OUR FINISHED MYSPACE

Link above...

OUR FINISHED ALBUM COVER

Evaluating My Evaluation

When i first found out that we had to do a spoken discussion for our evaluation i was a bit apprenhensive as we had never done anything like this before, and i was not sure how well it would go. Writing an essay would be easier as it we could re draft and adds bits in, however a filmed evaluation could only be done in one take so there wasn't a lot of room for error. Nevertheless once we started filming after the first couple of minutes it was absolutely fine, and i wasn't nervous because i felt confident with what i was saying, and i think my group felt the same.

 I think that it is a great way to evaluate because we were all bouncing off each other, and disscussing what we thought rather than just writing a rather boring essay. It was also just a far more creative way of doing it, much more appealing to us media students!

Evaluation Q4

4. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Above and below are some pictures of us with the technology that we used. As you can see we didn;t use all that much equipment for filming as we shot outside - menaing we didn't need anything such as pag lights. I think this is quite a good thing as it show how we cleverly used less equipment but still ended up with a proffessional looking music video.

For this question we had to talk about the technologies that we used when constructing our product. They played such a huge role in the making of our project we really couldn't have made it without them. We used  key pieces of technology such as a Sony Digital SLR,  aTripod,  a Song HDD camcorder and Adobe Photoshop CS3  The internet also played a big role in our research stage. As well as this we used a blog to record our finding and our progress so we used technology right from the beginning. 

HERE IS OUR VIDEO DISCUSSION FOR Q4...

Evaluation Q3

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

This was the question that i was leading, therefore i felt very confident in speaking and analysing the feedback as i had looked at it very closely. We held an audeince feedback session and decided the best way to colllect the data was in a questionnaire. (There is a post below on my reflections of the audience feedback).

I think that this discussion went really well as although i was leading everyone else was also confident talking on this subject as we had carried out the feedback session together. Additionally the feedback session itself went really well, as we got some really positive responses, along with some constructive criticism, which we agreed with.

HERE IS OUR DISCUSSION FOR Q3...

Evaluation Q2

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

After we had split up the first question into 3 sections. We then split up the other 3 questions. Although i was not in charge of question 2 as it was led by Danni, i still feel that i contributed enough to the discussion, as i was confident in talking about the colour scheme, key images and personality of Skyethat we promoted.

We all felt that the combination of our products worked really well as we created a strong brand, the brand being Skye, between the video, album cover and myspace.

We could have improved this question as we didn't have our album cover up on screen. It would have been good to have this to make it easier when discussing this, and we wasted a bit of time trying to find it. Additionally i think that we probably repeated ourselves a bit - so we could have made our answer more concise.

HERE IS OUR VIDEO DISCUSSION FOR Q2...

Evaluation Q1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

We split up the work for Question 1 into the 3 sections Music Video, Album Cover and Website (Myspace page) - so each of the 3 of us took the lead in one of these sections. This was a good idea as it gave all of us a manigable amount of work to do, and it also helped us to have an equal say because we took it in turns to take the lead.


I was given the  task of Music video which meant going over, and revising the theories of Goodwin and Vernallis and seeing how they applied to our video. We had to think about whether we used, developed or challenged the conventions so we filled in a table which broke the theories down into headings which was very helpful. All in all i think Qustion 1 worked really well, as we all took the lead for one section yet we had discussed it previously as a group so therfore we all had a lot, and an equal amount to say. We found this dominated most of our time and we spoke for quite a while as it was a very important question, so we have chosen a 10 minute clip.

Also we beginning by saying "hi we're group 4" this is a mistake we are group 3!


HERE IS PART OF OUR  VIDEO DISCUSSION ABOUT Q1:  (the full version is on the group blog)




We referenced many music video's during our discussion such as Charlotte Church- Moodswings, VV Brown - Crying Blood and Jay Z - Empire state of mind (shown below)



We also made references to specific points in our video such ones shown below

Audience Feedback

Core Audience

13-28 year olds Females

People who are like popular music and pay attention to the charts. But who also have a taste for slightly more alternative indie things.

Secondary Audience
Younger and Older women
16-25 year old Males

 
* We did an audience feedback session with 19 people, 14 girls, but 5 boys as well aged between 15-18.



* Every person that we asked said that the video looked professional. Some of the main reasons why they liked the video were: the changing clothes shots, the effects, there was lots going on, it is eye catching, quirky and fun, with nice bright colours.


* Others music videos they compared it to are Duffy – Warwick Avenue, Kesha – tik tok and Dolly Rockers, which is interesting because the first two of these were some of our references.


* The majority seemed to get that our video is performance and concept based. And that the changing clothes was the concept. People identified the themes as being: lost love – break up, London, femininity and youth, independence and fun.


* They all got that the genres was pop, some even specified retro pop/alternative pop – this is good as it meant that the genre came across strongly in our video.



* When asked about the identity of the artist our feedback described her as; quirky, likeable, young, pretty, individual, appealing, fun to watch, original, fashionable, flirty/sexy


* They listed a lot of mainstream music channels that it would be shown on such as 4music, MTV, The Box, TMF, The Hits, MTV hits, NME, Q


* They listed a lot of mainstream magazines that it would be reviewed in such as Time Out, Smash hits, mainstream music, NME, Glamour


* When asked if they wanted to watch it several times over 74% said yes, 10% said no, 16% said maybe – which I think are pretty good results.



* About half of our audience said they would spend money to download the single


* Some of our audiences favourite moments included the clothes changing, the split screens, the end shots, a lot of people liked the reaction shots, and loads of people loved it when Skye danced with the random guy.


* When asked for criticisms people noticed that some of it was out of sync, they thought the change from b&w to colour was too sudden, they wanted more retro clothes, more random people in the video and one person didn’t like Sian’s green lips on the album cover.


* Everyone said they liked the album cover and MySpace and that it fitted well with the video. They said it fits perfectly. It glamorous, it looks very professional and the SKYE cover is great.

Our Album Cover

Album Cover References

Impending Deadline...

Ok our deadlines Friday 27th November,

We have made a start on our Myspace page and have filled in any gaps on our video sequence.

Myspace:

It has the basics of a good myspace page, however we need to add in our photos of the shoot and write up somemore interesting information about Sian.

Majorly we need to think of a name for her, as this will need to be changed asap.

We've uploaded photos of Sian from everyday activities.

Video:

thankfully now all the spaces are filled which is great cos it means we can focus on putting in effects and trying to make it look good.

We need to get feedback from miss before we are complete, hopefully get this by wenesday so we have enough time to alter anything and also have our screening on the Thurs.

Shoot:

Today was meant to be the shoot but unfortunately due to washing the dress, it was dripping wet today which meant we were unable to do it.

Which is why we have now made sure our myspace is getting done, therefore we are technically ahead of schedule as the album cover shouldn't take as long

Artist Name

Soo, we have been thinking a lot about our artists name and we have narraowed it down to three.
1) Sparky
2) Skye
3) Sapphire (Saffy for short)


No one that we have asked so far likes Sparky because everyone thinks it sounds like a childrens tv presenter or a dog's name.  So then we did a poll of Skye or Sapphire with our target audeince and the results were that 60% said they liked Skye better and 40% said Sapphire. We agreed with our audience and so we went with Skye. I am very pleased with this as i think it is a really original and memorable name and it is girly but also shows off her quirky personality. So its perfect!

Teacher Feedback

Yesterday miss gave us our first proper feedback on our footage. She said...

*Our "camera movement was the best out of all the groups"! (OO YEAH)

* Some shots she felt were too long, and we agree. We need to cut them up and put other shots inbetween to keep it interesting.

* She thought we got a great performance out of Sian, but that her lipsyncing wasn't always perfect so we need to play around with the editing to get it as good as we can. Or we can just make it so amazing that no one notices.

Changing Clothes Editing

Over the last couple of weeks we have been trying out some of the changing clothes wdits that we wanted to do.  I think they are going pretty well and are looking really good. We have a revoling door one, and lampost one, and a walking towards the camera clothes change. We have also been trying out some split screens and i am happy with how they are looking as well. Look out for them in our video... :)

Editing

After looking at the green screen footage, we relaised that the quality of it does not match up to our london footage therefore we won't be using it. This is annoying as i think our video would look great with a really simple glamorous performance breaking up the london shots - however we have plenty of footage from the london shots to fill the video and we will keep it interesting with our editing so hopefully it should all be ok.

Green Screen Shoot 10/11/09

We wanted to break up our london footage with some performance stuff filmed on a green screen which we will then add a white bakcground onto. We did this today and it didn't go quite as well as planned. We had pur actress Sian wearing a sequined black and gold boob tube, which looked amazing HOWEVER, Tom noticed at the end of our shoot that the sequins on the dress were reflecting the light of the camera and making some of the seqins look green! This means that when we change the background to white she will have holes in her dress! o dear.
We will capture the footage to see that it looks like, but it may be that this footage is unusable (except for the CUs and ECUs). If this is the case we will see what we can do without it, but if we really think we do need this performnace footage then we will film her again when we do the album cover shoot, as we are going to film that on a white bakcground, not a green screen.

Brick Lane Shoot 8/11/09

We did our brick lane shoot this weekend, as due to the very very heavy rain ,we were unable to do it last weekend. Although the weather wasn't grear, at least it wasn't rainy, and now looking at the footage i think it is safe to say that the shoot was a success. We got every shot that we planned to do, and got a lot of spontaneous fottage and well so we have loads to work with.

We started off filming around liverpool street staition and then moved on to spitalfields market, and then to brick lane. We didn't feel rushed for time throughout the day, and got a chance to experiement with loads of different shots such as a contra-zoom and manual focussing.

We have shown some of our footage to Mrs B and Mrs D and both think it is really good.
Now we just need to concentrate on doing some really good editing, and hopefully we will all be happy with the main product. :)

Reflections from the shoot

So over half term we had our shoots! On wednesday 28th Ot me and danni and tom went by ourselves to our location and shot some scenery shots so that we didn't have to waste Sian's time. Then on Saturday 31st Oct we did our first shoot with Sian. We shot in our Carnaby and Soho locations and i think this actually went really well.

We realised that when having moving camera-work, it looked much better if we carried the camera on a tripod to steady it, so i think that those shots look much better. However although we were planning on shooting on Sunday 1st Nov there was torrential rain. Shooting outside in October and November we knew that we may come up against weather issues, and so we planned for this by having many colourful umbrellas on stand-by, that we could work into our shoot. However, this was just too heavy and we didn't want to risk the equipment in such heavy rain. Consequently we are now shooting next sunday 8th Nov - this is when we will do our shots in Brick lane and Spitalfields.

Having looked at our footage from last sunday, we have realised that it is quite good to have a weeks gap between the shoots as we can really see what we need to do. Therefore we were able to come up with another shooting list for this weekend, meaning we won't miss anything.

Overall i think it did go well and i am happy with the footage we have. Hopefully this weekend will go well as i can't wait to get all the footage to ether so we can really get into the editing.

Album Covers Notes

A) 1- Typical Features:
* Barcode
* Album Title
* Artist Name
* Track List
* Web Adress
* Strong, main image
* Booklet with additional info and extras
* PUG

2- Categories
* Genre
* Groups/Solo Artist
* Male/Female
* Drawing/ Photo
* Image of artist/or not
* Debut Album?
* Greatist Hits?
* Compilations or one artist
* Record Label
* Era
* Double Disc or not
* Audience

3- Different Functions they serve:
* Attract buyer = constructing an audience
* Show artist
* Informative, shows which artist, what album
* Track listing, how many, sometimes shows times
* Style of Album to match style of artist
* Selling the genre

B) Michael Jackson
History: Past, Present, Future book 1
Released: June 1995

*Very striking image on the front. Michale Jackson in concrete as a statue, behind is a fireball.
* Prestning himself as a statue gives us the idea that it is all very epic, and he is creating history.
* Fireball continues on the back - implying the songs themselves are epic and amazing and histroy making
* The booklet inside conventionally shows song words. But also begins with a written extract by Elizabeth Taylor and Steven Spielburg basically saying what a legend MJ is. Also lots of pictures of him growing up, his life, him performing and people at his concert holding signs saying 'king of pop' etc - once again presenting him as a historical legend with an epic life.

OUR STORYBOARD

DYM MYSPACE FEEDBACK

A good range of examples provided with confident analysis. Possibly, make your identification of the Myspace conventions more obvious.

Myspace and Website Analysis

Madonna Myspace
www.myspace.com/madonna

The background colour of this myspace page is black with a white pattern of stripes which make it kind of look like speakers representing the dance music she’s making at the moment. But what immediately catches your eye is the massive heading ‘Madonna celebration, the ultimate greatest hits album’ predominantly yellow and pink, which are bold, fun colours illustrating the feeling of celebration. As you scroll down there is lots of pictures from her album cover where she looks like Marilyn Monroe, giving it a look of an icon for her greatest hits. There are links to lots of videos mainly of her new song ‘celebration’, as well as this you can play many of her recent songs, there is the option to add her as a friend, a link to her blog and a promotion for the charity she supports called ‘Raising Malawi’.

There is also a feature where Madonna says ‘bring me to your city’, ‘demand it’ where you can request her to visit where you live. And then at the bottom there are loads of posts from her fans, mainly just saying ‘I love you Madonna’ – this shows her diverse range of fans.

Myspace and Website Analysis

VV Brown Website
http://vvbrown.com/

VV Brown’s website is quite simple, with a plain white background. There is a MS of her at the top, wearing a leopard print hoodie which makes her stand out, and is quite striking against the plain background. The leopard print also gives her a quirky feel, which represents her image and music quite well. Additionally her name written in dots is another striking feature which stands out straight away, and I think is her signature font. It has lots of links to her myspace, facebook, bebo, twitter, youtube page and last.fm.

Her music had been described as funk, soul and retro pop, and the style of the website captures this quite well – but this is mainly shown through pictures of her, and her personal styling. There is also a video of her performing live at V festival. At the bottom of the page we are shown her record label ‘island records’ this is definitely a conventional feature of an official website, but there is not a lot of information about island records. When thinking about her target audience it is quite hard to get a sense of it just from her website, but i would guess young people because obviously she is young and she has quite a cool funky image. I would also guess probably mainly girls.

Myspace and Website Analysis

Black Eyed Peas Official Website
http://www.blackeyedpeas.com/

The main image at the top is unconventionally, not of the band, it is of a computer generated green head. The same as their new album cover – The END, this indicates as to the BEPs electronic hip hop music from this album. Also their signiture font from their album cover is used quite a lot on the website. Down the right hand side there are lots of links; for example to the BEPs official store, iTunes downloads, Will.I.am’s solo song as well as Fergie's official store. Again this is unconventional to be promoting individual projects on the bands website. There were also many posts from the website members down the side – showing their huge amount of fans.

Down the middle there are more links, and boxes of info about the release of their albums deluxe addition, their appearance on Oprah as well as a link enabling you to vote for them at the recent VMA awards. Surprisingly I couldn’t see any links to Myspace, blogs, or twitter pages of the band, at least not on the home page – although there are links to Fergie and Will.i.am’s personal websites.

Website

For our ancillary texts we have to do an album cover and website. We have discussed this as a group and decided that we would like to do Myspace, as after conducting some research we can see that they are very popular with musicians. They are especially popular with indie musicians which is our genre, as Chick Habit is indie/retro pop.
Here are some links so some that we found very inspiring:
Lily Allen:  http://www.myspace.com/lilymusic
Katy Perry: http://www.myspace.com/katyperry
Madonna: http://www.myspace.com/madonna

4Ps

1. Summarising in your own words what the 4Ps of music marketing are. Use the following categories:
a) What band/artist related products can audiences buy?
You can buy CDs of the band.artists songs, as well as DVDs of them performing. You can also get a lot of merchandise from band websites such as posters
b) Where can audiences buy/listen to music/merchandise/hardware?
Band Websites, concerts and gigs, festivals, tv, radio, myspace or facebook pages, download sites such as iTunes.

c) Give 2 or 3 examples of paid-for/subscription based and free products.
Paid-for/Subscription products: CD's bought in shops, singles, albums or music videos bought online (iTunes), band or artist merchandise from sites or stores and magazines which specialise for music.
Free products: music downloads (limewire), free concert tickets

d) List between 5 and 10 examples of creative music marketing strategies (including at least 3 internet based examples).

The Streets: a crop circle was made of Mike Skinners face to promote the new album. He also gave away free songs to his fans via Twitter.

VV Brown: There is a banner on the internet where is climbs inside a white box and performs in it.

Britney: Had a free give-away of tickets to her Circus Tour, which also helps promote and create a buzz around her album. She did this via her website.

Pink: She turned up to sing in the big Tmobile karaoke in Trafalgar square, which helped create a buzz around her right around the time where she had a enw album coming out.

Lily Allen: She had an internet game called 'Lily Allen in Escape the Fear' to promote her single 'The Fear'

2. Who is frukt uk and what is their mission statement/company ethos<
Frukt UK are amusic marketing agency. They create and develop ideas that use music as a means of marketing.

Mission Statement:
“We’re all about music and are really very fond of it. Music colours people’s everyday lives…We help brands access the passion and the communities, the lifestyle and the artists.”

Our Treatment

Pitch 1

The Streets - Case Study

1) Summarise the changing image of the band/artist as it has developed over time. It might also be useful to summarise the music genre also.

From 200-2003, The Streets were a group and their genre was more UK garage/house/hip-hop. They set out to push garage in a new direction.
2004+ Mike Skinner is now solo, still called the Streets, and his music has become much more mainstream, as it has a more indie feel, however it does still maintain a garage beat.


2) Who are the fans? Do you have any sense of how the music companies have segmented the audiences? To what extent has the branding of a band been linked to target audience?

The core audience are young males, more working class, this is because of the strong garage feel, and also because front man Mike Skinner grew up in working class Birmingham (despite performing in a cockney, London accent).

The branding of the band is linked to the target audience because the album covers show very ordinary pictures of council estates, bus stops and cigarette lighter, very mundane everyday scenes that the target audience can relate to. Nevertheless as The Streets became more popular his album covers reflect a wealthier lifestyle ie- a posh car, but he is still dressed in scruffy jeans and a t-shirt, to indicate to his fans that fame hasn’t changed him.


3) What marketing strategies can you identify? What kinds of strategies can you list? (above/below-the line? unexpected promo stunts? etc). List any examples of the use of synergy with other industries to promote other media/products in connection with a band/artist.

• Website: skinnermike.com – it’s the official website and blog of The Streets
• Myspace.com/thestreets - he posts new music and up and coming gigs etc.
• Twitter – Mike Skinner gave away 3 free songs to fans
• Youtube – all his songs are up there.
• He faked his house being re-possessed as a publicity stunt for an album launch
• There was a crop circle made of his face, again to promote an album launch.


4) Add any relevant links to your blog, especially Myspace page/music vids/official websites etc. A couple of illustrations (e.g key web design graphics/album cover photography) would also be useful to add to your blogs

See above (Q3)

Moodswings - Video Referenceing

Below is the video for Charlotte Church - Moodswings. We discussed doing something along these lines where our main girl is dancing and her outfit changes as she does so. We think if this is done well it could look really coool. We also like the close up shots in this video and we think we could do something inspired by this as well as the main girl could be singing and her hair and make up could change.

Charlotte Church - Moodswings

Group Meeting 3

18/09/09
Lat Friday the 18th we had a meeting with Ms Blackborow and i am very pleased because she liked our song choice. The only thing we were concerned about was how short it was becuase it is only 2 minutes 7 seconds. However we discussed over coming this with a short narrative at the beginning and the end to the song to add about 20 seconds to it. This is also good as we weren't planning on having narrative during the song, we want it to be more about performance so this gives us a bit of narrative to keep it interesting at the beginning and end. The video we referenced for this was Rihanna's - 'Unfaithful' as this video has about 15 seconds of narrative either side of the song, as we think this works really well.
Ms B then showed us a video that was made in 2003, 'i believe' - joGo, the whole video wasn't really about the lyirs of the song but the style and performance was the main feature this is exactly what we want.

Mind- Map

For our first group meeting having a final song in mind, me and Danni decided to jot down a few of our initial ideas for the video. Here are the Mind-maps we made showing our first thought as to the look and content of the video. These helped a lot in the meeting as it ment it was easier for us to describe our throughts to Tom and Ms Blackborow, as they could clearly see the direction we were thinknig of.

April March - Chick Habit

We think we are porbably going to use April March - Chick Habit as our final idea. We think it could be really fun to do as it is quite kooky, retro and upbeat despite the lyrics. This will also give us great styling opportunities as although it was released in the early 90s, we all think that it has a very 60s feel about it so we will try and use 60s influences in the styling. We have discussed taking inspiration from 60s icons such as Twiggy.

Song Choice

LYRICS
hang up the chick habit
hang it up, daddy,
or you'll be alone in a quick
hang up the chick habit
hang it up, daddy,
or you'll never get another fix

i'm telling you it's not a trick
pay attention, don't be thick
or you're liable to get licked

you're gonna see the reason why
when they're spitting in your eye
they'll be spitting in your eye

hang up the chick habit
hang it up, daddy,
a girl's not a tonic or a pill
hang up the chick habit
hang it up, daddy,
you're just jonesing for a spill

oh, how your bubble's gonna burst
when you meet another nurse
she'll be driving in a hearse

you're gonna need a heap of glue
when they all catch up with you
and they cut you up in two

now your ears are ringing
the birds have stopped their singing
everything is turning grey

no candy in your till
no cutie left to thrill
you're alone on a tuesday

hang up the chick habit
hang it up, daddy,
or you'll be alone in a quick
hang up the chick habit
hang it up, daddy,
or you'll never get another fix

i'm telling you it's not a trick
pay attention, don't be thick
or you're liable to get licked

you're gonna see the reason why
when they're spitting in your eye
they'll be spitting in your eye

Group Meeting 2

17/09/09
This group meeting went a lot better as Tom showed us a song that we all liked and we could all see a vison for - the song is called 'Chick Habit' by April March. We are going to have a meeting With Ms Blackborow tomorrow to see what she thinks about the song, but we all like it and hope she does too. Then we can start to make treatments for it, and begin work for our pitch...
x

Group Meeting 1

16/09/09
This meeting did not go very well as we did not decided a lot of things. We were hoping to have some really strong inital ideas that we are all passionate about by now, but none of us are that excited by anything we have found so far. We did however beging to narrow our search down by deciding on a genre. We definitely need a song by next meeting, as we need to start planning our pitch for next thrusday...
x

BLK feedback

A great looking blog Hannah, keep up the good work - well done!

Stan Music Video Analysis

Stan Analysis

I really like this video by Eminem, and it’s definitely one that you want to watch over and over again. We get a strong sense that it is going to be quite a scary video right from the beginning as the opening shot is a quick zoom into a window, outside it is night and stormy. It’s raining heavily and we can hear claps of thunder. This creates an eerie, depressing mood even before the song has even started. The next thing we see is a tough looking man wearing a plain white vest, with lots of tattoos on his arms, bleaching his hair over the sink – this is slightly strange behaviour in the middle of the night, made even stranger when he stares at himself in the mirror creepily, seemingly pleased. We then see a pregnant woman walking down a poorly lit corridor. A strong colour theme that has emerged is black –very gloomy and connotes death, so it is implied right from the beginning that this could have a scary, even fatal outcome. As Stanley opens the door to the woman we see a birds-eye-view extreme HA shot, and now we can see the run down bath room he is in, showing that he is lower class, and possibly suggest that life is a struggle. Stanley shouts and grabs the woman who we can now assume is his girlfriend showing his angry erratic behaviour, as he slams the door shut behind him the music begins. This long build up to the song started is very cinematic and not like a music video at all and they are all quite long slow shots. This beginning helps to establish their volatile relationship, and we can assume that Stanley is an erratic, obsessive person as the woman says ‘you’re taking this too far’, which is quite frightening.

When the music starts it is quite quiet especially compared to the rain and thunder outside which makes it seem like it is being in their house. When we first see Eminem he is sitting on a tour bus, when a man hands him mail. We can still hear the rain on his tour bus which implies that he is fairly close by, and also indicates that he is part of the narrative not just doing the performance part of the video. Eminem and Dido both being in the narrative creates a synergy between narrative and performance.

As the video continues it shows the isolation of the 3 characters. Dido is shown singing alone in her room, and the divide between her and Stan are shown by the shots of Eminem on his wall and him looking up, idolising him, ignoring his girlfriend. There are a lot of fades to black and flashes between shots which I think represents time passing, and Stan sending lots of letters. But I think it also shows Stan’s confused, scrambled state of mind. In my opinion one of the eeriest scariest parts of the video is when Stan sticks a photo of Eminem over a photo of his girlfriend. I think that this shows that he really has gone a bit crazy, as he thinks he knows Eminem, he thinks they’re friends. This is a great example of how a music video completely enhances a song, as just by listening to the song, while you may realise that it is about a fan, you would not be able to imagine in such detail the story that has been built up from it, and eerie details such as sticking Eminem’s picture next to him. Although this video seems to indicate the passing of time, and shows flash backs to other locations, all of it is at night so that the depressing, dark feeling continues through out. Further more the lightning flashes and thunder claps seem to get more violent and the song goes on, representing Stan’s growing anger and impatience at Eminem,

The fact that Stan is the main character in this video and Eminem is playing himself make it seem more real, which I think enhances the scariness of it, as for those 6 minutes you really start to think that he is a really person, obsessed with Eminem. Additionally when Stan and his brother are at the concert it does look like a real concert, again enhancing the realism of this video. And I think that is what makes it so successful, the fact that the narrative is quite epic and complex compared to most videos, and that you start to believe it’s real. And of course the performances (especially from Stan) are all very moving, making the entire thing more believable and effective.

Carol Vernalis

Carol Vernallis says the camera in music video seems to mimic the way we view sonic space... do you agree? Do you think we are conditioned by music video to read sonic space in particular ways?

She suggests that the jumping camera focus is like the camera in place of our eyes, doing what we do when we listen. However, this is predefined for us by the Director - we have even less choice to look away/outside of the Director's choice than we do in film - do you agree?

Yes I agree when we listen we do jump around and focus on different sounds. Because music videos usually have such fast paced editing, and jump around so much, we don’t have time to register the image in our mind, and start to look outside of the directors choice because it’s already cut to another image. However when a music video is done well this jumpy style will hold our attention right through until the end.

She says music video experience is more like listening than viewing - do you agree?

I have to disagree with this, because although the viewing of a music video is designed to enhance the listening experience, many music videos are so intriguing and captivating that watching them is far more about the viewing experience. Also even if you don’t particularly like the song, if the music video is good you may still want to watch it over and over again, whereas you wouldn’t want to just listen to the song over and over. Additionally you watch music videos to see how a singer/group have presented themselves and what their visual interpretation of the song is compared to yours – therefore I think that the enjoyable experience of watching a music video is definitely far more about viewing.

"We compensate imaginatively for what we do not see in the frame" - Agreed?

Yes I agree, we definitely fill in the blanks using our imagination, and create in our heads what we want to see, or what we think fits.The constant motion in a music video and the variances it shows mean that a strong CU is a stable point.

The music video "brings us towards these peaks, holds us against them, and then releases us" - do you agree?

Yes the CU is the stable point as it is usually of the lead singer (the money shot/beauty shot), therefore providing us with familiarity in amongst the fast, montage that we see in most music videos.

Is the viewer "sutured (stitched) into the diegesis of the film world through the editing"?

Yes because it is the editing which completely creates the meaning. This is because the same set of shots, if re-arranged, can mean something completely different. The editing process is what forms the narrative of the video

Music video is freer in terms of viewer identification and perspective - agreed?

I don’t fully agree with this because although the director may be freer, the audience can only see his/her perspective as it is usually too fast paced for us to have time to think anything else.

Carol Vernallis believes the image alone cannot tell the story - do you agree?

Yes I do agree with this, because images can only tell a story to an extent, but music is what creates the atmosphere and the mood of the sequence. For example if you ever watch a horror film with the music off, it wouldn’t be half as scary – music enhances images to a great extent and they definitely do not work to tell the story as well on their own.

Possible Songs - Initial Ideas

I do have a idea of what i want to do in our music video, although i think i'm going to find it quite hard to narrown it down to the right song. I definitely think something fast paced would be good as fast paced means we can do really fast, crazy editing which i think will look very effective and keep the audience engaged the whole time. I also think that narrative does often look good, but it is very easy for it to look really bad. I dont necesserily think that we shouldn't have any narrative on our video, but i definitely thin it should be more about performance. Here are some of my thoughts and ideas so far.


New Order - Blue Monday
I think that this would be a good song to do and its quite fast pace, so would be fun to edit. You could really go mad cuttting on the beat, where it is very fast (around 0.27) which i think could look very effective.
I really like the idea of breaking the conventions and producing the audience with something they wouldn't expect from the song choice. I was thinking we could possibly do something like an RnB tune, but our video could be competely the opposite from what you'd expect from an RnB video for example in terms to the costume, locations, and concept of the video. I think if done well this juxtaposition could look very effective.
I have also done some research and found a lot of songs on youtube recorded from radio 1s live lounge. Loads of these are of artists doing cover versions - this would be very good to do as there would be no copyright issues, as many of the artists didnt even properly record the cover version let alone make a video for it. Also a some of them are very good and would show audiences a different spin to reasonably current, popular songs. Similarly i plan to do some more research into remixes of song, particularly remixes of very old songs i think could work well and it brings them right up to date, and i think making a video for that would be very fun!
The Source ft Candi Staton - You've Got the Love (The Voyager Remix)

Barbie Girl - Lip Sync!

Barbie Girl Lip Sync

Above is the video which Danni, Tom and I made for our lip syncing task. We wanted to choose a song that had both boy and girl parts as although we thought it would be funny if me and Danni lip synced to a male voice or if Tom lip synced to a female voice we thought it would look more realistic if we found a song that had parts for both. We asked members of our class to help us think of songs with both parts and one of the first ones mentioned was Barbie Girl by Aqua. We thought this was a great idea as we knew a lot of the words anyway, and it is quite repetitive so easy to learn the bits we didn't. Additionally it gave us the chance to have fun and be cheesy with our performance.
Firstly Tom filmed me and Danni doing our dance together, then we all filmed each other seperatly. Although this was just a little task we still wanted it to look good and be interesting so when filming, each of us moved around a lot with the camera to get different distances, angles and movements. We knew from the Teenage Dirtbag workshop that we needed to actually sing to make it look as realistic as possible - so we shut the door and turned the music up loud so we wouldn't be embarrassed. When editing we simply synced all 4 takes (Me and Danni dancing, me solo, tom solo, danni solo) to the track which made the editing really quite quick and relatively easy. Overall I found it very fun and it was good as it was another practice towards our final project, which is going to be great!

BACK FROM SUMMER!

Ok so the summer holidays are over, and i am now back to blogging after the 6 week break. Let the project commence!

BLK feedback

Excellent research posts so far Hannah, a great start to your background work for this project. I really love your analysis posts on performance and narrative, and your moodboard particularly!

There are some missing bits of last term's classwork though and you need to catch up with that quickly, as it will be so busy when we get back to school.

We also need to get you using/applying advanced theory more explicitly when you analyse music videos, think Vernallis for now, although you will also need to get to grips with Goodwin in the new term.

For now, your short term targets are:
1.Link your lip sync and workshop video to your blog
2. Post your workshop and lip synch evaluations
3. Post the work you have done for Miss T on Vernallis; see the main music video blog for the details of what is needed
4. Post your track research/ideas – we need to see what tracks you have in mind for your own video
5. We need a photo please!

All instructions are on the main blog if you are not sure what you should have done. There will be a lot happening when term starts so the sooner this outstanding work is completed, the better.

Great effort so far, keep up the good work and see you soon!

Teenage Dirtbag - Our Version

Workshop - Teenage Dirtbag

Last Friday the 3rd July 2009, we did a workshop where we replicated shot-by-shot (as best we could) the video for Teenage Dirtbag by Wheatus. Music video director Jake Wynne (who went to Latymer!) and his team came in to direct and shoot us. It was a very tiring day but it was a lot of fun.
Evalutaion Questions:
1. What do you think you learnt from Friday's workshop? It could be specific things about making a music video OR general things about the production process.
I learnt a lot on the workshop about the making of a music video, it is definitely harder than you would think. First of all we soon realised that everything takes longer than you would expect because we were only doing a short part of the music video but it took all day. We were very busy all day, so it is definitely important to be very organised in the pre production stages, ie- costume, shooting schedule etc making sure all of that is organised well so the day can run as smoothly and efficiently as possible. However I also learnt that as well as being organised its imortant to be flexible. We found this out when the weather became a problem because it started to rain just when we wanted to film outside with the car. So we had to move the schedule around and shoot in door bits while we waited for it to stop. This showed us the importance of flexibilty as even though things didn't go exactley as planned, we didn't waste time. Additionally on the performance side I found out that it's better for the performers to actually sing not just mime and it makes it look far more realistic, and even if you cant actually play the instrument just go for it and look like your playing because the more enthusiatic the performance the better it will look.
2. For you, what was the best bit?
I really enjoyed the whole day of the workshop, it was a great experience. The best bits? Although I was really nervous about being Dora I found it really fun in the end despite having to get out of the car about 20 times because the wind kept blowing my hair into my face! And I also really enjoyed the performance scenes where we were all jumping around in the background because everyone was involved and although very tiring, it was a lot of fun! :)
3. How do you think the work we have done will impact on your group project?
The work we have done will definitely impact my group project in a big way. Ive realised that it's better to have a very simple idea that you can make look really amazing with the way you shoot and edit it, than it is to have a very complicated idea that ends up looking rushed and badly finished. Additionally I know now the importance of thorough pre production so that the shooting days are organised and efficient, which will hopefully mean less re-shoots.

Michael Jackson The Legend

This video for Thriller is not just one of Michael Jacksons most famous videos but it is one of the most famous videos ever! The dance routine has actually become legendary - so much so that we were taught it in PE a few years ago when learning about different types of dancing. What i think is interesting about this video is that it is one of the only ones i can think of where the narrative turns into the performance. In most videos they are seperate but here Michael Jackson is walking with his girlfirend (the narrative) and then he and the backing dancers begin to dance and sing (the performance) while the girl is still near by. It has become a completely iconic video and i think it is one of the main reasons why Michael Jackson has become known as the King of pop.

This video shows are very passionate performance from Michael Jackson which is one of the main reasons why i think it is so successful. Additionally there is a lot of special effects used which make it look very high budget and quite epic as a video as it shows sweeping landscpaes. Although we could never hope to replicate the high scale look and amazing special effects i think what this video does show me is the need for a passionate and really commited performance as this will really make or break a video - it doesnt matter how good the idea is if the performance is not too good.

Let's Dance to Joy Division

Joy Division were an English rock band formed in 1976 in Manchester. They consisted of Ian Curtis Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook and Stephen Morris.
Ian Curtis, the lead singer, had depression and while also struggling with epilepsy. This meant that live performances were difficult, as he often had seizures on stage leaving him feeling ashamed, despite audiences sometimes thinking it was part of the performance. In spite of the increasing ill health of Curtis, but the band filmed a promotional video for the forthcoming "Love Will Tear Us Apart" single that month. The night before the bands first American Tour in May 1980, Curtis committed suicide, by hanging himself in his kitchen. Joy Division's album was released posthumously and the single 'Love Will Tear us Apart' became one of their highest charting release.



…This song is referenced in ‘The Wombats’ song ‘Let’s dance to joy division’, as towards the end of the song they sing ‘so let the love tear us apart’.

The Wombats are an Indie band from Liverpool. They comprise of Matthew Murphy and Dan Haggis and Tord Overland-Knudsen. The band met in 2003 at the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts. In 2006, the band released their debut album "Girls, Boys, and Marsupials" which was only available in Japan. But by 2007 they had released an album in the UK The Wombats Proudly Present: A Guide to Love, Loss & Desperation, with singles including "Backfire at the Disco" and "Moving To New York".



When listening to their song ‘Let’s dance to Joy Division’ I realised that although it seems upbeat and jolly, when actually listening to the lyrics it is quite sad because they are talking about dancing happily but to a song sung by a man who was very depressed and ashamed. The key word is IRONY (‘Let’s celebrate the irony), and so that’s what I based my pitch around…

My idea for ‘The Wombats’ music video is that it begins with the band walking up to a house and going inside where there is a house party going on. As the music is happy and upbeat I would want the band, and everyone at the house party to be wearing bright colours such as red, blue and yellow – and T-shirts with happy slogans or smiley faces on. However as the band walk round the house people should be having a really bad time; ie- being sick, having big fights, crying – yet smiling at the band as they go by; therefore getting in the ironic element. As this is going on this should be cross cut with shots of the band playing in the same room as Joy Division were in their video for ‘Love will tear us apart’ (this bit should be shot in the dull colours of their music video too). When the song goes quiet 2/3 of the way through everything should go dark at the house party and the wombats should be moving through the crowd of people in silhouette – then when the music starts up again everyone from the house party should be in the joy division style room that the band were playing in (in the cross cutting) and the colours should be brighter and everyone dances to the music until the end.

PERFORMANCE OR NARRATIVE?

Madonna ft. Justin Timberlake, 4 Minutes - A PERFORMANCE BASED VIDEO

This video is based purely around the performance. Both Madonna and Justin Timberlake are massive A-list stars so therefore they are selling themselves as an image and the faces of this record. The video focuses on their dance routine - however this is not just the same as any other music video featuring a dance routine. This is because special effects are used frequently to make it interesting and the dance take place in strange places - for example, the supermarket.

Mark Ronson ft.Daniel Merriweather, Stop Me - A NARRATIVE BASED VIDEO

This video is one of the only ones i can find that is purely narrative, there is not cut- away to the band or singer at any time. I think this is really interesting as the storyline is quite strange and surreal therefore it hooks your attention well. Other videos you can flick in and out of easily, but as this one has such a strange storyline you want to watch it from the beginning - right through until the end. The video follows a man as he finds a 'magic' pair of shoes which walk him around a city, and he is unable to remove them. I have described this as surreal and strange because this has absolutley no relevence to the song whatsoever. Overall i think it is a very successful video as it is very memorable and interesting - as it makes you want to keep watching and despite the fact that we do not see the artist once, it is still very memorable for this specific song.

Genre Moodboard

I decided to make a genre mood board, in order to think about all the different genres of music that there are, and which ones would be best to do for our music video. This moodboard shows everthing from Pop to Rock to Regge to Dance to Country to Motown and everything inbetween! When looking at this mooodboard i think it is quite obvious - even if you didn't know the singer or band - to guess which genre of music they represent based on clothing, make up and even race. For example I don't think there are many caucasian regge stars and the crazy balck&white make up shown on the band Kiss immediatley implies that they are a heavy rock band, its is very unlikely they would be singing pop music now isn't it? This made me realise that image and styling of the singer/band in our video will have to be very well done in order to represent the genre accurately - leading to a successful video.

...MORE CONTROVERISAL MUSIC VIDEOS

Christina Aguilera - Dirrty (2002)

Christina Aguilera broke away from her squeaky-clean image with this video. It was directed by David LaChapelle and depicts what was described as "a post-apocalyptic orgy", featuring nudity, wrestling, boxing and revealing outfits such as chaps. The video generated such controversy that many TV companies only played the ‘edited’ version on their channels. Protests even occurred in Thailand over Thai-language posters in the video that translate to eg - "Thailand's Sex Tourism" – leading to it being banned to Thai TV. This video was such a shock to the world due to the vast contrast between this and her previous image – but whether people loved or hated it, it certainly is one of Aguilera’s most memorable videos

The Prodigy - Smack my B*tch Up (1997)
This is probably one of the most controversial music videos ever; as it features everything from the lyrics encouraging violence against women to nausiating shaky camera work, to drug taking, driving under the influence, fighting in clubs and a lot of nudity. However there is a twist at the end as the “protagonist” turns put to be female. Although universally banned from television, massive demands on MTV meant they did show the video, but only after midnight, following a warning. In 2002 the unedited version of this video was aired on MTV2 as it was #1 on the countdown of "Most Controversial Video" in MTV's history.

CONTROVERSIAL MUSIC VIDEOS

Madonna - Like A Prayer (1989)

The highly controversial music video for the song was directed by Mary Lambert. It was criticised for its narrative which included Madonna making love to Saint Martin de Porres - which some thought was a black version of Christ. The Catholic iconography also offended people as it included a scene where Madonna developed stigmata, and cross burning imagery, however the video did gain praise for its interpretation on discrimination, rape, and faith. It even made MTV's countdown of "100 Videos That Broke The Rules" in 2005, and for the 25th anniversary of MTV (2006), the viewers voted this video as the "Most Groundbreaking Music Video of All Time". Shocking videos like this one really are the ones that we remember, as even now 20 years after it was made it’s still gripping, shocking and a great video for today’s audience, as shown by its acknowledgement in these recent polls.

Pink - Sober (2008)

This video seems fairly normal at first as it is Pink sitting on a bed singing, however we are given an indication as to the strange, surreal video ahead as there is a TV in the room flashing with white noise. We then see a party in the house Pink is in, she walks into the bathroom and another version on Pink is there (throwing up in the toilet). While it is actually quite common for artists to play more than one of themselves in a video, these characters never usually cross paths. As the video progresses it become more an more surreal and strange, soon we see flashes of Pink in a white room, dressed all in white, which signifies a mental hospital. Later on to add to the disturbing feel of the video, Pink is on her bed kissing, herself (the alter-ego she crossed paths with in the toilet) – very weird, and controversial as I am pretty sure that this has never been done before.