Question 1

We used many different types of
typical conventions of music videos.

At the beginning of our music video

it starts off with a close up of of the guitar and drums and this is similar to what most rock bands do. We did this as at the beginning of the music video as the music starts off with a guitar and drums playing for about 8 seconds before the lyrics kick in.

   When we were deciding what to do for the opening of the song we came across some ideas that included opening with the narrative or just have it blank until the lyrics kicked in although this idea we quickly decided was bad as it would just look bad. In the end we thought that this was the best idea and decided to keep with it.

Here is an example of a famous band using close ups of the guitar and drums in their music video. This is the song The Pretender by Foo Fighters, close ups of guitar and drums are often used in rock song but can be used in other

music genres.











Another popular convention we used in our music video is a close up of the singer. This is a very popular shot used in music videos as it shows off the singer but we used it to show the lip syncing as we needed to show the singer lip syncing to the song. To make sure that the singer knows what the lyrics are we played the song in the background so he can keep track of where he was.

  
This is an example of the band Foo Fighters and is the same song as before (The Pretenders). They use close ups of the singer quite a few times during the course of this song.

This is the magazine advert we created for our band this isn't as good as many other as but we did use some of the typical conventions used of magazines these were the name of the band and the popular song. Also we put on a website link so people would be able to go to our site.








What we were going to do to improve our final piece was change the background as it doesn't work with the image and change the layout of the logos and writing as it looked to cramped at the top.








 Here are some examples of magazine covers the
first one is for the song Born to die by singer
Lana Del Rey as you can see the advert is very
simplistic. This magazine advert has not much information on it except at the top the name of the singer and below is an image of the singer which takes up most of the magazine advert. near the bottom it says the name of the song which is Born to die and underneath that in smaller writing when the album is out. This magazine advert starts with the most important thing in big bold letters which is the singers name and then the less important the information the smaller the writing.













After working on our magazine we decided to start a new one and this is the end result we thought this was better than our old one so we made this our final piece. What we did to improve our magazine is one change the layout and it looks a lot better with the new layout we put the logos at the bottom and then above them we put in reviews of the song and above that is the name of the band and the song. On the side of is the website for the band and next to it is and image/silhouette of the band members we thought it looked better like this as the image didn't fit in with the magazine but the shadow does. We followed a few key conventions like the most important writing be the biggest on the page and that was the band name and song and the writing got smaller for the less important stuff like website and reviews.











This is our final digipack and what we decided to do was have images of the band members be on the digipack. The front of the digipack had the band together and the back had a picture of the sky. the disc page also had another image of the band but a different image and the other 3 pages were shots of the band members. This followed key conventions as many digipacks use images of the band on their main images.





 

Question 2

Question 3

After we had done our final piece we decided to do a survey for audience on our final music video. In the first image we asked people was there any particular high or low points about our music video.  The most common result was that one of the shots looked too much like a classroom. We believe that the shot they were talking about is either the band shot's or the some of the close ups. We could have improved it by filming in an area that didn't look like a classroom by filming in an open area.

We then asked what did you think of the product this was to see what people actually thought of our music video. The results showed that the majority of the people who took the survey actually thought our music video was okay to good and only 1 person thought it was bad. This shows us that our music video is okay.  

The next question we asked was what we could do to improve our music video and the most common answer was shorter edits this was due to some of the band shot being too long (lasting up to 8 seconds). We were going to use a different angle shot of the band but we couldn't get the shot of the camera so had to use what we had.  

The final question on our survey was would you watch the video again and the majority of the people said maybe showing us that there was things that we could have done to make the music video more interesting and make them want to watch it again. We had 1 of the 7 people say that they would watch it again and 2 said that they wont this does show us that we should have added more interesting shots and areas and a more interesting narrative.

 

This survey was very helpful as it helped us understand what he had done right and what could be improved. From this survey we learned that we should have had more areas in the video to make it more interesting and look more realistic. We could have also have improved it by shorter edits as some of the edits were too long and we could have improved this by even adding a different angle of the band shot in the longer edits of our music video. Also we learned that it looked like the people in the band weren't playing the instruments and there wasn't much we could do about that as none of us knew how to play any of the instruments. But we could have used different camera shots and different clips to break it up so it barely noticeable. But we also learned that our music video wasn't bad as most of the people said that it was good so that shows us that although it wasn't great it was okay and we learned what we can do to improve so if we do another music video we know what we can do to make it better.

Question 4

These are the hardware/software that we used when creating our music video. In this post i will be discussing what software and hardware we used and how it helped us improve our music video.

Planning stage
During the planning phase we use planning sheets to organise when and where we will meet. Also we created a storyboard and animatic, the storyboard helped us decide how our music video will look and what shots will we use and how long the shots will last. The animatic showed us what our music video would roughly look like when it is completed. The most common hardware we used when working on the planning is a camera and Mac and the software we used is blogger.

Camera
The camera was a very important piece of hardware for our music video as without it we wouldn't be able to film our music video. We did have a few problems with the camera as when we were filming the SD became full half way through filming a shot and we had to leave the filming for another day and we didn't get a warning message so some footage was lost.

Tripod

The tripod was a very handy tool for us when we were filming as when we were filming it was in the beginning of the year so it was very windy. The tripod was very handy as it made each shot still so when we rewatched the footage the shots weren't shaking. The only disadvantage to the tripod is we had to walk long distances in the rain and cold.

Mac

The Mac was very helpful as we used the mac for many things such as blogging and editing our music video. But there were a few problems with the Macs with the software as some of the software such as Photoshop as it was very difficult to find out to use some of the simple tools such zoom as there is no zoom function. But it is very helpful when coming to editing as we use adobe premiere and we were used to using the mac for editing.

iPhone 

We used an iphone to take the pictures for the digipacks and the magazine adaverts. The pictures came out very well. We also used the phone for the song this helped us film as we used the song so the singer knows what to sing.

Adobe premiere 

We used adobe premiere for editing for our music video this was very helpful as we have used adobe premiere for a while and got used to using it, also we have learned how to use most of the tools so editing was easier. Adobe premiere is much easier to use than final cut express.

  

   

 

Final music video

Styles of music videos

Narrative:
This kind of music focuses more on the music video than the singer and the lip syncing. Some songs do this as the music video is more entertaining and would make more people want to watch the music video even more. Also the lyrics of the music video generally reflected on the music video. A good example of this is Lady gaga's song Bad Romance.


Cinematic:
Cinematic videos are music videos that are basically short movies. Some music videos do this as it would get more people watching and listening to the music video as they may like the story that is in the music video and start to like the song because of it. Some of these songs can be an average song length or even longer some are even 20 minutes long. A great example of this is Stan by Eminem which had 2 version a short version which was about 4 minutes and a 8 minute long version.


Live:
Live music videos are music videos that are made when the band in on stage performing live and they use shot of the band and crowd for the music video. A good example of this is Guns N' Roses song Paradise City.


Studio:
A studio music video is when the band record themselves in a studio doing the singing. A good example of this is rule the world by take that as in the music video it switches between them singing in the studio and clips from the movie it was used in stardust.


Parody:
A parody is when someone takes a song and makes fun out of it or makes fun of it. A good example of a parody is Weird Al Yankovic's  song Fat which is a parody of Bad by Michael Jackson.



Animation:
Animation music videos are music videos that use animation instead of live action. This can be better sometimes as there is things that they can do with animation that they cant do with live action. A good example of this is Feel Good Inc. by Gorillaz.

Filming the music video

Filming the music video was a difficult and time consuming process. this was because it is hard to create a good music video that includes key conventions. We also had to overcome things such as weather and lighting difficulties as well as travelling to locations at a convenient time for everyone.

We also had to take in consideration how congested the place was as we didn't want random members of the public in our shots. Another difficulty was transporting the camera equipment, as we were travelling on crowded buses it became a nuisance to try and keep things such as the tripod out of peoples was.

The filming process was made a bit simpler by the use of high quality cameras and basic camera accessories such as a tripod, this guaranteed steady shots that would have been otherwise impossible. Even though we got good shots when we got to the editing stage we found that we did not have enough shot variation. This meant we had to go out again to get more footage in more locations, When we came to uploading our new footage we found that the camera didn't catch any of the footage, we later found that it was because the camera had ran our of storage however we didn't get no warning message so all of the footage from that day was lost. At this point we had no more time to film so had to use the footage we did have to the best of our abilities, this can be seen as our video has some repeated shots, mainly band room footage.

Below is an image of the group members just before filming commenced.

A problem we had whilst filming outside was the noise level, as we were playing the song in order for me to lip sync the sound became unhearable which meant I had to learn the song word for word and time it perfectly. The inside shots, the band scene, was much easier as it was a quiet environment with loud speakers.

Before creating our final piece we made a rough cut and showed it to a small audience, the feedback informed us that overall our video was good however they didn't like the video transitions and effects that we had on as it made it look more like a story instead of a music video. soin our final piece we had to video transitions, this gave our product a faster pace and look more convincing as a real music video.

Below is the rough cut;

Overall the shots we got were good thanks to a high quality camera and some smart camera positioning, this gave us the ability to create a quite convincing music video. We also knew that any problems we had with the footage could later be fixed during the editing stage, such as poor lighting.

Below is our final product.

Editing the music video

Editing the music video was a long and tedious process. This was because we had to have so many cuts in order to fit the pacing of our song. This was okay it was just our lack of shots that made it difficult to stick to this fast pacing, because of this you do see some repeated shots in the finished products but we got away with it a little bit due to the repeated shots being mainly band room footage so it still looks natural.

Below is a photo of one of my team mates doing the music video editing.

When editing the video we had a play around with transitions and video effects to try and make our footage look a little more interesting, however when showing this to a small audience nobody liked the transitions and it looked as if it slowed down the pace of the editing whilst the some was very fast paced. We therefor decided that in our final piece we would have no video transitions or effects at all, this made our music video look a lot faster and more convincing as a music video.

Whilst editing our video I got a lot better at using the editing software which made the video look a lot smoother, this is because I learnt how to use all of the things that Adobe Premier Pro had to offer.
As a result I feel that the music video is very good and is the best product that I have made including last years thriller.

Overall I feel that our final product was very good, this is down to good shots and good editing. The music video would have been a lot better if we had more shot variation however this was not possible due to camera issues when filming and lack of time. If we had more time our final product could have been even better with a wide range of locations and more creativity, this had to be limited to to time and location constraints.

The video editing software that we used was Adobe Premier Pro, Below is screenshots from video editing.

Below is my finished music video.

Constructing the advert

Constructing the advert was a long process that we found quite difficult. This was because we had very limited Photoshop skills, to fix this we needed to go back to it multiple times in order to get it to a reasonable standard and learn how to use Photoshop on the Macs.

To get inspiration for my magazine advert I looked at real adverts and the adverts from previous year groups. I saw that all of the adverts featured a qr code and a website, which mine did not so it looked unprofessional.
To make the advert better me and my group went and took some group photos for the main advert image, we then removed the background and placed the image onto a backdrop that matched the theme of the song. I then created a qr code and added a website to make it look like a REAL advert.

Overall I feel that the magazine advert is okay. The band shot shows that the band doesn't take itself too seriously in contrast the background shows that the song covers a serious topic. There is an iTunes advertisement, QR code and a website link. If I were to do it again I would use a better font and maybe use a better band shot just to make it look more professional and change the layout of writing and logos. We decided to improve our magazine by changing the background and a different image but we took the image out to leave the silhouette which we thought looked good. Also we improved the images and writing we added to our magazine by changing where they were so we put all the logos for where to get the song at the bottom and the website at the side also added rating the companies had given the song. Below is our final piece:  

                                          

 

 

 

 

audience feedback

After we had finished our music video we asked a few people to take our survey after watching the music video and asked them what they thought of it and how it could be improved.

Constructing the digipack

One of the problems that we came across was when we were using photoshop on the mac we couldn't use photoshop as it was very difficult to get use to on the computer. So what we did is we went next door to the windows and worked on the digipack in there which was much easier to use. When deciding on how our digipack should look the person working on photoshop was messing around and changed the colour of the image and when the group saw it we all decided that it look good and would work as our digipack images. This is what our digipack looked like when we were finished:  

   

While we were researching some digipacks we came across this digipack which looked very similar to our digipack in the way that they have images of the band in different colours and used very simplistic images. 

Rough cut

Storyboard

Here is our storyboard this is just a rough idea of what we were going to do.

Sexism in pop videos

There are many different music videos that have sexism in them a few good examples such as blurred lines and wrecking ball.

Laura Mulvey theories of sexism would apply here in the song Blurred lines by Robin Thicke as in the lyrics of the song women are sexualised as they are degraded to sexual objects for the male gaze. In the music video the women are running around in their underwear and do nothing for the song there is not even a backup female singer which shows they are just their for the male gaze.


But this is not the case for all music videos as shown in Miley cyrus song Wrecking ball where she is the main singer but is also degraded a sexual object. In the music video Miley walks around barely wearing anything and at one point in the music video is on a wrecking ball naked, this is done to attract the male attention. This degrades Miley as a singer as she is more a sexual object in this video.

Alex Southham case study 3

Magazine advert final

Digipack final

katy perry

hot n cold

This song was written by Perry, Dr. Luke and Max martin and was the second single in her 2 album. The song addressses an unstable romanctic relationship caused by a partners mood swings. This became Perry's second song to reach the five singles in many different countries. In total this song has sold over 6 million downloads worldwide making it one the best selling singles worldwide and one of Perry 's highest selling singles.

 Friday night
The music video appeals to young people. This song was written and produced by Dr. Luke and Max Martin. Perry stated that she was inspired to write the track after a night of wild partying and streaking. It was released on June 6th 2011. The T.G.I.F stands for Thank God Its Friday. Katy Perry looks like an ordinary person as the targets insecurity of teenage girls.  



Firework
This song is from the same album as Last Friday night and this song received a positive review form most critics.  As of January 2015 this song has sold 6.8 million in the U.S alone making it her hignest selling single in the U.S.


This song features Katy Perry and Snoop Dogg. Both of co-wrote the song with bonnie Mckee and it co-producers Max Martin and Dr. Luke. According to Perry this song was a answer song to Empire state of mind. This song was a worldwide success and was Perry's second US number one single.  A music video for the song came out on june 15th 2010, and Perry said that the inspiration for the music video from the artist Will Cotton who was the artistic director.  

Wide Awake
This song was specifically written for her upcoming autobiography film Katy Perry: Part of me. This song is a power ballad and is styled in electronic and dance- pop. The music video was directed by Lance Drake and was a fairy tale like story.


Roar
The music video for this song shows Katy Perry surviving a plane crash with a guy and as they explore the jungle the guy gets attacked by a tiger. In the music video the guy is shown taking pictures and is constantly on his phone this shows that he wouldn't be any help surviving in the jungle. After the guy is attacked by a tiger Perry screams and runs away this is when we see her starting to adapt to surviving in the wild. By the end of the music video Perry is portrayed as Queen of the jungle.

Magazine advert

Animatic

Filming progress

We planned to film our music video project over the christmas holiday. However due to various circumstance, with recurring themes. However, we have managed finally to get some filming done, however, we have not been able to get as diverse an area or as much filming as we would like. however, we have managed to find some symbolism within our shots, making the best of a bad situation.

Our decisions were limited by time and locations, due to members of our team not having a lot of transportation outside of walking, and and a looming deadline assured that we had to take whatever footage we could grab, and worry about the quality of which later.

 On day 1 of filming we went over Hanault forest. however, due to our mistakes, instead of lip synching the full song, we only got about a minutes worth of footage per time. This means that although we got some decent footage whilst we was out, we had to go and get some more. This was fine as we had to go out and get some urban shots. There we got some shots of walking from different angles, to fit with the general theme of the song.

To finish the first bout of filming, we went and got some shots of us in the band room, to imitate the look of people playing instruments. however, due to a minor mix up between shots,  two of the members swapped instruments, and due a filming taking place at a later date, there was a sudden change of clothing halfway through.

Then we came to our first editing session. We were struggling to put together a coherent piece with accurate lip synching, so we had to go out and get more footage, especially of the band, since our current produce was disappointing with neither the lip synching or instrument playing being any good. However after we re-did the shots, it came out looking much better.

We needed some more shots to amplify the feel of the music, so we went out to Valence park, and did some recording there, namely on the different pieces of equipment.  Some of this was removed from the final product for looking too out of place.

Case study Jamie Thraves

Jamie Thraves is a director who made short films in university and used his award winning short film to get in 'a foot in the door' with the video production company factory films. He started be shooting 3 very low budget music videos that cost about £5,000 each.

The way that the process works it that a 'commissioner' will give a record labels to 10 different then each director have to submit a treatment. The director who submits the best treatment is then commissioned to make the music video. He submitted treatments for his 2 best pieces of work and each was accepted.

He has done music videos for Radiohead and Coldplay. He did the music video for Just by Radiohead and had a budget of £100.000 budget and was filmed in 3 days. The the music video for the song The scientist by Coldplay which had a budget of £200,000 and was also filmed in 3 days. 

This is the song Just by Radiohead

This is the song The Scientist by Coldplay.


This is a video clip of Jamie Thraves at the London film festival about his film he had created. The film is a drama and is about a man who leaves his family for no reason and has started living on the streets on London. The film is called treacle jr and stars actor Aidan Gillen.

Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson is known as the king of pop. He was known for many songs such as Thriller, Billie Jean and many others. The one that made Michael Jackson popular was Billie Jean which was released in 1982. Micheal Jackson used to be in a band called Jackson 5 with his 4 brothers.     
This is the song Billie Jean and is considered the song that made MTV popular as at the time it was fairly new and unknown. The story of the music video is that a photographer is following Jackson and when he takes a picture of him he doesn't materialise on the photograph.


This is the song Thriller and this made Michael Jackson so popular as many people loved the song but the music video was mind blowing at the time. When it first came out the music video could only be played on TV after 9pm as people thought it was to scary for children. The music video was very similar to a horror movie as in the music video the dead rose to attack the living but when Michael Jackson (the protagonist of the music video) becomes undead they start to dance.

Here is an image with Jackson wearing his glove. Jackson would wear this glove most of the time either in his music videos or when he was on stage this became his signature, Also he only wore one glove.

Here is an image of Jackson doing the famous moonwalk.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Album art exercise

To this image I used many different tools and effects to improve the image. Some of the effects i used was changing the brightness making it brighter. Many of the other effects I used just didn't work with this image.   

Audience Research

From these results we can see a clear like for rock bands and videos with a story, therefore our music video will be a rock song, from a band with a story in the video. By doing this we will reach the widest audience possible.

Digipack

What is a Digipack?

Digipaks typically consist of a gatefold (book-style) paperboard or card stock outer binding, with one or more plastic trays capable of holding a CD or DVD attached to the inside. It means the cd comes in a cardboard flip-out case rather than a standard plastic hinged case.

Digipak-style packaging is often used for CD singles or special editions of CD albums and the tall DVD Digipak (DVDigipak) is used as a premium package for DVDs and DVD sets.

Whats on a digipack?

Six panels
spine
barcode
track list
Disk impression
memebership postcard/ flier
Band info section
free image/ poster

Here is an example of a digipack

production meeting

In the production meeting we discussed things such as location and the layout of the story.

Narrative Theory

Narrative theory is the way the story is organised. One of the elements of narrative is time which earliest time including flashbacks to the latest point of time in the thriller or music video. The other elements are closure which means close loose ends and enigma which is the problems created.

Classical Hollywood
Linear
Non linear
Sub plots
Tendency towards closure

Tzvetan Todorov theories was  that films could often start with a Equilibrium which is when everything is all right. Second the Disruption which is the enigma, the problem created. Then the resolution which is when the problem is solved. Finally the movie would end with a new equilibrium.    
Our thriller was a linear narrative and starts with a equilibrium of a guy walking through a forest, then the disruption of the thriller is when the person is knocked out by the thief. But we didn't have a resolution and new equilibrium.

Roland Barthes described all texts have complex bundles of meaning which can be unravelled to create a whole range of different meanings. There are 2 types of texts one is open text which means that the text is left open for the audience to make their own ending. The other one is closed text which is text that gives the film one ending so their is only one thread to grasp. In hollywood most of their films have closed texts and their are few that have open text. Texts that can be read in a number of ways are known as polysemic texts.

2 popular examples of open texts is the Dark knight rises and Inception as both films are left open and  the audience don't know whether or not the protagonists have survived. Popular examples of polysemic texts are films like Scarface which is open to a number of different interpretation. polysemic text is also known as reception text. Scarface can be viewed in the following ways:
Glorification of violence
Rags to riches story
Critique of the value of 1980s greed and consumption

Vladimir Propp also states that in all movies that there are 8 key character roles.

1. Hero (protagonist)
2. Villain (Antagonist)
3. Donor (Provider)
4. Helper
5. Father
6. Dispatcher
7. Princess
8. False Hero

For example Vladimir Propp theory can be used for Eminem's song Stan.

1. Hero-Eminem
2. Villain-Stan
3. Donor-Eminem
4. Helper-Stan's wife/girlfriend
5. Father-Eminem
6. Dispatcher-
7. Princess-
8. False Hero-    

Also Tzvetan Todorov theory can be used on Eminem's song Stan. The music video Stan starts off with Stan becoming obsessed with Eminem this can be called the equilibrium as the first minute of the video shows Stan watching TV and writing a letter. The disruption is when Eminem didn't write back to him. The resolution is when Stan drives his car off the bridge killing himself and his wife/girlfriend.      

This is the Equilibrium. 

This is the disruption.

 This is the resolution.