We filmed over the course of four days, three of which were dedicated to our narrative shots, and the other was dedicated to our performance shots. For each shooting session, we arrived at our chosen location an hour before our actors were scheduled to, which gave us a lot of time to set up everything we needed to, including the framing for each shot and putting the props in the right locations for the shots.
First day of shooting
We planned to film two scenes on our first day; these included the night before the male protagonist leaves, and the day that the male protagonist leaves.
We went to our chosen location an hour and a half early as the scenes we were filming on this particular day had more props and the most amount of actors featured. We did this to make sure everything was fully organised for when our actors arrived and to make sure we could film as much as possible.
To make sure we were using our time efficiently, we had two people setting up each shot (including both camera equipment and props/setting) whilst the third organised the actors and explained/directed what they needed to do in the shot we were about to film.
Following our filming plan made the whole shooting process much easier. We had previously numbered our shots into the order which was most suitable to film them in. Any shots we would later return to were all filmed at once so that we did not have to set the camera up again. For example we had a long shot of the room where we could see both characters, and later on we would need this shot again with them positioned differently, and so we filmed both together.
With regards to disputes between group members, we had passive solutions. For example if somebody wanted a mid-shot from one specific spot, and somebody else wanted the mid-shot from an alternative spot, we filmed both in order to have more options when it comes to editing the final cut. Apart from the few and small debates regarding camera placement, as a group, there were no arguments, making filming easy and enjoyable.
For some shots we filmed alternatives, for example a close up on the male protagonist lip syncing a line from the song to the female protagonist. We weren't certain if this would look great in the final cut as it may be too 'cheesy' or it might just break the fluency of the narrative (as there are no other speaking parts). To resolve any doubts we filmed an alternative close up where he does not lip sync the line.
Second day of shooting
For the specific shots we needed on this day, the male protagonist was not needed; therefore we only filmed with the female protagonist. We planned to shoot the female in her bed breaking down as her husband had already left the story. We only had 1 hours 30 minutes to film all of the stuff we wanted as the actress had other plans for later that evening.
We arrived at our chosen location 30 minutes before out actress was scheduled to arrive, as we knew we didn't have as much time and we couldn't do as much, so we knew it wouldn't take as long to set up as we did not want to try anything complicated on that specific day, because it might have been difficult to finish in the time we had. We got organised very quickly; within 5-10 minutes, which then gave us time to discuss ideas and what we could do to get more filming done and to avoid any confusion with regards to what we wanted to do and when.
As only the actress was used, we didn't need to have two people working the camera and one directing the actor. The shots we filmed on this specific day were all in one room, which was one of the bedrooms in the house we were filming at; therefore we could all work the camera and all direct the actor together as we were all within the same space and it was a lot easier to do so compared to the first day of filming.
Following our filming plan made the whole shooting process much easier. We had previously numbered our shots into the order which was most suitable to film them in. Any shots we would later return to were all filmed at once so that we did not have to set the camera up again. For example, the shot of the actress throwing the pillow at the wall doesn't come into the video until near the end, however we filmed it earlier in order to avoid setting up the camera in the position we wanted and adjusting the focus etc.
As we did not have a lot of time to film, setting everything up and organising everything was a lot easier compared to other days, which meant that there were no disputes or clashes of opinions as we could resolve any problem very easily, because the majority of the shots we did that night we very simple. This made filming a lot easier and quicker, and it also made us enjoy it more.
We filmed alternative shots for some of the scenes. For example, we filmed two shots with the exact same camera angles and framing, however the actions of the actress were different. One scene sees her throwing a pillow at a wall in anger, and the other has the female simply laying on her pillow, where you can see her face and the emotions she is feeling at the time.
Third day of filming
For our third day, like on the second day of filming, the male protagonist was not necessary; therefore we only filmed with the female protagonist. We planned to film anything that was on the plan that had not been already filmed - so ultimately, we wanted to finish all of the narrative shots by the end of this session.
In order to give us the best chance of completing our target, we arrived at our chosen location an hour before we told our actress to arrive, as this could give us more than enough time to set up everything perfectly and exactly how we wanted it, but also giving us time to discuss if anything needed improving or any new ideas.
Although only the actress was used on this specific day, we had a large number of shots that we had to record, using a number of different angles. This meant that everything had to be very organised if we wanted to complete everything. To help us, we had two people working the camera, and the other person directing the actress, as this helped everything run a lot more smoothly.
Following our filming plan made the whole shooting process much easier. We had previously numbered our shots into the order which was most suitable to film them in. Any shots we would later return to were all filmed at once so that we did not have to set the camera up again. For example, the shot where the actress gets up out of bed in the morning at walks downstairs, we shot from four different angles. This made sure that we could get a good view of the female from several different positions, but it also allowed us to create some match-on-action shots, as we had used various positions to record her actions. Also, during the dinner scene in the living room, we did the same thing. We recorded her playing with her food and grabbing the drink bottle from different angles and positions, which like the previous shot, gave us the chance to create several match-on-action shots, but also gave us the chance the choice of different shots and angles to play experiment with if we didn't like one of them.
There were quite a lot of discussions and different opinions regarding camera positioning and framing, however there were not big arguments or falling outs, as we knew that if something like that happened, it would affect the whole group and the actress, which would slow the whole process down and prevent us from completing our target.
Fourth day of filming
The fourth and final day of filming was for our artist shots. We wanted the sunset in the background of the shot and so we were faced with the task of filming all of the required shots in a limited amount of time (the time it takes the sun to set).
As this was the only day we were filming exterior shots, a concern we had was regarding the weather. If it was too cloudy we would not be able to see the sunset and would therefore have had to reschedule filming for a different day. We were fortunate that the weather on the day we had planned to shoot was perfect for our needs.
Whilst one member of our group went to pick up our artist, the other took some of the equipment and props to the location to begin setting up.
Since the window of time we had to film in was very small (roughly 2 hours) it was very important that out artist knew all of the lyrics and was fully prepared. Fortunately he was, which made it possible to swiftly set up each shot without having to delay and wait for the artist to get their part right.
As filming went on we began loosing light very quickly and so we were concerned that some of our shots might turn out too dark when it came to editing. However if there is an issue then we can reshoot these shots to fulfil our target to make the best possible video we can.
When filming on our other days we made sure that we 'over-filmed' to ensure we had the right amount of footage. Unfortunately we were unable to do this on this filming day due to the lack of light towards the end of the filming period.
Overall summary of filming
As a whole, we feel that filming went well. Initially we were not expecting to have needed so many days to film, however when we realised that we would, we were very organised in scheduling and organising the extra days that we needed.
We were extremely grateful that our actors and artist all showed up when we required them to, as well as showing up with any items that we requested. This definitely made filming a lot easier as we were faced with no last minute issues regarding lack of props/equipment.
Following a filming plan each day ensured we used our time efficiently and enhanced our fluency in setting up each shot.
Charlie Mower and Will Burnham
Thursday, 12 December 2013
Tuesday, 26 November 2013
Final advert idea
We looked through all of our suggestions for our advert ideas, and we had to pick one that we wanted to use for our final grade.
The advert that we have decided to use for our final grade is the one pictured below.
The advert that we have decided to use for our final grade is the one pictured below.
We have decided to pick this advert to use for our
final grade because we thought that the simplicity of it is very appealing
to the eye and would be effective at attracting our an audience for our song.
We preferred the simple look rather than an advert
with a photographic picture as we researched the most popular artists in our
chosen genre and we looked at all of their album covers and adverts. We found
that the majority of their album covers and adverts are very simple and
contain plain images like the one in our advert, and there are not many proper
pictures used.
Also what we found when doing research on similar
artists album covers and adverts, with the exception of a couple of covers,
most of them only use two or three colours, which is very simple yet it looks
very appealing. We have decided to do this also because we believe that not
many colours looks more professional than having lots of colours on the cover.
We chose black and white as they are completely opposite shades yet they are
often used together on a lot of things and they work very well together. Also,
we saw the album cover of '+' by Ed Sheeran, where he used the combination of
orange and white, and we don't think that having white, and a bright colour
works well, whereas black and white do.
We chose not to have an image of our artist on the
advert because we thought that on some adverts that we have seen in our
research, that the pictures of the artist make the cover look tacky and
un-professional, therefore we chose to use a simple image of the top of a
guitar, as guitars are often seen as iconography for Josh Record as they are
used in his videos and in a lot of his pictures.
Charlie
Mower
Tuesday, 12 November 2013
Location Scouting
In order for our music video to look the best it possibly can, we have to find and take pictures of locations that we believe would be suitable for our video.
We have already decided that we want our video to be shot in a rural location, for example a forest or a field in the countryside, but we had not decided where want wanted to film it specifically.
In order to find a good place that would be appropriate for our video, we went location scouting in villages around Chelmsford. The two villages we went to were Great Waltham and Ford End, as these two villages are sub-urban areas and have lots of photogenic shooting locations, which is what we want for our music video.
We took several pictures from both locations in order to help us decide what village to film our video in for our artist shots we needed to find fields that would work for when our artist will be singing, these were what we found:
Friday, 8 November 2013
Questionnaire results analysis
In order to get ideas and opinions from people in our target audience, we conducted a questionnaire, where we asked them about their music taste, favourite videos, and how often they watch music videos etc.
The ages of the people we asked were from 16-29, which is the age range that we think would be the most suitable target audience for our video. We think this age group is the most suitable for our video because this age group is the most likely to watch music videos on either TV or on the internet, on sites like YouTube.
We asked a mix of males and females in order to get mixed opinions from both genders, as females tend to like different types of music videos to males.
The majority of people we asked had similar music taste, as a large quantity of them said that their favourite videos were pop videos, which usually cost a lot of money to make, and the final cut will show this. This means that we would have to make our video look quite expensive to attract a wider target audience, as they said that these are the videos that they prefer to watch. However, the majority of the people we asked also said that they sometimes watch videos that are not from their preferred genre.
The results on the questionnaire show that on average, the younger the person, the more music videos they watch per week.
The first person we asked was a 29 year old male. His three favourite music videos were Gangnam Style by Psy, Give You Hell by The All-American Rejects and Mr Brightside by The Killers. He likes these songs because he believes that the videos are funny and he likes the artists, however he does watch music videos from several other genres. He claims to watch music videos about 1-5 times per week, and he prefers music videos that have narratives rather than performances.
The second person we asked was a 17 year old female. Her three favourite music videos were Given Up Giving Up by Lilygreen & Maguire, Busy by Olly Murs and Need You 100% by Duke Dumont. She likes them because she thinks the narratives are good. Her favourite genres are pop/ singer/songwriter/ soundtracks, however she also watches a lot of other videos from different genres. She watches around 11-20 music videos each week and she prefers videos with performances in them.
The third person we asked was again a 17 year old female. Her three favourite music videos are Heart Skips A Beat by Olly Murs, Troublemaker by Olly Murs and La La La by Naughty Boy ft. Sam Smith. She likes them because she likes the songs in general. Her favourite genre is pop and she tends to not listen to songs from other genres because she doesn't think that she will like them. She listens to 21+ songs per week, and she likes videos with both a narrative and performance shots.
The fourth person we asked was a 17 year old male. His three favourite music videos are Thriller by Michael Jackson, Saturday Night Fever by The Bee Gees and You're Beautiful by James Blunt, however he said his favourite genre is rock, even though none of his three favourite videos are in this genre, but she likes these videos because he thinks the songs are good. Apart from his three favourites, he doesn't like watching videos that are not rock songs, as he think they are boring. He watches around 6-10 music videos per week and he likes videos with a narrative and some performance in there.
The fifth person we asked was an 18 year old female. She said that her three favourite videos are Roar by Katy Perry, Mirrors by Justin Timberlake and Give Me Love by Ed Sheeran, and her favourite genre is pop, however she does like watching videos from other genres occasionally. She watches about 1-5 music videos per week which isn't very much for somebody of a similar age compared to the rest of the people we asked, and she prefers music videos with more performance than narratives.
The sixth person we asked was a 16 year old male. His three favourite music videos are Talk Dirty To Me by Jason DeRulo, Power by Kanye West and Real Slim Shady by Eminem. His favourite genres are rap/ hip-hop but he does watch videos from other genres. He watches 21+ videos per week, and he likes videos with both performance and a narrative as he believes that if a video has one but not the other, it is boring.
The seventh person we asked was a 20 year old female. Her three favourite music videos were American Idiot by Green Day, 21 Guns by Green Day and The Swarm by You Me At Six. Her favourite music genre is rock, however she sometimes enjoys watching videos from other genres. She watches about 1-5 music videos per week and she likes videos which are mainly narrative based as she likes trying to figure out storylines from music videos.
The eighth and last person we asked was a 21 year old female. Her three favourite music videos are Turn Me On by David Guetta ft. Chris Brown, Next To You by Justin Bieber ft. Chris Brown and As Long As You Love Me by Justin Bieber. Her favourite music genre is pop, yet she often watches videos of other genres. She watches videos on average 1-5 times per week, and she prefers videos with a narrative and she thinks without narratives, music videos are boring.
Charlie Mower
The ages of the people we asked were from 16-29, which is the age range that we think would be the most suitable target audience for our video. We think this age group is the most suitable for our video because this age group is the most likely to watch music videos on either TV or on the internet, on sites like YouTube.
We asked a mix of males and females in order to get mixed opinions from both genders, as females tend to like different types of music videos to males.
The majority of people we asked had similar music taste, as a large quantity of them said that their favourite videos were pop videos, which usually cost a lot of money to make, and the final cut will show this. This means that we would have to make our video look quite expensive to attract a wider target audience, as they said that these are the videos that they prefer to watch. However, the majority of the people we asked also said that they sometimes watch videos that are not from their preferred genre.
The results on the questionnaire show that on average, the younger the person, the more music videos they watch per week.
The first person we asked was a 29 year old male. His three favourite music videos were Gangnam Style by Psy, Give You Hell by The All-American Rejects and Mr Brightside by The Killers. He likes these songs because he believes that the videos are funny and he likes the artists, however he does watch music videos from several other genres. He claims to watch music videos about 1-5 times per week, and he prefers music videos that have narratives rather than performances.
The second person we asked was a 17 year old female. Her three favourite music videos were Given Up Giving Up by Lilygreen & Maguire, Busy by Olly Murs and Need You 100% by Duke Dumont. She likes them because she thinks the narratives are good. Her favourite genres are pop/ singer/songwriter/ soundtracks, however she also watches a lot of other videos from different genres. She watches around 11-20 music videos each week and she prefers videos with performances in them.
The third person we asked was again a 17 year old female. Her three favourite music videos are Heart Skips A Beat by Olly Murs, Troublemaker by Olly Murs and La La La by Naughty Boy ft. Sam Smith. She likes them because she likes the songs in general. Her favourite genre is pop and she tends to not listen to songs from other genres because she doesn't think that she will like them. She listens to 21+ songs per week, and she likes videos with both a narrative and performance shots.
The fourth person we asked was a 17 year old male. His three favourite music videos are Thriller by Michael Jackson, Saturday Night Fever by The Bee Gees and You're Beautiful by James Blunt, however he said his favourite genre is rock, even though none of his three favourite videos are in this genre, but she likes these videos because he thinks the songs are good. Apart from his three favourites, he doesn't like watching videos that are not rock songs, as he think they are boring. He watches around 6-10 music videos per week and he likes videos with a narrative and some performance in there.
The fifth person we asked was an 18 year old female. She said that her three favourite videos are Roar by Katy Perry, Mirrors by Justin Timberlake and Give Me Love by Ed Sheeran, and her favourite genre is pop, however she does like watching videos from other genres occasionally. She watches about 1-5 music videos per week which isn't very much for somebody of a similar age compared to the rest of the people we asked, and she prefers music videos with more performance than narratives.
The sixth person we asked was a 16 year old male. His three favourite music videos are Talk Dirty To Me by Jason DeRulo, Power by Kanye West and Real Slim Shady by Eminem. His favourite genres are rap/ hip-hop but he does watch videos from other genres. He watches 21+ videos per week, and he likes videos with both performance and a narrative as he believes that if a video has one but not the other, it is boring.
The seventh person we asked was a 20 year old female. Her three favourite music videos were American Idiot by Green Day, 21 Guns by Green Day and The Swarm by You Me At Six. Her favourite music genre is rock, however she sometimes enjoys watching videos from other genres. She watches about 1-5 music videos per week and she likes videos which are mainly narrative based as she likes trying to figure out storylines from music videos.
The eighth and last person we asked was a 21 year old female. Her three favourite music videos are Turn Me On by David Guetta ft. Chris Brown, Next To You by Justin Bieber ft. Chris Brown and As Long As You Love Me by Justin Bieber. Her favourite music genre is pop, yet she often watches videos of other genres. She watches videos on average 1-5 times per week, and she prefers videos with a narrative and she thinks without narratives, music videos are boring.
Charlie Mower
Friday, 25 October 2013
Lip Syncing Video
In order to practise lip syncing for our final piece, we had to create a small video of somebody from our group lip singing to a song from a chosen genre.
We chose to do 'Lego House' by Ed Sheeran as this is a very well known song from our chosen genre, and is quite similar to the song we are going to do for our final piece; therefore it will be easier for us to practise the editing too as the two songs are alike.
Doing this practise video also allowed us to experiment with different techniques and shots when filming, and different styles when editing. This is good because we now know what shots look good, and what do not, and we also have an idea of what editing techniques we will use for the final piece.
Charlie Mower
Wednesday, 23 October 2013
Research on our chosen artist
Josh Record is a British singer/songwriter who is currently singed to Virgin Records UK, however he has also been signed to another record label, called National Anthem Records. He is a 25 year old man, currently residing in London, however he originates from Stroud, in Gloucestershire.
We would class him as a niche artist as he is not very well recognised to British audiences or audiences world wide. This is something we would hope to change with our music video, digipak and poster. We want our artist to become as successful as possible and so growing his currently small fanbase into a larger fanbase would be something we aim to do.
His main and only music video at the moment is for the song "The War" although we are using this song we would like to create a different kind of video for him and try to fit it more into his genre.
Charlie Mower and Dan Andrew
This is Stroud, the town where our artist originates from.
His main and only music video at the moment is for the song "The War" although we are using this song we would like to create a different kind of video for him and try to fit it more into his genre.
Charlie Mower and Dan Andrew
Wednesday, 16 October 2013
Equipment information
Filming Equipment:
Props:
Camera - We will use this to shoot our clips with.
Tripod - This will be used to keep our shots steady, because if the camera is shaking it will not look professional.
Dolly - We will use this to keep our shots steady when we are filming shots that require movement.
Step-ladder - This will be used when we are filming high angle shots of our artist during his performance.
Umbrella - We will take an umbrella when we film our music video as some of our shots are exterior and we may need it to protect the camera from rain or to protect our characters/artist as we don't want their make-up to be ruined between shots.
Will Burnham & Charlie Mower
- Camera (change this to actual camera model)
- Tripod
- Dolly
- Step-ladder
- Umbrella (just incase)
- Lighting equipment such as torches and lamps.
Props:
- Acoustic guitar
- Letter
- Rings (wedding)
- Laptop
- Dead flowers
- Wine bottle
- Newspaper
- Army netting
- TV & remote
Camera - We will use this to shoot our clips with.
Tripod - This will be used to keep our shots steady, because if the camera is shaking it will not look professional.
Dolly - We will use this to keep our shots steady when we are filming shots that require movement.
Step-ladder - This will be used when we are filming high angle shots of our artist during his performance.
Umbrella - We will take an umbrella when we film our music video as some of our shots are exterior and we may need it to protect the camera from rain or to protect our characters/artist as we don't want their make-up to be ruined between shots.
Will Burnham & Charlie Mower
Generic Conventions Found in Music Videos
In all music videos you will find conventions found, however it mostly differs for the kind of genre used. So in most videos it will either go one of two ways; it will either have a narrative theme to it, a artist theme to it or both. The narrative would mean that the music video has some sort of storyline to it such as in Eminem's music video for 'Stan' it has a main focus upon the narrative of a fan. In this video the artist only appears twice, once when leaving the stage and when he's reading the letter sent to him. This is a narrative video.
A music video which mainly focuses on the artist would be a music video which would not have a storyline to it but instead has the artist/band lip syncing to the camera and possibly showing off their iconography which means their objects or sign that they are identified by. Such as in Miley Cyrus' music video of 'We Can't Stop'. In this video we see Miley just lip syncing to the camera and doing outrages things to the camera which would be her iconography.
A combination of both would be cuts between a narrative and shots of the artist lip syncing. Such as in Katy Perrys music video for her song 'Roar' within this music video we see the artist in a jungle being part of the narrative and her singing to the camera and certain parts for her lip sync.
Although these are general themes found in music videos with generic conventions they are distinguished by genre. Here is generic conventions found by genre:
Rap:
Pop:
Rock:
A music video which mainly focuses on the artist would be a music video which would not have a storyline to it but instead has the artist/band lip syncing to the camera and possibly showing off their iconography which means their objects or sign that they are identified by. Such as in Miley Cyrus' music video of 'We Can't Stop'. In this video we see Miley just lip syncing to the camera and doing outrages things to the camera which would be her iconography.
A combination of both would be cuts between a narrative and shots of the artist lip syncing. Such as in Katy Perrys music video for her song 'Roar' within this music video we see the artist in a jungle being part of the narrative and her singing to the camera and certain parts for her lip sync.
Although these are general themes found in music videos with generic conventions they are distinguished by genre. Here is generic conventions found by genre:
Rap:
- Urban Area
- Bling/shiny
- Expensive items and vehicles
- Women shown in a provocative way
- Close ups of artists
- Expensive video material
- Dance
- Performance from band/artist
- Sweat
- Sometimes deep narrative
- Instruments
- Audience shots
- Mix between narrative and performance
- Acoustic guitar
- Calm, matching the songs
- Emotional and deep narratives
- Different than all other genres
- Colourful
- Simple editing and video
- Starts from fading from black
Tuesday, 15 October 2013
Representation in music videos
Different genres of music videos contain the different representations that are relevant to that genre (class, race, sex etc.) in different ways. For example, rap videos will commonly include representations of class, either being lower class rapping in rough urban areas or being higher class rolling in cash with fancy expensive items (cars and watches). Also an example in hip-hop/rap videos is that they will make it seem as if the male gender is a lot more dominant, and they will portray women as items or possessions to males, whereas a rock pop video would portray males and females to be equal, and they would be shown in a much more stereotypical manor.
This is an example of a video where the artists are wearing lots of jewellery, which is very stereotypical.
Our music video will portray gender in a very stereotypical way, as the female plays a wife, and the male plays a husband, who is in the army. This is steretypical because it is more common for males to be in the army rather than women. Also it is stereotypical for females to stay at home whilst the male in the household is the worker.
Class will also be portrayed in a very stereotypical way as we are aware of the income soldiers get, therefore we are shooting our video in an average sized house, as filming it in a large house would be very unrealistic as a normal soldier would not be able to afford to live in a stereotypically higher class house.
This is an example of the house we would shoot our video at, as it is stereotypically British, which is what we want as it would not be too expensive with regards to house prices.
The costume, location and props will also be relevant to the reprsentation. Our decissions on the stereotypes we want to represent through costume, location and props and why are included in their own posts.
Will Burnham & Charlie Mower
This is an example of a video where the artists are wearing lots of jewellery, which is very stereotypical.
Our music video will portray gender in a very stereotypical way, as the female plays a wife, and the male plays a husband, who is in the army. This is steretypical because it is more common for males to be in the army rather than women. Also it is stereotypical for females to stay at home whilst the male in the household is the worker.
Class will also be portrayed in a very stereotypical way as we are aware of the income soldiers get, therefore we are shooting our video in an average sized house, as filming it in a large house would be very unrealistic as a normal soldier would not be able to afford to live in a stereotypically higher class house.
This is an example of the house we would shoot our video at, as it is stereotypically British, which is what we want as it would not be too expensive with regards to house prices.
The costume, location and props will also be relevant to the reprsentation. Our decissions on the stereotypes we want to represent through costume, location and props and why are included in their own posts.
Will Burnham & Charlie Mower
3 Favourite Music Videos
Dan- Beyonce - If I Were A Boy: This is my favourite music video because I love the narrative of the video and how it changes near the end and makes you completely change your views upon what the meaning was behind the song. I also love the black and white effect, I feel it covers up
minor errors and makes it in a dream like state. I also like the little breaks of narratives that it has as it adds dramatic effect to the storyline and makes the audience think about the hidden meaning of the video.
Another reason why I enjoy this video is because it does not have a gender stereotype it shows both men and women can flirt and cheat at work it is not just a gender stereotype to men. The meaning of the lyrics could imply this gender sterotype but the video suggests otehrwise as it starts with the women being in the wrong.
Another reason I enjoy this is the artist acts as a character in the music video so it makes you more attached to the artist and see more about her, possibly what she has been through in terms of this music video.
Charlie- Green Day - Wake Me Up When September Ends: The I like this music video is because of a very good narrative and different technical shots used such the close up shots at the start which last for a while to set the narrative.
The break during the song for the narrative I really like because it allows the audience to fully grasp the story line of the song. Another reason why I think this is effective in the video is because not many videos use this technique, but as the narrative for this song is so deep and meaningful, it works especially well.
There are several occasions during the video where the lyrics and the music match up with the visuals, which I think is key to making a good music video.
One more reason why I think this video is so good is because the theme of the song is very serious, and the video portrays it very well, in a very serious manor, and I think this would have been very difficult to re-create. Because of the seriousness of the theme, it would have been quite hard to make the video believable and to make the audience really feel emotional from watching the video, but it is done very well and the audience can really connect to it, and anybody who has been in the same situation can easily relate because it is so well done.
Will- 30 Seconds to Mars - This is War: The reason I like this video is because it has a deeper narrative to the storyline with hidden codes behind the narrative. The music matches the visuals in places and makes a very good music video. The editing is also very complex in the sense that a lot of special effects are used, this adds to the entertainment.
The band members also play characters in the video which is good as you are watching the band you like for the whole video. I particularly like the quote at the opening of the video. It immediately establishes that the video has a serious topic and meaning and also the quote is relevant to the narrative.
The music video has a break in the song where dialogue is used for the narrative, which is something that is sometimes but not often done in music videos.
All of the costumes and locations connote the theme of war, linking to the song title and the lyrics.
Dan Andrew, Will Burnham and Charlie Mower
minor errors and makes it in a dream like state. I also like the little breaks of narratives that it has as it adds dramatic effect to the storyline and makes the audience think about the hidden meaning of the video.
Another reason why I enjoy this video is because it does not have a gender stereotype it shows both men and women can flirt and cheat at work it is not just a gender stereotype to men. The meaning of the lyrics could imply this gender sterotype but the video suggests otehrwise as it starts with the women being in the wrong.
Another reason I enjoy this is the artist acts as a character in the music video so it makes you more attached to the artist and see more about her, possibly what she has been through in terms of this music video.
Charlie- Green Day - Wake Me Up When September Ends: The I like this music video is because of a very good narrative and different technical shots used such the close up shots at the start which last for a while to set the narrative.
The break during the song for the narrative I really like because it allows the audience to fully grasp the story line of the song. Another reason why I think this is effective in the video is because not many videos use this technique, but as the narrative for this song is so deep and meaningful, it works especially well.
There are several occasions during the video where the lyrics and the music match up with the visuals, which I think is key to making a good music video.
One more reason why I think this video is so good is because the theme of the song is very serious, and the video portrays it very well, in a very serious manor, and I think this would have been very difficult to re-create. Because of the seriousness of the theme, it would have been quite hard to make the video believable and to make the audience really feel emotional from watching the video, but it is done very well and the audience can really connect to it, and anybody who has been in the same situation can easily relate because it is so well done.
Will- 30 Seconds to Mars - This is War: The reason I like this video is because it has a deeper narrative to the storyline with hidden codes behind the narrative. The music matches the visuals in places and makes a very good music video. The editing is also very complex in the sense that a lot of special effects are used, this adds to the entertainment.
The band members also play characters in the video which is good as you are watching the band you like for the whole video. I particularly like the quote at the opening of the video. It immediately establishes that the video has a serious topic and meaning and also the quote is relevant to the narrative.
The music video has a break in the song where dialogue is used for the narrative, which is something that is sometimes but not often done in music videos.
All of the costumes and locations connote the theme of war, linking to the song title and the lyrics.
Dan Andrew, Will Burnham and Charlie Mower
Digipak/advert initial ideas
We have chosen quite a niche artist and therefore we will use our digipak and advert to try and gain a larger audience. The fact Josh Record (our artist) is not a well known artist will affect certain decisions when creating the products. For example it would not be crucial to have an image of our artist taking up the majority of the front cover as audiences wont recognise him, meaning it wont encourage them to pick it up or give it a second look.
Instead we will use appealing images the audiences will be attracted to whilst still linking to the theme and genre.
Instead we will use appealing images the audiences will be attracted to whilst still linking to the theme and genre.
This is our first initial idea for a digipak cover.
As a British artist a good audience to try and attract is a British one. This is the purpose of the image of London. A further development on this idea could be to edit the image of London into a war related scenary to link to the track title. We might also like to move the text into the middle of the cover as it will stand out more. However if we done this the white text might not show up as well against the bright sky and so if we darkened to image, to fit the 'War' theme, then the text will stand out against it better. However as an initial idea the text at the bottom is suitable.
This is a brief example of a music magazine advertisement that would be used alongside the first digipak cover idea. More information is used that the digipak cover and we have included the record label's logo. The font of the information is more formal than the titles as it doesn't need to stand out as much and it needs to be completely readable.
This is our second idea for a digipak cover.
The name of the song is 'The War' and we have used an image that fits that theme. However at the same time the silhouette and sunset adds a calm domina to the cover which relates to the singer-songwritter genre. The white text stands out against the shaded area of the image and therefore will be noticed.
This is another idea for an advert. The music video and song are set in the winter
which relates to the winter setting in the image. Again just like in the other ideas, the white text stands out against the background making it easily readable and can communicate to the audience.
The record label's logo can be found in the bottom left of the image as this is something that is vital to be included in the advert.
This is another idea for an advert. We made this one very simple because some of the most popular artists today have very simple album covers; therefore we thought making the advert simple, it would catch the eyes of more people. Also, all of our other ideas are quite complex and have photo backgrounds, so we wanted to have an idea that was different to the rest of the ideas we already have. The logo in the middle and the big text at the top makes it stand out, as they are bold and the colours are very simple, yet they work well with each other.
Will Burnham and Charlie Mower
Monday, 14 October 2013
Audience Research
Audience is key when creating a music video because music videos are advertisements and promotions, if you do not have an audience music videos are useless. For our genre of singer songwriter we will analyse the music videos which gain the most views on YouTube for us to understand why these videos are popular and the kind of conventions that they use.
We must first find out what codes and conventions attract audiences to specific music videos. What makes a music video enjoyable and entertaining for them. We can find this out a few different ways, we can look at the highest selling music videos in certain genres and then analyse that music video to see what codes and conventions they contain, and we can carry out surveys to directly find out what people want.
The main genre for singers from our chosen genre (Ed Sheeran, Bruno Mars etc.) is teens and young adults; therefore we would have to include things in our music video that would appeal to this audience, because the music video can influence people's view on a song, so using the right stuff in the video could effect how many views it gets.
Another section we need to consider is uses and gratifications, this is when the music videos provide things to the audience and the stereotypes it gives to its target audience. The last thing we need to look at is the multicultural effects model, this is when a piece of media appeals to more than one culture as it has certain characteristics that apply to other cultures.
Charlie Mower and Dan Andrew
We must first find out what codes and conventions attract audiences to specific music videos. What makes a music video enjoyable and entertaining for them. We can find this out a few different ways, we can look at the highest selling music videos in certain genres and then analyse that music video to see what codes and conventions they contain, and we can carry out surveys to directly find out what people want.
The main genre for singers from our chosen genre (Ed Sheeran, Bruno Mars etc.) is teens and young adults; therefore we would have to include things in our music video that would appeal to this audience, because the music video can influence people's view on a song, so using the right stuff in the video could effect how many views it gets.
Another section we need to consider is uses and gratifications, this is when the music videos provide things to the audience and the stereotypes it gives to its target audience. The last thing we need to look at is the multicultural effects model, this is when a piece of media appeals to more than one culture as it has certain characteristics that apply to other cultures.
Charlie Mower and Dan Andrew
Friday, 11 October 2013
Plot and Narrative Brief
For our music video we want to focus upon the narrative part of the music video as when researching into other music videos of our genre we saw that many of them will focus upon a narrative such as Taylor Swifts' music videos have a lot of this focus upon this.
For our music videos the narrative we want to use is a focus upon war and as the chosen song is called 'The War' it will make sense towards that, our video will however not be focused upon the aspect of war but how it affects the people around them who are not going to war.
In our music video we will have a relationship between two people showing it from the womens perspective who is not going to war but her husband is. At the start of our music video we will show the tension in the relationship and how they are not perfect. Then we see them mend the relationship before he later leaves for war. We will then show how she is coping without him and what she does and how her emotions are rising. Some kind of communication will then be formed and broken between them this could happen once or twice and how she is finding it difficult knowing that any day he could die. She then will have a major break down after drinking too much wine which will innevitably end in her major upset in a corner by herself and the ultimate uplifting moment at the end for when he returns.
We decided we should do it this way to make the audience feel some connection to the piece whether it is through the relationship or through the war itself, we want our audience to feel connected to our character and later our artist for writing and singing the song to the audience.
Dan Andrew
For our music videos the narrative we want to use is a focus upon war and as the chosen song is called 'The War' it will make sense towards that, our video will however not be focused upon the aspect of war but how it affects the people around them who are not going to war.
In our music video we will have a relationship between two people showing it from the womens perspective who is not going to war but her husband is. At the start of our music video we will show the tension in the relationship and how they are not perfect. Then we see them mend the relationship before he later leaves for war. We will then show how she is coping without him and what she does and how her emotions are rising. Some kind of communication will then be formed and broken between them this could happen once or twice and how she is finding it difficult knowing that any day he could die. She then will have a major break down after drinking too much wine which will innevitably end in her major upset in a corner by herself and the ultimate uplifting moment at the end for when he returns.
We decided we should do it this way to make the audience feel some connection to the piece whether it is through the relationship or through the war itself, we want our audience to feel connected to our character and later our artist for writing and singing the song to the audience.
Dan Andrew
Audience - Uses and Gratifications
Uses and gratifications are key to our audience research because it can help show us what stereotypes we want to give to our audience and what pieces of information we want to feed to our audience. Uses and gratifications refers to when a piece of media provides you with information, entertainment, personal identity and social interaction, these are definitely key for music videos. Here is an example of the kind of music video we would like to show to our audience:
We would like to create something similar to this as we want our audience to perceive our artist as not following the stereotype of males in being strong and aggressive and we want to show our artist as sensitive and emotional., this would be the personal identity of our audience as we want our male audience to model themselves upon this and our female audience to 'love' the artist as we shall portray him as the kind of 'nice guy' that some women want in men.
We also use the entertainment in the narrative part of the video and peopl feeling connected to the characters used in this part of the video, this is how we would entertain our audience and make them feel connected to the piece.
The kind of social interation we want to portray is the talking of the video and how it made our audience feel, we also want girls to feel connected to our artist in some way and make them talk about his look and the kind of person he is.
Lastly the information we want to get across is quite important as we want to promote our artist as he is niche at the moment and not very well known, so we would promote him through this video and make people talk about him and possibly talk about the affects of war and how it can damage people in their lives.
Dan Andrew
We would like to create something similar to this as we want our audience to perceive our artist as not following the stereotype of males in being strong and aggressive and we want to show our artist as sensitive and emotional., this would be the personal identity of our audience as we want our male audience to model themselves upon this and our female audience to 'love' the artist as we shall portray him as the kind of 'nice guy' that some women want in men.
We also use the entertainment in the narrative part of the video and peopl feeling connected to the characters used in this part of the video, this is how we would entertain our audience and make them feel connected to the piece.
The kind of social interation we want to portray is the talking of the video and how it made our audience feel, we also want girls to feel connected to our artist in some way and make them talk about his look and the kind of person he is.
Lastly the information we want to get across is quite important as we want to promote our artist as he is niche at the moment and not very well known, so we would promote him through this video and make people talk about him and possibly talk about the affects of war and how it can damage people in their lives.
Dan Andrew
Music Video Brief
Music videos are created to share and promote certain kinds of messages and/or the artist. So this can mean that music videos will provide information and entertainment to the audience allowing them to gain an active audience in hidden connotations in the music video such as using colours and props to connote messages to the audience, so for example if someone was wearing the colour red it could connote danger as red is symbolised as danger usually, or if someone is holding a dead flower it could connote someone is dying or dead.
Music videos are also used to promote the artist/band, this is very common in music videos and they do this throughout all genres. they do this by using many close ups of the artist/band to promote their image.
In our music video we will focus upon an entertaining and informative piece. So we will have a mixture between hidden codes to connote what is the underlying theme so for our song "The War" we may have like an underlying theme of war to make our audience think about what it can do to families but our main plan will be to entertain the audience. In our music video we may entertain the audience through a strong narrative maybe a relationship between two people could be shown and how war effects them. We have not yet finalised ideas for our music video but we are planning on making some strong narrative.
Dan Andrew
Music videos are also used to promote the artist/band, this is very common in music videos and they do this throughout all genres. they do this by using many close ups of the artist/band to promote their image.
In our music video we will focus upon an entertaining and informative piece. So we will have a mixture between hidden codes to connote what is the underlying theme so for our song "The War" we may have like an underlying theme of war to make our audience think about what it can do to families but our main plan will be to entertain the audience. In our music video we may entertain the audience through a strong narrative maybe a relationship between two people could be shown and how war effects them. We have not yet finalised ideas for our music video but we are planning on making some strong narrative.
Dan Andrew
Thursday, 10 October 2013
Lip Syncing Practice
Lip syncing is important to all music videos as it is a key aspect upon most videos. Lip syncing is not in all music videos but it is used in most, because of this we had to create a short video where we had a individual lip sync to the camera, we needed to play around with this so we could understand how to use lip syncing for when it came to our real task.
The first thing we had to consider was what song we would lip sync. The song we decided upon was 'Lego House' by Ed Sheeran. We decided upon this song as Ed Sheeran is a singer songwriter which is the same genre as our final piece and he creates the same kind of music as our chosen artist. We also believed that this slow paced music can link into our chosen song as it is also slow paced.
Dan Andrew
The first thing we had to consider was what song we would lip sync. The song we decided upon was 'Lego House' by Ed Sheeran. We decided upon this song as Ed Sheeran is a singer songwriter which is the same genre as our final piece and he creates the same kind of music as our chosen artist. We also believed that this slow paced music can link into our chosen song as it is also slow paced.
Dan Andrew
Tuesday, 8 October 2013
Character profiles
Artist
Our artist must have a naturalistic look, for example he must have a stubble/beard, which would give him a rugged look, which is what we want. He must also not use hair products, like gel or hairspray, as this would take a way the naturalistic effect of his appearance.
We also focused on much smaller details, such as teeth and hands. The hands of our artists must not have any abnormalities or marks, for example scars, as we will be having lots of close ups of our artists hands whilst he plays the guitar. Also, our artist must have nice teeth, meaning they must be relatively straight and white, as we will also be using extreme close ups of our artists face whilst he is lip syncing to the lyrics of the song.
This is what we would ideally like our artist to look like as this is the genuine artist of the song.Male protagonist- Soldier
Our male character is playing a soldier in our music video, therefore there are certain characteristics he must have to actually look like a soldier.
He should have short hair, or even bald, as it is common for soldiers to have short hair or be bald, therefore so must our actor. He must also be quite well built, as this is the stereotypical solider representation. Our character must also be 5"10'+ as we want him to be taller than our female character in order to connote his dominance and authority in the relationship.
This is ideally what we would like our male protagonist to look like.Female protagonist
Our female character is portraying the role of a wife. We need to follow certain stereotypes in order to make her appear believable.
We need our female actress to be shorter than our male protagonist as we want her to be the less dominant half of the relationship and dependant on her husband. She must be visually appealing to attract male audiences which relates to Laura Mulvey's male gaze theory.
This is the ideal example of what we would like our female protagonist to look like.
Will Burnham and Charlie Mower
Monday, 7 October 2013
Research and Planning - Costumes
Artist
We researched into other artists music videos from our genre to gain an idea as to what kind of clothing style they follow. Our main concentration was on Josh Record as we feel it is important to keep a consistency to the style of the artist in their music videos. We also looked at Ed Sheeran as he is a very popular artist from our genre and therefore is a good example to look at.
Ed Sheeran
It is quite obvious that he has a certain style. The first thing to notice is how his hair is styled. The long 'messy' look is the hair style Ed Sheeran uses to contribute to his star image. Ed Sheeran only seems to appear in his videos as himself or a neutral character and therefore doesn't need to change his appearance according the songs narrative. He also seems to wear quite basic and casual clothing which is pretty much what he is seen wearing on posters, in magazines and at his live performances. This 'casual clothing' consists of jackets, hoodies, dark jeans and trainers. He doesn't appear to have any signature items such as a hat or a suit, and he doesn't seem to follow a particular colour scheme in his clothing. The main attribute of his image is his hair, being the stand out ginger colour and the style.
I like the simplicity of his costume in his videos as it's an image audiences can relate to, and isn't something ridiculous drawing attention away from the narrative and music.
Josh Record
We researched into other artists music videos from our genre to gain an idea as to what kind of clothing style they follow. Our main concentration was on Josh Record as we feel it is important to keep a consistency to the style of the artist in their music videos. We also looked at Ed Sheeran as he is a very popular artist from our genre and therefore is a good example to look at.
Ed Sheeran
It is quite obvious that he has a certain style. The first thing to notice is how his hair is styled. The long 'messy' look is the hair style Ed Sheeran uses to contribute to his star image. Ed Sheeran only seems to appear in his videos as himself or a neutral character and therefore doesn't need to change his appearance according the songs narrative. He also seems to wear quite basic and casual clothing which is pretty much what he is seen wearing on posters, in magazines and at his live performances. This 'casual clothing' consists of jackets, hoodies, dark jeans and trainers. He doesn't appear to have any signature items such as a hat or a suit, and he doesn't seem to follow a particular colour scheme in his clothing. The main attribute of his image is his hair, being the stand out ginger colour and the style.
I like the simplicity of his costume in his videos as it's an image audiences can relate to, and isn't something ridiculous drawing attention away from the narrative and music.
Josh Record
Similar to Ed Sheeran, Josh Record tends to have a simplistic and casual costume in his music videos. He generally wears a t-shirt with an open buttoned shirt over the top, along with trousers/jeans and casual footwear such as plimpsoles or trainers (but not branded trainers). In his music video for 'Bones' he also wears a beenie hat. His colour scheme appears to be quite light, however in his music video for 'The War' he wears a dark shirt which could connote the negative moods and themes of the song.
(screenshot from 'Bones' by Josh Record)
(screenshot from 'Bones' by Josh Record)
(screenshot from 'The War' by Josh Record)
Josh Record has short hair along with substantial facial hair which I personally think suits his genre and songs. It is a naturalistic look and the facial hair makes him appear mature, which is beneficial as the meanings behind his songs are quite deep and therefore should be seen from a mature point of view.
This is an image I believe we should follow as we want to remain consistent with this particular artists music videos.
Actor
As we are setting our music video over a period of time (not just one day) it is important to have multiple costumes and appearances, which all must remain relevant and connote the ideas we want to.
The female protagonist
This character is a working class young female and therefore her costume must connote this. Towards the beginning of the narrative she is not as emotionally drained as towards the end. To portray this through costume we will have her wearing nicer and more presentable clothes than at the end.
Her first costume will be relatively simplistic and homely, such as a tank top with a cardigan over the top, some light skinny jeans and socks.
Above is an image depicting the type of cardigan and tank top combo
for the females first costume.
Her hair will be up and looking presentable. She will also have a few jewellery accessories such as a necklace, and a bracelet (along with a wedding ring which she will wear throughout the entirity of the video).
As negative themes start to take over the video and she becomes a bit stressed her original costume will be changed to dark jeans, and no accessories.
When she becomes emotionally drained towards the end she will be wearing trackies and a jumper with no accessories and her hair will be down and she will be wearing no makeup.
The male protagonist
This character is a solider who is the female protagonists husband. He will be dressed in army clothes to convey his his role a soldier. He may be dressed in something more casual at the start of the video just before the audience learn he's a solider going off to war. If we choose to run with this idea then his casual clothing must not be similar to that of the artists, to avoid confusion. His 'casual' clothing will consist of a dark jumper to connote the bad themes set to happen in the video, normal jeans and trainers/plimpsoles.
Will Burnham
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