Inspirational music video

I really like in these music videos the black and white filter as I feel that this gives the music video a more vintage feel towards it. In addition to this, I believe that it works best on narrative videos like the one below Hozier's 'Take Me To Church'.

Behind the scenes...

Here are some behind the scenes pictures of us experimenting and filming with the projector and filters. We really loved playing around with the projections and filter changes.

Record Labels

What is a record label?

A record label is a company that manufacture and distribute recorded music and promote that music (which could also be done through hiring people to help with the promotion). 

There are two types of labels, which are independent (indie labels) and major labels. Major labels are large corporations often owned by a parent corporation. An example of this would be 'Sony'.

Who are the big four labels?

• Sony BMG
• Universal Music Group
• EMI
• Warner Music Group

A few facts about these four labels...

• They make up 75% of music produced, or more depending on the year
• Artists are either signed to the central or subsidiary label (e.g. Sony - Columbia Records)
• Subsidiary labels usually have their own staff, sign their own artists and make most of their own financial decisions, however they still do answer to the main company which sets their overall budget

However, although there are major labels, as we have decided to make an indie pop music video we are going to use an indie label, as we thought this would deb much more beneficial. 

Indie Labels:

A Indie label is independently funded and not connected or related to any of the big four labels. Many bands or musicians start their careers through the independent label. Due to fewer financial resources, the indie label struggle to "survive" as they come across some uphill battles getting their music heard.

Below is a list of artists and who they have been signed with:

• Arctic Monkeys - Domino Record Labels, EMI, Warner Music Group
• Arcade Fire - Merge Records, DFA Records, Rough Trade Records, City Slang, Mercury Records, Virgin EMI Records
• Bon Iver - 4AD, Good Music, Jagjaguwar
• Florence and the Machine - Island Records, Republic Records, Universal Republic Records, Moshi Moshi Records, Iamsound Records
• The Killers - Island Records, Mercury Records, Vertigo Records, Marrakesh Records
• The Kooks - Virgin Records, EMI records
• Imagine Dragons - Interscope Records, KIDinaKorner Records

Digipak ideas....

An idea for a cover I had was taking a still from our music video, and using it as our front cover. I particularly like the shot at the beginning of our video, this being the artist standing on the left hand side of the frame and this gave me the idea of having the writing beside her, or another idea I had was to have the same composition of the framing as well as keeping the artist on the left hand side, but maybe looking at the camera.

Taking inspiration from Lana Del Rey, I feel it would be suitable to have more of a colourful based digipak as it conforms to the indie conventions.  

Still liking the idea of having clouds as the CD image, I feel like we can take a still shot from our footage to use. In terms of font size and style, I feel like we should go for something 

more light like the font style of Lana Del Rey's name on the slip case.

Inspirational Videos

My group are particularly intrigued by Justin Bieber's "I'll Show You" and this is because we really liked all the landscape photography/ location shots. In addition to this, we felt that we would like to landscape photography shots too in our music video. As well as this, we were also interested by a K-pop artist; Tayeon "I".

Digipak Inspiration

I have been inspired by Lana Del Rey's digipak and this is because I really like the idea of having a plain yet bright coloured CD of clouds as this relates to our music video. Moreover, the contrast of the cloud CD cover and the slip case compared to the still portrait shots of the artists allows the audience to pay more attention to the artist themselves. Furthermore, the font of the writing is really effective as it goes of an indie pop feel, as well as the title of the album being in block letters to allow the audience to immediately see the album name. The use of bright colours also are very useful as bright colours conform to the indie pop genre conventions as well as persuading the eye of the audience to view them.

Intertextuality

What does intertextuality mean?
It is the interrelationship between texts, especially found in literature.

Intertextuality is when one media text references one or many other media texts; for example film, television, print media, fashion, games and advertising. This is reflected from their style of music video, or if it is done in a humorous way which is also known as a parody. It helps contribute to the audience taking away meanings away from the text.

An example:

Red Hot Chilli Peppers: Californication
This music video references a video game

Iggy Azalea featuring Charlie XCX: Fancy
References the movie "Clueless"

However intertextuality can be found in Parody's. An example I have chosen is The Hillywood Show's Parody of Taylor Swift's 'Shake It Off' however they have referenced the show 'Supernatural'

BFI (Part 3)

A few facts that we have learned whilst at the trip...

In the 1990's:

• Massive budgets for music videos
• only 40 x $1m music videos
• Michael Jackson's 'Scream' $10,870,714 (1995)
• 27 between 1987-2007

In 2015:

• Adele's 'Hello' had 485 million views on youtube 
• She also had 27.7 million views in 24 hours 

As well as this, we had also learned that there are 10 steps to making a music video.

1.

• Assess your resources
• performers
• tech kit
• location
• props/costumes
• timeframe

2.

• Warm up 
• lip-sync
• remake video/ancillary
• photoshoot

3.

• Recce
• limit locations
• photos and footage
• floor plan
• access to lights and power
• initial risk assessment

4. 

• Pitch
• treatment
• moodboard
• technical
• production solutions
• ancillary tasks

5.

• Planning
• no idea? don't get stuck
• its all in my head just an idea
• great idea? still just an idea

6.

• Plan
• storyboard
• animatic
• shooting schedule
• tech prep
• shoot early
• rehearse

7.

• Shoot
• ten time (different set-ups)
• cutaways
• extra angles
• lighting changes
• close-ups
• motivation

8.

• Edit
• sync everything
• paper edit
• whole picture
• cut again
• feedback
• grade and effects

9.

• Evidence
• pitches
• photos
• behind the scenes
• screen grabs
• all test
• save versions

10.

• Evaluation
• directors commentry/ dvd extras
• interviews and press release/pitch
• director website/ 'showreel'

All of the points highlighted show that these are the tasks completed whilst in the process of shooting our music video and editing it. 

BFI Trip (part 2)

Here are some of the presentations shown on the day presented by Tom Woodcock, our host for the day...

 

 Alongside these presentations we were shown a series of music videos by artists...

 

Not only were we given the pleasure of watching known artists work, but we had also seen previous A2 students work...

BFI Trip

On Thursday 26th November we, as a class, went to the British Film Institute (BFI). At this conference, we were taught about music videos and their history. Myself and my group felt that we had gained a lot of knowledge on the do's and don'ts of creating a music video.

 

History:

We had learnt about when music videos had first come about and what they included. I had learned that the first music video ever produced was in 1930 up until present.

 

1930's: Music video included imagery such as playing and experimenting with light, colour, textures, scratching film and more.

 

1940's: Artists such as Soundie and King Cole had used images and small parts of film put together of the artist to try and promote not only the song but themselves.

 

1950's: Artists such as Frank Sinatra, Ed Sullivan, and King Cole had their own TV shows. And Elvis Presley was in a Film.

1960's: The Beatles had joined Elvis in constructing artist image through film.

1970's:This year was the birth of the pop promo. Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody was a performance video and so this focussed on light, textures, mood and atmosphere.

1980's: MTV came out in the year 1981. The Specials ' Rat Trace' was the first black artist music video played on MTV. it was the 56th video played on MTV ever.

 

We had a great time!





LED light trial

Discussing framing and composition

Today in class we were discussing about how to frame and compose shots. These are some things that we are considering when shooting/filming for our music video. These are things to think about...

Composition:
To encompass or surround your subject with something else.

• Complementing central focal point of interest
• Centralise main focus which would ensure it demands attention
• Evenly distributed space either side of main focal point ---> this creates a sense of authority --> domination of frame ---> formal/authoritative
• Geometric/ reoccurring shapes
• Rule of thirds ---> object of interest
• Amount of empty space is balanced 
• Creates a sense of artistry to your work, more natural, less staged.
• Golden Ration: need to consider the composition 

Eyeline rule:

• eye position 1/3 way down 
• Following the rules creates a blanked shot
• Ensure there is head room

Location choice

Photography...

With looking at photography inspiration I  really like this idea of having an image like this used as our diggi pack cover. I really like the contrasting effect of having the background black and white and well as her face contrasting the half of the background with the opposites on her face. Like below on the right hand side it is black and so the right hand side of her face is lit up and this is the same on the opposite side. 

What is 'Rule of Thirds'?

Definition: The rule of thirds is a concept in video and film production in which the frame is divided into nine imaginary sections, as illustrated on the right. This creates reference points which act as guides for framing the image.

Ed Sheeran's A-Team is a good example when using 'Rule of Thirds'. For example, there are several shots in his music video where rule of thirds have been applied. 

 In this shot, the composition shows the protagonist standing on the right hand side of the frame, allowing the audience to focus mainly on her. As well as this, there is a lot of leading space, this being the huge area showing where she is at.

Other example shown in his music video can be seen below...

This shot of the protagonist sitting on the floor is an example of composing the frame in a way that allows the audience/viewer to see the reoccurring lines such as the ones no the pavement. 

I really like this shot and this is because it uses the rule of thirds in a way that answers there is nothing in the middle, leaving it all irrelevant. So only the right hand side and left hand side of the frame is fully in use. 

Inspirations from photography work...

I was greatly inspired from my photography work, of having a stripy affect of projecting images onto Nicole - our artist - and this is because I thought that it would look good or it is just an idea for our diggi-pack. 

Behind the Scenes...

Here are some still shots of Nicole standing in front of a blank screen with a black and white image of clouds layered on top of her, this being projected from the projector. However when looking at her from our eye, it was just a black and white image on her, however, when looking from the viewfinder on the camera, we found out that the camera lens had actually picked up the blue colour in the spectrum. We found this cool and really intriguing .

This happened again when we took another picture, but this time it was an array of colour picked up from the spectrum.

This was the same projected image, however the camera had only picked up the red colour. We thought this may be an idea for our diggi-pack, having this image on the back with the track list on top.

Looking at this image, we were inspired by Katie Sky and Tove Lo's album covers.

Experimenting

On Thursday we had began experimenting with the floodlight along with using the filters and having an image projected onto a screen on Nicole. We had a clear black and white cloud image and had messed around with the different filters to see which one would look more appealing. 

John Lewis Advert

This advert from John Lewis would class as research for us and this is because they have used the artist Aurora for the song to use in the background and this goes to show how often the indie genre can be used in advertisement to try and promote it further. Especially when looking into inspirational videos and artists i immediately knew of this artist as we have looked into her previously. Moreover, this is something to keep in mind when creating our diggi-pack.

Who are our audience?

We feel as a group, that our target audience should range between 15-20 year olds and this is because through our research the 'Indie' genre's main audience range mainly between these ages. In addition to this, we feel that the majority gender between theses ages would mostly be female for our chosen song and this is because it is light hearted as well as the artist being female it also influences more girls to listen to it. Furthermore, most of the bands in the indie genre are males, so this makes us stand out to the audience.

Audience feedback - Survey Monkey

Questionnaire responses

Audience Theory

The Hypodermic needle theory also known as the hypodermic syringe theory or the magic bullet is a theory that suggests the media 'inject' the audience with views and ideas however the audience don't do anything because they are passive and weak therefore they allow the media to control them in the way of telling them whats right or wrong. An example of this is the War of the Worlds radio broadcast, were there was a radio version of HG Wells 'War of the Worlds' however the audience thought that this broadcast was real and not realising it was science fiction, they had begun to panic which resulted in people taking drastic measures such as fleeing the country. 

Creating the questionnaire...

Here is a questionnaire I have created for people to answer and fill in, for my music research. I have ranged between print outs, video interviews and online surveys such as using 'SurveyMonkey'.

Inspirational music video...

I feel that the editing in this music video by Pia Mia is very eye catchy as not only is the audio fast paced, but it also gives the opportunity for editing to be exploited thoroughly. Moreover, there are a range of different camera angles used such as close ups, long shots and mid shots. I find particularly interesting the cross, quick, choppy editing for example this can be seen at 1:54. as well as this i like the idea of the insert shots of the waves, that have been slipped in between shots of the choreography and the 'party' scene. 

Mac 3: Grovelands Park Vlog

Inspirational music video

I really like this music video because there are various location shots as well as various camera angles such as: close ups, wide shots, mid shots etc. Moreover the narrative tells a story which is what we are trying to create in our music video. At 2:35 to 2:40 i feel that it is similar to what we are trying to include in our narrative, this being the protagonist completely disregarding everything else.

Day 2 - Behind the scenes filming

Today we had begun filming some of the shots that we needed at our chosen location: Grovelands Park in Southgate. When we arrived at the park it had begun raining which was not a good thing, however we had managed to work alongside it. As well as this, we had also found new spots to film such as the little river path bit. So we had experimented and filmed a shot there, which meant that we had changed part of our storyboards, however it showed our development from our initial idea.

Although it was a horrible, miserable day we still managed to get some shots that we could use, and we did have a great morning filming!

Shooting Schedule

During the half term, we as a group decided we were going to start filming for our music video, just a few shots to begin with. However, some of the days that we were going to shoot we couldn't because either the weather would not co-operate or something had come up with at least one of us. So we have decided to make a "Shooting Schedule" plan. 

We have sat down and discussed which days and at what times we would start filming. Choosing the days and setting the times, we have created a document on Excel to ensure we stick to the schedule. The things that are included in it are, time, day/date, location, group members and actors, props and equipment and additional notes. So far we have 3 shooting days which we hope would be enough and then we can make a start on editing. Photos of us filming and behind the scene shots are yet to come!