the rest of our group in front of it whilst our music video is played behind, this gives us the ability to stop it , and easily convey our feelings through clearly shown examples.
In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Dom: In order to answer this question successfully we first need to establish the genre of music of which we feel our song falls ino which after much reseach we believe to be 'pop rock' reasons for why can be seen in depth on our blog, a band of which that plays similar music to our 'band' is a band called 'McFly'.
Ben: This song, '5 colours in her hair' shows all the conventions that should be used in a music video of 'pop rock' genre. These are: Performance Footage, Bright Colours, extensive editing and Story-line, In some ways our video does use the convention of performance footage in our video as we have a lot of lip syncing. However, we also challenge this convention as we have no use of instruments in our video.
James: In a lot of McFly's videos there is extensive use of bright colours, coming in many different forms, the clothing is all very bright, so is the general style of editing. We feel our video challenges this conventions as we adopt a dark style of editing and as you can see behind me such as the saturation effect and de-saturation effect. But there is also editing techniques that change the size of the video and make it appear in different areas of the screen. This is used in both our video and McFly's video. As seen behind us, this therefore is a further way in which we follow the conventions of th 'punk-rock' genre.
Joe: Storyline/ narrative is a further convention of this genre shown In both McFly' video and our video, there is a storyline and performance footage, therefore showing that we are using this convention, a convention that I believed we used successfully.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
Ben: This is our final album cover ( shown on the screen ) which we feel is very effective as the contrasting colours of the pink and grey merge well together and seeing as the band is called 'The Pink Spiders', the pink obviously goes in relation to the name of the band. it also follows many of the other conventions of the music poster genre
James:However our music video doesn't have pink in it because we wanted to have contrapuntal feel to the video where the music is a lot more up beat and lively than the performance seen on screen which we wanted to be similar the Architects - 'Heartburn'
Dom: We as a band wanted the mood on screen to be quite like the video behind ,with the slow walking down a street and walking through fields and woods.conveying the somber and contreversial subject, ie. underage drinking.
What have you learnt from audience feedback? -+
Joe: When we created our final product it was given to a test audience, all of whom produced feedback on what they thought about it and possible changes to make which they felt it required to be successful.
James: They felt we followed the conventions of our genre effectively they also we're impressed by the editing and did not make any bad comments, however some felt the lip syncing was not 100% accurate in places which overall we agree with.
Dom: Our peers also felt the jump cuts and words we're timed well with the beat of the song and matched the on screen actions, we were told it was slightly abstract and harder to read at times, however this was intentional to keep the audience interested and on their toes.
How did you use new media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?
James: Throughout the production of our Music product we have used various types of new media technology, such as the obvious; blogger of which has helped us publish our project in a professional manner shown through the incorporation of both images and videos which have the ability for us to easily convey our desired effect and explain/ analyse easily, professionally and efficiently. Also the ease of use such as the ability to edit, add and access from any browser in the world.
Dom: Finalcut has been a superb tool in both planning and research as well as the completion of our final video, and the directors cut version also, firstly final cut was taken advantage of in the initial research for the blog post on fillers, as well as lip-syncing with both the words to the music as well as the actual lip movement, this maximised our confidence for the editing for our final cut which we feel is also successful, as it enabled us to successfully convey the desired effect, shown through the use of fillers, fades and emphasis on certain sections portrayed through the on screen lyrics.
Ben: Google Streetview was in fact also a help shown in the blog post for our location recce, the way in which this helped was it enabled us to show our ideas and scout for ideal locations a lot quicker and efficiently opposed to manually doing, especially when the weather was against us.
Joe: Photoshop was a further form of digital technology that we took advantage of shown with our digipack and magazine advert which allowed us to take seemingly plain and simple images and manipulate them in such a way which successfully conveyed the desired and professional image.
Tuesday 29 November 2011
Individual Evaluation - James
In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
What have you learnt from audience feedback? -+
How did you use new media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?
Throughout the production of our Music product we have used various types of new media technology, such as the obvious; blogger of which has helped us publish our project in a professional manner shown through the incorporation of both images and videos which have the ability for us to easily convey our desired effect and explain/ analyse easily, professionally and efficiently. Also the ease of use such as the ability to edit, add and access from any browser in the world. Finalcut has been a superb tool in both planning and research as well as the completion of our final video, and the directors cut version also, firstly final cut was taken advantage of in the initial research for the blog post on fillers, as well as lip-syncing with both the words to the music as well as the actual lip movement, this maximised our confidence for the editing for our final cut which we feel is also successful, as it enabled us to successfully convey the desired effect, shown through the use of fillers, fades and emphasis on certain sections portrayed through the on screen lyrics. Google Streetview was in fact also a help shown in the blog post for our location recce, the way in which this helped was it enabled us to show our ideas and scout for ideal locations a lot quicker and efficiently opposed to manually doing, especially when the weather was against us. Photoshop was a further form of digital technology that we took advantage of shown with our digipack and magazine advert which allowed us to take seemingly plain and simple images and manipulate them in such a way which successfully conveyed the desired and professional image.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
What have you learnt from audience feedback? -+
How did you use new media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?
Throughout the production of our Music product we have used various types of new media technology, such as the obvious; blogger of which has helped us publish our project in a professional manner shown through the incorporation of both images and videos which have the ability for us to easily convey our desired effect and explain/ analyse easily, professionally and efficiently. Also the ease of use such as the ability to edit, add and access from any browser in the world. Finalcut has been a superb tool in both planning and research as well as the completion of our final video, and the directors cut version also, firstly final cut was taken advantage of in the initial research for the blog post on fillers, as well as lip-syncing with both the words to the music as well as the actual lip movement, this maximised our confidence for the editing for our final cut which we feel is also successful, as it enabled us to successfully convey the desired effect, shown through the use of fillers, fades and emphasis on certain sections portrayed through the on screen lyrics. Google Streetview was in fact also a help shown in the blog post for our location recce, the way in which this helped was it enabled us to show our ideas and scout for ideal locations a lot quicker and efficiently opposed to manually doing, especially when the weather was against us. Photoshop was a further form of digital technology that we took advantage of shown with our digipack and magazine advert which allowed us to take seemingly plain and simple images and manipulate them in such a way which successfully conveyed the desired and professional image.
Joe Scott - Evaluation Questions
In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
When creating our media product, we aimed to conform to the typical conventions of real media products, this is because we waned something that is instantly recognizable by audiences of our genre, rather than risking unpopularity by unsuccessfully challenging these forms and conventions, to achieve a seamless integration with this genre we studied other music videos to find common themes and noted them down for use in the design stages of production.
To test these new themes we created a draft product and as a first attempt at replicated common genre characteristics we feel this was achieved, Finally using what we learnt from our draft we we're able to produce in our opinion a high quality, instantly recognizable and memorable music video.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
What have you learnt from audience feedback?
When we created our final product it was given to a test audience, all of whom produced feedback on what they thought about it and possible changes to make which they felt it required to be successful.
They felt we followed the conventions of our genre effectively they also we're impressed by the editing and did not make any bad comments, however some felt the lip syncing was not 100% accurate in places which overall we agree with.
Our peers also felt the jump cuts and words we're timed well with the beat of the song and matched the on screen actions, we were told it was slightly abstract and harder to read at times, however this was intentional to keep the audience interested and on their toes.
How did you use new media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?
We have used new media technologies right from concept, through to planning and to production,
there is a wide range of technologies used including in the use of PC's and the Internet to carry our research on other bands and typical conventions of our genre, to produce our drafts and final product we used the Apple software 'Final Cut Express' and finally to evaluate each others work and receive a final mark we used 'Youtube' to upload our video so it can be watched anywhere.
When creating our media product, we aimed to conform to the typical conventions of real media products, this is because we waned something that is instantly recognizable by audiences of our genre, rather than risking unpopularity by unsuccessfully challenging these forms and conventions, to achieve a seamless integration with this genre we studied other music videos to find common themes and noted them down for use in the design stages of production.
To test these new themes we created a draft product and as a first attempt at replicated common genre characteristics we feel this was achieved, Finally using what we learnt from our draft we we're able to produce in our opinion a high quality, instantly recognizable and memorable music video.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
What have you learnt from audience feedback?
When we created our final product it was given to a test audience, all of whom produced feedback on what they thought about it and possible changes to make which they felt it required to be successful.
They felt we followed the conventions of our genre effectively they also we're impressed by the editing and did not make any bad comments, however some felt the lip syncing was not 100% accurate in places which overall we agree with.
Our peers also felt the jump cuts and words we're timed well with the beat of the song and matched the on screen actions, we were told it was slightly abstract and harder to read at times, however this was intentional to keep the audience interested and on their toes.
How did you use new media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?
We have used new media technologies right from concept, through to planning and to production,
there is a wide range of technologies used including in the use of PC's and the Internet to carry our research on other bands and typical conventions of our genre, to produce our drafts and final product we used the Apple software 'Final Cut Express' and finally to evaluate each others work and receive a final mark we used 'Youtube' to upload our video so it can be watched anywhere.
Individual Evaluation - Dom
In what ways does your media product use/develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
To answer this question, I first needed to identify what genre of music our song choice would be classed as. This will help me in order to choose a similar song of the same genre and pinpoint the individual conventions used in that video and the conventions used in our video.
The genre I believe our song could be categorised into is the 'pop rock' genre. I feel our song is too soft to be classed as a full on rock song however it uses many instruments and is therefore not entirely poppy. A band that plays a similar sort of music to ours I would say is a band called 'McFly'. After extensive research through many of McFly's music videos I was able to identify some conventions and a video that portrays all of these conventions. (Shown Below)
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary products?
After researching many videos and ancillary products (eg DigiPaks) I approached the ultimate conclusion that the most successful DigiPaks were ones that included reminders that can be seen in the particular video. So we decided this would be a convention that we would try and incorporate in our digipak. Obviously, the pink in the DigiPak reminds the audience of 'The Pink Spiders'
To answer this question, I first needed to identify what genre of music our song choice would be classed as. This will help me in order to choose a similar song of the same genre and pinpoint the individual conventions used in that video and the conventions used in our video.
The genre I believe our song could be categorised into is the 'pop rock' genre. I feel our song is too soft to be classed as a full on rock song however it uses many instruments and is therefore not entirely poppy. A band that plays a similar sort of music to ours I would say is a band called 'McFly'. After extensive research through many of McFly's music videos I was able to identify some conventions and a video that portrays all of these conventions. (Shown Below)
This song, '5 colours in her hair' shows all the conventions that should be used in a music video of 'pop rock' genre. These are: Performance Footage, Bright Colours, extensive editing and Story-line.
Performance Footage
In this video, there is a lot of performance footage showing the band members, this includes instruments and lip syncing. In some ways our video does use this convention as we have a lot of lip syncing. However, we also challenge this convention as we have no use of instruments in our video. This is not done intentionally. Originally we set out to use many instruments such as a piano for the music intro at the start of the video but a lack of planning meant we couldn't find anyone that could play the piano. Below are screen grabs of the use of performance in McFly's video and ours as well.
Bright Colours
In a lot of McFly's videos there is extensive use of bright colours, coming in many different forms. The clothing is all very bright, so is the general style of editing. Our video challenges this conventions as we adopt a dark style of editing and as you can see in the pictures above, there is a huge difference in clothing we are wearing. I believe we adopted this style as our song, in contrast to many of McFly's, has quite a dark meaning and story behind it whereas McFly's lyrics and stories are quite upbeat and happy.
Extensive Editing
Editing is a very broad subject there are two aspects of editing that I need to focus on in order to analyse editing. There are filters and effects applied to our video that make it look dark such as the saturation effect and de-saturation effect. But there is also editing techniques that change the size of the video and make it appear in different areas of the screen. This is used in both our video and McFly's video. Examples are shown below.
Storyline
In both McFly' video and our video, there is a storyline and performance footage, therefore showing that we are using this convention, a convention that I believed we used quite well.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary products?
After researching many videos and ancillary products (eg DigiPaks) I approached the ultimate conclusion that the most successful DigiPaks were ones that included reminders that can be seen in the particular video. So we decided this would be a convention that we would try and incorporate in our digipak. Obviously, the pink in the DigiPak reminds the audience of 'The Pink Spiders'
Individual Evaluation - Ben
Our main product as a package, i feel is very effective and could easily be seen as a real, genuine music video, album and magazine cover.
This is our final album cover which i feel is very effective as the contrasting colours of the pink and grey merge well together and seeing as the band is called 'The Pink Spiders', the pink obviously goes in relation to the name of the band.
However our music video doesn't have pink in it because we wanted to have contrapuntal feel to the video where the music is a lot more up beat and lively than the performance seen on screen which we wanted to be similar the Architects - 'Heartburn'
We as a band wanted the mood on screen to be quite like the video above with the slow walking down a street and walking through fields and woods.
Individual Evaluation - Ben
Our media product - music video- I say would be the genre of 'pop rock' with the similar conventions to such bands as Mcfly and their song 'party girl'. As we both have live performances, theirs' being a live performance in a darkly lit room which is happening at the same time as the story line which sees the band arriving at a large manor on some sort of trip which then ends up with them fighting off partying girls who turn out to be vampires. However we both have an accurate story line in relation to the meaning of the lyrics which shows ours having emily storm off on her seventeenth birthday as she feels she is too old for gift and party and how she just wants to be portrayed as an adult. However our song could be considered to be a bit more 'punk' than anything else but its all about different peoples opinions. This can also be said about mcfly and how their genre has changed over the years.
In our performance we wanted to include and show the band as much as possible as i feel this is a good way of attracting our target audience because it feels more personal to the fans. the same with Mcfly, it shows a lot of the band, either performing or in the story which again would attract more of an audience.
Mcfly's music video, 'party girl' conveys a group of girls turn into vampires as soon as the sun goes down attacking the band which could be in relation to their 'blood sucking' female fans and how they can get enough of the band and how maybe their fans are portrayed as 'party girls'.
Friday 25 November 2011
Thursday 24 November 2011
Desaturation
In technical terms, saturdation means the amount of colour that an image has. So, to desaturate a clip means to take the colour away from the clip. This is easy to do and creates the idea of a dream or flashback, by creating a sense of something not being real as there is no colour this is especially effective when it is combined with a speed change which is quite common in Birchall's work. The image below shows an example of a video by 'Architects' where the desaturation effect is used.
The part of our video where this effect will be useful is where we see the footage of 'Emily'. It will create a surreal atmosphere, almost showing that everything is not how it should be, it is unconventional. Which is exactly what this part of our video is. This in turn will make the viewer show emotion toward the girl and the video will remain engaging.
The contrast between this effect and a normal saturated clip may seem sloppy and unproffessional, however a completely desaturated video will become boring and could lose the viewers attention. Therefore we feel that we need to find a level medium between the two. while watching another 'Architects' video, we found that the desaturation tool is again used, however it is not used completely. Seen below.
We decided that this would look good in our video and will be something that we do our best to implement.
The part of our video where this effect will be useful is where we see the footage of 'Emily'. It will create a surreal atmosphere, almost showing that everything is not how it should be, it is unconventional. Which is exactly what this part of our video is. This in turn will make the viewer show emotion toward the girl and the video will remain engaging.
The contrast between this effect and a normal saturated clip may seem sloppy and unproffessional, however a completely desaturated video will become boring and could lose the viewers attention. Therefore we feel that we need to find a level medium between the two. while watching another 'Architects' video, we found that the desaturation tool is again used, however it is not used completely. Seen below.
We decided that this would look good in our video and will be something that we do our best to implement.
Filters And Effects
In our auteur study we talked about how we would like to make our video similar to those directed and produced by 'Stuart Birchall' without copying them. A lot of his videos look the way they do and create the feel they create through the extensive use of filters and special effects. The main effects and/or filters we can identify in many of Birchall's videos are. Desaturation, Brightness and Contrast, Speed Changes and Defocus effects. In turn we will analyse these effects and determine whether they look like something we could use in our video.
Feedback For P1-05
Below is a screen grab of an analysis we conducted for group P1-05 on their rough cut footage:
Problems With Schedule
Problems with trasnport meant that we were unable to film on the proposed day. There were also other problems such as the lead actress becoming ill, leaving us unable to film again. Therefore we had to suggest an evening after the rough cut deadline in order to fill missing gaps in the video.
Planned Filming Schedule
This was our proposed filming schedule.
11:00 Arrive In Wicken
12:00 Finish filming in Wicken
12:30 Arrive in Burwell
1:00 Finish Filming In Burwell
1:30 Arrive In Ely
3:00 Finish Filming For The Day
11:00 Arrive In Wicken
12:00 Finish filming in Wicken
12:30 Arrive in Burwell
1:00 Finish Filming In Burwell
1:30 Arrive In Ely
3:00 Finish Filming For The Day
Use of Performance
The genre of our video is pop rock, therefore we felt it necessary to include some performance footage as this is a characteristic of this genre of music. Originally, we set out to include as many instruments as possible but then hit a major flaw in this plan when we realised that none of us could play any instruments. We overcame this problem by just using lip syncing. Seen in videos such as Deaf Havana - Smiles All Round. I believe it worked very well as i think the performance footage could be too overpowering and take the viewers attention away from the storyline of the girl. Below, you can see the video that uses the same style of performance footage as ours.
Research Into Music Adverts
Here are two music advertisments for both Tinchy Stryder (left) as well as Girls Aloud (below) on first glance they appear to widely differ however on closser analysis they are both trying to achieve a similar goal in a similar 'genre' of music and thereby follow typical conventions of which associated with it. I feel both successfully complete their aim and advertise there product in question although I feel Tinchy Stryders goes better in 'selling' it as it were whilst the Girls Aloud advert I feel would be more at home as a CD front cover.
Going Viral
After looking into various stages of music video production in detail, it felt only right to pursue it until distribution, so that it's there by how I came across the following article entitled 'top 10 tips on how to make your music vdieo go viral', it includes top tips from the likes of Cee Lo Green & Gregg Breinberg. I feel this is just what we were looking for as it provides great help for espiring artists and producers;
Yes, the point of having a video is to promote your song, but that doesn’t mean the vid should take backseat in the artistic realm. “The goal is to create a video that enhances the song and can stand on its own, a video that people are not only going to want to watch again, but want to show someone else,” says Kina Grannis, a YouTube phenomenon who has garnered her share of fame via web video.
Having a video that stands on its own, as Grannis says, can bring you new fans — you know, people who might not otherwise be into klezmer, but really dig the way those ribbon dancers you hired move.
We know you have your own sound that’s, like, 50 times better than any of the garbage out there, but no one’s going to listen if they don’t know who you are. One way to cut through the cacophony of voices on the web is to pay homage to a known entity by covering one of their jams. Bands like Pomplamoose have seen great success with this tactic, as have PS22, a chorus of kids from New York. “As far as how the group has reached a worldwide audience, the majority of credit goes to Tori Amos and gossip blogger Perez Hilton,” says Gregg Breinberg, the director of the kids’ chorus. “After posting a plethora of Tori Amos covers, her management contacted me back in 2007 to arrange a meeting. The kids sang for her, then with her, and after we posted the videos of the collaboration, Perez Hilton posted the performance on his blog. Ever since, he’s kept up with the kids, and continues to post their performances regularly.”
“Things did not happen for PS22 overnight,” says Breinberg. “Over the course of five years, the kids continue to gain new fans and a wider audience. PS22 brings a consistent offering of music/videos that appeal to a wide demographic. That helps too.” Translation: Just as you’re not going to get a record deal after one gig, your first video may not blow up. Hey, if a bunch of kids can be patient, so can you.
“This may not be true for everyone, but we’ve found that most of our ideas, at minimum, take a week and often times months of rehearsal before we feel like we’ve got something good,” says OK Go‘s Tim Nordwind. “After we come up with a simple concept, the four of us (and often times our collaborators) get together and start playing around with ideas until the concept starts coming to life, changing, and getting better than we ever could have imagined. Some of our videos, like the Rube Goldberg machine for ‘This Too Shall Pass,’ took six weeks of planning and building.”
“When thinking about making videos, we ask ourselves, what would be fun to do for a few weeks?” says Nordwind. “That’s where our ideas stem from; dancing with dogs, making a Rube Goldberg machine, a dance with time, performing with a marching band, they all just seemed like fun things to try to create.” Generally, if you’re having fun, people will have fun watching you. Unless you have wholly different ideas of recreation than the rest of the population.
If people can get famous off of lo-fi home recordings, you bet your bass the same is true of videos. “Make sure your budget is $0, so you don’t mind when your video doesn’t go viral,” advises Andrew Gregory, of Auto-Tune the News fame.
Empathy is an integral component of shareability. “We don’t all have an outlet to express ourselves, but chances are we’ve all had that experience. That experience of loss in relationships overall,” says Cee-Lo Green, whose song “F**k You” went hugely viral this summer and fall. “I think that’s why that song works…. It can be shocking to address a significant issue, but the sense of humor is smiling in the face of diversity.”
As we stated in the introduction, the Internet has made the musical realm much more democratic. While Green’s jam was censored on the radio, it could be played in all its glory online. “I believe that the Internet is people’s radio — to where we have a sense of ownership and control and direct involvement. In that way, the song worked with people,” Green says.
While you’re out there Fellini-ing it up, remember that a good video won’t save a bad song. “Quality is my first concern,” Green says. “You have to be honest and you have to be considerate and compassionate. There has to be an underlying desire to be related to. Not just seen, heard — embraced. Needing and wanting that love to be reciprocated. If you don’t have that love, chances are you won’t succeed.”
The Internet loves cats. If you’ve got ‘em, flaunt ‘em. That’s part of the reason why Holy F**k‘s song, “Red Lights,” spread around the web so quickly. Still, it’s not like the band set out to cash in on kitties. “If we would’ve known how trendy cats would’ve become online, we probably wouldn’t have made the video. [But] I’m glad we went ahead with the video,” says Holy F**k’s Brian Borcherdt, who directed the video as well.
1. Make The Video Its Own Entity
Having a video that stands on its own, as Grannis says, can bring you new fans — you know, people who might not otherwise be into klezmer, but really dig the way those ribbon dancers you hired move.
2. Try a Cover Song
3. Be Patient
4. Rehearse — A Lot
5. Remember Fun? Have It
6. Be Frugal
7. Create Something Relatable
8. Know Your Audience
9. Remember, Your Song Has to Be Good
10. And Then There’s Always Cats
The Internet loves cats. If you’ve got ‘em, flaunt ‘em. That’s part of the reason why Holy F**k‘s song, “Red Lights,” spread around the web so quickly. Still, it’s not like the band set out to cash in on kitties. “If we would’ve known how trendy cats would’ve become online, we probably wouldn’t have made the video. [But] I’m glad we went ahead with the video,” says Holy F**k’s Brian Borcherdt, who directed the video as well.
Wednesday 23 November 2011
Problems With Storyboard
Although our storyboard gave us a general idea of the feel we would like to give our music video, it was definitely not detailed enough. It was useful for the pitches, but we realised that it wouldn't be able to help us draw up a complete, detailed shot list that would help us when it came to filming.
Shot List
The list below shows the shots featured in order on our storyboard:
Close Up
Establishing Shot
Long Shot
Mid Shot
Close Up
Mid Shot
Mid Shot
Close Up
Close Up
Long Shot
Mid Shot
Mid Shot
Mid Shot
Close Up
Long Shot
Close Up
Mid Shot
Test Footage
This is a clip of our test footage we did in order to make sure our lip syncing was as precise as possible. We also used this test footage to test out a 'desaturation' filter. There is also editing we hope to use in our final video where the words appear on screen with the video.
Summary Of Planning So Far
After scanning through our blog we can see that nearly all of the blogs from the blog checklist up until this point are complete. We believe that our blogs are of sufficient length and are clearly presented. We believe our blog is well presented and easy to use, this could be because of the extensive use of numbered labels with titles seen on the checklist. Making each point on the cheklist easy to view. To improve our blog, we feel we should use more screen grabs, to make the blog a little less lenghty and boring.
Transition Types
After discussing as a group, we came to the conclusion that we weren't going to try or do anything particularly special with transitions in our video. We thought that some transition types other than a simple fade can be overpowering and could possibly take the viewer's attention away from the actual video. Therefore we decided that a simple fade would be sufficient. However, we decided we could, in parts, expand on a simple fade and develop it into a long fade out as used at the end of our video to match the music, or a cross fade where to clips are on screen at one time but both are just visible.
Blog Assessment Of Another Group
Below is an image of an assessment that we did for group P1-05. It is important to get feedback other than just your own to improve variety of points that could help you to get more marks.
Stuart Birchall - Director Reel
Below is a link to a clip made by Stuart Birchall summarising all of his music video work into one, short clip.
Stuart Birchall - Director Reel
Stuart Birchall - Director Reel
Examples Of Stuart Birchall work
These are clips of work from the director 'Stuart Birchall'.
These clips show how consistent he is with his work adopting a dark feel to his videos.
These clips show how consistent he is with his work adopting a dark feel to his videos.
Auteur Study
As mentioned in previous blog posts, we, as a group decided that after researching, we would like our video to adopt a similar style/feel as a video by a band called 'Architects' with the song 'Heartburn'. Although, the band's music wouldn't neccessarily fall into the same genre as ours. The feel of this video we thought was correct as we felt it had the correct blend of both performance and narrative. After researching more of the bands videos we decided that all of the videos created the same feel. Especially a song called 'Day In Day Out'. Therefore we began to think that the director of these videos should be one that research.
After extensive research we found the director that directed the videos, his name is 'Stuart Birchall'. He is also famous for directing videos for other similar bands but also commercials such as a perfume commercial for 'Diesel'. His work is all fairly similar adopting a dark nature that combines performance with story.
Analysis (Using Goodwin) of 2 Student Music Videos (2)
The second video we analysed was group 13P1-01 covering Butch Walker - Too famous to get dressed.
Firstly, the lyrics and visuals are very amplified with many examples where the lryics portray something that is on screen. For example there is a lyric in the song where something is mentioned about a table and a picture of a table that is later used in the film flashes in the bottom corner. Lyrics are also written on pieces of paper held up by random people. This works very well.
The music and visuals are also very amplified with shots cut in time to the beat of the music, appearing in different corners of the screen. This is very well executed through precise editing and definite cuts. The footage also fits the music very well as the song is very 'fast-paced' so is the video, using qucik cuts to enforce this message.
The genre of this music is rock, the characteristics of rock genre videos are usually to use performance footage. Although it is not a full performance, the video matches this characteristic as there is performance seen throughout the video.
There are many shots of the artist throughout the video because not only is he the lead in the performance, but he is also the main character is story that runs alongside the performance.
The only references to voyeurism that i can take from this video come at the beginning and at the end of the video. They are both seens where the main character is being watched doing something but not directly addressing the camera.
There are no intertextual references in this video that I can make out, although the lead singers performance may resemble an attitude that could've been adopted from other artists perfromance.
Firstly, the lyrics and visuals are very amplified with many examples where the lryics portray something that is on screen. For example there is a lyric in the song where something is mentioned about a table and a picture of a table that is later used in the film flashes in the bottom corner. Lyrics are also written on pieces of paper held up by random people. This works very well.
The music and visuals are also very amplified with shots cut in time to the beat of the music, appearing in different corners of the screen. This is very well executed through precise editing and definite cuts. The footage also fits the music very well as the song is very 'fast-paced' so is the video, using qucik cuts to enforce this message.
The genre of this music is rock, the characteristics of rock genre videos are usually to use performance footage. Although it is not a full performance, the video matches this characteristic as there is performance seen throughout the video.
There are many shots of the artist throughout the video because not only is he the lead in the performance, but he is also the main character is story that runs alongside the performance.
The only references to voyeurism that i can take from this video come at the beginning and at the end of the video. They are both seens where the main character is being watched doing something but not directly addressing the camera.
There are no intertextual references in this video that I can make out, although the lead singers performance may resemble an attitude that could've been adopted from other artists perfromance.
Analysis (Using Goodwin) of 2 Student Music Videos (1)
The first video that we analysed was from group 13P2-09. They covered Orson's - Already Over.
The first point we can make from this video were that there was little relationship between lyrics and visuals apart from some short clips of performance footage where the lyrics are illustrated, through the clearly executed use of lip syncing.
There was also little relationship between music and visuals, again a little performance footage where a guitar was used. This is again an illustrative relationship.
The genre for this song I believe was sort of pop rock. Often for this genre of music we see completely random videos that gain publicity by having nothing in common with the music and therefore being very provocative. I believe this video achieves this stereotype very well. The superhero theme is almost completely random and I believe that works very well.
There are a few shots of the artist in parts of the video where we see a performance, but I don't think that these shots are close enough, nor are there enough shots to fully promote the artist.
There is little voyeurism, this could partly be because there are no females in the video, and Goodwin states that the voyeurism in videos is often heavily concentrated around female characters. However, there is some voyeurism when we see the superhero in the bar and doing normal, everyday activities.
There is definitely a lot of intertextual references. The main theme for this video was the superheo and a superhero is an intertexual reference. The references are portrayed very well through the use of mise en scene, particularly costumes. However, editing is also a reference where we see words such as 'Pow' appear on screen in time with punches commonly seen in comic stirps or cartoons. This works very well and the aspect of editing this is is a technique called 'motion key frames'.
Tuesday 22 November 2011
Notes On Arron & Amar Talk
After having a discussion with Arron & Amar we were able to make a few key points that they described as being vital to succeeding when producing a music video.
Other points we made are:
- Keep the first 30 seconds interesting
This was a point made by both Arron and Amar. They said the first 30 seconds of a music video is probably the most important as it should grab and hold the viewers attention, however they also mentioned we should not reveal to much information too early as the viewer may become disinterested with the rest of the storyline.
- Technical Aspects
The technical aspects of any music video need to be spot on, in particular the lip syncing. If the lip syncing is poor and out of time, the video will look sloppy, unprofessional and is unlikely to interest the viewer.
- Test Footage
The previous point told us how important it is to get the technical aspects spot on. The best way to get good at this is by getting as much practice as possible in the form of test footage.
- Planning
Every aspect of music video planning has to be detailed and accurate. If not, there could be a lack of footage, meaning the video may not be as good as it possibly could've been. Planning can come in many different forms such as:
Recce Shots
Filming Schedule
Back Up Plans
- 'Over Film'
This means that we should film as much as possible. Even if this may seem too much, there can never be too much as variety of shots is nearly always a good thing.
Other points we made are:
- Make sure the video is visually intriguing.
- Cover your tracks with performance, shoot it 4/5 times.
- Make sure you have a conceptual idea.
- Don't make a mini film, keep the narrative short.
- Alternatives within planning.
- Make sure the shoot is planned by creating a precise and detailed schedule including times, locations and shots etc.
- Try 'Blocking Out' to get some test footage.
- Include a blog post on digital story-boarding.
Clear Plan of what remains to be done
We understand from our initial research, our rough cut doesn't meet the standard of which we desired due to reasoning as already discussed this has further been backed up with our peer feedback. In turn this has led us to create a detailed description of what is still left to do.
What we need to do is:
What we need to do is:
Other Mise En Scene Research (Props)
Props used in our video would be things such as: A cigarette, Rucksack, Alcohol.
We intend on using them to help build a detailed scene and show the intended rebellious nature of the girl.
We intend on using them to help build a detailed scene and show the intended rebellious nature of the girl.
Gordons Gin
Cigarettes
Large heavy duty rucksack which suggests she may be moving out/leaving
Other Mise En Scene Research (Clothing)
The typical clothing worn by a rebellious teenage girl aged 15-17 would wear skinny jeans, hoodies, and plain converse trainers. Like the pictures shown below.
Expectations & Viewing Habits
To get more of an insight into what music videos our target audience would watch we conducted a questionnaire that we could ask friends and family of similar ages to our target audience. We asked ten girls aged 15-17 which video they would watch out of a video that A) they could relate to, B) that portrayed strong messages of world events or C) a video with performance in it. 60% said they would watch a video they could relate to. 20% would watch a performance and 20% would watch a video with strong messages. Therefore showing that our video - a video they would relate to would be most popular.
Problems with this survey would be that the girls were either friends or family meaning the answers could be biased. Also, the girls we asked may not listen to the genre of our music.
Problems with this survey would be that the girls were either friends or family meaning the answers could be biased. Also, the girls we asked may not listen to the genre of our music.
Feedback From Pitches
As mentioned in previous posts, our approach for our pitch was informal allowing peers to give us construve criticism. The feedback we received was mainly from Tanya. She basically said that she liked our idea and should try and incorporate as much 'Film Noir' editing techniques as possible.
Film Noir - http://04longroadmusicvideo11.blogspot.com/2011/10/film-noir.html
Film Noir - http://04longroadmusicvideo11.blogspot.com/2011/10/film-noir.html
Pitches
For our pitch to the class, we decided against a long, lengthy presentation that was read from the board and not exactly presented. Instead we took a more informal approach by having almost a discussion with the class including both our initial ideas, storyboard ideas and moodboard. This way, we felt that the pitch would be more prodcutive as a more informal approach would allow the audience to deliver constructive criticism.
Friday 18 November 2011
Feedback Of Final Cut
Our fellow peers felt we followed the stereotypical conventions of the genre our song is. They also said the editing was impeccable despite some arguing the lip syncing was not 100%, they felt there were good jump cuts and the words on screen were timed well and played well of both the conventions of the genre and the on screen actions. This good relationship is followed through to both the narrative and on screen visuals just as the music and beat is too. They feel it was slightly abstract , which was partly intended to keep the audience on their toes, our peers believe we also made full use of the mise-en-scene.
Wednesday 16 November 2011
Tuesday 15 November 2011
13P1-04 - Lighting Research
For our final project we aimed to create and overall more professional and varied music video as suggested in our feedback both from Tanya and Peers, below is our research into different potential lighting methods.
Three Point Lighting:
Three point lighting is a favorite in TV and Movie productions around the world, it allows the cinematographers to cast a favorable and natural light on the entire subject, eliminating unwanted shadows and blemishes, it consists of, naturally, 3 lights, The Key Light, The Fill Light and Back Light.
Below: a conventional 3 Point lighting arrangement:
Three Point Lighting:
Three point lighting is a favorite in TV and Movie productions around the world, it allows the cinematographers to cast a favorable and natural light on the entire subject, eliminating unwanted shadows and blemishes, it consists of, naturally, 3 lights, The Key Light, The Fill Light and Back Light.
Below: a conventional 3 Point lighting arrangement:
4 Point Lighting:
4 Point lighting is very similar to three point lighting, however includes the use of the "Background Light" typically all the lighting is used to illuminate the main focal point (Actor, Prop etc...) however 4 point lighting is beneficial when you want to illuminate background objects or scenery and further reduce shadows which may be cast from the background to the foreground shot.
The Pink Spiders DigiPak - Final
Above: Completed Pink Spiders Digipak consisting of Front, Back, Inside left and inside right covers
Tuesday 8 November 2011
Classification Research
Our video project contains little to no violence or crime, and so classification can remain low and reach a larger audience than if it had been made differently, however contrary to this it does contain moderate swearing and loud scenes which are unlikely to be suitable for under 15's and so we feel this should be out target classification.
Wednesday 2 November 2011
Feedback Summary
The things that we need to improve on from our rough cut and things that we need to bring forward into our final video are:
- More footage of performance.
- If using the text, change the style.
- Develop interesting styles such as slit screen.
- Use more of storyline ideas.
- More footage of performance.
- If using the text, change the style.
- Develop interesting styles such as slit screen.
- Use more of storyline ideas.
Tuesday 1 November 2011
Rough Cut Analysis
At first we were slightly disheartened with our rough cut, as we feel the end product differs from our desired, due to poor planning and lack of time, as we were unable to make full potential of the overnight camera slot, due to differing circumstances and prior commitments from members, however we feel we achieved the atmosphere and style of editing we we're aiming for, overall we agree with the peer feedback we have received and understand the scenery is not very imaginative and bland, and aim to utilize more environments in a wider range of atmospheres.
we also aim to use more varied text styles in a variety of colours, we think this will be beneficial because it will maintain the viewers interest for longer and make a more interesting scene.
we plan on using a similar style to the video below, whereby lyrics are timed and overlaid on real footage and shake and move with the beat of the song.
we also aim to use more varied text styles in a variety of colours, we think this will be beneficial because it will maintain the viewers interest for longer and make a more interesting scene.
we plan on using a similar style to the video below, whereby lyrics are timed and overlaid on real footage and shake and move with the beat of the song.
(Skip to 2:05)
Rough Cut Feedback From Tanya
There are some interesting techniques used in this rough cut which, with development, could very effectively engage your target audience.
Areas to develop now should include:
Adding in more performance footage. You need to cover the track at least two more times, so that you can cut back and forward between different performances. One of the extra track coverages could be a performance? Generically, this would be appropriate.
The split screen is effective, but needs development.
The use of text is very interesting and could provide the technical 'tone' to your video. There are too many black backgrounds for the text at the moment and you might like to think about moving the text, changing sizes etc. You could also put the text over the footage. The video would thenlook more integrated.
Areas to develop now should include:
Adding in more performance footage. You need to cover the track at least two more times, so that you can cut back and forward between different performances. One of the extra track coverages could be a performance? Generically, this would be appropriate.
The split screen is effective, but needs development.
The use of text is very interesting and could provide the technical 'tone' to your video. There are too many black backgrounds for the text at the moment and you might like to think about moving the text, changing sizes etc. You could also put the text over the footage. The video would thenlook more integrated.
Rough Cut Feedback From Peers
Before veiwing the rough cut we were expecting the story of the drunk girl as a key focus of their music video. The rough cut didn't show the storyline that had been pitched and instead had a basic storyline of two guys in the woods. However, we enjoyed the editing of the video with the 4 panels of video, and the words flashing up on screen were good on timing.
looks alot like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyRRJz4P7ZE
The location of woodland for the setting of their video is lacking with imagination, in the sense of what they could achieve with the narrative of the song.
Editing
looks alot like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyRRJz4P7ZE
The location of woodland for the setting of their video is lacking with imagination, in the sense of what they could achieve with the narrative of the song.
Editing
- Text coming up on screen was bland, in the pitch it was compared to All Of The Lights by Kanye West, you could take ideas from that and change the font for each set of words to provide variety and possibly add more effects.
- Location could be more imaginitive as it is fairly basic for the whole video.
- Mise En Scene could match the narrative.
- Good use of shots as it is what is expected from your final product. These shots are good practice for a good idea of what your final piece will look like.
- The images on screen match the genre. The actors look like they are fitting the mood of the song without going over the top.
- Again, the performance lacked imagination as it was just two people walking around in the woods, it would be good if it could fit with the words a bit more so the words reflect what is being shown on screen, but its good for a rough cut.
Sunday 30 October 2011
How we overcame our problems
After realising that the gig was not such a good idea after all we had to come up with a similar solution that meant Emily was still listening to our band but on a much smaller scale. As a group we then came up with the solution to have Emily run away from home and go to a friend's party where our song would be played on some speakers.
Problems With Initial Ideas
The one big problem that arose after coming up with our initial ideas were that we realised only one member of our group knows how to play an instrument, nor do we know anyone that could play the other instruments.
Another problem was that we couldn't get a big enough venue to hold our gig with the budget available and were unsure how we could get so many people to watch us in such a short space of time.
This meant that the gig idea was not look promising.
Another problem was that we couldn't get a big enough venue to hold our gig with the budget available and were unsure how we could get so many people to watch us in such a short space of time.
This meant that the gig idea was not look promising.
Friday 21 October 2011
Tuesday 11 October 2011
Film Noir
Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations, and we feel this would work successfully for our music video, as the cynical attitudes are at the forefront both lyrically and visually for example, underage drinking, smoking arguments etc.
The term film noir, French for "black film", and The low-key lighting schemes is the element of film noir of which we wish to implement.
An example of a picture with a film noir effect on it is shown below.
An example of a picture with a film noir effect on it is shown below.
Analysis Of Test Footage
From our lip syncing test footage it has become apparent it is harder than first guessed as although one shot has come out relatively well the other four were simply illegible down to clarity and the fact it was near impossible to see lips moving. this thereby means we may possibly need to re- think and come up with a plausible solution to overcome this, possibly zooming in, better lighting, louder music so easier to direct sync etc.
Digi Pack Research
"A digi pack is is a patented style of compact disc or DVD packaging and it consists of cardboard outerbinding with one or more plastic trays (for holding a CD or DVD) stuck to the inside.
In the world of CD packaging the Digipak® was a real break-through and it still excels in functionality and design opportunities. The Digipak® can be supplied in standard formats, for instance with 4, 6, 8 and 10 pages, with tray(s) for CDs and sleeves and die-cut slots for booklets. This packaging can be used to incorporate pop-up messages and other special effects. Some of our special Digipaks® are the midsize, the book size and the T-, L- and cross-form"
For our digi pack we also hope to play on the idea seen with our inspiration of the gorrilaz (http://www.google.com/imgres?q=gorillaz+digipak&um=1&hl=en&safe=active&sa=N&biw=1481&bih=800&tbm=isch&tbnid=5q_Unf10AWjPLM:&imgrefurl=http://soniawana2media.blogspot.com/2010/11/digipak-research.html&docid=iOjZT511CE3FnM&w=400&h=270&ei=RQaUTsHqBYP6sgbi_pXJBQ&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=293&vpy=212&dur=1451&hovh=184&hovw=273&tx=203&ty=86&page=1&tbnh=127&tbnw=149&start=0&ndsp=32&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:0) example , each of our band members 4 faces on each segment with various extra infomation. we feel this will work well and look professional, other ideas include us four in one segment then various other relevant props in the others ie. a candle with track listing adjacent etc or a present / cake for example.
Tuesday 4 October 2011
Analysis (using Goodwin) Of 2 Student Music Videos
For this we first analyzed a group of students of which used the same song of which we have, we found this incredibly insightful and helpful for inspiration as well as a benchmark to aim for as it appears to be an overall professionally executed video, implementing many techniques and conventions of this genre; the lip syncing is edited perfectly with no noticeable overlap between image and sound. Further aspects we find work well with this video include the split screen performance based appearance which works well and looks professional, another successful technique we feel they use is the editing to the beat seen at the start when the bottom right image takes over the whole screen on a beat. (@ 14seconds)
Mind Map
This is a mind map summarising our ideas that we created when first listening to the track 'Seventeen Candles'.
Target Audience Research
We believe our target audience is predominantly girls aged 15-17. The reasoning behind this is the lyrics and meaning associated with this song are very relevant and appropriate to this audience. The main character happens to be a teenage girl and so we believe that girls of the same age will be able to relate to this video and it's content. i.e rebellion. However, boys of the same age may also be able to relate and therefore they may be a secondary audience.
Wednesday 28 September 2011
Location
Throughout our video we will need to use a few different locations. These are; The girls house (House 1), the house we use to play in (House 2) and a track/open field that we will walk through to get to House 2.
House 1
The main character in our video is the girl that runs away from home because of her over-protective parents. It is very important that we use location well in order to create the right impression for the viewer. The over-protective attitude gives me the impression that the family would live in a very urban area in a new house with calm, safe surroundings with a lot of families living nearby. Like this small housing estate.
House 1
The main character in our video is the girl that runs away from home because of her over-protective parents. It is very important that we use location well in order to create the right impression for the viewer. The over-protective attitude gives me the impression that the family would live in a very urban area in a new house with calm, safe surroundings with a lot of families living nearby. Like this small housing estate.
House 2
Our story revolves around a girl running away from home and hearing music playing from an old abandoned house or warehouse. However, it is more the setting that limits our choice for house 2 as it needs to be accessible from an open field or track. Something like this would be ideal:
Track/Field
Part of our video involves both the band and the girl walking down an open track or field. This was influenced by a video by a band called 'Architects'. The shot shown below left is the shot that particularly influenced us and is one that we will try to re create in our video. The picture on the right shows a track that is close to where James lives and is the sort of thing that we think will be looking to find.
Goodwins Analysis
MR. Andrew Goodwin, analysed music videos and found factors of which evident in the large majority of music videos:
- Firstly a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the lyrics.
- A relationship between the music and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the music.
- Genre-related style and iconography present.
- Multiple close-ups of the main artist or vocalist.
- Voyeurism often plays a major part, especially in relation to females.
- Intertextual references to other media texts may be present.
He says that music videos are often constructed by the link between the visuals and the song plus the artist. Relationships are built between these in the video, and the close-ups of the artists gives them the representation and publicity they require.
Many of these features are present in all music videos, depending on the genre of the song and the aim of the record company/artist.
- Firstly a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the lyrics.
- A relationship between the music and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the music.
- Genre-related style and iconography present.
- Multiple close-ups of the main artist or vocalist.
- Voyeurism often plays a major part, especially in relation to females.
- Intertextual references to other media texts may be present.
He says that music videos are often constructed by the link between the visuals and the song plus the artist. Relationships are built between these in the video, and the close-ups of the artists gives them the representation and publicity they require.
Many of these features are present in all music videos, depending on the genre of the song and the aim of the record company/artist.
Friday 23 September 2011
Storyboards
Whilst planning our pitch for our music video, we decided it would be a good idea to gather all our initial idea and round them up into a storyboard the benefits of this would be to convey our brain storming in a clearer and more professional way.
Influential Videos
This is the first of our influential videos. It is by a band called called 'Architects' and is of a rock genre similar to our song. The things that we really liked about this video is the location, colours and clothing/costumes used.
This genre this music can be categorized into isn't relevant to our genre but we get a feel of the loneliness that we would like to show in our video. The clothing is relevant as the clothes are quite shabby and often there is scenes where a backpack is shown like we would like to show in our video.
Our last video is by another similar band 'Lostprophets' the performance scenes are like what we will like ours to be like and the general theme of rebellious teens is also present.
Wednesday 21 September 2011
Moodboard
This is a moodboard that we created and used when pitching our ideas to the audience, it is made up of images from other music videos such as 'A team' 'Rooftops' 'Heartburn'. These are songs not necessarily from bands similar to ours but we feel that they are relevant to the feel we will attempt to create in our video. There are also images such as the candles that are particular to our video. The main aim of this moodboard in the pitch was to create and idea of our video without going into too much detail, hopefully keeping the audience interested without boring them.
Wednesday 14 September 2011
Initial Ideas
Our first choice is 'Seventeen Candles' by 'Pink Spiders'.
After looking through the lyrics and putting meaning to words we have come up with concepts that we would like to include in our video that are both fulfilling of the lyrics and that are relevant to the stage of our lives we are currently in. This stage we are referring to is commonly known as the'rebellious' stage. The particular lyrics that suggest this stage or attitude are:
- 'Everybody's cool with the "I don't care".'
- 'That she believes she's a bit old for cake and gifts and party favours'
- 'Then i'm packing up my Shit and i'm gone'
As well as this there are constant references to acts that would be seen as 'wrong' to the more mature adult, such as smoking and drinking alcohol underage.
The lyrics also clearly stated that the girl in focus - Emily, was clearly turning seventeen.
We thought that this would be a good way to show her turning against her parents and doing something that she wants to do for a change as oppose to what her parents want her to do. 'She believes she is a bit old for cake and gifts and party favours'.
We thought that a gig would be a good way to show this and since this is a music video, it could be our gig that she comes to watch after running away from home.
To summarise, our idea was to have a rebellious teenage girl - Emily, on her seventeenth birthday running away from her parents and their 'Gifts and Party Favours' and going to a rock concert/gig.
After looking through the lyrics and putting meaning to words we have come up with concepts that we would like to include in our video that are both fulfilling of the lyrics and that are relevant to the stage of our lives we are currently in. This stage we are referring to is commonly known as the'rebellious' stage. The particular lyrics that suggest this stage or attitude are:
- 'Everybody's cool with the "I don't care".'
- 'That she believes she's a bit old for cake and gifts and party favours'
- 'Then i'm packing up my Shit and i'm gone'
As well as this there are constant references to acts that would be seen as 'wrong' to the more mature adult, such as smoking and drinking alcohol underage.
The lyrics also clearly stated that the girl in focus - Emily, was clearly turning seventeen.
We thought that this would be a good way to show her turning against her parents and doing something that she wants to do for a change as oppose to what her parents want her to do. 'She believes she is a bit old for cake and gifts and party favours'.
We thought that a gig would be a good way to show this and since this is a music video, it could be our gig that she comes to watch after running away from home.
To summarise, our idea was to have a rebellious teenage girl - Emily, on her seventeenth birthday running away from her parents and their 'Gifts and Party Favours' and going to a rock concert/gig.
Tuesday 13 September 2011
Analysis (using Goodwin) Of 2 Real Music Videos
First Music Video - Goodwins's analysis - LMFAO - Party Rock Anthem.
The first thing we see in this video is an intertextual reference to the film '28 Days Later' which is one of Goodwin's points of analysis. We see many more also being incorporated throughout the video.
The next we see is a close up of the artist, which Goodwin states is often demanded by the record label. This close up helps the artists establish a certain visual style. Here, we see a very 'upbeat' style being adopted with wild hair and extravagant clothing.
This song would typically fall into the 'pop' genre and shows common characteristics of this genre. Such as catchy dance routines, and dance groups.
Aspects of mise en scene also help support this assumption, particularly the bright colours of clothing and bright, artificial lighting.
The relationship between lyrics and visuals is illustrative, this is highly recognizable as the dancing which the 'characters' are doing is an exact representation of the lyrics 'Shuffling'.
This second video is of a much different genre than our previous, it has typical characteristics of rock, such as seeing the whole band behind the singer with the typical Guitar, Drums etc..
in addition to this the needs of the record label have been met with various close ups of the band and most frequently the bands main singer, one final aspect of the video which stands out is the replacement of instruments with white drawings which interact with the sound.
This song would typically fall into the 'pop' genre and shows common characteristics of this genre. Such as catchy dance routines, and dance groups.
Aspects of mise en scene also help support this assumption, particularly the bright colours of clothing and bright, artificial lighting.
The relationship between lyrics and visuals is illustrative, this is highly recognizable as the dancing which the 'characters' are doing is an exact representation of the lyrics 'Shuffling'.
Second Music Video - Goodwin's Analysis -
This second video is of a much different genre than our previous, it has typical characteristics of rock, such as seeing the whole band behind the singer with the typical Guitar, Drums etc..
in addition to this the needs of the record label have been met with various close ups of the band and most frequently the bands main singer, one final aspect of the video which stands out is the replacement of instruments with white drawings which interact with the sound.
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