Strengths and weaknesses of shots

Throught our music video there are both strengths and weaknesses to certain shots, this includes- lighting, acting, angles, movement etc.

 

This is my favourite shot in terms of lighting and angle because the light here hiighlights her face and body making her the main focuscreating a star persona and allowing the audience to engage with her and the lyrics. The light has also made the background dark allowing the candles in a heart shape behind our artist visible, emphasising the meaning of the song and building the relationship between the video and the lyrics as at the beginning of this verse she sings 'Like a flame that flickers, come on light my fire'

Our group had a dilemma when it came to using this clip (seen at 0:49 in the rough cut) because we loved the angle because it added diversity but the shot is quite unflattering and does not convey wit the pop star ideal image. Though she is looking into the camera engaging the audience and creating an emphasis on 'looking' (another of Goodwins main conventions of a music video). We solved the dilemma of using this sequence by only using a short clip of the most flattering moments within the shot.

 

This is another of my top favourite clips (seen at 2:23 of the rough cut) because during it she is very dramatic and is able to convey her feelings and emotions to the audience helping them connect with the artist. Though a weakness of this shot would be the lighting, I think it is too dark and is slightly dull and grey but hopefully we can sort this out with a colour correcting tool.

 

I love this shot of Bessie and Ross together because their acting is really convincing allowing people to really relate and connect with them both as they may have also been in this situation. Again I would critisise the lighting. If we were to film this shot again I would make the background darker (which hopefully we are able to do with colour correct) and have a spot light on them both.

 

 

This is my leas favourite shot due to 3 factors- lighting, movement and angle. I think the lighting is basic and dull and should have a darker background or more striking shadow. The clip should have either a pan or tilt movement to bring diversity amongst the static shots. The angle isnt terrible but I recon it could have been more dramatic if it had been at a slightly higher angle.

 

 

Twitter account

https://twitter.com/alexayourlove

This is a Twitter account ive created for Alexa our artist. I will be regularly updating the twitter with progress on the music video, digipack and magazine article. Im also aiming to follow girls and boys in the age range of 13-25 in hope they will follow back and give our group some feed back on our products allowing us to conduct further research into the audience our artist would attract.

Focused and Ambient Audiences

David Buckingham explains that some audiences are not as deliberate or active in their consumption or media. He believes that it is essential to build young peoples media use with the combination of their social activities and experiences due to the fact that many young people are using media as a pass time or to fill up spare time. He says their attitude towards media is not committed/ not a priority and is meaningless as they are not naturally drawn to artists/ characters and their personal life/ fictional life.

I believe that our artist also attracts an ambient audience as well as an active audience as they would be able to have the video playing on YouTube or the television without giving it their full attention. Though because the concept of our video and the emotions displayed are easy to relate to/ understand the viewer (though not giving their full attention) is able to get the general idea of the video.
Though the information and sources are still there for an active audience who are interested in other aspects of the artists career/ life.

Theoretical study into audience

Blumler and Katz argued that audiences are Active not passive in terms of their approach to media:

• Diversion - A way of escaping from pressure of everyday life (people use music as a distraction from reality)
• Personal reltionships- Where a viewer gains compassion, either with television characters, or through conversation with others about television (Including music artists)
• Personal Identity- Where a viewer is able to compare their life with the lives of character/ artists'  situations on television, to explore, re-affirm or question their personal identity)
• Surveillance- Where the media are looked upon for a supply of information about what is happening in the world

An active audience would approach our Artist to listen to her music and escape from reality and would watch her video in their spare time to relax and emerge themself in the music. Through the music video and the lyrics they would gain compassion with the artist, they would also do this if their friends also liked the artist and discussed their music, videos and personal life or if they were subscribed to a fan site/ forum where the artist is discussed. I think that our artists music/ video could be compared with an audiences life/ feelings/emotions as you can see the artists expressions and thoughts through her acting in the music video which a viewer can relate to and therefore gain their interest, respect, compassion and attention. Their life style may also encourage an audience to compare their life with our star as their lives would be very different generating jealousy/ envy of a positive sort. The audience our artist would attract  are less likely to fit into the category of surveillance as our artist would not be one to inform the happening of the world, unless it is about their personal life/ the world of an artist through Twitter, Facebook, Television etc.

Half term work - preparing for digi-pack

1.       What is your finalised star persona? Include a photograph of your star that best communicates their persona. Discuss what ideas/ideologies they communicate (materialism, rebellion, innocence, the cultural “ideal”, alternative to the “ideal” etc.). How do they communicate these ideas? How is their persona expressed visually? (costume, hair, makeup, bogy language, lighting, framing etc) How is it expressed through lyrics, genre?

This is a screen grab from our music video which I think best describes our star. Firstly by the way she is sitting represents her sexuality and by the way her hand is positioned behind her head. Her face is also positioned looking straight at the camera, so connecting with the audience, and her expression is of a sexual nature. This makes her look like an object which males could look upon. Her outfit does show off her front with the neck line being low, however it is in the colour white and this could represent innocence. Our stars hair is also draped to one side showing off the side of her body closest to the camera, this could draw in the audience especially the male side. The fact that her hair is long and flowing down also shows femininity. We kept her makeup quite simple and the costume as well because we wanted the main focus to be on the meaning of the song and keeping her image to a minimal makes her star persona better, as if people want to look like her she is not making them dress inappropriately or wear lots of makeup but the opposite, and this could therefore make her a good role model. The lighting in this shot highlights her features well as it creates a shadow behind her and on the legs and lower body, but her face is in full light which means the audience can identify with her more. The framing of the shot furthermore focuses on her main body and image as you can see that the parts of her body round the edge of the shot for example her legs and arms are in shadow and if we included the whole of the shot they would not be as important as they would not be shown clearly. That is why the camera is closer in on the characters face to again increase identification and empathize the more important features of our star. 

2.       How are you going to ensure continuity between the 3 products? Remember your digi-pack cover cannot look like a single (can’t be images from the music video) but an album. Compare your ideas for the digi pack cover with professional promo images. A digi-pack is a combination of audio and video (a cd and a dvd with special features such as a few music videos or concert videos)

We will use different images for our digi-pack, these will be completely different shots from the music video that ensure that the album looks diverse and different. Here is an example of a professional promo image. This is Rihanna's digi pack: 

This digi-pack is bright and colourful as it has pictures of roses which goes with her bright red hair. Roses are represented by love and so shows what her album is based about. This is what we would like to try and do for ours. This includes a CD from her album and a DVD with directors commentaries and videos.

3.       Write down all of your individual or group ideas for the digi-pack cover and magazine advert. Ideas for costume, setting, lighting, colour, hair, makeup, Photoshop special effects etc. If you can do some mock ups of your own, or experiment with effects in photoshop.

• head shots of artist
• plain costume like in music video so focus on her face and expression
• looking into the camera or away?
• setting - related to love? loving setting? beach, pretty garden etc
• bright lighting to empathize her face
• colour - white to show innocence? or black to show darkness? maybe contrast of both?
• hair and makeup simple and dark as a contrast
• includes album with tracks, interview with artist, tour videos, directors commentary, behind the scenes footage

Rough Cut

This is the rough cut for our music video starring Bessie Walker as our Pop star and Ross Kennedy starring as the boyfriend. We have edited most of the main shots together that we want to use for the final video. The areas we will need to work on are the parts where she is out of sync and where the scenes arent cut on the beat. We will also colour correct some parts eg. the parts where she is seen with her boyfriend will be in black and white to show that they are times from the past.

Half Term Homework

Advanced Portfolio Half Term Homework:

You must think seriously now about how your music video works in combination with your magazine advert (advertising the digi-pack) and the digi-pack cover (at least 4 sides).

Answer the following questions:

1.       What is your finalised star persona? Include a photograph of your star that best communicates their persona. Discuss what ideas/ideologies they communicate (materialism, rebellion, innocence, the cultural “ideal”, alternative to the “ideal” etc.). How do they communicate these ideas? How is their persona expressed visually? (costume, hair, makeup, bogy language, lighting, framing etc) How is it expressed through lyrics, genre?

2.       How are you going to ensure continuity between the 3 products? Remember your digi-pack cover cannot look like a single (can’t be images from the music video) but an album. Compare your ideas for the digi pack cover with professional promo images. A digi-pack is a combination of audio and video (a cd and a dvd with special features such as a few music videos or concert videos)

3.       Write down all of your individual or group ideas for the digi-pack cover and magazine advert. Ideas for costume, setting, lighting, colour, hair, makeup, Photoshop special effects etc. If you can do some mock ups of your own, or experiment with effects in photoshop.

Word count : 500 words minimum

ALSO Catch up with your blogging. Make sure Target audience work is complete and you have done at least 25 individual posts since the start of the project! It is not just the amount that counts though but the content!

Theoretical study into audience

Diversion - a form of escaping from the pressures of everyday
The audience would use our media product as they could relate too it as its about love and the complications of a relationship. The use of music to visuals is effective as the song  goes along with the scenes we have filmed as it tells the story. The performance is also strong, so you as an onlooker could feel the emotion the female is trying to portray.

Personal relationships - where the viewer gains companionship, either with the television characters, or through conversations with others about television
An audience would hopefully approach this type of song because of the two young male and female characters. Our two characters we use in our music video are represented well by the way their appearance is portrayed and the way they act on screen.

Personal identity - where the viewer is able to compare their life with the lives of characters and situations on television, to explore, re-affirm or question their personal identity.
Reinforcing the previous points, audiences would use our media product as they can compare their real life relationships with the ones alongside our song. Ours highlights the ups and downs and people especially teenagers can compare their situations with those and it could help to deal with them. People could again relate to them and think of themselves as similar too them.

Surveillance - where the media are looked upon for a supply of information about what is happening in the world
The way our music video is shown, clearly states that we are focusing on a female artist and this is valuable to the audience so they know exactly what type of genre the song is. The album is going to be related to love so this should make it clear to the audience and know exactly what our artist is about.

Feedback on track

These are some of the questions we will ask various people from all ages and gender to see what they think of our song.

Did you like the track?

What type of person would like this track?

Which age range would you typically associate this song?

How would you picture the band/lead?

What sort of music video would you expect to accompany this track?

If performance, where and what type?

If narrative, what sort?

Here is an example of some answers:


Did you like the track?
Yes

What type of person would like this track?
Mainly girls I think as its quite slow and meaningful

Which age range would you typically associate this song?
Teenagers?

How would you picture the band/lead?
A female artist

What sort of music video would you expect to accompany this track?
A typical female pop star one

If performance, where and what type?
In a house, acting alongside a boy?

If narrative, what sort?
A love story

Ideal audience type

Our perfect audience type will be similar in terms of the fans for other female pop stars. They will be mainly female based and wear normal everyday clothes. An example of this is the pop star rihanna. The gender that they are aiming at are mainly girls but boys are also included in her target audience, aged 14+. Above all, her fans are obsessed with her image more than her music. Rihanna is an fashion icon who can wear anything but still look amazing, feminine and beautiful in all different ways, pulling of everything she wears very well. On the one hand, Rihanna is becoming quite a role model for teenagers who have relationship problems. Recently, due to the assault of Chris Brown Rihanna has mainly been focusing on making albums related this problem and targeting mostly on female audiences who are vulnerable. Rihanna acts as a role model by showing to her audience that after she has been through tough times in her life, she has became stronger from it and progressed through her career successfully. This may suggest that every woman can stand on their own feet. We want our stars image to be similar to this and so our audience type will look up too them like rihanna. Furthermore Rihanna expresses lots of sex appeal and often wears tight clothing to gaze in attraction or seduce the male target audience. However, she also often wears lots of make up which makes her look good and beautiful.

Our star will be high enough up to take part in fesivals and radio stations to empathise her album and for good publicity. Her image will be thought about thoroughly and ensured that she reaches out to everyone possible to get her songs well known. Another way that she could become known is from interviews where she can tell people about herself so people can idrectly relate too her and also the public can ask questions in hope to get answers that they wanted.

Ideal audience type

From the research into our pop, female artist genre I have found a certain audience type.
We have found that the audience other female stars attract are heavily made up of females though there are also males who are included in the fanbase. A lot of the girls are teenagers/ early twenties. Males are usually late teens/ early twenties, often homosexual.
This fanbase would often be expected to follow an artist through twitter, facebook etc. Which is the reason why many artists promote their work through these social networking sights.
Many of these fans are likely to buy tickets to see the artist on tour, or at a festival/ show such as T4 at the beach, Reading, V festival etc Beyonce Headlines Glastonbury in 2011, Nicki minaj at T4 at the beach in 2012.

This ideal audience would be one that listened to radio stations such as Kiss, Capital FM and  Radio 1 and would watch music channels and TV shows where the artist is a guest or the performer e.g. Rihanna on the Graham Norton show

 

 

 

Lyrics

City lights don't shine as bright when were apart
baby you have got the keys to my heart
promise that you'll never leave me in the dark
and If I need your light be my star
This is the first verse, In my opinion it starts off fairly positive and straight away you are able to connect to the lyrics and understand the emotions and feelings that come with the words.

you say you love me, love me, love me
but that don't do nothing for me
you've gotta do more than tell me what ur feelin
cus if u want me, want me, want me, I better become ur only
that's the only way that ill be waiting ohhhh
This is the first part of the chorus which complies with an ideal pop song as it becomes upbeat and the most memoral part of the song. Though I feel that these lyrics arent as positive in this motif because she is giving out a message saying that she wants more out of the relationship; I think a lot of young women can realte to this, drawing this type of audience to her. 

cus I would just die without it, and there aint know doubt about it
your love, your love, your love
cus I would never make it without it, and there aint know doubt about it
your love, your love, your love
The second part of the chorus goes on the another note to say she isnt happy with the relationship but she needs it as her life as she knoows it would be over. Again a lot of women can relate to this feeling of being in love, or wanting/ needing someone in their life encouraging them to buy her work.

like a flame that flickers in
come on light my fire
love me like there is no end
till the end of time
This motif changes the feel of the song as the beat changes and her voice has been edited to sound more modern (in terms of technology)

you say u love me love me love me, but that don't do nothing for me
you've gotta do more than tell me what ur feelin
cus if u want me, want me, want me, I better become ur only
cus that's the only way that ill be waiting ohhhh

cus I would just die without it, and there aint know doubt about it
your love, your love, your love
cus I would never make it without it, and there aint know doubt about it
your love, your love, your love

Questionnaire

This is the questionnaire I will be handing out to different individuals

Questionnaire

Of an audience of what age would you expect a young female artist to appeal to?

0-12       13-25      26-40       40+      All

Can you name 3 female pop stars?

……………………………………

…………………………………..

…………………………………..

What is appealing about a female pop star?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

What do you expect a female star to look like?

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Do you think this girl fits the ideal of a pop star?

Yes     No

Why?

……………………………………………………………………………………..

……………………………………………………………………………………..

Week beginning 8th October - Starting editing

8th of October - We uploaded the footage we recoreded onto Final cut express on the first lesson we had after shooting.
10th of October - We started editing and sorted out which parts of footage we would put where. Since then we have just carried on editing.
Now we have realised that we will need to do some more shooting of Bessie for our music video to fill in some gaps. We are going to shoot some extreme close up shots of areas of her face and hands to make the video more interesting becase we have too many long shots of her body or mid shots of her face. Today was the roughcut deadline so we have arranged a time next week for Bessie to come to be filmed in one of our lessons. We will use a backdrop similar to the one at Anna T's house but because the shots will be close ups and we will be using the same lighting as the other shots, it won't be noticable that we have filmed in a different place. Next Wednesday is the filming deadline so she will come in Monday or Wednesday's lesson.

Props

In most music videos props are used in many different contexts e.g. to create a setting, to finish off an everyday look, to draw attention to the artist/ style etc.

commonly used props: Money, chairs, outfit accessories, drink (alcohol), instruments, phones, food etc.

 

 

Because we used a female artist I've researched into what props female singers often use in their music video and I have found various results. The props usually depend on the theme and genre of the song. 

This is a screen grab from Pink's song 'Raise your glass' so the prop (a beer bottle) has an obvious meaning- to create emphasis on the lyrics and song. Many artists also use props that reinforce the meaning of the song to draw attention to their work.

This big bear is a prop used in Jessie J's video 'Price Tag'. This has no relevance to the song at all bust is just a prop that is used to draw attention to Jessie and to show her quirkyness helping her create a star persona especially as this is from an early video of hers when she was just being introduced into the industry.

This is a screen shot from Leona Lewis' music video 'Trouble'. The chair and lamp draw little attention meaning most the focus is on the artist performing, which is usually what they want as it allows the audience to identify with them essentially making them more popular and selling more records/ gaining a bigger fan base.

 

In our video we only used candles as a prop, this is because we wanted all the attention on the artist so that her star persona can grow and the audience can identify and connect with her, allowing her to build a fan base which all pop stars have.

Problems we have encountered

One problem we had yesterday whilst editing was being able to put together the pieces of footage without them looking abnormal or jumpy. We had to encorporate all the pieces and cut them at the right times to make it seem good.

We also came across that the begining shots were too short so we had to make them longer as it was only the start of the song so didn't want it too seem too much at the begining. We would then increase the pace as the song went on and the relationship developed.

Furthermore we were not able to make the shots do transitions. Making the shot move from left to right etc. We had to ask the teacher for help, but this made our shots better and more interesting.

Another problem is that today when putting new clips onto the timeline it would sometimes move the other clips we had already done and it would be out of sync. We asked our teacher and found out that if the box was fully grey they it would be fine but if it was just an outline it would move others along.

Shooting day

On sunday the 7th October we all came to my house and filmed our music video. Me, Anna H and Emily came to my house along with Bessie and Ross who would be actors in our video. Firstly we set up the lights and camera, positioning them around the room and making sure the setting was correct and how we wanted it before we started. We then dressed Bessie in a white outfit and sat her on a plain orange sofa with plain white walls. Her makeup and hair was simple, and we played the song on my laptop to familiarise everyone with it. Then we started the filming by making Bessie lip sing whilst the song was playing. For about 2 hours we filmed bessie in various different shots and movements in the white dress and made her lip sing the song and also be static so we could get some different types of shots, which we could then slow down when editing. For example flicking her hair, this would be effective when we slow it down and make it a quick cut between two shots.
Then we made Bessie change into a black dress and put more makeup on the eyes and lips and made the lighting in the room darker. We also added candles in the shot which we had to be cautious about as it could of been a potential fire hazard. Like before we filmed her in various different ways by moving the camera differently and making the background seem darker than the shots before.
After filming all of that we included the other actor Ross into the shots playing the "boyfriend" in the relationship that they were acting out on camera. We made the lights very different again by highlighting them differently with the big studio lights and also made the background dark so the main focus was on them. The two actors had to act out happy scenes with them holding hands and touching eachothers face lovingly, and then there would be a contrast of them sitting opposite ends of the sofa and arguing at eachother. They were both wearing simple everyday clothes which were jeans and t shirts which made the scene seem more realistic. Throughout the whole of the filming they both stayed exactly in the same place but just moving around the sofa. We wanted to show the stages of the relationship as they developed. We made them sit on the floor at times and then both on the sofa and then lying on the sofa, different shots like that to make the shots more interesting and different to just having them both sitting in the same place. Overall I think that the day was very beneficial as we were able to get alot of detailed filming done and now we have started the editing in which we are cutting and putting all the pieces together. The various types of shots enable us to get the best out of editing and I hope that once done it will all come together.

Camera movement

In our music video we hope to include various types of camera movements. Clearly we will not be able to carry them out to the best of our ability as they are in proffessional films, but using these techniques will still help us with ideas to make our music video more interesting.

For example a dolly is a cart which travels along tracks. The camera is mounted on the dolly and records the shot as it moves, dolly shots can provide very dramatic footage.

 

Another type of movement is a pan. It is a horizontal camera movement in which the camera moves left and right about a central axis. This is a swiveling movement, i.e. mounted in a fixed location on a tripod or shoulder, rather than a dolly-like movement in which the entire mounting system moves.

Another camera movement is a tilt. It is a vertical camera movement in which the camera points up or down from a stationary location. For example, if you mount a camera on your shoulder and nod it up and down, you are tilting the camera.

The movement tracking shot is considered to be similar to a dolly shot. That is, a shot in which the camera is mounted on a cart which travels along tracks.
However tracking is often more narrowly defined as movement parallel to the action, or at least at a constant distance (e.g. the camera which travels alongside the race track in track & field events). Dollying is often defined as moving closer to or further away from the action.

Editing problem

Yesterday we continued editing our music video. We came across a few problems such as while moving the border of a clip so that we could add movement to the sequence, one of the clips had been cut so that the video was disturbed and jumped between two different views and movement of the clip (from a zoomed pan shot to a static medium shot). Personally I liked the change but both Anna T and emily dissagreed so we tried to get the second cut the same as the first which took a while but we managed to get it very similar but not the same.

Target audience

Our artist 'Alexa' is aimed at a younger female generation (young adults) from the ages of 13-25. We think that our artist will appeal to this audience because of her feminine popstar image. Young women aspire to be like her e.g. looking like her, be looked at like her, and act in a similar way that she does- making her idol like.
We view her as a pop star who sings about typical problems young women go through so that this audience can relate to her and feel empathy alowing a connection to be built between the artist and the viewers, creating a fan base which is essential for an artist.

I have put together a questionaire which I will hand out to a number of individuals of different ages and genders, asking their opinion on 'Alexa' as a pop star and their views on the image of a young female artist.

Song lyrics interpretation

City lights don't shine as bright when were apart
baby you have got the keys to my heart
promise that you'll never leave me in the dark
and If I need your light be my star
This is the opening verse and is made very powerful so when you first hear it, it makes an impact on you. The first line suggests that the people who are in 'love' when they are apart the lights don't shine as bright.

you say you love me, love me, love me
but that don't do nothing for me
you've gotta do more than tell me what ur feelin
cus if u want me, want me, want me,
I better become ur only
that's the only way that ill be waiting ohhhh
This verse builds up to the chorus empathizing that the guy needs to make more effort and show that he loves her. Females could relate too this part as many have gone through the fact of liking someone but wanting them to like you back.

cus I would just die without it, and there aint know doubt about it
your love, your love, your love
cus I would never make it without it, and there aint know doubt about it
your love, your love, your love
This is the chorus and females could again relate to this part as it is talking about her not being able to cope without his love. This is reinforcing the idea of women needing or wanting a man in their life to love them. This part of the song becomes very upbeat and loud compared to the rest and the rhythm is sped up. 

like a flame that flickers in
come on light my fire
love me like there is no end
till the end of time
This is the part of the song which changes rhythm and becomes more dark and mysterious, suggesting a change in the relationship.

you say u love me love me love me, but that don't do nothing for me
you've gotta do more than tell me what ur feelin
cus if u want me, want me, want me, I better become ur only
cus that's the only way that ill be waiting ohhhh

cus I would just die without it, and there aint know doubt about it
your love, your love, your love
cus I would never make it without it, and there aint know doubt about ityour love, your love, your love

Target audience

Our promotional package is meant to appeal to mainly the younger generation, for example the audience that appeal to beyonce, we hope to create an audience that she has. We will target this audience mainly through the appearance of our star, by the way she will dress and behave. We will make her attractive and seen as materialistic.

Also, our album cover will attract people in by the diverse, but similar cover work that other female artists have. A head shot will be the cover work which will increate identification and people can recognise her.

Furthermore, the lyrics of the song will be easy to relate to and the meaning of it young females will be able to relate it to their lives. This will then make it easier for the album to be sold and less marketting techniques will need to be used.

Stage we are at

What stage are we at?
At the moment we are currently editing our footage as it has recently been uploaded. This includes us all taking part and having a go at editing. We will analyse the footage and decide which parts we like the best and then use it on final cut to edit and put together to create our piece.

What did we achieve this week?
We were able to upload our footage from our camera and start the begining of the editing. We have all had a go at editing and I personally enjoy it very much

Problems encounter?
We did struggle to cut the film clips on the beat as the beat is very constant. Also we found that making all the pieces flow is challenging, however in time we can work on this and improve as we go along.

What is the plan for the week coming?
We hope to carry on with editing and form our piece even more, enabling it to be ready for our rough cut deadline. If we all take our turn to help out and put all our ideas together it will be very beneficial.

Plan for this week

We are now at the point of editing our footage to fit the music. So far we have edited the first 30 seconds of the video, we would have liked to have done more though we had problems when it came to uploading the clips on to our mac as the computer crashed half way through the upload. We are also researching different ways to edit a music video e.g. transitions and cuts, special effects etc
By the end of this week we hope to have edited the whole video so that we can add special effects for our last 2 lessons before our rough cut deadline on the 24th October. Out of college we will all research different editing techniques so we have plenty of time to edit next week with a clear plan of what we want to achieve. And seeing as we have got all our footage we do not need to worry about the filming deadline this Wednesday the 17th.

How we got the ideas for our music video

We studied the 'California King Bed' video by Rihanna, we got a few ideas from this music video for our costume, camera movement and setting. She wears a white dress obviously to show innocence and elegance so we used a similar white dress on our popstar. The setting is on a bed so that Rihanna can be filmed in different kinds of positions on it, we used the same idea but using a sofa. The camera movements show handheld shots and panning shots which we wanted to try and also do so that the shots weren't static and were made to be more interesting.

The make up Rihanna wears is natural and simple (image above). We found that alot of other pop stars which fall into the same genre of music have a similar make up style in their videos for example Beyonce on the beach scenes in this muic video ...


And Ellie Goulding in her 'Your Song' music video...

Costume
Camerawork
Lighting

Sunday 7th October - Shooting Day

Last weekend we arranged the day to shoot our music video. I drove Bessie (our female actress) to Anna T's house where we met Anna T and Anna H. We set up the room with the sofa and lighting. We used Anna's laptop to play the song whilst shooting so that Bessie could lip sync. We used one ambient light to light up most of our focus (Bessie) and a backlight aswell as a sidelight to try and seperate her from the background when there was alot of shadowing.

We aimed to use alot of different shot types and camera movements because we were filming our whole music video in one small space. For example, we only had a sofa and a pillow as props so we tried filming her in differnet positions seated here and we used shots such as extreme close up aswell as long distance shots. We changed the position of the lighting in a few shots to give more variation aswell. In some shots the main light made a sort of 'spotlight' effect on Bessie which made the shot look more professional. Bessie wore two seperate outfits to try and create 2 different scenes. The first scene she wore a white dress with natural/simple styled make up and in the second scene she wore a black dress with a more dramatic make up style.

We lit the scenes where she wore black slightly differently, we used the spotlight effect on her and used candles in the background to give a different kind of lighting effect. There is a Middle Eight after the second Verse in the song which starts with the lyrics 'Like the light that flickers in....' which kind of ties in with the idea of candles so we think these scenes will work well with this part of the song.

After shooting scenes of Bessie on her own, we filmed her in some scenes with our male actor, Ross. We shot scenes of them together on the sofa looking to be just doing normal couple-y things as if they were boyfriend and girlfriend. We thought we could change the colour of these scenes in editing and put them within the scenes of her singing on her own to create some sort of storyline to go alongside it. We did some close up shots of the couple and some of Bessie singing whilst in his arms.

The day was a success and we had plenty of footage to start editing our video when we got back to class!

Sunday 7th October - Shooting

On the 7th October We filmed our music video. It didnt go as smoothly as we had hoped but we managed to film all we needed, I say this because we only had 4 and hours to film (due to other commitments of the actress) Also the male we were going to use pulled out at the last minute so we had to find another male to film when we only had 2 hours of filming left.

I arrived at Anna Ts house early to set up the lighting and camera, in this hour we found different ways to light the room enabling us to spend more time filming later on. We also covers the windows with dark sheets to block out the natural day light. Emily and Bessie (our actress) arived later on and we got straight into preparing Bessie for the filming.
She got changed into a white dress and kept her hair and make up very minimal. We started with filming her singing the whole songe once through so that if we had any gaps in our filming we could always go back to this scene. We then filmed close ups of her face both with her singing and without her singing and we filmed her singing while moving the camera.

We then got her to put a black dress on and do a similar thing but with dimmer lighting, during this scene we also placed cameras on the sofa in a heart shape and we also placed some candels on a tabel and filmed them, while they flickered and as they were blown out.

We then managed to pick the male actor (Ross) up from his house, as we picked him up we chose the clothes we wanted him to wear in the video. When we got back to filming we got Bessie to dress in jean and a t-shirt. We then asked the pair to pretend to fight, laugh, and show closeness.

Music video setting

Before we filmed our music video we did some research into various music video settings we could use and even before we chose what song we wanted to do we watched a wide range of music videos, finding different types of settings for different types of artists/ genres.

Male artists:

Labrinth (Treatment) - In this video there is a variety of settings, though they all seem to bring focus to music/ performing e.g. one setting is him in front of a white screen with lights pointing at him and his band around him, showing what his career involves. There is also a scene with him in a dressing room looking into the mirror, around the mirror are lights; this displays an audiences typical idea of a stars dressing room- suggesting he is a star.

 

Ne-Yo (let me love you) - In this video there are again many settings, including a beach, a large empty warehouse, a bedroom, a lounge and a car park. Non of these settings particularly have a significant meaning but are just to help promote his star persona and to create emphasis on the artist and actors. e.g. In the warehouse they are dancing and because of the reflective floor and plain setting the focus is all on himself and the dancers.  

 

Female artists:

 

 

Taylor Swift (We are never ever getting back together) - In this video all the setting connect up e.g. she starts off in a typical flat, with a sofa, pictures, lamps etc, the wall then moves to reveal her sitting at a kitchen table, the camera then moves to show a split scene with the dining room on one side and a party on the other (at which her 'boyfriend' is) the video continues like this into other settings.

During the video it shows temporal editing showing seasons of the year as the camera moves through the scenes.

Beyonce (Love on top) - This video only uses one setting, which is just a white room though you only see a corner of it. In this corner there wall is made up of large windows which set the scene as some of the dance/ video is shown during the day, where as later on in the video it shows night. The light through the window is reflected onto the floor of which Beyonce and others are dancing.

 

 



Album cover work

This is an idea of an album cover that we will base our ideas on. This is effective as it is just a close up of the artist's face which enables the audience to identify with the character. It is just a simple cover which is what we are going for and has the album name just plain and at the bottom.

As you can see there most female artist's album covers are shots of their faces.

Name Ideas

These are a few name ideas we have put together for our popstar and possible album names which kind of go with the theme of our music video.

Pop star name ideas:
Ruby Q
Ruby Gold
Alexa Summers
Alexa
Alicia Fox
Monica Eden
Hayley Foxx

Album name ideas:
Electric
Enigma
Girl Boy
Where I am
Start today
Alexa

Trey songz music video analysis

Trey Songz – Simply amazing

The music video demonstrates genre characteristics as there is a story alongside the song to help you understand the meaning easier. Also there are scenes of everyday life surroundings, which mean you as the audience can relate to the song as it is being shown. The song lyrics link in with the visuals which is one of Goodwin’s points as the song tells the story so you can understand what the artist is singing about.  There are slow motion shots of the actors in the video to identify what their roles are, and close ups of faces also encourages identification which is another of Goodwins points. Also there is reference to bird’s eye view shots from above of the two characters which gives a different notion of looking. Furthermore there are lots of different angled shots of the characters combined together to show a variation. There are quick cuts between shots to empathise the change in scene and make the audience piece together the entire story. 

Lighting workshop

In this lesson our teacher discussed with us the various ways of lighting a music video in different and interesting ways to gain more marks.

This video was firstly shown to descibe different ways to light a music video. This was beneficial as it had several ideas which could be used all together or separatly which would look proffessional but no that difficult to portray.

This was the second video we were shown and this was another video on how to make a music video look good, however in a different way.

After watching these videos our teacher Emma demonstated lighting with the use of a small desk lamp and studio lights. Someone then sat in a chair facing a camera and we looked at the various ways we could change light. For example using filters and pieces of coloured paper to change the colour. Furthermore then on the camera by changing the focus by selecting who would be in the foreground and who would be in the background.

Music video analysis - Ideas for our music video

Alexandra Burke "Hallelujah" music video

This music video has influeneced us for our one because of the layout of the shots. We want our artist to been seen in a room on her own singing directly to the camera. Alexandra Burke is seen in a similar way in a room full of candles. There is also a set of story line shots in the Hallelujah video. We want to make a storyline in our music video too. The video plays to its genre characteristics, the song is a slow ballad type so the camera movements are slow and the use of fading shots in and out of each other add to the dramatic theme. The video illustrates the lyrics vaguley. The candles link to the name of the song 'Hallelujah' because they are both linked to a 'holy' theme. The demands of the record label have obviously asked for there to be alot of close up shots of the artists face as she is a new artist in the industry. We want lots of close up shots of our artist for similar reasons.



Avril Lavigne "Wish You Were Here" music video

The setting and shots/ camera movement have influenced our music video because we liked the

Lighting for a music video (workshop lesson)

We had a lesson in how to light the setting for our music video.
Our teacher Emma showed us some videos on how to use differnet types of lights to create a professional looking scene with our artist.


This video gives some good ideas on how to make the shots look interesting and clear.



Streak filters shown in the video above are very expensive and we can make our own ones for free which give an effect which is nearly as good. The video below explains how to do it.



Our group will probably end up using streak filters behind our artist in some of our shots because we like the professional look it gives the shot.

Filming Plan

When? Sunday 7th October

Where? We will use Anna T's spare room for our setting because it is a plain and simplistic room with plenty of space to film in. We may also chose to use her garage as a darker scene.

Equipment? Camera, Dolly & Lights

Who? We will use Emily's friend, Bessie who we think will be ideal for the part of the female popstar as she has long hair, pretty and studies performing arts. We will also use either Anna T's friend Josh or our friend Ross, either would be willing to play the part of the boyfriend of the actress.

Costume? Make Up? Hair?
White dress- for the scenes where she is performing to the camera (close up shots etc)
Black dress - for the darkly lit scenes in the garage
Jeans - for the story line scenes with the boyfriend
3 different T shirts - to wear in different shots for the story line to show different days.

Make Up - We will use quite a lot of make up to try and perfect her and make her look glamorous but also natural.

Hair - Hair down and maybe slightly waved for a natural but desired look.

Target Audience

The target audience for our music video will probably be females ages 13-25. This because our artist is influential for this age group. Her songs are about the typical problems and feelings young women may experience in their lives. This also makes the audience feel like they can relate to the artist and idolize her more. We don't think that the music video will appeal to males as much because the song and video is viewed from a females point of view.

For example, looks-wise female artists such as Rihanna, Beyonce, Katy Perry etc are popular idols for young women because they are seen as beautiful and attractive by men. This is because women also want to be seen in this way.

Cheryl Cole is  an all round idealistic female pop star.

Katy Perry has a natural and curvaceous body which
attracts attention.

Rihanna's long tanned legs are a feature every girl desires.

We want our artist to be seen in similar ways to current female pop stars to attract our target audience

Analysis of a similar/influential music video

Avril Lavigne -  When your gone

http://youtu.be/0G3_kG5FFfQ

This is a very influential and similar music video to what we want to achieve with our own. Throughout the whole song there is a story line which goes alongside the lyrics. This helps the audience to understand the song with ease and we feel that we would like to create this same effect too. In particular the scene with the boy and the girl where the mum comes along and argues with them. We hope to create an argument scene to show the contrast in the relationship of our two characters. To help add effect there are close ups of the girl and boy to show the emotion and then the pace of the argument is slowed down to empathize the meaning much more. Furthermore there are many close ups of the artist singing in a very similar background. Alongside the close ups of her face, the setting is kept the same throughout the song. We hope to film in the same area throughout but change the mood of the scene with brightness of lighting and props. For example for the dark scenes we will cut out all light and use studio lights and candles.

My in depth research into one of the mise en scene is lighting. We will use this to our advantage by showing the different sides of a relationship through colour. The bright scenes with have bright lights and white settings and props, and the dark scenes will have no colour and candles placed around the room. An effective lighting technique is shining the light onto the side of a persons face which only light up half of the face and the other half is in shadow. This is effective as it creates a saddening effect and we could use this in the sad scenes, also it makes the person blend in with the background. Another good technique is using filters to create a different mood by changing the colour of the scenes. We could use this to show the vast contrast suddenly with the change of the scene. We did consider using candles but to use them as best we can we thought that using a filter and distributing the light so you get a streaks across the screen whenever the light catches a certain part of the lens  We watched various tutorials on this to enable that we would get the best out of it. muc