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.