Wordle

Our song choice for our music video is 'Empty' by Olivia O'Brien whose lyrics have been placed into a wordle. The cocktail glass shape was selected as the lyrics refer to 'drinking' as a way of escaping the issues surrounding young adults in the society. The choice of shape relates to Stuart Hall's reception theory (Encoding-Decoding) as the cocktail glass is a symbolic code perhaps following the stereotype that all teens result to alcohol but the audience decode a deeper message about a teen struggling with life alone. Olivia O'Brien's official music video demonstrates a party environment where a lot of alcohol is consumed and empty cups/bottles are left lying around to highlight the reckless behaviour that is a common stereotype associated with teenagers. Therefore within our music video we intend to use alcohol bottles for the same purpose to encode a message to our audience how it is often shown that young adults consume alcohol in order to avoid the current conflicts in their lives. In addition, I believe the colour scheme of the wordle is effective as within our music video we intend to use vibrant colours for our Mise-En-Scene to challenge audience expectations, as the lyrics refer to a suffering, depressed and confused young adult who unsure about where life is taking her.

Symbolic Codes - Conventions of the Pop Genre

We used Postcreator to show the codes and conventions expected within a Pop Genre music video. Each example represents the Pop Genre but present the artists in different ways, communicate different meanings but leave the audience understanding the purpose of the song and music video.

Location Ideas

  

I used Post creator to present our location ideas for our music video, we believe these locations are appropriate for our music video as they link well with the performance genre our video is based on and challenge audience expectations as they would expect a young, troubled girl to be locked away rather than being out on the streets or partying.

Editing ideas from successful music videos

The music video to ‘Where are you now’ by Skrillex, Diplo and Justin Bieber is extremely creative as not only does the editing keep the audience engaged and intrigued to see what’s going to appear next, the process of creating the video was shown. Cleverly, the artists who created the images covering Justin’s body are featured in the video, showing how they were in control. An example of this was when there was a close-up of a wet paintbrush being placed on a piece of paper and the cut to a stream of paint covering Justin’s neck. I think this editing technique would link well with our genre as the images could explain the inner feelings of the artist, or how the world views her because of her actions, appearance and attitude.

 

 

The music video to ‘How deep is your love’ by Calvin Harris and Disciples includes editing techniques that portray the pop genre. The face pace editing highlights the sense of confusion which is shown throughout the video, along with the decision to use a variety of colours on the actress and layering her movements. These editing techniques would fit well with our performance genre and song choice as we have decided to focus on the party/nightlife element therefore meaning colourful lights, fast pace editing, and layering would help to show a troubled, lost state but also the effects of the young girl’s actions.

 

 

The music video to ‘You make me’ by Avicii follows the narrative genre meaning that there are not many relations between our music videos. My reason for thinking this is because the editing techniques used are creative as there are titles added to introduce the characters, their movements are exaggerated because of the slow motion and fast pace editing but it all contributes to the story whereas our music video is based on the performance genre meaning we won’t be focusing our editing on the three stages of Todorov’s theory.

 



Choice of Youtube strategies for promotion to audience

       Interviews
Interviews would be a successful way in promoting our music video to a wider audience and having a personal connection with our audience. The interview above demonstrates how the artist is able to share the meaning of her lyrics and video giving the audience a further understanding of her work.

Behind the scenes footage
By sharing footage with our audience about the process of making the music video, our audience will be intrigued to watch the final product, have knowledge of the meaning of the Mise-En-Scene and have a clear idea of our intentions. This will also be helpful in showing the fans what equipment is used to influence them to recreate a cover or make their own individual video.

Mini - Documentary
Some artists create mini-documentaries for fans about tours/live performances when fans are unable to attend as a way of providing information about themselves and promote other work that will be appearing.

Covers
Artists encourage their fans to make covers and experiment with the music and technology, this is a perfect way to promote the artists song and other work as well as inspiring others to recreate the music video. In addition it gives fan members the opportunity to discuss their likes/dislikes about each others recreation as well as what could be successful.

We would use interviews to promote our video as we would be able to share our reasoning as to why we did what we did or what we used in the music video giving our audience a further insight to the meaning behind the acting and lyrics. In addition interviews would give us the opportunity to answer any questions from our target audience about the creation or concept of the video. As well as this mini documentaries would be a good way of sharing with our audience information about the production stage of the video as well as talking about the work that may lead on from this.

Filming Schedule

Here is our filming schedule commencing Tuesday 14th 
https://doodle.com/poll/g6d84qe85fhbyp6a

Media Theory: Uses and Gratifications

Music Genre Representation Video Experiment

In the first scene the MES depicts the genre as it is set in a school. We chose this as this location is most relatable to the audience. In regards to actual music videos ( for example Avril Lavigne "Heres to never growing up") This location has the ability for many different things to occur which means that the same location in different videos, different stories and events can happen. We used a close up for this scene as in pop music videos it often features lots of close ups of the artists face which is used to allow the audience to see the artists facial expressions and to better understand their emotions, thoughts and feelings. Pop music video costumes can either be really extreme or simple to relate to the audience. In this case we used a sparkly pink top to link to the music and relate to the audience.

In the second scene we used a brightly coloured background to emphasise the spectacle element of the pop genre.The mid-shot also emphasises the vocalist performing as well as the background. Artists and actors in pop music videos usually wear a lot of makeup which defines their facial features better and allows the audience to clearly see their expressions. With this in mind, I did Cherry's makeup quite full on to represent this.

In the third sequence, we focused on the editing as pop music videos use tints and filters to make them more intriguing to the audience. By adding filters it can give off certain moods and emotions. We used a mid shot to  show the creative ability of the artist by capturing her singing with a microphone. MES is effectively used in this scene as it attracts the audience to the video as it is eye catching and draw them into watching it beginning to end which is important as we do not want them to lose interest. Lighting is also used effectively as it makes the video more realistic as the bright colours make the audience feel happy and makes them feel like they are part of the video.

These sequences use Berger's theory. This is because all the scenes can be interpreted differently as different audiences have different perspectives. For our music videos, we have decided to do the Pop Genre as it is the one that can be used best within a music video.

Music Labels Research

To gain a better understanding of record labels in the music industry I did some research on some:

Music video locations research (whiteboards)

Here is a clearly understanding of where cherry and I could film a music video around our school. These are some initial ideas presented on the whiteboards:

As a result of collecting these ideas, we have widened our knowledge and understanding of the planning of music videos as well as brainstorming locations that we could possibly use in our music video.

4 different representations

Did any common themes come up on the board?

The most common representation of the performers are that they are white female teenagers,  the main location that came up on the boards was that of the singer performing on stage and dancing or with a girl group

What ideas that you had about the main actor match (or don't match) with what the others describe?

We shared a lot of our ideas with the other members of our class, which means that we as a group have a good understanding of what to aim for when creating our music video, as the common perception is that the main singer is a white female in her early 20s, singing on stage, although there are a lot of similarities, there are also some differences including that the location of where it is set, as this is different on a number of boards.

Do their ideas match yours?

Overall, most of the other peoples ideas matches with ours which gave us a good idea of where to start for planning our music video.

Song choice

 

The reason that we have chosen this song for our music video is because we think it would be relatively easy to incorporate this as a spectacle element and would be useful to fulfil it's genre. We believe that a young female audience would be able to relate to the lyrics and have an understanding of the struggles that the artist is going through. In our music video we will use theories such as Levi Strauss' binary opposites theory to challenge audiences expectations and creative editing techniques to get the main message of the song through as well as the pop element of the song.

Annotated Images (Genre and Semiotics)

For the narrative genre still I think that the black and white one was most effective due to the fact that the colours are often used and portray a sad/ depressing emotion. One example of another media product that uses this effect is Adele "Someone like you" to reflect her mood which is important as then the audience can relate and reflect on her feelings.

The most effective performance still was the one with the white spots which is shown to be like a spot light on the vocalist.. This was effective as the light is often focused on the main singer which draws more attention which suggests they are of more importance and authority. One example of this effect used in a music video is Maroon 5 "Moves like Jagger"

The most effective spectacle still was the colour isolation one as the colour is really emphasised giving it more meaning. Another example of this is shown in Rihanna's "Umbrella" music video in which colour isolation is used to split the screen vertically to show contrast between the orange and black and white.

I think that the most effective intersexual still was the red filter which connotes lust and women and puts emphasis on the lips of the singer. Another video where this is used is "How deep is your love" Calvin Harris

In depth analysis of videos produced by other students

           Firstly, the editing with in this video is extremely creative as the brightly, coloured writing/images that are layered over the top of the artist singing refer to lyrics within the song, as well as the thoughts and feelings of the artist. In addition to this technique has been increased in speed to create a chaotic sequence and give the audience enough time to catch key words. This technique encodes a message for the audience to later on decode and have a clearer understanding on the effect of the lyrics. Later on in the video variations of speed are used when the artist is pinning up statements about being happy with yourself and ignore what society 'expects'. Strangely, within the video footage from previous fashion shows have been included to highlight what society present as 'perfect', by adding this it links to Levi Strauss' binary opposites theory, as on the runway the women are showed in that way for pleasure whereas in the music video it is a realistic version of young women today.
Unfortunately, I don't believe that the Mise-En-Scene is creative as apart from the white background that includes all the exciting editing, we only see the artist wondering through the rooms of her house to match some movement with the lyrics e.g. thinner is better the artist breathes in whilst tightly grabbing her waist. Along with this I don't believe there were many imaginative shots or transitions, as many shots such as close ups were often repeated, due to this I don't think an extremely high mark could of been rewarded.
From this video I've learnt that as a group we need to look deeply into our planning to make sure our cuts, transitions and shots are as creative as possible to enable us to get full marks. So far our editing techniques that we intend on using really help in portraying our performance genre however, I believe we can find ways of making it more appealing to our audience as successfully done by this group.



From the start fast pace edits are used within the video to avoid making the audience uninterested by spending to long on a simple shot, the effect of this edit is that it speeds up the video and keeps the audience focused. Moments of the video are also in slow motion to make the audience focus on a particular person or prop. I believe this technique would be useful in our music video as we can show a quick progression is the state of our artist and her reactions in a variety of environments. Cleverly, near the start of the video the opening of the front door introduces a new location and costume, making their Mise-En-Scene interesting. Throughout, the audience has to decode much of the video as there are often sharp cuts and transitions meaning that the audience isn't given a lot of information at one time.
Even though there are costume changes within the video the costumes themselves are very simple and plain, which leads to them not standing out in the locations used as they look like local areas rather than interesting. High and low key lighting are used in the music video which I think is effective as it shows a concept of time, suggesting that we may see a change in characterisation due to the time of day. Panning and tracking is often used which is effective as our intentions with these cinematography techniques is to show our creative locations and how a specific area affects the mood of the artist
From this music video I have realised how not spending too long on a shot can be extremely effective as it gives nothing for the audience to decode or be interested in. In addition a considerable amount of swift transitions will be useful in our video ensuring we get full marks.

Work in Progress - (6/11/17)

Here are some images that were taken during our storyboarding process, we are enjoying this process as it gives us the opportunity to brainstorm and write down the ideas that will make our music video successful and achieve a high grade.

In depth analysis of student music video

This students music video fits the conventions of the pop genre. There is a strong element of performance which is portrayed well through the editing which fits with the tone of the music. As shown in the picture, it focuses on the mise-en-scene on the performers, emphasising the background with the characters well lit up. However, I feel like it lacks a lot of editing in regards to get full amount of marks. The transitions and cuts were okay and had good attention to detail however I did notice nearing the end of the video that the girl lip syncing was out of time therefore made me realise the precautions we need to take in order to not make this mistake when filming our video so that we create the best music video possible. Linking back to the transitions, this could have been improved by adding different editing techniques to make it even more intriguing. I think we can learn from this video and take the use of interesting cinematography that links well with the song and add editing techniques to make it even more visually interesting.

This shot of the teenage girl shows off an amazing editing technique which immediately caught my eye. It almost looks like someone has doodled around the teenager. It fits in with the codes and conventions of the song. In addition, the bright colours reflect her emotion and emphasises her character.

This video is an amazing example of a top level music video due to the many great editing techniques. It gives the video a contemporary feel and helps represent the spectacle side to the music video. I feel like we can take a lot from this music video and is a great example of the type of editing that we should be using and how it should be used to show off technical skills and also works alongside cinematography to make an intriguing premise that works extremely well with the pop song they have chosen.

Overall, there are many elements and techniques that we can take away from these videos. It is essential to relate to the target audience and tailor the visuals to them. Contrastingly, these two videos have a clear, defined genre and we will definitely use this to our advantage.

Creative stills

I think that the most creative shot is the close up one of the lighter (bottom right hand corner). I think this as it represents our theme of rebellion which was a concept that we wanted to build on in regards to our shots. I think that our least creative shot was the mid close up of cherry with the hoodie over her head (top right hand corner). There is nothing interesting going on in this still and the overall look is boring and the attention to framing was poor as you can see windows in the background which suggests that it was taken in a school. This task was helpful for our music video as we were ale to think of more conceptual ideas in terms for props in our music video. For the lighter we could link this to the lyric "smoke". We have used a variety of different shots which will incorporate within our music video.

Props List

We have chosen these props as we feel that they are the most relatable and fit best with our pop genre and conventions of our video. Our video will be based on spectacle so we felt it was key to include glass alcohol bottles and plastic cups. The balloon is something we thought we could use in a creative way in regards to the fact that when popped, it would reflect the state of mind that the youth is feeling. The props also fit in well with the codes and conventions of our genre as they are common factors of pop music videos and often the main focus.

Filming Locations

This video will help in regards to creating our music video by allowing us to have a better idea on where we want to film. Most of the locations that are shown will be used in our video however several locations may differ due to further research and planning.

A2 Imogen copy video

Here we have done a remake of a small section of an existing A2 music video to expand our editing skills so that we can broaden our knowledge and use a variety of different editing techniques. From this we will now use some of these techniques in our music video. One example is the overlaying of the vocalist which puts emphasis on her and suggests an erratic state of mind that the audience can reflect on.

Costume, Hair and Makeup

http://pinterest.co.uk/etrayling/costume-hair-and-makeup


The singer is going to be wearing extreme ripped black jeans due to the fact that it is relevant in todays modern society and gives off a youthful feel that the audience can reflect on. We want it to have a relatable/ contemporary feel as the music is contemporary which is contrasted through each costume the performer wears. We are going to use crop tops to fit in with the conventions of pop music. We want to use this as it has connotations of youths in todays society which teenage girls can relate to and it will highlight the creative themes that we want our video to convey. Another possible outfit that we might use is a black mesh bodysuit with a silver bandeau underneath. This again relates to the contemporary fashion that people (teenage girls) wear in todays society. I would like to use heels (preferably the maroon velvet ones that I have pinned to our Pinterest board) as they would really fit in with our character as it shows clear conventions of the genre and combined with the rest of the outfit gives it that contemporary feel. In regards to appeal to the youths, we want to use extravagant hairstyles and makeup to make it more intriguing to them.

Filming Progress

 During our half term we travelled to London in order to find some creative locations which fitted well with our choice of music and genre. We took a range of different shots which will help us be successful in having a different yet effective Mise-En-Scene, in addition to this as a group we have decided on appropriate costumes, hair/makeup style which fit with the location and genre. The image above was taken in Camden, which luckily has many outstanding pieces of art which will work well within our video, along with this the image constructs an editing technique of speeding up a shot which we intend to use often within our music video.
So far we have gathered a range of footage which we believe will contribute to the success of our music video and help us with further planning to create an imaginative piece.

Work progress (half term filming)

During   our half term, we filmed our song in several different locations and filmed the main vocalist singing the song. We used a number of different items of Mise - en - scene as well as cinematographic shots that will make our music video one of a kind. This footage will be used as back up footage and was a good filming exercise which has broadened our knowledge and helped us to develop more ideas for storyboarding for our final music video.

Health and Safety

When we are filming there are lots of different things that we constantly need to be aware of. Most notably is the equipment that we're using. There is a danger of faulty electrics and tripping over leads therefore when using this equipment we will need to take extra precaution. However, this hazard can be avoided by making sure all our equipment is working properly and that all plugs are turned off at the wall when they are not in use. Additionally, we will need to be aware of our location that we are using, London. We will especially need to watch out for our equipment in case they get stolen or damaged. Weather could also be a factor as if the weather has been unfortunate then it will be wet and slippery which can lead to us slipping over and damaging the equipment and most importantly injuring ourselves. One way that we can avoid this is to wear appropriate clothing when we are not filming to make sure we do not. Due to London being a very busy place, we will need to be careful when filming on the street therefore awareness of traffic will be essential and we should stand as far away from the road as possible to make sure that there is less of a danger.

Storyboading Progress

We are currently in the process of storyboarding our music video. We have completed the main ideas and concepts and have asked ourselves three questions; what we want the audience to think, know and feel throughout our video. We are enjoying storyboarding as it is getting us excited to film our video which I think is important as if we are enjoying it then it will enable us to produce the best, most creative music video.

Flip Chart Ideas

This flip chart presents our ideas for what we want/need to include for our music video to be creative and stand out to our target audience. This was an effective way of making sure we knew what Mise-En-Scene, cinematography and editing would be essential for our video to construct a representation of the performance genre. 

Annotated Images (Genre and Semiotics)

Berger - Ways of seeing



Gauntlett -Masculinity in Crisis




Mulvey - The Male Gaze


Here are some annotated images from different genres of music videos, where we explored the range of semiotics within the frame that link to the specific genre. This task also gave us the opportunity to think about what key features of the frame are essential is highlighting the genre we want to show in our music video.

Joseph Kahn - Case study of music video director

Ahn Jun-hee known professionally as Joseph Kahn, is a Korean American film and music video director, who has worked with a range of different artists including Taylor Swift, Imagine Dragons, Eminem, U2, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Gwen Stefani, Blink 182, Backstreet Boys, Mariah Carey, Aerosmith, Justin Timberlake, George Michael, Kelly Clarkson, Black Eyed Peas, Beyoncé, and many more. In addition to this he has successfully completed a twenty-five year run that's included hundreds of award-winning commercials and billions of music video views. He has won multiple Grammys, MTV VMAs, Clios, Emmys, and honoured with a lifetime achievement award by the UK Music Video Awards. Kahn started at the New York University Tisch school of Arts, which he dropped out of after a year, so that he could direct music videos. In 1999, Kahn started his own production company with Chris Lee, SuperMega  Media which enabled him to work with diverse artists and get him where he is today.

            Gwen Stefani's music video 'The Sweet Escape' includes many symbolic codes to highlight the pop genre, along with Kahn's intentions to meet audience expectations. Firstly, this is shown through the cinematography, as the repetition of close ups highlights the importance of the artists presence in the frame however, long shots are used to show the audience the artists outfit and surrounding to signify her criminal state of mind. Successfully, the Mise-En-Scene adds to the criminal aspect of the video as the artist in placed in limited, tight, stripy clothing with heavy makeup and well styled hair which meets audience expectations, as this is how women present themselves in society in order to be an attraction. Cleverly, many cuts are used within the video, this is significant as one scene refers to Rapunzel fairy-tale, symbolising that she feels trapped and needs to escape society this is also shown by the lyrics 'I need to get out'.

Levi Strauss' Narrative Theory

Strauss' theory is about how binary opposites can result in conflict. This is shown in our video by the fact there is conflict with the girls emotions. Our main focus for the binary opposite is between good and bad which reflects our lyrics. Throughout the video the audience are shown different perspectives.

Semiotics and genre analysis (Will.i.am "Bang Bang)

Here I have analysed Will.i.am's "Bang Bang" music video. The most noticeable feature that caught my attention to the performance was the sepia filter. This made me think and reflect about the story behind the song and what time period the artists wanted to show and set the song in. I very much enjoyed the binary opposites between the genre of the song which included some rap and electronic sounds contradicted with the jazz. However the artists costumes were very 1920's style which gave the video edge.