Editing Day 3

Now that we have all of our filming done we have managed to successfully edit the entire music video. This was a very lengthy process and by taking out transitions this had led to other scenes being moved out of sequence. This was a huge problem but we managed to sort this out by cutting the edit instead of deleting it which would delete some of a shot with it.

Now the we have shown the video to our teacher we received both positive and critical feedback. We were told that we needed a female actress to clarify the protagonists actions and feelings. Also some of our shots were too long for a quite fast-paced song. This would mean that we would need to film more lip-synching shots in different locations as well as more shots to increase the pace of the video in conjunction with the pace of the song.

Editing Day 2

We managed to successfully edit the final 3rd of our music video.
This may lead to confusement because we haven't yet finished filming the middle part of our video.

We feel that our editing is coming along nicely and the transitions between shots are smooth and effective.

Editing Day 1

The first day of editing has been very successful.

Trying to learn how to work this new editing software "Final cut express" has meant that we have had to learn this from scratch.

Therefore the process of editing is taking much longer than last year when using "I movie." I'm finding it frustrating and stressful trying to learn this new software without being taught or having a manual.

Eventually after enough hard work and perseverance we managed to edit and complete the first 50 seconds of our music video.

Filming Day 5

We have finally finished our filming. We have filmed every single scene we needed as well as shooting a whole lip synched scene. Now we have everything we need we can begin to edit our music video for it to come together. It was harder to film than we anticipated compared to our Thriller we filmed last year. Instead of filming and then adding the music to our thriller last year, we had to film with the music. This was because it was vital for everything to be in time with each other otherwise the video would look ineffective and stupid to the audience.

Filming Day 4

Today we managed to film the majority of our music video. We managed to cultivate approximately 54 minutes worth of filming, however this is probably worth about 1 minute and 30 seconds of our music video.

We have underestimated the amount of time and work that needs to go into our filming and how long it takes to gather enough film to get our finished product.

Filming Day 3

Ryan and myself have finally started to film!
We decided to film the car scene which meant that I had to place the camera on Ryan's shoulder and hold it still while he drove home.
This didn't turn out to be very successful for several reasons:

• The cold weather outside and the heating in the car led to the camera lens continously fogging up.
• The bumpy roads meant the camera kept jolting around making the scene look silly.
• The way I had to sit meant I couldn't wear a seatbelt probably making it unsafe.
• We couldn't shoot this scene more than once because Ryan didn't want to waste his petrol

Filming Day 2

To make some progress since the last time we filmed we wanted to get everything ready.
Ryan was decorating so we were unable to use his house for filming which is a key location for our filming.
However we didn't want to do nothing so we got our set ready, by laying out drink and deciding what to use as a fake ecstacy pill, deciding for locations of where to place our camera to film and other props we may use etc.
We couldn't do as much as we wanted to but we are definately going to film our scene next time!

Filming Day 1

Although we intended to film today the weather conditions meant that it is impossible for us to film our scenes.
The hazardous pavements and roads prevented us from filming the scenes we wanted to because of health and safety.
In addition the heavy snowfall may have damaged the camera equipment meaning that we would have to pay the school to replace the equipment.

Weather conditions

The appearance of snow has made sure that the production of our music video will be harder and take longer. This is because even though the snow provides a rare opportunity to film with a beautiful background environment, the snow brings disruptions and inconveniences.

Such are: Trains being cancelled, dangerous icy roads and pavements and cold weather.

Running out of time

Although Ryan and myself have made sure we have planned out our music video thoroughly it has come at a cost of a reduced time budget. We only have 3 weeks left to film our whole music video and edit it. However we are confident that we can do this, I think we can film the entire video in one day as well as spending time after school to edit our video so we are sure not to miss our deadline of 17th December.

Health and safety - Risk assessment

Before filming we need to create a risk assessment so we know the dangers and issues that may arise while out filming. I've created a table to show the risk, the severity, how frequent it may occur and how to reduce the risk.

Risk	Severity	Frequency	Measures taken to reduce risk
Driving and filming	High	Low	Careful driving, wearing a seatbelt
Dark streets, icy	Medium	Medium	Stay near lighted streets
Carrying expensive equipment	Low	Medium	Double check all equipment is secure
Thefts	Medium	High	Hide the equipment from plain sight
Train station	High	Low	Stand back from the platform
Running up stairs	Low	Medium	Run slower

Organisation of Resources

On a basic level we have decided to go with the following as a first draft of what we believe is gong to be the organisation of how to split the resources and who is doing what:

• Performers: Myself, Ryan

• Locations: Ryan's car, Ryan's house, Central London (Leicester Square/Soho), London Tube/Train, Local Park
  
  

• Costumes: Casual clothing - as if going out for the night with a bunch of lads

Props: Paracetamol - acting as Ecstasy, glass of water, alcoholic drink

Organisation of Group

By splitting the workload evenly between Ryan and myself we have written out a basic plan to ensure we have an even amount of work to do so we don't let each other down.

Tasks Ryan is in charge of:

• Finding music for our video
• Researching into genres of music and artists
• Looking after the camera equipment and tripod
• Filming and directing the video
• Making appearances within the video
• Keeping Blog up to date

Tasks I am in charge of:

• Research into other music videos
• Researching into target audience
• Editing the preliminary, animatic and music video
• Creating the storyboard
• Making appearances within the video
• Keeping up to date on the blog

Animatic

Storyboard

We have completed our storyboard which consists of roughly 28 shots. We will be uploading our animatic very soon onto the blog to show our basic idea of our film. The storyboard took us a long time to complete because we wanted to have a good solid idea of what we want to do rather than just make it up when we get to filming our video.

Music Video Initial Ideas

Ryan and myself sat down and drew a spider diagram of our first thoughts and feelings towards a music video we would like to film. We drew this out on an word document below:

Music videos that shaped the 80's

During the 80's the music video came into fruition.

This decade ushered in the era of the music video, some were filmed as if a classic film, or a story or just plain weird.

Most of the artists are very well known and revolutionized the music and film industry creating a whole new one called the music video industry.

Many new directors that do not have enough credibility to direct films often start their careers directing music videos.

The first music video to star on MTV was "Video killed the radio star" by The Buggles

With a very appropriate title this music video paved the way for the growing influence of MTV and the significant impact of music videos damaging the influence of radios.

How do we expand our audience?

Now we know our target audience for our song we want to be able to come up with ideas to expand this audience.
We want to be able to do this so we can increase sales and revenue created as well as raise the profile of the band from the song.
Ideas that could influence this may inlude:

• Changing the image of the band to target more female teenagers
• Ask celebrities to recommend the song
• Advertise the band on television/radio
• Send out a viral campaign to raise the bands profile

Distribution of our Music video

We discussed ideas on places we would show our music video on television and the internet. We took into consideration that our song choice is an unsigned band and that this song will most likely not be a huge number one in the charts.

We came up with television channels such as:

• MTV (music television)
• Viva
• The Box
• The Vault
• Flava
• 4Music

We felt that this song wouldn't be a huge number one smash hit therefore our video wouldn't be very likely to be played during the prime time. Our time slot for our video would be during the day from around 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

We also thought of websites that would use our music video to promote the video as well as the bands profile:

• Youtube.com
• MTV.co.uk
• Musicjesus.com
• music.com

A new type of music video?

Although this video is not a music video it is an advertisement for a camera I feel it can be credited as a good source for music videos. The innovative idea to use only still camera shots to take pictures of printed off pictures is nothing short of genius and to use clever animation to make it seem as if it is moving gives a very unique effect.



This technique has already been used by media students for their coursework, seen below:

Although this video has copied every aspect of the advertisement previously shown it is still a very good video. Displaying impressive animation techniques consistently throughout the entire video.

What do you think is a music video?

Asking random people the question "What words come to your mind when you think of a music video?" These were some of the typical responses we received from members of the public courtesy of http://www.wordle.net/create.

Analysing the results from this research its suggested that there are very contrasting views on what people think about music videos. Some people said they can be stupid or clever, weird or simple and influential or controversial. Interestingly both "Youtube" and "MTV" came up suggesting that these two giant distributors of music videos are as influential as they seem.

Research into Target Audience

Discussing what kind of audience we would be attracting would require some research and surveys. Below are the results for interviewing 100 people to ask which genres of music they like best.

Below are the results from the survey about the break down

of genres for Male and Female. We interviewed the same people but changed the genres after learning we missed out a couple of popular genres. We tried to get a 50-50 ratio of males and females however because of the reality of more males than females in school we got as close as possible and got a 55-45 ratio of males to females.

By analysing the graph it is clear that males and females enjoy different types of music genres in different quantities.

The amount of people who enjoy indie, rock and pop are all very similar suggesting that they are similar genres and some of the most popular in music.

However genres such as Hip-hop, rap and punk are all male dominated genres which imply that these genres and the music is aimed more towards a male target audience than a female.

Alternatively females are more attracted to rock

and pop both very popular genres and clearly try

to aim for both males and females for a broader target audience.

Interviewing for Target Audience

We went around asking several people to ask them the question... "Think of a music video you remember... What is it? Why do you like it?" The majority of the feedback was good and was very helpful. The interviews may seem to lean more towards a male audience, this is because any girls we asked wouldn't appear on facebook but still answered our questions.

Preliminary Task

To do this we needed to come up with ideas for fiming a relevent scene in the space of less than an hour for one minute of the song. We clearly had underestimated thamount of work it takes to get the lip syncing correct. We decided to make up for this by not forgetting the importance of camera work and camera movement. We decided to utalise high and low angle shots in conjunction with long shots, close-ups and point-of-view shots throughout the scene. We managed to film this but unfortunately somebody accidentally used our tape and recoded over our preliminary video.

Our bands profile

The band members are:

Nick Fitzgerald - Singer, songwriter

George Kafka - Producer

Genres - Pop, Indie, Electronica, Alternative

This is the information they posted about themselves on www.unsigned.com:

Fij is singer/producer duo Nick Fitzgerald (Singer/Songwriter) and George Kafka (Producer.) We make electronic music influenced by a wide range of genres, bands, artists, and producers. We have been making music and recording together for three or four years although previously as a band; we decided to switch to the singer/producer relationship due to George's increasing interest in electronic music. We are currently in the process of recording the 5 track 'One More Year EP.'

Channel 4's 100 Greatest pop (music) videos Part 5

#1 Michael Jackson: Thriller
#2 Peter Gabriel: Sledgehammer
#3 A-ha: Take on Me
#4 Queen: Bohemian Rhapsody
#5 Madonna: Like a Prayer
#6 Robbie Williams: Rock DJ
#7 Michael Jackson: Billie Jean
#8 The Verve: Bittersweet Symphony
#9 Madonna: Vogue
#10 Nirvana: Smells Like Teen Spirit
#11 Coldplay: The Scientist
#12 Michael & Janet Jackson: Scream
#13 Pink Floyd: Another Brick in the Wall
#14 Christina Aguilera: Dirrty
#15 REM: Everybody Hurts
#16 OutKast: Hey Ya
#17 Blur: Coffee & TV
#18 Beyonce: Crazy in Love
#19 Madonna: Material Girl

Channel 4's 100 Greatest pop (music) videos Part 4

#20 Gorillaz: Clint Eastwood
#21 Queen: I Want to Break Free
#22 Justin Timberlake: Cry Me a River
#23 Britney Spears: ...Baby One More Time
#24 Radiohead: No Surprises
#25 Madness: Baggy Trousers
#26 TLC: Waterfalls
#27 David Bowie: Ashes to Ashes
#28 Foo Fighters: Learn to Fly
#29 Electric Six: Gay Bar
#30 Weezer: Buddy Holly
#31 Eminem: Stan
#32 Chris Isaak: Wicked Game
#33 U2: The Sweetest Thing
#34 The White Stripes: Fell in Love with a Girl
#35 Sinead O'Connor: Nothing Compares 2U
#36 Red Hot Chili Peppers: Give It Away
#37 Guns N Roses: November Rain
#38 Fatboy Slim: Weapon of Choice
#39 Pulp: Common People

Channel 4's 100 Greatest pop (music) videos Part 3

#40 Missy Elliot: Get Ur Freak On
#41 The Spice Girls: Wannabe
#42 Bjork: It's Oh So Quiet
#43 Dire Straits: Money for Nothing
#44 Kylie Minogue: Can't Get You Out of My Head
#45 Aerosmith: Crazy
#46 Adam & the Ants: Prince Charming
#47 The Prodigy: Firestarter
#48 Johnny Cash: Hurt
#49 Jamiroquai: Virtual Insanity
#50 Paul Simon: You Can Call Me Al
#51 Run DMC & Aerosmith: Walk This Way
#52 Massive Attack: Teardrop
#53 Wham: Club Tropicana
#54 Daft Punk: Around the World
#55 Fatboy Slim: Praise You
#56 Eminem: Without Me
#57 Meatloaf: I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)
#58 The Cure: Close to Me
#59 Abba: Knowing Me, Knowing You

Channel 4's 100 Greatest pop (music) videos Part 2

#60 Eurythmics: Sweet Dreams
#61 The Prodigy: Smack My Bitch Up
#62 Blur: Parklife
#63 George Michael: Outside
#64 Bjork: Human Behaviour
#65 Aphex Twin: Windowlicker
#66 Bob Dylan: Subterranean Homesick Blues
#67 The Beastie Boys: Sabotage
#68 Madonna: Ray of Light
#69 Frankie Goes to Hollywood: Two Tribes
#70 The Police: Every Breath You Take
#71 Bjork: All Is Full of Love
#72 Robert Palmer: Addicted to Love
#73 Basement Jaxx: Where's Your Head At?
#74 Wu-Tang Clan: Gravel Pit
#75 Duran Duran: Rio
#76 The Beatles: Strawberry Fields
#77 MC Hammer: U Can't Touch This
#78 Godley and Creme: Cry
#79 New Order: True Faith

Channel 4's 100 Greatest pop (music) videos Part 1

#80 Radiohead: Just
#81 Ultravox: Vienna
#82 50 Cent: In Da Club
#83 Shakespear's Sister: Stay
#84 The Boomtown Rats: I Don't Like Mondays
#85 Sid Vicious: My Way
#86 The Streets: Fit But You Know It
#87 Talking Heads: Once in a Lifetime
#88 Elton John: I Want Love
#89 Smashing Pumpkins: Tonight Tonight
#90 The Pet Shop Boys: Go West
#91 The Specials: Ghost Town
#92 Herbie Hancock: Rockit
#93 The Rolling Stones: We Love You
#94 Bonnie Tyler: Total Eclipse of the Heart
#95 The Cardigans: My Favourite Game
#96 So Solid Crew: 21 Seconds
#97 Cornershop: Brimful of Asha
#98 Bronski Beat: Smalltown Boy
#99 Supergrass: Pumping on Your Stereo
#100 Musical Youth: Pass the Dutchie

Cornershop - Brimful of Asha

I think this music video is original and unique because the idea of a girl playing her records and just having fun. The band name Cornershop appears repeatedly throughout the video. This appeared to be accidentally controversial as some people thought this was some kind of subliminal messaging but the band deny this accusation. I enjoy the idea of the images of the band on each record moving it gives a sense of energy and encourages the audience to get involved with the song and the beat.

Talking Heads - Once in a Lifetime

It is probably because of this music video by Talking Heads that has raised arguments whether music videos are an art form and an expression of art. It is clear however that this particular music video is considered to be the first music video to be considered art, this was a big deal. I enjoy the video but probably for the wrong reasons. Even though the video is serious and shows different cultures as well as representing victims of "shell shock" from world war I in dance, I thought the dancing was highly amusing.

Ultravox - Vienna

The music video of Vienna by Ultravox has been considered to be one of the strangest encountered. The story in the video has nothing to do with the lyrics of the song, however the video has some interesting features. The entire video gives a sense of surrealism, especially the dinner party scene where the is a man with a terrible disease, a one handed man and a tarantula crawling across another mans face. The video chanegs colour regularly from a blue/purple colour background to a normal coloured scene. Parts of the video give off a "Film Noir" look to givea older look to the video. I'm not sure what to make of the video myself, I am not a fan of this video but I do like the editing, camera shots and angles to emphasize the status of the charcters.

Getting music

We decided on our music to use for our video, (One more year) by Fij.
we felt that the lyrics (see below) were easy to follow with the exception of one word that can't be made out so i did my best to write down what I heard. I asked several people of their opinion of what the word was but I was met with confusion. We have decided to not lip synch that part of the song. Ryan and myself made the final decision to use this music rather than the other contenders because the tune was catchy, thus helping the audience visually associate the music with the video. In addition the chorus is slower than the rest of the song and can be exploited in a number of ways for excellent ideas for our video. All that is left to do is plan our video and film it. Our next task however is to create a preliminary task to practice our lip synching skill so we can be much better at it when coming to the making of the real video.

Music Playlist at MixPod.com

what's that...oo wha ah ooohhhh
ill go oo ohhhhh
you know oh ohhhh... ill see you again soon

we got one more year 'till we disappear,
there will be no more days just sitting here,
in a nice *niglybubblyteer,*
try so hard but i cant suppress the fear of so many people that I call my friend
one or a few more that its fun to pretend
while i done a bit wrong that I try to amend
and I'm so-so sorry if i hurt you but
this life is a life of Ecstasy I know that they're always next to me
say what they like it brings out the best in me

1 2 3 4 sing the rest with me

what's that...oo wha ah ooohhhh

ill go oo ohhhhh

you know oh ohhhh... ill see you again soon

oo wha ah ooohhhh

ill go oo ohhhhh

you know oh ohhhh... ill see you again soon

Missed the last train but its not surprising
Ain't no trains when the sun is rising
Hoods up checking each others eyes and pay a high price for the socialising
Jaw is aching, my dawn is breaking
Real life is overtaking, historical night in the making
Here comes the come down conversation

But everybody knows, the highs are worth the lows
Thats just the way it goes, thats just the path we chose
So let me take you back to half past 8
Waiting at a station and the train is late
I'ouda allowed myself to anticipate
So bring on the drums, bring on the base
A few hours later and the music was blaring out
Man there was nothing I cared about
Right then I'll say it again
Love my life and I love my friends

Like... what's that... oo wha ah ooohhhh

ill go oo ohhhhh

you know oh ohhhh... ill see you again soon

oo wha ah ooohhhh

ill go oo ohhhhh

you know oh ohhhh... ill see you again soon

ill see you again (x3)

But everybody knows, the highs are worth the lows

Thats just the way it goes, thats just the path we chose (x4)

what's that... oo wha ah ooohhhh

ill go oo ohhhhh

you know oh ohhhh... ill see you again soon

Finding music

Once getting myself into a partnership with Ryan we needed to decide on what music we want to use. We were told to not use copyrighted music like songs that were in the charts and those that had contracts and were owned by recording studios. This meant we had to turn to unsigned bands and artists for musical talent. We had to find a website where we could get a hold of all these things... such a website existed called www.unsigned.com which had everything we could ask for. The hard part was to know find a piece of music we liked and that would be a good foundation for a great music video.

Our search started with genres of music we generally like. Genres like rock, indie, acoustic, funk and pop. We had to take into consideration that we couldn't use music had had hardly any or no lyrics. This is because we need to be able to lip sync effectively throughout the video. Our search led us to several songs and artists. These include:

-The 99s
-SCAR
-1984
-Fij
-Oh, my glory days!

We decided that we needed to send out e-mails to these bands and request permission to use their music and ask for their lyrics so we could learn the songs to help us with our lip synching.

Unsigned

This website has been useful in trying to find music for our video.

We know that we can't use copyrighted music for our video in case we get pulled up and have our video removed.

The only problem with this website is that although there is a huge selection of artists and songs they aren't very good.

This limits what we want to use to film, because we need to like the music to be able to create a video to promote the track.

My Top 5 Music videos

These chosen music videos are my personal favourites and I feel that these are some of the videos that add the most value to their song.

#5 - Train (Hey Soul Sister)

This is a fairly recent song that has been released but I really like the song's lyrics as well as the music video. This still shot provides an excellent example of a graphic match where the letters on the people are already painted onto their shirts from a white out which I think is very clever. Throughout the video there is a cartoon element where the writing is shown to be written on the brick walls and smudges it as the words move along the wall.

#4 - Newton Faulkner (All I Got)
This is one of my favourite songs as well as the music video that goes along with it. The setting for the music video is within a guitar world shown by the still shot. The use of special effects here has made this music video memorable because the idea of an acoustic song within an acoustic world is a perfect setting for the song. Also the actions of the performer Newton Faulkner are related to the lyrics within the song that expresses the individuals emotions.

#3 - Bloodhound Gang (The Bad Touch)
This music video is very interesting, I am not sure what to make of it but I really enjoy it. Although there is some relevance to the lyrics the majority of the video is pretty strange. The whole idea of this video is to make the audience laugh and associate the song with the video. Also this type of video is a great example of a video that would be marketed through word of mouth. The still shot expresses a scene within the video which is very amusing to watch.

#2 - Vanilla Ice (Ice Ice Baby)

I think this is such a classic music video. The outrageous Vanilla Ice, in my opinion has created a gem of a music video. What I enjoy about this video is the very questionable dancing which is so bad its good, I find it very amusing. However the video has very good aspects in terms of media studies. The lighting within the video is very effective which creates distinct shadows, this technique is called chiaroscuro. The still shot shows this technique very clearly in addition to a very high angle long shot of the men dancing.

#1 - The Lonely Island (Jizz in my Pants)
This is my number 1 favourite music video. Although this band started their career on "YouTube" they have become a huge hit from this very song and music video. I find this video hilarious and recommend it to anybody aged between 16 to 30 years. This music video is the most relevant to the lyrics than any other song I have listened to in my life. To carry off this video the singers had to deliver a comical performance and I believe they pulled it off.

Music Video Brief

My task is to:

-Create a Music "Promo" Video that lasts up to 5 minutes, working in a group or on my own

-In addition a critical evaluation on the blog which includes research and planning

-Also create a "Digipak" for the music videos release on DVD

-A magazine advertisement for the DVD

The purpose of a Music Video and its success criteria

What is the purpose?

-Advertises the artist and song
-Draws attention to the music and song
-Illustrates the song
-Appeals to a visual audience
-Expresses an individuals emotions
-Tells a story
-Markets an image
-Persuades the audience to buy the CD or download the song
-Raises the audience awareness or profile of the artist/group
-To make an artistic statement
-Product placement

How do we measure the success of a music video?

-Word of mouth
-Number of hits on Youtube
-Newspaper articles/TV reports
-How many times its shown on Television
-Amount of Downloads (legal or illegal)
-How long it is in the charts for
-CD sales
-Amount of nominations or awards given for video

What is a Music Video?

A music video can be many different forms of expression, from the weird and funny to the serious and mundane.

Music videos can range from simple lip syncing of the band, the weirdest and craziest, the outrageous, the controversial and the humorous.

In my blog I will be reviewing and analysing many different music videos to better understand them and to create my own music video with my partner.

On our first lesson we was asked what we thought a music video was and give a few bullet points. These were my answers:

- A visual representation of what the song is about
- A way of conveying the singers thoughts and emotions
- Something that people can associate the song with
- A different form of art that can be expressed