Blog Reflection - Week 15 - Completing and Finishing Products

Blog Reflection - Week 14

Blog Reflection - Week 13 - Adapting / Improving our idea

Updated Shooting Script

During the Production of our music video many things changed and needed to be updated and we adapted our shooting script.

Blog Reflection - Week 12

What have you been focusing on this week?

This week we recorded the footage in London such as the graffiti shots and some London Eye shots that have the extreme depth of field. We went out to London to get some sunset based shots but the travel to get into London took much longer than expected and it got darker much quicker so we had to improvise, and I had brought an LED light for backup, with multiple batteries for a longer charge.Many of the shots that were recorded came out much better than expected and had a heavy prominence in the final cut. The shots flowed well with the theme that we wanted to portray and this became very useful for our music video as we wanted to project our artists goals and backgrounds. During this day out we recorded lots of footage to have more than we needed. We got many landscape shots but we decided to not have many of them in the music video.


What key concepts have you been focusing on?

This week the main key concept was mise-en-scene as we needed more diversity and more pleasing shots for our music, so having the lots of graffiti on the walls and getting some other various based shots for the music video. While we was out there we got lots of different vibes beacuase of london being centred around many different ethnic cultures and this is shown through the use of art and graffiti in the walls are the filming location.

What were the main decisions and revisions you have made?

Filming in London was a huge benefit for our music video and brought with it many advancements with our product as the locations and visuals make the music video much more appealing and this was chosen by us to go this location. Another huge benefit was that the noise in the shots were kept to a minimum and had no huge direct affect on the final product making the footage much better than expected.

Blog Reflection - Week 11

Blog Reflection - Week 10

What have you been doing this week?

-Shooting Script finalisation
-First filming shots

This week we have been fully planning and typing the shots that we want to have in our music video in our shooting script, we spent a lot of time on the shooting script as its the main -part of the planning that contains most of the information of our music video, we want other many different alterations and choices for our music video such as the use of actors and what we want the artist to be doing in the shot. We also decided where to shoot exactly as well such as in London for some London  and forest shots. After palling the duration of the shots and what it contains we filmed some of the first shots later on the week such as some of the street shots and the filming and the shots were ok, some parts will be replaced and changed but it was decent.

We went for a gritty sense for the street shots that link to the artists growing up and beginning phase and we also went for key typical locations such as underpasses or walkways or alleys to suit this mood and iconography at the beginning.







What Key concepts have you been focusing on?

The main focus we have been focusing on is the use of having a visually pleasing shots in our music videos such as the use of the forest shots that would juxtapose our main artist. We also liked the use of lost of effects in our music video so we have prepared for that as well, similar to our first test shots at the beginning of the year. We also have been including lots of cinematic shots in our music video as we want to have a film type look to our music video similar to Kendrick Lamar's DNA at the beginning.

What were the main decisions and revisions you have made?

The main choices and decisions we made was to have more pleasing shots so we changed some of the location's to suit the music videos vibe much more. We also wanted to change some of the style of shots to better fit with the actor and pace of the song as it would flow the song much more.

Shooting Script

Blog Reflection - Week 9

Production Schedule

Location Reccies

Call Sheets

Blog Reflection - Week 8

What have you been doing this week?

This week I have been doing

-Analysis of Digipaks

-Analysis of Magazine adverts

-Finishing flat plans

We had finished our flat plans for both of our ancillary products and use existing products to help us produce and create own ones. We drew our flat plans in pencil as a rough outline and then we coloured them in colour to make it clear and understandable of what we wanted to go for. We use various techniques for both products such as the use of placement and composition and typography and even mise-en-scene, as we want it to be clear to when we make our final one.



I firstly started analysing existing adverts and digipaks so I can understand the basic conventions of both products, and see how they are put together such as the use of the bar codes and the main image of the artist on the front. After denoting all of the typical conventions we then went into detail about what they could mean and what appeal it has on the audience, with this I took this into consideration when creating our own ancillary products and with this we decided to base our products on this mainstream ones that already exist but have own spin on it.

What key concepts have you been focusing on?

We have been focusing a lot on audience and theory as we want our products to appeal as well as the main product and understanding all of the theory increases the likelihood

of the product becoming successful. With this we also focused on representation and how our artist will represent himself and if it would appeal to the audience that we are looking to appeal to, this is shown throughout all of our products.

What were the main decisions and revisions you have made?

The key decisions that we had for this week was how much screen time our artist would have and how long the duration of the clips will be and this would be further explored in our shooting script, even for the digipaks we decided how many panels we wanted and what other songs that he has made and to choose if they all relate to song were making or to have them completely different, such as Rihanna's albums sometimes has song that are completely different from each other.

Analysis of Magazine adverts

Magazine advert - Flatplan

Digipak - Flat Plan

Blog Reflection - Week 7

What have you been working on?

This week we had been writing up our final treatment preparing our shooting script and flat plans for our ancillary products.

For final treatment we had expressed what we wanted and how we would do it, we mainly focused on having a narrative driven surreal story that has our artist have many struggles in his way of life and this was a great way for us to express the themes that we want to create, within the treatment we talked about the artist and what he believes and his culture, this helps us create an better product as we understand the way he would make on if he did it. The treatment also talks about our vision so any other things we wanted to add make it different while targeting and maintain that core aspect.

What key concepts did you work on?


In terms of concepts we mainly focused on our treatment as I've mentioned before, such as a slide within our brief called key concepts which expressed how our project will be received and all the theory behind it. Such as active audiences and passive, and even the hypodermic needle to a degree and even Stuart Halls preferred readings. This allows us to understand the mind of the public and makes us refine our product to make it appeal much more, after that we finally talked about technology and planning, in the technology we mentioned the equipment and software we would use to make our music video and we go in depth of how it would benefit it us and how we would use it, as for planning we mentioned the locations we want to film at and how we planning it such as organisation and gaining permission.

Other than that we started making deciding ideas for our flat flans for our ancillary products, we spent some time deciding why we wanted it and for what reasons as we want our product to be received as well as our main product.

What were the main decisions and revisions you have made?

The main decision's that we decided to have was that we wanted to make our ancillary products reflect directly what our main product is and have our treatment explain things we want to do and how we would  do it.

Anaylsis of Digipaks

Analysis of Music Videos

Blog Reflection - Week 6

What have I been doing this week?

Preparing final treatment and finishing audience research analysis and conduction

Audience Analysis

This week I had conducted the audience research that we needed to help give us an understanding of what our audience wants, and what we did was give out the questionaries' first and the answers were mainly quantative and this gave us direct answers that we wanted and most of the answers that we wanted were mainly there were very helpful and most followed to the direction that we wanted four our music video. After that we then conducted a focus group which had lots of useful information that we had conducted such as the useful qualitative data and everyone giving their opinions which were valid, the analysis of the results gave us an understanding that our music video idea had a good reception and that we can continue to the path that we want with some adjustments but mainly solid. After all the analysis we started to prepare for our final treatment which composes our final ideas and choice for our music video that we want to create.

What key concepts have you been working on?

Mainly we were focusing on having our audience research done and getting the feedback that we wanted to help improve our idea. We wanted our artist to be extremely relatable and make him appeal as much as possible to our audience which is focus/questionaries' were consisted of. our idea did prove to be successful and the choice of music being played was also received well and liked by our audiences.

What were the main decisions and revisions you have made.

The main thing had chose is to have our artist as real as possible but also visually surreal to watch and we made sure that this was carried through our idea and this is seen in our upcoming final treatment for our music video.

Meet My Audience

Audience research Analysis

Focus group analysis

What did I aim to find out?


When conducting the Questionnaire/focus group of our music pitch idea i wanted to find out if there was any improvements or suggestions to our music video idea, such as specific areas such as Mise-en-scene and the representation of our music artist, we wanted our focus group to understand our full idea to see if the did agree with our vision or if there were some changes, we wanted the most honest answers as possible, we also gave many other suggestions to our focus group such as camera setting and locations and how it compared to typical Rap based music videos.

What kind of method was undertaken?

The type of method we decided to use for our feedback was a opinion based interview with many suggestions from people, first we played them the music that we want to use in our music video, and after the song had played we asked many questions such as, ''Do you think we should stick to the stereotypes and ideologies of typical rap Music videos or should we challenge them' The focus group as major help in collecting data and feedback as questionnaires are very useful as they contain direct data that can be analysed but its very broad and specific in contrast, a Focus group where it has many ideas and suggestions that can be interpreted into many other ways with a much more in depth opinions. The feedback that we got was useful and we will incorporate the data we got into our final idea.

What doe's this result suggest?


What the result suggests that are overall main pitch idea is fairly successful and has some changes but is majority the same original idea as before. One of the main questions that was asked was about, Do you think the forest is a good location for a Rap music video or do you believe we should go against the typical convention of an urban style environment?Many of their responses to our idea of changing the typical location was a good challenge as mainly every rap music video is set in a Urban environment and challenging it helps push the genre forward.  They also suggested that having the main character to have similar conventions to a stereotypical 'Black Rapper' such as maybe a few clothes but retaining a much more casual look to the character, as people disagreed to have the character be a nerdy based background as it would break the genre completely because of the use of two contrasting stereotypical backgrounds. They also liked the song as it would fit the type of style that we were going for, they also did like the narrative of an upcoming aspiring rapper trying to get somewhere in the music industry and the non linear based style of the music video as it as creativity.We also did ask them about our theme of having visuals being the primary focus of our music video such as special effects and any other manipulations and they liked the idea of having a much more engaging and crazy visual experience as it would appeal to their target audience much more. They did have suggestions such as maybe having the artist an Asian ethnicity and not follow the stereotypical Black rapper.


Where any of the results surprising?


Majority of the answers and feedback that we got from our focus group wasn't too surprising in terms of how many of the opinions that were proposed were mainly agreeing with our idea and supporting its development, I was surprised by how many people did like our main idea and it gives more experimental ideas as they did mention things that they liked and why which gives us ways to help build upon that. The new suggestions and feedback that we did gain such as the Ethnic background, were a good topic to mention upon as is was debating to ether challenge the stereotype or continue to support it, as I wondered if it would conflict with the audience as it may not appeal to them because of the radical change of cultural background and from audience theory a lot audiences expect the traditional formula with slight changes but not a radical change which make them less interested in the text being presented.

Is the results slightly biased and inaccurate?


I believe that the results that were conducted were accurate because of the suggestions and improvements that were listed to help increase the rate of viewership. Many people suggested many different ideas about what they wanted to see and why and this caused and created a little debate. Some people talked more than overs because maybe they had more knowledge within this area and field and watch music videos more than others, the types in variations in locations had many different views and opinions and because of the different suggestion suggested a much less biased result.


How will this affect your music video?


Overall this does affect our final music video such as the use of mise-en-scene, instead of having a typical stereotypical Black rapper we will challenge this view and use a Asian or White ethnicity as the main artist in our music video, in terms of locations we will continue to the forest scenes but also having some urban based areas to contrast against, we are also making sure that our music video does challenge the stereotypes being conveyed but also not going to a completely different style and creating an broken mise-en-scene which could work for a surreal abstract idea for a music video but we don't want to go down that route, as it could also create much more oppositional readings to the preferred readings that we would want. The clothing will also be much more casual than the stereotypical tank tops and chains that normal rappers wear. For the animation will continue to use the vision we had planned but also adding some new shots and scenes to incorporate the choices and inputs from the focus group such as less gangster related visuals such as flashing chains and appeal to a much more casual animation for example a distorted sky, which would appeal to a wider audience because of the surreal abstract feel.

Questionnaire analysis

Overall for the questionnaire the results that we gained back were mainly what we wanted or expected from our target audience for example some of the questions on there were about how our artist is represented and some of the questions were about what type of artists do you like and from this we can get an understanding of what our audience likes. It also gives us inspiration and a guide of what we can target for when making and planning our music video. Most of the questions answered were mainly quantitate and not mainly qualitative which is what we used the focus group for. The focus group was the main feedback that we got back as it was much more in-depth and the questionnaire's were more direct and functions more like  as a backup if there's any confusions or development problems of our music video.

Blog Reflection - Week 5

Audience Research

Denoted above is the focus group that I conducted about me and my partners idea for our music video idea, we had a group of 7 People within our target audience and they were between the ages of 16-20 which we decided to have as our target audience. We decided this from our questionnaires that we conducted, there is an image below for the data we collected.







 

Audience research Planning

Rationale

Blog Reflection - Week 4

What Have I been doing this week?

This week me and my partner were coming with ideas for our final amalgamation and how we wanted our overall final idea to become, such as the narrative style and the visual representation.We also disccused which song would suit the style we wanted and why and we finally decided to o with my partners song as it just better suited the song that we wanted to go for such as the rap feel to the music. However we did change some things such as we did combine both of our ideas together to create a combined hybrid, such as my abstract feel such as the use of animation and post production with his realistic narrative and the growing aspiring themes.

What else did we do?

We also started planning audience feedback for our combined idea and from this we can collect data and analyse it and get a sense of what is useful for us when making our music video, we will also conduct a focus group to get an understanding of the qualitative data as well, so we can get more detailed opinions.

What key concept have you been focusing on?

Our core and main concepts are the abstract and Narrative themes that we had created, as we believe that these also appeal to the audience directly, and making decisions that the audience would enjoy will make a better product so we went with these ideas, this also allows to create a much more creative digipak and magazine advert, in terms of colours and design. However we had to make sure that these ideas and choices that we choose all fit with the artist that we are trying to portray and I believe it fits very well because of the nature of Nav our artist but also the song is called 'Diamonds' and diamonds are associated with wealth and luxury and from this we explored this deeper and made 'Diamonds' a surreal experience to reach so when becoming rich and big which is part of our narrative, its a surreal experience which is correlation between the narrative and the abstract visuals.

Research Plan

Job Allocations/Responsabilites

Pre Production


Call Sheets - Ronnie & Faheem
Production Schedule - Ronnie & Faheem
Location Reccie - Ronnie & Faheem


Post Production

Project Logs - Ronnie & Faheem
Focus Group - Ronnie & Faheem
Treatment     - Ronnie & Faheem
Shot List       - Ronnie & Faheem
Audience Research - Ronnie & Faheem
Pinterest style blog - Ronnie & Faheem
Digipak/Magazine Advert - Ronnie & Faheem

Production

Director - Faheem
Cameraman - Ronnie 
Editing - Ronnie & Faheem

Final Treatment

Blog Reflection - Week 3 Pitching my song

This week we started to  look for songs and come up ideas for a music video that we wanted to create, for this I did continuous searches for the a song that would fit the style and genre that I wanted to create.
For the idea I wanted, I wanted a surreal song so I could make a hybrid song that had elements of abstract in it.Once i found the song i started to create a power point for the idea that I would pitch to the class of how, why I wanted to make a music video for the particular song in choice.

I then pitched my idea to the class and it contained all the material that I needed with extra information on the slides if any was missed out, after the presentation I got feedback from my audience such as how things make work or how things may turn out and this was very important for me to acknowledge this questions so I can make improvements to the music video, I also got some inspiration from other pitches to include elements that I found very interesting and original and implemented them with some changes into my ideas.

Having feedback is very crucial as it helps to understand get an insight of how and what the public perceive of the ideas that you want to create, and they can give criticism and valid information that will ultimately effect your final product for the better as they will be the voice of the audience that you are targeting for.

Overall the pitch went well and having valid points to help improve my final product and getting new suggestions and ideas of certain things and this is very helpful and I will get more valid data to help improve the music video that I aim to have.

My Pitch and Feedback

Click here to see my Music video Pitch and feedback at the end.




Here is the Pitch presentation






Feedback Summary

Overall from the pitch I believed it went fairly well and the questions that I asked towards the end of the video was valid which influenced my final idea, such as the locations and how they would appeal to my audience, such as the college party vibe of students, which all adds to the my vision of my music video.Improvements were also suggested which also helps create new ideas that i will incorporate, which all adds to the verisimilitude as it the feedback helps create a better refined narrative.

My Artists Song

Music video remake // Evaluation

Research and planning

Audience Pre - Production/Content (inspiration)

During the pre production of our music video, I looked at various examples of music videos to help give me inspiration and an understanding of the common themes and styles of music videos, and it also gave me a clear insight of the common conventions of the music videos, I have done lots of research before as there's lots of music video conventions that re used throughout the industry. Since I was watching many various types of videos I gained much more knowledge of music videos such as the locations and setting, and even the abstract themes and genres, which heavily inspired my remake of Purple Ape/Rap God in our music video remake. I also learnt about the typical lighting and mise-en-scene that is used for these videos and colour grading/actors, which are different in many different types of genres and themes. Having these conventions and other various styles is very important for the music video industry as the video will have to appeal to the audience in many different ways. Gathering audience opinions such as questionnaires would have been useful but since it was only a small remake and time limitations, I stuck with the idea and went to pursue to remake it, since I had seen many music videos as examples I had a great understanding of how it works and I felt fairly confident of recreating it.

Logistics

In terms of our actors, locations and props are genre is abstract so the use of the locations and actors wasn't heavily used and since it was a test for our real music video we didn't have too much time to plan and prepare our music video.This was all done with the planning of the shooting script, from the pre production.For more of my pre production you can read the blog posted earlier.The shooting script was a very useful and had a huge part of our music video remake as it had all the elements that we wanted to film our shots, and all the shots were all detailed in a organised order.My and partner had inputs of what we wanted for shooting script and we both collaborated with it.

Conventions

Camera and editing style

For the use of conventions I developed a much more wider knowledge of common conventions during the making of Remake evaluation as I hadn't studies music videos as a topic before.I had created a post all about the typical conventions of music videos which is very useful for my planning and organisation of future shots for my music video, and for creating this music video remake.The post explored many various conventions such as narrative, linear and they were found in examples of music videos that I listed with a analysis.For the use of camera language and editing I follow the styles of abstract music videos keeping true to the formula such as close ups of the artist promoting the artists identity and branding.

Mise-en-scene

The mise-en-scene is a huge part of music videos but since my music video was very abstract and the shots that were used contained lots of special effects this altered the setting and location making it much more serial, so we didn't invest much time into our mise-en-scene that much as it was only a test and it was going to be digitally altered

Creativity

For the creativity  the skills I developed d was a linear video, that followed a narrative sequence from the beginning, but since our music remake was abstract themed it allowed me to create a much more confusing and non structured story line as it was meant to be a surreal experience.Most of the surreal elements were mostly digital so most of the locations and props were altered to fit the surreal theme.

Post-Production

During the post production I developed many skills to fit the conventions that I wanted to include within my music video, such as the close ups(camera language) and cutting to the beat with surreal special effects. I  also added colour grading to our music video to give it a professional finish and look to the video, as it was contrasts to the video and it also fits the surreal theme as it manipulates the colours and changes them.

Graphics/Special Effects


For our special effects we added many digital effects to make our music remake much more surreal and followed the similar styles of Rap God and Purple Ape.There was lots of holographic and distortion effects added to the footage to make it much more surreal and the colours of the effects such as bright blues and purples were added to increase this surreal experience for the audience, we made sure that the Special effects were following the typical style and conventions of music videos.

Digital Technology

Hardware/Software

For our Post-production and production process we used cameras such as the Canon EOS 750D with a 18-55mm lens and and we also used software such as Adobe After effects for the Digital editing and Special Effects, I was very used to these programs and technology that I was very fluent and used to the way it functions, but what I did learn was the visual style that I was going for and keeping it true the Original music video origin.

Music video Remake - Purple Apes / Rap God

Blog Reflection - Week 2

 What Have I been doing this week?

This week we created a particular scene from different types of music videos to help us give a sense of what we are capable of making and what we can visually do with the equipment and what types of themes or styles that we want to include into our final media product. Firstly we wanted to include to have a abstract style and theme for our music video as we believed that this would be a coll theme to explore and this also allows us to represent out technical skills through the use of camerawork, editing/ special effects, we also wanted to follow the types of narratives that some rap music videos have such as Kendrick Lamar or purple ape these music videos have a heavy focus of visually appealing or surreal shots and that's why we wanted to include such styles into our our music video, we also learn t the types of conventions that these music videos have such as surreal, performance and etc and this allows us to create much more diversity into our final product. This can be seen in our planning of our music video such as the Shooting script.


How does this impact you?


Overall this does enable us to improve our technical skills especially when compared to last year as we only used Non HD flip cams and Final cut Pro X, while this year we was able to use Adobe after effects and primiere pro which allowed us to do special effects much better than Final cut pro, it also allowed us to apply theory to the music video through the visuals which gives us a better understanding of the common themes in music videos. It also helps my partner who is less experienced at editing understand and become better at understanding how the software and DSLR's work such as the Aperture and ISO and how they all affect the quality and final image. This was a huge improvement over last year and makes our final work look much more professional and a higher stand because of it.

Pre-Production // Post-Production

What was the task?

Our class was assigned to recreate a specific moment within a song of choice that stood out a lot to us, and all of us had different songs that we chose to recreate, for me and Faheem(my partner) we decided to recreate the song Purple Ape and there was little bit of inspiration from other songs such as Rap God from Eminem but, in terms of more of a graphical style. We eventually decided to film the more visual abstract sequences of the music video, as that is our goal for our final project that we want to film. We then decided how and where and who was going to film, and decided to have Faheem just be  to be in the music video as it was a test and it didn't need to be a proper finalised product as we wanted to see what we capable of creating. Our vision for this recreation was to play homage to the original or intextualise it (referencing) because of the use of the shots and visuals that would be added but it also had our own little twist as we don't have access to all the sets that they had in the music video, so we improvised and by doing so we went for our dance routine, but sticking to the main attraction in the video which was the abstract eye segment.

Our shooting Script

 During the pre-production we created a shooting script which contained all the details such as the shot numbers, locations, shot angles, movement, length/duration and more, this was all planned for every shot so it made filming it much easier and understandable to do. The shooting script was very beneficial for us to use for our recreation because it allowed us to get everything we wanted at the exact time frame we needed, we also had exact footage from the seconds from pressing record and stopping the recording, this allowed us to have extra frames to edit in post production making if any errors much easier to fix. We will use this shooting script for our music video later on in the year.

How did we edit it?

During the editing process, we primarily focused on cutting the clips and removing any parts that weren't desired, once the cutting was done, the footage was then edited in Adobe after effects this was because it was only three shots so it wasn't a very sequence. Once the footage was put I the timeline of Adobe after effects the footage was edited, with lots of effects such as tracking and masking and visual effects, once all the technical aspects were completed the colour grading was applied on all of the clips giving a much more professional and cinematic feel, which is a type of style we wanted because we like the short film style of music videos, then the letterbox aspect ratio was added to give the cinematic look. During this whole process I made sure that shots had the camera movement that was wanted with, any other conventions such as angles, duration and even transitions, but the transitions were mainly non conventional for short films because we wanted a surreal abstract feel to our music video. We also included the close ups of the artist as shown with the face zoom as we wanted the audience to focus on Faheem directly on the screen, we then decided to add Black and Yellow as a track to the background as our music video had no audio originally, and decided to have Black and yellow as we liked the song, and it flowed well with the video. Overall I liked the comparison between the final version and the non Edited version as it has a totally different atmosphere and I'm very happy of the final product.

Here is a midshot of Faheem before editing had took place, we wanted to make sure that all the clips were all in the right place, and all in order, once all the clips were put in the correct places then they were trimmed and cut to the desired points that we wanted.

Once the clips were cut to what we wanted small edits were made such as during the sequence we wanted to make sure that the camera angle and perspective of Faheem was visible and clear for the audience to see him as the focus, so a warping effect at the corner of the screen was applied to give that abstract illusion and surreal nature but still focus to the main subject.

Here is another shot which is a close up of Faheem before any edits, and what we wanted to do was to keep his face still recognisable so that you can still relate to the image but at the same time give it a much more creative and surreal nature and by doing so we decided to manipulate certain parts of his face such as his eye and the sides of his face.

Here is the tracking process, which was done by finding high contrast points in the eye to track, once the points were tracked the data was then exported to a null object which contained this data, which then allowed us to apply visual effects to the image later.

Once the data was contained in the null object, the video layer was duplicated and I then, applied a mask around the eye, with other effects the glitch, blue TV eye colour was applied to his eye, then other areas of his face were tracked and given other visual effects, while doing this we maintained the original composition of the video wasn't disrupted and lost.

The other footage was then applied with other effects such as this sketchy drawing effect, which gave an illusion of how the world being creating is sketchy and isn't real, and seems very artificial, it also has parts of the real world coming through, suggesting that the world is trying to reclaim itself from the artificial nature of the video, because as the video continues the effects change as if its a constant battle between real and fake.

Once the transitions and other major effects were applied, and bright colourful simulation was created next to Faheem on the right, this is like a juxtaposition between the surreal and the real worlds, as the right looks like a simulation while the left is slowly being consumed by the this force.

Once the footage had been done to how we wanted it, the colour grading was then applied to the footage to give the colours a much more distinct visual boost to what they were originally, this also gives the footage the mood that we wanted such as the bold digital realm coming to reality.

SWOT Analysis

Here is an analysis from what went well from last year, such as the opportunities and strengths but also the weaknesses we encountered and the threats and from this we can determine and find many various ways to change and improve to minimalise any problems in the future, for the benefits we will continue to include and follow what worked well but also continue to expand on them as well, making better product.

Music video inspirations

Denoted here is our music video remake that is an abstract style theme and originally we didn't know how exactly it would all be put together to make it flow nice and smoothly but since its a surreal experimentation that we wanted to go for ,we also synced it to Black and yellow because we liked the song but the ideas wasn't linked to the Black and yellow music video, originally there was no music but I decided to put a song on to make it much more engaging and interesting to watch which gives it a much more 3 Dimensional view.We can make it into any crazy surreal style that we wanted so we went with some Faheem who  is the person denoted in the music video dancing doing crazy dance movements and then I put all the clips together with transitions and added multiple effects that change and manipulate the image, the original design for our music video came from two sources one being Rap God Eminem  from the use of the glitch jerky style of the eye moving around and the bright TV simulated colours in the foreground and on his face and eye, and another video being (insert name) as you can see from the style of the eye glowing and the hand with a cartoony design style with just a bunch of sketches and drawing styles applied to the video.

Mainly these effects and abstract styles are mainly going to attract a much more youthful audience, such as young adults from 18-20's, and a lot of abstract style music videos have no clear sense of narrative and direction meaning they can confuse the audience in many ways but it tends to still interest them which typically targets a much more niche audience.

To make the music video less funny as possible as they are typically not funny, we added the effects and to distort the video removing any comedic factor to the music video, while improving the verisimilitude for the audience.

Permission

Blog Reflection - Week 1

For my Advanced portfolio i would like to make music videos that are based on a surreal perspective and something crazy as I've seen many music videos explore this category and i want to create one based upon this idea.In terms of my portfolio i would like to take and keep what things went well from last year such as the organisation and format of my blog.I would also like to keep the blog very descriptive and specific about the content I'm talking about as this is what I did last year and it worked well.

For the partner I want to work with, I would like to stick to our old groups as we've already gotten used to our working styles and habits and so we can improve on the foundation that is already been built.Unlike being with a new partner which is good for a new experience and new styles but last year it worked well so there's no need to change groups that work well. In terms of hopes and fears of my project, i hope to get the work to higher standard before making a much more in depth detailed analysis, but also improving our Production immensely such as using better cameras and technology to improve the verisimilitude of the Music video that we want to make. For fears I do hope the production such as the filming.

has a lot less threats than before and that the filming goes much more smoothly than before as we had to change locations because of complications that we had encountered that day, but also he had a set deadline and we had to follow that deadline so we had to get the work all done by then, and getting the actors reader for the day was also a time restraint and caused some issues with dates which hopefully doesn't happen again.

Representation

Meghan Trainor

Stuart Hall is a cultural Theorist that looked at the role of the audience positioning in the interpretation of mass media texts into different social groups. He had then created a model suggesting three ways in which a media text can be decoded.

For example the three types of ways the text can be decoded are

Dominant reading: This is when the reader or decoder of the text accepts the preferred reading the way the director/writer had intended them to.

Negotiated reading: This is when the reader or decoder understands the text but doesn't fully agree with the preferred reading.

Oppositional reading: This is when the reader doesn't agree with the preferred reading and has opposing views of the text being presented to them.

For example Stuart Hall's theory is evident in Meghan Trainors 'All about that bass'



Dominant reading: The music video portrays Meghan Trainor signing about how people who are overweight are accepted and how they are beautiful in every way, which helps promote her image and representation, she is denoted throughout the video to be wearing a lot bright colour clothing that is stereo-typically linked to a bakery lady, which over connotes that she is happy about people being fat and they still considered attractive to men, mainly most of her dedicated fans would defend her and would feel sympathetic to her.

Negotiated reading: The audience understand that Meghan Trainor is trying to project her image and her thought about overweight people but however the way she projects and says the lyrics about the topic as its fairly passive aggressive isn't the best way to depict the subject.


Oppositional reading: Meghan Trainor is projecting passive aggressive words and criticizing Skinny Women, making her whole point of larger women being attractive and keeping a civilised and respectful debate becomes hostile and fairly negative in its own right as 'Overweight women isn't a bad thing but projects the underweight women isn't a good thing making her point fairly negative.

Theorist Laura Mulvey came up with a theory called the 'Male Gaze' which suggests that audiences view female characters through the eyes of a Heterosexual male. Which is seen in many mainstream music videos to help attract predominant male audiences by having women be sexualised as objects promoting their image and idenity, music videos such as Blurred lines  and Miley Cirus with wrecking ball which projects women in this way.

For my music video I would go against having women being treated as objects if I had any female roles as I don't want to conform to stereotypes in all cases and for the Stuart Halls reading There would be many different meanings making it polysemic in the world of the diegesis but also there is readings that I don't want the audience to have as it wasn't intended in that way.

Music Video Genres

 Music videos have many different types of genres and within these different genres are many sub genres where a music video will have themes and many other conventions and this allows the music video to target a specific target audience. It also allows the music videos to be classed into many different categories. Daniel Chandler (2001) states that the term genre comes from the French
word 'kind' or 'class'.

Three types of genre

Music video with a clear genre
Genre: Pop 

Song: Katy Perry - Roar

 Convention one : Link between lyrics and visuals

This is a common convention with music videos which make the lyrics of the song correspond with the visuals being represented on screen, this is used a lot in pop music videos as it helps the audience remember the words, which allows them to sing along to them music as its very upbeat and cheerful, creating a sense of enjoyment from uses & gratifications. Pop songs are generally very positive and very upbeat and have a surreal happiness vibe as its too good to be real. This then links to the visuals to the lyrics as gets the audience into the mood and spirit of the song. This is denoted at 3:31 where the world all revolves around her in happiness

Convention Two: Editing

For the music video Roar by Katy Perry, it has very fast paced shots during the music video and this is a common technique used during music videos as it connotes an upbeat and happiness vibe that the music video is aiming for which also relates to the target audience that they are targeting for. The editing especially during the chorus becomes much faster at 3:14-3:30 during this sequence there are many different types of shots at different angles which helps to add to the genre of the song.

Convention Three : Referencing

The music video has many intertextual references throughout the music video, for instance right at the beginning denoted at 0:10 is a plane crash which references the TV series Lost because of the lost abandoned plane crash on an isolated unknown location. Another reference is the mimic of the costume and mise-en-scene of Tarzan as Katy Perry is denoted to wear clothing similar to that of Tarzan such as it being ripped and scavenged 2:42 she is also depicted here swinging on the trees and vines just like Tarzan in the films. At and the Jungle setting and location only continues to reference the films, the music video also has clear references of the Jungle books as well from the use of controlling the animals denoted at 3:29

Convention Four: Performance

 Commonly used in pop music videos is the use of Performance, and this music video follows this convention, in the music video we see Katy Perry have many live performance shots of her singing  and this helps sell her brand and image to the audience, the artist also typical tends to have lots of close up which helps sell and promote their image and brand also.If the music video has a narrative then the artists tends to have a leading role in the music video, while in contrast to the indie genre where the focus is primarily on the narrative and starring other people to improve the creativity.

Hybrid music video
Hybrid genre:
Song: Lana Del Rey - Video Games



Convention One:

Many indie pop videos focus on one theme which is typically used throughout the whole narrative, which is important for the artist to use as it connotes their creativity and ethos while also keeping the song focused on the elements that they believe is relevant to the music video, For example Lana Del Rey Video Games has a narrative that uses a faulty jealously relationship between her as the main role and her partner and the narrative follows Todorovs theory and the a non linear format because there are flash backs throughout the music video which connotes the fun times she had with her partner before it become hostile(1:43)The music video cuts at points to the present, connoting her aggression and sadness, as her partner is now with another women or how her friends have slowly changed and left her alone as she mentions 'As my friends fall', this is also supported by the use of the montage of clips throughout the music video some what creating a scrap book effect as the all the memories are jumbled up. The artist herself stars in the music video which normally isn't seen in indie music videos, but since its a hybrid genre of pop it fits style of music. The artist had also filmed certain parts herself making her own originality and creativity come it.

Convention Two: Low budget setting

 Pop indie songs usually tend to have a low budget for the making of the music video, and tend to not have an high budget locations, within this music video the locations and budget are very basic and primitive as its mostly shot like typical urban streets denoted at 1:45.Even the camera footage and style of the music video has a very casual and non studio produced feel because of the hand held nature of the music video, the narrative and storyline is all mainly denoted trough the use of a montage of clips connoting a passing of time through the years and how things have changed.

Convention Three: Filters/overlapping of footage

Many indie music videos use lots of filters and effects but not to a drastic degree to create and give a much more unique vibe to there music videos, sometimes the footage would overlap over footage but in this example there is a use of lots of old black and white footage giving a much more rustic antique feel to the music video. The footage is also much more fast paced creating and giving a representation of the artist as an edgy for example at 2:09 denoted is the use of a saturated blue colourful footage white an old film style to the 80's.


Sub genre Music video
Sub genre Bubblegum pop
Song: Call Me Maybe - Carly Rae Jepsen

Convention One: Bright coloured Mise-en-scene


In bubblegum music videos there's a heavy use of bright coloured mise-en-scene which is heavily popular in this sub genre of pop as the main focus of the this genre is to have a 'feel good' vibe to the music, therefore the overall colour Grade and use of props are used to connote this iconography. The bright colours are used for the clothing of the actors such as Carly playing herself but also the bight colours of the grass and location as its a bright summers day, this also connotes the representation of the artist helping create a much more upbeat and kind depiction of their image and brand. For example at 0:51 is closes of the artist but also the main majority of the mise-en-scene is bright and colour and creates a direct focus on Carly Rae Jepsen, since the focus is on Carly and the depth of field of the background is all blurred the composition of the image is mainly directly on Carly.

Convention Two: Child- like / Animated aspects


Since the genre has like child aspects such as the use of miss-en-scene and many other factors, this influences the music videos target audience and focus and the genre is specifically targeted for pre-teens and teenagers, this is commonly communicated through the use of animation and pictures for example denoted at 2:23 the artist and the other male actor are denoted wearing old fantasy clothes from fairy tales and the background is very vibrant and mystical and this connotes the child like influence in the music video making it much more appeal able to the target audience


Convention Three : Transitions

Fairly common in Bubblegum music videos is  that the is a trend to have 'unprofessional' transitions between the shots for example denoted at 2:17-2:20 a spiral transition takes place and this is a common convention of this music genre as it adds a bright and creative effect it also acts as continuous as there's always action on screen unlike a fade, which connotes that the music video is much more busy and alive which is similar to a preferred reading as the producers want you to experience the music video in this way.


 
Generic Conventions

Clear genre music video
Genre: Indie
Song: Coldplay / Paradise


Rick Altman argued that genres offer audiences 'a set of pleasures' and I believe this music video provides a slight visceral pleasure as the audience are on their seat throughout as many enigmas are created and we question of what is happening when the Elephant escapes a zoo and why he's going around urban environments such as airports. This is then all finally explained at the very end when we see the family of Elephants in the middle of the plains of Africa.

Typical Mise-en-scene/Visual Style


The main location of the music video Paradise by Coldplay is mainly set in the plains of Africa and it tends to have a mainly high key lightning in the setting that is being depicted, as it was shot during the day but occasionally there were shots during the evening and the lighting is not as high. This is a typical setting for Indies because of the setting not being very high budget and crazy like various other music videos, its also because of their small size and their branding that they go for these styles of music videos, they also tend to have very small albums and a small active audience.Other reasons why they would choose to have these is if they wanted to have a much more clam and creativity style to represent their image and identity as an artist. Throughout the music video we clearly see examples of this such as at 2:22 when we see a the protagonist on a unicycle in the middle of a remote rural road, which connote the story and characters are in the middle of a isolated and desolate place.

Throughout parts during the sunset the lightning becomes much more orange tinted because of it being a sunset which connotes the end of a long vigorous journey for the protagonist as they escaped a zoo in the UK to travel all the way to their ideal place they call paradise. The orange glow of the sunlight also creates a much more relaxing and nostalgic effect to the music video creating a much more narrative driven story which indie videos tend to follow a lot of. This could of been a filter as it is added to a lot of music videos such as Ben Howards music videos.

Typical types of narrative

A common convention within indie videos is to have a narrative style especially a warm in depth story that motivates or depicts someone's life in a realistic sense. This was done in Coldplay's Paradise when an Elephant is in a zoo and is lonely and wants to be free and escapes and finds various ways of transport to travel across the world to finally get to its destination in Africa where we see the rest of his friends or family eagerly awaiting him. The wasn't any performance in this music video and it was all linear based, which can also connote that the artists don't intend to broadcast their image and to rather tell a story or promote new faces in the industry such as actors and they would rather create and promote the song itself instead of them as artists. This also can connote that the artists would rather prefer to make and create a much more visual image rather than promoting themselves, however it is still conventional to indie music videos to contain performances or not as it depicts the artists style and life and the narrative that they want to convey. Another typical convention that indie music videos tend to have is not to have a predictable narrative right from the start, Paradise does have a fairly predictable narrative from the beginning but an indie genre doesn't require a predictable or non predictable narrative to class as one. However Paradise was still did have an engaging narrative and still used narrative devices such as restricted narrative or red herrings.

Typical Representations


In the Indie genre it is typical to have the lyrics to mean something to the artist that is performing or singing the song and hence the song having somewhat a reference to them and they believe it is important for it to be sung about. In Paradise the phrase 'Paradise' over and over again is a typical correlation to the fantasy world that the Elephant wants to experience or go to, which is then visually represented at the end during a reunion of his friends and family. This connotes that everyone aspires to have a ultimate ate goal or dream that they one day want to accomplish and the Elephant is a primary example of such determination, it can also have a direct link or message that the artist wants to their audience to have such goals In life and that they can always keep trying. This is fairly common in Indie videos and that the artist as primary control of the content they produce, without many restrictions unlike producer controlled artists.

In terms of costumes for the actors being depicted within the music video, it tends to be very childish and fantasy based such as the Elephant costume with lots of makeup being denoted and the use of a band at the end throughout the journey, but everything else stick relatively the same such as the mise-en-scene of the setting and locations and non actor used props and what this can connote is that the artist could be sending a message that you can and should stay true to yourself and be who you are, in terms of personality and physically hence the Elephant is the personality and the surroundings is the world around him, This can connote that they are just like regular people and want to make music that they would like to enjoy, whilst pop artists are generally wearing lots of makeup to make them look like a very famous idol with lots of fans. For example at 1:22 is a shot of the elephant in an airport terminal connoting the causal nature of the artists, even though they are wearing a rather non casual costume the representation and locations the shots are set in give a more casual approach to it.

Typical Sound Design

In the music video there is no diegetic sound meaning that there is no sound apart from the non diegetic sound from the song, making the song the primary focus, and this connotes a much more fantasy nature and vibe to the music video, the nature and style of the song fits the indie genre of being up coming and aspiring while keeping true to who you are, and the song creates that atmosphere. From the beginning of the song its much more calm with a much slower tempo of synthesisers and Violins and it starts to increase in speed at 0:13 and becomes slow again during the lyrics and then becomes much more upbeat and fast during the chorus segment towards then end it becomes calm again and much more emotional 3:55 following (McKee's 5 part structure) which connotes a much more emotional and compelling narrative creating a sense of happiness for the protagonist in the music video.

Typical Editing Style


The editing style denoted in Paradise is slow to begin with and decreases in duration and variation as the tempo and pace increases making the music video follow and cut to the beat, making it follow the typical indie genre conventions.

Another typical connection in the Indie genre is the use of Lots of effects in post production such as the use of blurs, and overlays in footage such as I've mentioned before. Indie music videos tend to use blurs as a dreamy effect to connote an sense of aspiration and sense of relaxation. Indie videos also tend to have distinct colour grade in post, and Paradise has a very saturated and vibrant colour grade making it suit the feel of aspirations and dreams. There are also lots of effects and abstract elements in indie videos to create a sense of surrealism such as Florence. This is fairly conventional for Indie music videos as it depicts their creativity and their nature as artists to create and write songs that they want to have a meaning.

Recurring Camera techniques.

Camera techniques and language within the Indie genre tend to be handheld and more non professional feel for example in the music video, Video Games the camera is predominantly hand held and jerky lacking the use of smooth shots such as Crane's and steady cams that the film industry predominantly uses. This is mainly what Indie artists mainly try to aim for, a reason why they would want this style is that they want to have a much more rogue feel to their music video and have their own style to their vison. Indie artists may have used equipment such as Monopods and some use of stabilisation because having no stabilisation at all makes the footage very hard to watch as its very jerky, so they made sure that they had a balance between the two mediums. This is seen Lana Del Rey at 0:21 as its clearly handheld, but has camera movement and its non static  with various longshots to Close ups, which creates and gives a sense of Edginess and rebellious to the typical camera conventions in music videos. This style that the artist has can be used to represent their brand identity and it can also convey and depict certain elements give much more story and narrative the music video such as the hand held scenes in the music video, Video Games as the and held nature connotes a much more causal approach to the scene unlike a very scripted and professional viewpoint.

In terms of proxemics and composition of the shot of the Indie music video, there is a lot of non conventional film shots such as the use of the rule of Thirds, as some of the shots do follow the typical conventions but the more old styled footage is genuinely non conventional such as the use of the actor not being in the full frame and when the actors aren't aware of the camera such as real life as it looks like it was shot on a phone at random. This is a common convention in Indie artists as the artists like to have a mysterious and edginess vibe to their style of music videos, and rather to put a focus on their narrative side of the music video instead of the Performance aspect or acting role.



Genre: Indie
Song: Ben Howard Old Pine

Friendship

Theme of friendship is also another main theme within the music video as Ben Howard is with another person in the non performance denoted at 2:53 where they are jumping from one cliff to another one. This connotes the bond of friendship between the two characters and how they all relate and connect to each other. The body language is very passive and non aggressive and connoting a sense of connection between the two characters, and how they are having a good time.

Friendship is also denoted when there are two people in the sea at 2:20 which is also a typical cinematic shot used in films that have a romantic genre such as couples and friends being together. The use of the neutral angle of the camera connotes the down to earth nature between the two people and how they have so much between each other.

Overall friendship is common within the Indie music video genre as they tend to focus the best and most happiest moments in life, which is a direct representation of the artists identity and brand.

Hedonism

In Ben Howards Old Pine there is a huge abundance of feeling good and enjoying yourself vibe in the music as in the music video He finds places that he has lots of fun throughout the entire song such as the use of Surfing and swimming on the beach, he also forgets all of his worries and the song has that wind down factors which is a common theme in Indie videos as the music videos tend to focus on feeling good about embracing your childhood, and how even when adults you still enjoy the same stuff. Theme is denoted a lot from the use of just lots of relaxing and calm shots of the sea which is all for fun and pleasure. This theme is also connoted in music videos such as Mumford and sons.

Nostalgia

In terms of nostalgia the theme in Ben Howards music video Old pine uses the heavily uses the sunset or golden hour lighting for the majority of the song with lots of establishing shots of landscape's and the use of the golden lighting of many various locations connotes the nostalgia of the areas depict places that he used to have haven gone to as a child and how its changed or how's its stayed the same, and the golden shine of the sun connotes then end of an era and how things continue to move on and how he's changed with time. I personally felt the use of this emotional during the beginning shots especially when the guitar starts playing signifying and complete trip from beginning to end as the actor Ben Howard returns back to when he may have grown up from.


How I would incorporate this into my music video?

For my music video the types of genres that I would like to include in my music video is the use of reoccurring editing/animated techniques which are commonly seen many music videos in the modern age. Another way I would use the genres to help promote my music videos is the use of themes and hidden messages that would be signified throughout the entire video.