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Digipak

update

Me and Lauren have discussed having people with blank faces instead of animal masks, as we have found out others are using this idea, and that it has been used on music videos before

Rough Sketch

Photoshoot costumes

Costumes will be different from the music video but have the same wintery theme to them, the model came up with some ideas about what to wear and I agreed with some of them. I left the choice up to the model

Photoshoot Props

The only Props we will need for the photoshoot will be the guitar and animal masks

Photoshoot locations

The Locations for the photo shoot will be the same but we wont use the field or the house, just the wood and by the lake

Digipak idea

Have my model standing between two trees, have her centred to connote her importance and have the song names written on the trees

Digipak Research 3

Radical Face is a indie folk artist, the same genre as Wye Oak.

Ghost is a concept album based on the idea of houses retaining stories of what has happened in them. Each song is a story, some told from the house's point of view.

The album cover is simple with only the artist of the front, this is indicative of the indie genre as this is released by an indie artist and connotes he is being independent.

I would like to use the independence aspect of this album cover in my album cover as this fits with the genre of my artist and goes well with the idea of my music video.

Digipak Research 2

This would go with my music video too because of the animal theme but the idea of the heads mounted on the wall would not fit with my video

Digipak Research 1

This is another indie artist called Radical Face,
I like the idea of the animal eyes covering his eyes as this goes with some of the ideas of my music video

Digipak

My task is to create a digipak to go with my music video.

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.

music video ideas 2

Use a fold away bed and put it in a falling down room in the house. Then we can zoom in to her face and change the background and pull out and she can be still sat on the bed but in a field instead of the room.  

Filming Costumes

All our performers will be wearing wintery clothes as they can be warm, we are giving them a degree of freedom with what they can wear, we will give them a specification about what they should wear

Filming Props

Guitar - Use my Guitar
Animal Masks - Buy from party shop
Fireworks - Get parents to buy
Campfire - Lauren supplying

Time Plan

             

               

Filming Locations

We have permission to film in all locations 

Woods

Great Whitely Woods, Near whitely court and whitely church. 

Field

Around same location. Next to Lauren's house. 

Lake

The hundred pool. Also near Lauren's house.

House

Lauren's house 

All locations are shown on the map. Circled in black

Feedback From Pitch

Most of the feed back we had we positive although there was some negative feedback too. Here's a general overview of the feedback

Positives:

They liked the idea of our video.

Target audience has been chosen correctly.

The animal masks they really like and its different.

Seems realistic.

They like that we planned our locations.

Like the animals stalking the main character idea.

Negatives:

Electricity - Getting the light to the trees, they thought that this would be a problem and we need to think of a way to solve this.

Lighting - Issue with filming when it gets dark is to find a place that we can use to power the lights.

What time we film - This is because of the light.

Music Video Pitch

This is mine and Lauren's slideshow for our pitch. 

These slide are just an overview of our ideas for our music video, most of the ideas came from what we said.

Slide 1
The name of our song and the artist that made it and a link to a video of the song.

Slide 2
The picture of the people in animal masks is a shot from the 1973 film The Wicker Man, this was our inspiration for the animal masks idea, the green writing is some of our own ideas that we came up with, the drawings are some of our classmates ideas they thought of when they heard our song, the ones circled in green are the ideas we liked and will try to incorporate into our music video.

Slide 3
This is our mood board, it shows some of the ideas we had on the last slide but makes it easier to see them, we're going to have a camp fire but for health and safety reasons not allow the actors within a reasonable  distance of the fire, also for the fire works we will get an adult to light them for us, the idea of the fog/mist  is one of my favourites as it gives it a creepier feel but also it makes it more mysterious, hopefully making the audience wonder what is  in the fog/mist.

Slide 4

The locations are all available within a short distance of each other and we have easy access to them. The first location seen in the video will be the room but the room will only have a bed in this will give it a slightly creepy look to it. We will then cut to the forest scene and have our main actor walking or running through it this will hopefully be when we can incorporate the fog/mist, she will then be shown in a camping party in the field, here she will become disorientated and we would like to use a snorricam but because we don't have one we will probably get our actor to hold the camera and spin around.

Slide 5
This slide shows the costumes we plan to use, the main character will be wearing coat and scarf because we think it would suit our music video and we don't want our actor to get cold, the people who are wearing the animal masks will be wearing casual clothes with the masks  

Slide 6
On this slide is our list of props, the smoke machine, a guitar and some fireworks the smoke machine we can hire from a company, from £15 a day, the guitar will be mine and we will have to send an adult out to get the fire works as we are not 18 yet and cannot legally buy them 

Creativity

Is Creativity A Skill?

some points to think about are

Can we develop it?

Although some people may be more skilled then others, Do we all have the potential to improve it?

How can we learn how to be creative.

Does knowledge of culture/art, help us be more creative?

I Think a knowledge of culture and art can help us be more creative, because the more you can have to draw inspiration from. you can take different aspects from your sources and put them together to create something new. They may also inspire people to create something based around their products.

Does a knowledge of creative "tools" help us be more creative?

A knowledge of creative tool does help us be more creative because they allow us to create ideas that are not available, for example green screen someone into a computer generated background, or creating explosions look bigger and adding in sound if the sound you filmed is unusable

Does media technology inhibit creativity? Are we more "free" without media technology?

I think it enables us to do more with less cost and less props/actors/locations. It allows for more freedom because it can permit us to do more and create new things

How creative are media producers?

Media producers are somewhat creative because although they come up with interesting and new ideas, the people who produce the ideas that the producers come up with are more creative because they take the ideas and make them a physical thing, they also tell the media producer what ideas he can and can't use.

Health and Saftey

Fire: 

To minimise this risk we are making sure that there is a reasonable distance that the cast stay away from the fire.

We will have a adult around at all times to keep and eye and also start the fire for us.

When we have finished with the fire we will make sure that it is put out properly. An adult will do this for us.

Fire extinguishers will be nearby just in case there is a accident that is caused. 

Fireworks:

To light these fireworks we will have a responsible adult to do this for us.

The fireworks will be lit from a distance to that if there is any problems they won't be near anybody.

Lake: 

We will have life safety floats, so if anyone falls in we will have something to throw at them and help get them out.

The cast won't be standing near the edge of the lake. 

Wires:

To reduce the risk of people tripping on the wires, we will tape the wires to the floor.

Other cast

Model

The performer and model will be Emma Tanser 

Mulveys theory Notion of looking

The notion of looking is used a lot in music videos, in candy shop by 50 cent the women are shown as sexual objects this video uses male gaze, the camera gaze and the audience gaze to objectify women as sexual objects. The women have a slight degree of control but not as much as in Primal Screams Country Girl music video where she takes control of how they look at her in the second half of the video, the first half of country girl does objectify her through the cameras gaze

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWjm_W-4Ml8- Primal Scream
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRcnnId15BA- 50 Cent

The gaze of the camera: the camera that looks at the female body

The gaze of the male actor: shots of males looking at women and then the shot of the female body being looked at

The gaze of the audience: what the audience look at (even female audience members were positioned within a male gaze)

One video we have looked at that contradicts Goodwin and Mulvey's theories is Lady Gaga's video for Alejandro. In this video we have found that Gaga uses power in her video, switching backwards and forwards using the male gaze, however in this video, instead of objectifying women, she is instead objectifying men.

Lady Gaga has a high level of self awareness in her video and makes it clear that she wants the men to be seen more than her, and encourages the audience to do this by using props and clothing to make the men stand out more than her, for example at one part in her video, she is wearing the same colour as the backdrops, where as the men are wearing an opposite colour, causing the audience attention to be on them instead. 

One word we could use for this is the queer gaze, which is where Gaga is trying to attract gay men to look at the video, by sexualizing the men. However Lady Gaga is sexualized slightly during the video however I would say that this is used more as a political act, as an attempt to change the world and what they think.

Music Video Ideas

Demands of a Record Label

1 This acknowledges the commercial aspect of music videos. Music videos are essentially promotional devices whose function it is to sell to its target audience.

Music videos are not only used to sell the artists song but also to sell products the artists use, the brand name  of the guitar amp company can clearly be seen in many shots, as can the brand of cymbals the drummer uses.  The use of Lemmy is also advertising, it can be used to promote both Lemmy and Airbourne, Lemmy is a cult icon so his presence could bring in more people to buy the song and this is also advertising Lemmy to a new audience, which could bring him more sales

2 Ultimately, stars are commodities that are used to represent values that will be attractive to their target audience. They are a brand. How is a brand identity established through their videos?

Airbourne have established a AC/DC like brand image through their similar style, this has led to many of the same of the same fan base as AC/DC. Both lead guitarist don't wear t-shirts on stage, further likening them to one another.

lighting

we learnt about 3 point lighting in our lesson so I did a little bit of looking and other lighting techniques



This is 4 point lighting the only difference is that there is a light for the background



This is a more complicated set-up using 2 smaller lights to light up the sides and back

Stop motion

This is what I did when I played around with stop motion

Analysis

Red Hot Chili Peppers- Dani California
Red Hot Chili Peppers- Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie 

Dani California

The video is based on the quasi-chronology of the evolution of rock music; the band performs the song on a stage, but in a variety of outfits representing important figures and movements in the history of rock, this is a clear use of intertextuality referencing many artist and bands.
The video starts of in black and white and shows the band performing dressed like Elvis and performing in his style, the mise-en-scene of the stage is plain stage with just the band on it, this is a faithful recreation of what performing was like in the 50’s.
When it changes to The Beatles the mise-en-scene changes a lot with the back ground now having boards with diamond on and the amps being bigger and more obvious, the outfits have changed too with all the band having the same haircuts and wearing the same clothes. The next shift is spectacular because of the shift from black and white to colour, the overly colourful outfits and the psychedelic background.
The editing and cinematography changes drastically in the next scene, the use of canted angles, more close ups on individual band members, the kaleidoscope effect used and the cuts to Anthony saying “Yeah” this all makes this scene seem quite lively and energetic. This uses Goodwin’s theory about the relationship between the lyrics and the visuals.
When it changes to the Sex Pistol scene, the pace of the editing becomes fast, the camera switches to handheld there are a couple of whip pans and the camera doesn’t stay still this adds up to giving this an edgy punk look that the Sex Pistols were known for.

The Change from the Sex Pistols to The Misfits is a  big one, the Mise-en-scene goes all gothic, the change in lighting makes the shadows and the colour black stand out more, this is because The Misfits were pioneers of Horror Punk.

The Glam Rock stage means the video changes drastically again, this relates to the music because Glam Rock is generally sung in a higher pitch and a bit calmer and not so bassy as normal rock. Nirvana is seen as a individualist group doing their own thing being a bit rebellious but emotional too, this is shown through the use of candles, the fire providing light and warmth but also danger and unpredictability.

When the Red Hot Chili Peppers come in, the Mise-en-scen, cinematography and editing all change. The Mise-en-scene becomes 21st Century rock band, just wearing normal clothes and sporadically leaping around the stage energetically and a little bit childishly, the cinematography becomes mainly long shots interspersed with bust shots and close ups, the camera is rarely still adding to the energy that is already pouring out at this point. The editing becomes fast once more showing the band in all their different personas in this video, but mainly as the Red Hot Chili Peppers.


This Video Uses most If not all of Andrew Goodwin’s theorys:
Genre Characteristics 
Rock bands usually encorporate performance in to their music videos
Relationship Between Lyrics and Visuals 
There is no relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, this is a disjunctive video
Relationship Between Music and Visuals
The relationship is very clear, the song is upbeat and happy reflected in the pace of the editing, the parody elements of the video and the colourful Mise-en-scene (when appropriate)
Star Image/Persona  
The image for the Red Hot Chili Peppers is energetic, random and quite childish, these are all shown throughout the video  particularly energy and randomness.
Notion of Looking  
This is used all the way through the video as we are looking at them on a stage.
Intertextuality
This is also used constantly throughout the video as the different artists and band through rock history are represented.
Artists and Bands used in this video were  Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Thin Lizzy, Parliament-Funkadelic, David Bowie, Poison, Sex Pistols, The Misfits, Motley Crue, Nirvana and Red Hot Chili Peppers

Adventures of rain Dance Maggie

This video is based on The Beatles 1969 rooftop performance,  the typical rock genre video is a performance related one, showing the crowd having a good time and dancing around, it also shows the band leaping around and putting a lot of energy into the performance.
The video starts with a couple of establishing shots showing what is happening where it is happening and when it happened. This goes well with the music as the is the conventional rock music video is a live performance and is different from many other videos: because the song is unusual and different to what the public are used to.

The editing is medium paced to go with the slowish tempo of the song, this gives chance to see what the band is doing and for the fans to connect with the band more. This is also done through many close ups as well.

The video is different to most videos they have done as although most of their videos have them performing in some way they don’t have the amazed view of the onlookers like in this video. The cutting between the band and the crowd shows that they are both enjoying themselves, the camera looks mainly handheld giving this video a spontaneous feels to it.

The Mise-en-scene is very casual with the band wearing what they want, some of the outfits from the crowd are more out there like the dancing devil guy. Most of the shots used are from low angles, the use of these low angle shots make the Red Hot Chili Peppers seem more powerful and in control of what is happening. There are a lot of shots showing the band altogether this reinforces the idea of their togetherness as a group, there are many shots of the individual members of the group as well so that they each have their own individual identity.
The shots of the band show them leaping about, dancing and moving to the music very energetically connotes them as energetic, carefree and into the music.

This Video Uses most If not all of Andrew Goodwin’s theorys:
Genre Characteristics 
Rock bands usually encorporate performance in to their music videos
Relationship Between Lyrics and Visuals 
There is no relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, this is a disjunctive video
Relationship Between Music and Visuals
The relationship is very clear, the tempo of the song is reflected in the pace of the editing, and some of the cuts are positioned to match with the music, like when the time is shown on the screen it is positioned to cut to it on the guitar chord
Star Image/Persona
The image for the Red Hot Chili Peppers is energetic, random and quite childish, these are all shown throughout the video  particularly energy and randomness.
Notion of Looking  
This is used all the way through the video as we are looking at them perform on a rooftop, this is also shown through the girl looking through binoculars and then the reverse shot to show what she is looking at
Intertextuality
This is also used constantly throughout the video as the video is based around The Beatles 1969 rooftop performance on top of abby road studios.

Redundancy and Entropy

Redundancy - That which is predictable or conventional in a message, redundancy is the result of high predictability.

Entropy - That which is unpredictable



Taylor swift has a high redundancy because her videos are predictable, there is always a boy in them or the video is based around a boy, she normally plays the lonely girl who gets the popular boy like in "You Belong With Me"

Ok Go's video is very entropic but gets more redundant as the video progresses because the unpredictability of the treadmills wears off after a while

Yo La Tengo's video is also very entropic because it is very unexpected all the way through, the music video is not the norm, it distracts from the song and has people talking over the song

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDgpQBaziy0 - Yo La Tengo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTAAsCNK7RA - Ok Go

Green screen - My Little Nick

We had chance to experiment with green screen techniques, this is what we came up with once finished

Genre Characteristics

Girl Bands

  Narrative

The narrative of most girl bands is having fun with friends. In the Destiny's Child and Little Mix video they did this by showing them having fun and hanging out in a room, whereas the spice girls were going out causing chaos.

Theme

The themes of some girl band songs tend to be about the idea that friends are more important than men.

Location

Locations varied from outside to inside depending on the type of song. Ballads tend to be outside like in the Spice Girls 2 Become 1 video. While most upbeat songs where filmed inside like Little mix's How Ya Doing.

Representations

Destiny's Child and the Spice Girls where seen more for male gaze with their clothes, in Destiny's Child Cater 2 U they are first shown not wearing any clothes then  they are shown not wearing much clothes e.g bikini or short skirt. Little Mix however are for the younger generation and don't wear provocative clothes.

Costumes      

Girl bands tend to have their own personal style in what they wear but not too much of a difference to showthat their a group. The costumes also depend on the type of song as well. For example, if they are singing a

ballad they tend to wear dresses, whilst rock song tends to have an edgier look.

Email About Permission

Relationship between the music and the visuals

The Red Hot Chili Peppers- The Adventure of Rain Dance Maggie

The visuals show them performing on the roof of a building (inspired by the Beatles rooftop performance in 1969) This goes well with the music as the is the conventional rock music video is a live performance and is different from many other videos: because the song is unusual and different to what the public are used to.

The editing is medium paced to go with the slowish tempo of the song, this gives chance to see what the band is doing and for the fans to connect with the RHCP more.

The video is different to most videos they have done, Brendan's Death Song is another slow song by them and has a completely different feel and look to the video, but underneath it is the same, both of the videos show people dancing in them, they both have the band dancing around while playing and portray a live performance in front of a big group of people. 

Relationship between lyrics and video

The Subways- I don't need money to have a good time


The relationship between the lyrics and the video is a mainly illustrative one, showing people having a good time with out any money but the lyrics don't describe what is happening in the video. 
When it says turn and walk away the video shows a woman and a dog walking away.
This is also true when they sing "C'mon! C'mon! C'mon and it is shown written out in spaghetti letters. 

Illustrative, Amplifying or Disjunctive

The Subways- I don't need money to have a good time

The video is mainly illustrative showing people having a good time with no money, however it does amplify some of their meanings e.g. at 1:17 the lyrics are "not gonna be the ones just sitting on the shelf" the video shows a box of eggs with sad faces drawn on them sitting on the shelf of the fridge. Despite this many of the shots in the video have no relation to the lyrics, no one is said to be eating a bowl of spaghetti or skateboarding into glasses of water.

Quite a few of the shots look like they have been taken with a home camera, this is an illustrative element because it goes with the title of the song, saying that they don't need the top equipment to film this video, some of them even look like they are taken on mobile phones.

Many of the cuts are positioned to the crash cymbal there is also cut positioned on the guitar beat as well. This along with the fast tempo of the song make the pace of the editing fast and even very fast in some places.

The locations are mainly everyday or places that are easily accessible again illustrating the songs title. The same could be said for the clothes and the props, they are casual and everyday.

Overall this is and illustrative video as it shows people having a good time with fairly everyday objects.

Lip Sync Task

Introduction
We have created two lip sync videos.One to first minuet and thirty seconds of Motorhead's Ace of spades which was a simple exercise to get us to used lip syncing and using to the equipment, the other is the first minuet and ten seconds of Busted's What I go to school for, which required more planning and organising, because of multiple locations, costumes, props, the size of cast and extras and shooting script.

Research and Planning
The planning stage was useful because it gave us a chance to analyse the video and to choose the best options for the video, the shooting script was the most useful because  it organised when and where we were doing each shot,  and who was needed, because some days some cast members were unavailable, so this helped get their shots done and then get the others done when they were away. The storyboard was another useful part of planning because it gave us a chance to look at each shot in depth and try and replicate that, it also gave us how many shots we needed and a chance  to group them how we needed, e.g. outside, classroom with Dom classroom without Dom, this gave us a chance to again help plan when we would do each shot. This stage helped organize and make the filming process run smoother, although I think the filming could of been better organized and planned better, which suggests that this stage was not as successful as it should have been it was still the most useful stage as it really showed us the task we had to undertake.

Digital Technology
The knowledge that I gained while doing this will help me with next years task of filming an original music video. I used Adobe Premier Pro to edit what I had filmed, at first I was unsure of how to use it, but got as I got used to it I began to be a bit more adventurous with the tools available. Putting the clips in time with the music was the hardest part of editing these short videos, as you can see in the busted I had varied levels of effectiveness with the timing. This will help me to get it in time in my music video and also make sure that I check the video before I say that it is finished.

Production
The main thing I learnt is that there will be a lot of stops and retaking of shots to get one that is good enough to use. One of the most useful items in production is the shooting script, this really helped when deciding what to do and when to film it, it also helped for when people were away so we could the shots of the person that is away when they are available, due to the absence of many people on different days, this was a long drawn out process

Task

My name is Jack Suttie, I will be studying A2 media studies where I shall  use the skills I have learnt this year, and use new skills that I have yet to learn.

My task for A2 Media Studies is to create a promotional package for the release of an album to include a music promo video together with a digipak for the albums release and a magazine advertisement for the digipak,