Director Research - Director X

Director X is a Canadian director and has been working in the directing music video industry for 15 years. His trademark is tweaking the letterbox format; instead of just using black bars on the top and bottom of the frame to frame the image, many videos by X actually feature the bars opening vertically to reveal the video and closing vertically at the end, like a letter box. 

Director X has worked with a number of artisits, making sure that each one is never the same including 

- Drake
- R. Kelly
- The Wanted
- Justin Bieber
- Nicki Minaj
- Sean Kingston
- David Guetta
- Ludacris
- Rihanna
- Usher
- Jay-Z
- Alicia Keys

Lip Syncing Shoot

We recently shot the first part of our lip syncing. We decided that we needed to develop and demonstrate our skills to show our diversity. We used the drama studio to film out sequence because it was easy to get to and we had all our recourses close by. For this sequence we decided to splatter a vibrant colour of paint powder over our faces to make it look more effective and this would help ys link it to the powder paint fight section of the music video. We shot the sequence with the 75mm lens so that it was close up to the lips and so you couldn't see any other features of their face apart from their nose. We decided to also test out different shots we saw that one girl had pain across one side of her face so we thought to film half of her face whilst singing. These shots looked really effective because we used bright light and it showed off the powder paint really well.

Editing Research Part 1

Martin Garrix- Animals

- Number of cuts in the video: 144
- Shrinking time
There is shrinking time throughout the whole of this vide, they use choppy cute to give this effect. They use very choppy cuts when the music reaches the climax/ when the beat drops. The visuals don't always fit to the music but main parts of the music do fit with the visuals however.

Avicii - You Make Me

Number of cuts in the video: 214
- Shrinking time
This is shown throughout video by using fast choppy cuts.
- Visuals are established just before the beat drops.
The cuts are very choppy and are put on the shown for just the right amount of time for your brain to process the visuals. Which means you likely not to get bored with visuals.
- Expanding time
Was shown at the end when they were goijng across the bridge together at the back of the car, showing that they were together and it was the end.





Jason Derulo - Talk Dirty To Me

Rudimental - Waiting All Night


Rudimental - Right Here Right Now


Storm Queen - Look Right Through


D Banj - Oliver Twist

Editing - Post Production

The day after we shot our powder paint fight scene we uploaded out footage onto the Mac. We were feeling very anxious and hoping that the visuals worked with the sound otherwise we would have to re-shoot and come up with a different concept wich none of wanted to really do. we were setteled on this scene and having to re-shoot would of been very time consuminbg and stressful. We realised when we put the footage into Final Cut Pro that the wide shots were much worse quality and had no depth to them whereas the close ups and the mid shots where sharp and had really exellent lighting. This meant that we couldn't use the wide shots for a long period of time and it was best to just use them in fast choppy shots.Dance tracks use fast choppy editing and re-use shots which was great for us as it allowed us to re-use our really good shitsd againa giving us enough footage. When we started to edit the sequence we saw how well the paint fight worked and we were so pleased! Story boarding really helped us because we knew exactly what shots we needed and when we needed them making it quicker. Even though some shots didn't quite work where we thought we wanted them we were then able to add other shots that worked better. When editing we found that a lot of our "bloopers" worked really well with our video and we ended up using quite alot of them.

Lighting and colour research - Powder Paint Fight

Lighting was probably one of the most important aspects we needed to consider when shooting our powder paint sequence as we decided that we would be shooting in the dark. We needed to make sure that it was bright enough to see the actors and paint but not to bright so that you could't tell it was dark.We spent alot of time discussing the different lighting we may have to consider and how easy it was to get flood light and generators down to our location. All of us had a lot of ideas about the light from having two spotlights looking into the camera from behind the two lines of girls and boys so that it was just the silhouettes that showed up to having differnt colour lights really show off the different colours and moods. Eventually we came to the decision that this may not be thast easy to do and affordable. We then thoguht we should go to our location to see how much room we had and how much light we needed. We took the white spotlight with us that attaches to the camera and realised that this was bright enough and we didn't need any other lights. We chose to use the white spotlight and not a coloured one becasue the paint colour will be more distictive.

First Day Shooting; Powder Paint Fight

We shot our powder paint sequence at night, this is because the paint would really stand out when we added the right amount of lighting. We decided to shoot just this once as we had only a certain amount of powder and we could not afford to re-shoot and if we did end up re-shooting we might of had to buy new costumes depending on how well it the paint came out the first time. We made sure we were as organised as we could be so we each worte a list of what we had to do and bring with us to make sure we didn't forgrt anything as we could not afford to.
When everyone got to our location t 6pm we breifed them on what the plan was so they knew what we were looking for and what they needed to do. We tried to make them feel as comftable as possible before we shot. At 7pm we started to shoot, this was just right as it was dark and it was the look we were going for.We set the camera to shoot 50fps rather than 25fps so that when we slow it down in editing it will be smoother and less jolty. We knew that we only had one chance to get our "clean shot" so we filmed everything we needed before the paint was thrown. After we got our clean shots we told them that they could litterally just start throwing the paint when we told them too. We kept shooting untill the powder paint was finished and we felt we had enough shots.
Overall the shoot went really well, we felt confident with the footage we got. The costuming and location worked really well and we really felt like we captured the essence of the 50's stlye and the conflict between the couples. We then asked the actors if they enjoyed the shoot and what were their view's.
The only real problem we had was that our 3rd couple said they couldn't do it last minute. We managed to get a 3rd girl but not another guy, so we ended up having 3 girls and 2 guys which at first we were a bit sceptical but in  the end it worked and didn't turn out that bad. Also another aspect i would of changed was to get a few more differnt shots rather than just the same shots of people throwing paint and close up's. I think that maybe filming when people didn't know they were being filmed would of given us a more natural look.

Research-Island Records

Island Records signed John Newman when he was 20 years old. It was founded in Jamica by Chris Blackwell in 1959. Island Records was the largest indie record label in history it is based in the UK and is now owned by Universal Music Group.They are a huge record label who have also signed artists such as:

- Disclosure
- Drake
- Avicii
- Mc Fly
- Nicki Minaj
- Kid Cudi
- Rizzle Kicks
and many more. They have a wide range artist's who are all have their own unique stlye and are all well known across the globe. This gives Island Records a good reputation and shows that they are very sucessful as business.

Voyerism

This goes along with the idea created by Laura Mulvey, who suggested that the female body within film, TV and music videos are from the POV of a hetrosexual male.

Vouyerism is a form of 'looking' - this could be upon another person, for example spying, through binoculars, or even a video camera filming the perspective of someone else's life.

The Male Gaze, developed by feminist, Laura Mulvey describes how the audience, or viewer, is put into the perspective of a heterosexual male. Mulvey states that in film women are typically the objects, rather than the possessors. The male gaze occurs when the camera puts the audience into the perspective of a heterosexual man. It may, for instance linger over the curves of a woman's body. Voyerism is a form of "looking."

The woman is usually displayed on two different levels:

-    As an erotic object for both the characters within the film

-   The spectator who is watching the film

The Male Gaze typically focuses on:

-      Emphasising curves of the female body

-     Referring to women as objects rather than people

-     The display of women is how men think they should be perceived

-      Female viewers, view the content through the eyes of

a man

What this means...

Goodwin's theory states that women in music videos and movies are portrayed in a sexual manner, making it seem as though they are avaliable and desirable to men and at a lower status to the men. It also gives men/boys the impression that women are to be treated in the way they are in that video. For example, Wiley's video 'Heatwave' shows lots of women and 2 male's one being the singer/rapper. The the camera angles focusing on the female 'assets' throughout the video.

Props research - powder paint fight

The only props we need for the powder paint fight is the powder paint. We had to think about the quantity we needed and the colours we wanted to use. As their were 6 actors and we needed quite a lot of paint for it to last the whole time. Also we had to make sure that we could afford it and budget our money. We ended up with pink, blue, green, orange, yellow and red. These are all bright colours and will look good all together being thrown in the air. We ended up buying 2.5kg of each colour which should be enough for all of the actors to throw. 

 

Hair and make up research - powder paint fight

The men's hair will all be normal or gelled however the women's hair is going to be in a 50's style as John Newman's style of video represents this era. We decided we wanted both the women's hair down or pinned up so that it really emphasises the movement of them throwing the paint because the hair will move a lot when they move forward to throw the paint or pinned up to contrast with the others. We looked at some photos of what we want their hair to look like and we all decided on this sort of style as it is simple and not too complex. It will not take away from the video too much. For the make up we decided just normal make up with red lipstick so that it gives that 50's look again.

 

Costume research - Powder Paint Fight

We decided that the guys in the paint fight should be wearing smart clothes so we have got them to wear a white shirt with black jeans or trousers with black shoes. This meannt that this would contrast with the brightly coloured paint really well and show up on the white shirt.

For the girls wee decided that we wanted the paint to stand out on their clothes so we chose white skater dresses with black high heels. This still gives us the 50's look we are looking for.









                                                                       

 

We got our outfit inspiration and the powder paint fight inspiration from the photographer Tyler Sheilds with
 his series of photos called 'Chromatic'.

Location research - powder paint fight

For our powder paint scene we were first wanted to do it in a warehouse , we then realised that it would be too expensive and it wouldn't work, we then looked for  a standard wall with a concrete floor. We wanted it to be a simple as possible as the paint and would be the main vocal point and the audinece attention would not be distracted by anything else going on. We went for a drive around town and looked around some places that we could do some filming. We eventually found underneath the Maidenhead bridge where there are arches which are perfect for what we wanted to do. The space under the arches are big enough to fit the actors and we can get a spot light to light up the location as we are doing it at night in the dark.

TEXTUAL ANALYSIS - DJ Fresh - Gold Dust

 Introduction and Genre

 -Dance
Common features of this genre:
- Upbeat
- Fast pace /fast tempo
- Bouncy/lively
- Energetic
- Culture relates to the type of dance - American culture/South American
- The video is a typical dance video - very energetic and lively
- There are a few slow motion movement which break up the sequence so we don't get lost, and also exaggerate the fast paced action

What is the relationship between lyrics and visuals?
-  Being a concept video, the lyrics do not have a clean cut, direct link to the lyrics in the song
-  However there are a few cases where they do crossover;
-  When the lyrics say "running away" the visuals are the skipper, running and travelling
- "Hands up" the skipper put their hands up
- "Gold dust" there is someone wearing a gold coat/jacket
-  The skipping is totally unrelated to the song apart from the jumping aspect

What is the relationship between music and visuals?
- The visuals often match up to the tempo of the song at certain points
- For example, during the tempo build up, close ups/establishing shots (like someone shooting a basketball into a net) are used, then when it reaches the peak, cuts back to the fast action skipping
- However, slow motion shots are used during the heavy tempo sections too - to provide a contrast which makes the skipper appear even faster - like it's in fast forward

Are there close ups of the artist and star image motifs?
- There are many close ups used - especially of the young children looking/reacting to the older people skipping
- Establishes culture more
- They don't have much money so can't afford to do typical sports - skipping has been passed down through the generations
- The matching girls' tops say " the new front ear" which could be "frontier" meaning development innovative research - which links to the name DJ Fresh

Is there reference to the notion of looking?
- There is great emphasis placed on the women in the video
- Male Gaze 
- Voyeurism
- Women are perceived as the idols/main focus
- The 2 girls are quite provocative/sexualised
- Slow motion of the men's reactions show them looking impressed/satisfied
- Everyone crowds around to watch the girls 

Is the music video performance based, narrative based or concept based?
- Concept based with an essence of narrative
- More concept - skipping
- Girls/culture - narrative

 Conclusion
- Overall it is a very interesting video which covers the main connections of dance music videos
- I think it is very successful and the unusual topic of skipping suits the song and makes you want to watch more
- To improve it, i would perhaps add a bit more relevance/build up to the 2 girls

Storyboard

Our storyboard for our music video to John Newman's 'Love Me Again'...

Shot List

Our shotlist for our music video to John Newman's 'Love Me Again'...

Our ideas

When thnking about what we were going to do for our music video, we came up with a few ideas. One of which we thought we thought we should do a typical dance video, where it was going to be one bog party with a montage of different scenes and have a number of narratives going on throughout. We then thought realistically and how easy and practical this idea was and decided to have a narrative/ concept based video with 2 main scenes and lips in between one with a couple arguing and fighting in a house and the other scene would be 3 couples having a powder paint fight, but still encorprating the 50's / retro stlye the John Newman portrays in his videos.

John Newman - Representation, appearance and style explored further

Colour - His album cover uses blacks, creams, dull reds. He dosen't use bright colours for any of his sigle covers either.

Fashion - In his music videos he wears quite plain clothes, his clothes are quite dark he wears, blacks and greys. The actors in his video'sgo for a 50's look with bright coloured floral dresses or straight loose fitted trousers (as shown in 'Love Me Again'). Their hair and makeup also match the 50's them with girls with big curls or pin up hair and the male actors some wearing the gel, slick back look

and others just with short "normal" hair.

 

Appearance- In John Newmans music videos and pictures he wears clothing that looks 50's retro i.e. Love Me Again he wears black jacket, white shirt and black trousers and in Cheating he wears black jacket, black and cream jumper

Style- John has a retro stlye to him that comes through from his appearance and music video's.
 

John Newman - Career and early life

The English singer and musician John Newman grew up in Settle in Yorkshire Dales. At the age of 14 he started to play guitar and even started to write his own song. Shortly after he then learnt how to record and produce his own music and went on to DJing, When he turned 20 he moved to London where he started a band and was signed to Island Records where he relseased his single "Cheating" as a download song.

In May 2012 John Newman featured on Rudimental's single "Feel The Love". The single got to number 1 on the UK Singles Chart in June 2012. In June 2013 John Newman released his debut single "Love Me Again" as the lead single from his debut studio album and also went to number 1 in the charts. In October 2013 he released "Cheating" as his second single from Tribute his début studio album.

 

Song Choice

When first thinking of a song we knew we definetly wanted to go for dance as our genre this helped us make our descion when we chose to go for John Newman's - Love Me Again (kove remix) we then asked permission to use his song. Emma emailed his management to ask for the permission and they replied saying that we can use it.

Bittersweet Symphony - The Verve - Medium close up tracking shot

Shot

- Tracking shot of feet, pans up to full body, he waits at pavement, camera goes across road, he waits for a bit, he starts to walk across road with camera tracking him from front, cars goes past him straight after he crosses.

Clothing

- The clothing that our actor will need to wear are black/dull clothing all over.

Equiptment

- The equipment that we will need to shoot this clip are the camera and the stedicam 

 

Firth 1998

Firths Theory
This is a theory where music videos can only be categorised into JUST THREE different types.

- Performance which is an act of staging or presenting a play, concert or other form of entertainment.
- Narrative which is a series of connected events usually forming the part or whole of a song.
- Concept which is an abstract idea.

Example of Performance based:
- Beneath Your Beautiful by Labrinth feat. Emeli Sande

Example of Narrative based music videos are:
- A Team by Ed Sheeran

Example of Concept based music videos are:
- Gold Dust by Dj Fresh















When trying to find videos to match into these 3 categories we found it very challenging as recently music videos use more than one concept. Although we then looked at music videos around the time Firth  stated his theory and found that alot more music videos around then only used one concept.

Conventions Of A Music Video

 

We analysed a few music videos in our lesson these were:

Rudimental - Waiting all Night
Mcfly - Love is Easy
Kelly Rowland - Stole
Green Day - When September Comes

While watching the videos we wrote down the concept of the video and what shots were used during.

Key Conventions
- The sound matches the narrative.
- Having the artist appear in the music video.
- Having extreme close ups.
- Showing people playing instruments
- Tracking shots.
- Low angle shots - more powerful.
- Slow motion.
- Fluid camera movements.
- Lyrics matching the narrative.
- Visuals - representational of the sound

Do I Just Keep On Chasing Pavements..

 

 We are recreating the Adele Chasing Pavements shot to help us understand the conventions of music video and the more practise we get the easier it will be when filming our final piece. We looked at a number of elements including location, sound, lighting, props, camera angles and editing,

Location

We found a tree in our school grounds that we think looks/ work best of the re-making of video 

Camera Angles

- Close up's

- Panning 

- High Angle Shot 

We will be using the Canon 550D and the stedicam to help us shoot.

Lighting
We had to consider lighting when lookingat our location in the shot we chose of Adele there is lighting on her face coming from the right, we masy use thye LED light if needed. Also to make a clear contrast from the lightness of the face and the darkness in the background we will probably need to do a lillt it of editing.

Props

Clothing: 

- Coat

- Dark clothing

- Makeup: simple

Editing

We will have to edit the sound and the visuals together,  we will also  need to change the colour of the whole picture as we need to make it look like it was filmed in the Autumn time and not in the middle of June.

The Common Denominator

We analyed 4 different music videos and wrote down all the shots we saw, we then came to realise that all 4 had 1 shot in commen.. THE CLOSE UP

POP - McFly - 5 Colours In Her Hair
- Panning shot
- Mid shot
- Long shot
- High angle shot
- Establishing shot
- CLOSE UP

This video had a narrative but mostly an element of performance. They used close ups to show the artists when they were singing and when they were playing an instrument.

BALLAD/POP- Adele - Chasing Pavements
- Panning shot
- Close up shot
- High angle shot
- Mid shot
- Long shot
- Birds eye shot
- Extreme close up
- CLOSE UP

Adele's video had a narrative and told a story between two characters. The close up was of her face and was used to show her singing i think they used this shot to show her emotion.

INDIE- Gotye - Somebody That I Used To Know
- Panning shot
- Extreme close up shot
- Mid shot
- Two shot
- CLOSE UP

Somebody That I Used To Know was just a performance based video, this is a video of two people singing throughout most of the song. They used close up shots of the artist's lips while he was singing and of his face again when he was singing.

ROCK- White Stripes - 7 Nation Army
- Mid shot
- Panning shot
- Extreme close up shot
- Long shot
- Black shot
- CLOSE UP

This Rock video has moving images coming towards you constantly so therefore there is a a number of long shots and close up's. This shows the performance elements of the song.

About Music Videos

The main purposes of a music video:
- It sells the song and can hopefully leave you remembering the song
- Show off any talent the artist may have such as acting, dancing or element of instumental performance
- Gives the audience a better understanding of the song
- To sell CD's and gives the audience a visual resulting in an increase of sales
- Helps market the artist for exposure and crrating a name for themselves

Music Televison- MTV
MTV is a channel that plays music videos 24/7, its is  based in New York City. It launched on 01/08/1981. The 1st ever music video to be palyed on MTV was The Buggles - Video Killed the Radio Star.



In the late1990s and early 2000s, MTV focused more on reality shows such as
- The Hills
- Laguna Beach
- Punk'd
- Pimp My Ride
- My Super Sweet 16
- Jersey Shore

Also in the 1991s they added animated programmes broadening their audience resulting in a more diverse network.In 1989 they decided to air scripted dramas and scripted and soap operas. They re-broadcasted programmes from Viacom owned TV networks such as BET, VH1, FOX, ABC and NBC.

What I Have Learnt From Last Year?

Refections of my development this yea

What New Terms Or Concepts Have I Learnt This Year?
- McGuffin

- Audinces and Institutions
- Enigma
- Digitisation
- Long Tail Theory
- Male Gaze Theory
- Digital/Analogue
- Niche's and Hits 
- Convergence
- Actual audience and intended adience
- Mass audience and niche audience
- Diegetic and non-diegetic sounds
- How big of an affect the internet has 
- Soft and sharp focus

What Skills Have You Developed From The Beginning Of The Course To The Present Day?
- How to use Final Cut Pro and how to edit
- Shooting footage on the new digital camera, and how to use the new DSLR camera
- Setting up the shot and thinking about what goes into the frame: Mise en scene and lighting
- Storyboarding/shotlisting/screenplaying
- How to analyse a moving picture

How Have Digital Technologies Impacted Your Production Work?
- Final Cut Pro has made it simple and easier to edit the footage together and it is advanced so can do a lot of things to make the film look better
- The new camera that we got makes the footage much better quality and makes it easier to shoot the film. It also makes it quicker and easier to produce the film

To What Extent Did Knowledge Of Media Products Influence Your Media Products?
- Forest Gump- the McGuffin

- Fairytale books- Shrek and Cinderella story

- Dark fairytale films e.g. Corraline, Snow White and The Huntsman, Alice In Wonderland, Frankenweenie

- Tim Burton