Software I Have Used

More Filming & Editing

Our second piece of filming was the shot of the main male character, Erron on the phone to the female character, Danielle and also when he leaves his place. this took place at Erron’s place inside his bedroom and in his front garden.


Although we have not yet filmed all of our shots we decided to push forward and begin editing the filming we already had. this way we are not waiting around for the last few shots, but using our time constructively in getting some editing done and out of the way.

Filming

Our first piece of filming took place at Dijon’s place, where we filmed his sister, Danielle the main female characters talking on the phone to the male character, Erron. We got a birds eye shot of her head whilst laying on the bed. We also got the shots of Danielle singing in the living room too and so now was time to start filming in the other locations we had planned to film in.

Health & Safety Risk Assessment

When carrying out our filming there are many risk factors we must take in consideration to keep not only ourselves safe but others around us from harm or danger. Here’s a risk assessment checklist.

1) No filming in inappropriate locations.
2) Check safety of locations e.g. roads.
3) When filming on location ensure a teacher or responsible adult knows where you are and have a telephone number and when you will return.
4) Minimize risk of theft of equipment
5) Check all equipment is working before you leave
6) Ensure you have permission for filming if necessary.
7) Always film with at least one other person.
8) Ensure you have the permission of those you are filming.

However as most of our filming consists of indoor surroundings this rapidly reduces the risk upon us. The risk assessment, which we ran on our filming locations, was:

1) Ensure teacher is fully aware of our where a bouts
2) When filming in bedrooms ensure free range of space to avoid bashing into objects and tripping hazards
3) When filming outside, be aware of pedestrians, cyclists and parking cars

Shotlists & Drafting

Shot List:- Danielle lip synching in her living room
- Mid shot of Erron on the phone to Danielle
- Birds eye view shot of Danielle lip synching on her bed
- Danielle lip synching in the park
- Mid shot of Erron exiting his house
- Over the shoulder shot of Danielle holding a picture of her and Erron
- Close up of Danielle lip synching on her sofa
- Side view of Danielle lip synching in the park

Locations:- Erron’s room
- Erron’s front garden
- Danielle’s room
- Danielle’s living room
- The Park

Animatic & Story Board

Here’s the animatic we had produced from our story board, after finishing our story board we used a digital camera to take pictures of each section of the story board, we then edited them into a video displaying each picture one after the other.


Here’s the storyboard that we used to make our animatic from.

Collage & Initial Ideas

Here’s a collection images I found on www.google.com of the type of shots we are planning on using for our music video.

Some of the shots we are planning on using is:
- Girl looking at old picture
- Girl having a girly talk
- Boy and girl on phone to each other from their own rooms
- Girl and boy talking in person
- Girl and boy talking at table
- Girl and boy walking down the road holding hands

The Videos That Shaped The 80's

This is the first music video to appear on TV channel MTV, it heralds the video age in the importance of the medium. The song has very distinct lyrics, which scars into your head 'video killed the radio star'


This music video was the first of its kind to tell a story.


This video was the first controversial music video to be made; it was crude and also was the first video to be banned as some people found it offensive to watch. There was an extended version to this video, which again made it the first music video to have an extra long version to it.


This soundtrack is a fine example of when a music video adds value to a song because the band themselves are not a very good band, however the low budget video that was produced is straight forward and is just a great music video to watch, which really worked in the music bands favor.

How Expanding The Audience Will Increase Sales

By expanding my target audience I am maximizing opportunities in sales. How does this work? Well put it like this, if I design a music video in the genre of rock then it would make sense to aim it at a rock audience because that’s who the music will appeal to, however by expanding the audience to rock as well as hip hop and jazz for example then already I have increased the audience who listen to my music video from one genre to three. The moral of the story is the bigger the audience my video has the bigger the sales I will make as I am likely to have more customers taking interest in buying my product.

Purpose of Music Promo Video

The purpose of a music promo video is to create a short music video that accompanies a piece of music or song, which we have done. The music video can be used in an advert to raise its profile to appeal to as many people as possible. the more people who see the advertisement the better because if they liked it hopefully they will pass on the name of our music video through word of mouth to friends and family, which will help advertisement of the music video at no extra costs. By increasing the number of people seeing the advertisement you are potentially increasing the audiences and customers for the music video, which will work in our favour. The key purpose is to successfully advertise the video with the result that people will actually go out and purchase the product, which is one way of measuring the music videos success.

What T.V Channel / Time Slow Would The Video Be shown On/In

Preferably I would like our music video to be shown on a music channel such as MTV for the simple fact that I watch it allot and I know allot of my pals do as well so I assume allot more others also do, which should mean the target audience who would see our video is of around my age category, which fits into the teenage/ young adult age range.

The time slot in, which our music video should be shown is around 3:30/5pm which is usually the peak time that allot of teenagers get back from school, sit down and just watch some television and hopefully they switch on MTV to catch our music video.

Research into Digipaks

Here are the two most commonly types of digipaks used today. When designing my digipak I will be using the same shape CD housing however I will change the contents to specifically match my music video. On the other hand I could go all out and creative and come up with a housing design, which yes could attract allot of customers and be popular however in the same way it could go in the opposite direction and put off customers, which in this case I have decided to be safe than sorry. The existing digipaks are just a simple slick design, not that exciting however it does its job to house the CD and also has space inside for you to increase the aesthetics of the digipak.

Research Into Potential Target Audience

Here’s a survey I created using www.surveymonkey.com. Now that I have my survey I am now able to allow candidates to start filling it out so that I can gather a set of results at the end to determine who my target audience will be, which will be a big influence on which audience we make our music video for.

I have decided to allow candidates to fill this survey in via www.facebook.com I in boxed 20 males and 20 females, an equal balance of males and females in two separate inboxes. Here are the inboxes.





To help me find my target audience I created a table from the results i had collected of which music genre was the most popular, here's my results

Looking at the results I got back from the 40 candidates I have come to the conclusion that the two most favored music genres is R&B followed by Hip-Hop.

Our Artist - Corrine Veille

To help me find this unsigned artist I looked on a website called www.unsigned.com this was an excellent resource as it had a wide range of bands and artists for me to choose from.

Information on the artist we had chosen:
Name: Corinne Vielle
Tracking Title: Therapy
From: New York, NY, United States
Music Genre: R&B, Alternative, Hip-Hop

Therapy is a fairly slow paced song and we already have a female who will be lip synching in our music video, Dijon's sister, Danielle Bascombe. As the song is of a R&B/Hip-Hop genre we are also planning on targeting an RnB/Hip-Hop audience in the age range of 14-25 which I think will maximize the number of viewers enjoying our music video oppose to if we were to target for example a rock/heavy metal audience.

Corrine Vielle - Therapy Lyrics

Verse 1
We've been together for a while
As Love accumulates / I know this is fate
Intensely I adore you / attracted I am to you
this is no mistake / you're my soulmate
Yes, I confess / that i'd be a mess if you ever left
I can't get enough / comsumed by your touch
i know that this is love
so what i gotta do / to prove my love is true
tell me right now i'll do anything for you cause

Chorus
You're my everything everything
you're my remedy my therapy
you're the flame that heats my soul and your love is like a miracle

Verse 2
Even when i told you to leave me alone
you always stayed close and you never let go
and i just wanna tell you I love your whole attitude
nothing really bothers you / you always keep it real
i got your back if you got my back
yeah you know i'm that deal
there's no question, no calculation, this is how i feel
I love every minute, every second, everyday
and if you go away i'll probably go insane cause

Chorus
You're my everything everything
you're my remedy my therapy
you're the flame that heats my soul and your love is like a miracle

Bridge
Your love is like a dream, i'm imagining with you
and i'm thankful / i'm grateful i found you
i don't know if i can find the words to say
to make you understand that i am in love

Chorus
You're my everything everything
you're my remedy my therapy
you're the flame that heats my soul and your love is like a miracle


Here's what the song lyrics look like in a wordle, as you can see the two most dominant words are 'love' and 'everything'.

Getting In Touch

All the artists we had contacted we found on www.unsigned.com

Artist 1: Hayley Alexis – Quite Like I Do
I originally tried contacting this artist via email at (official@offciallyhaley.com) but the email had been bounced back, which meant the artist had either deleted their email account or it was no longer in use.

This is what I sent

This was the reply I got back

As a result of this problem, I had turned to www.myspace.com as a means of contacting Haley, I sent her a message requesting permission to use her song and I am currently waiting for a reply.A few days later and still no reply so we had decided to find and contact another artist.


Artist 2: Corrine Vielle - Therapy
We tried contacting this artist at (info@corinnevielle.com) and we had encountered the same problem as the previous artist with the email being bounced back and to make things worse this artist did not have a MySpace for an additional means on contact.
This is what I sent

This was the same reply I got back


Artist 3: Cheating
Having no success in contacting the previous two artists we had moved on to contacting a third artist at (honeyfamrecords@yahoo.com) and guess what? Our email had been bounced back, again. This artist did not have a MySpace account; however she did have a twitter account. None in our group had a twitter account so the options were to either create a twitter in hope of getting with this artist or carry on our search for another artist.
This is what I sent

This was the reply I got back

Copyright

Though we are looking for a soundtrack for our music video, we must ensure to choose something which is not of copyright. Reasons for this is that contacting a non copyright artist will be allot easier to get hold of oppose to contacting an artist who has copyright over their music as this would mean we would have to get through to their record label and managers etc which is a time consuming procedure. Another reason is that we will be publishing our music video onto the internet when we’re done and by using non copyright music we will be able to do so, however if we published copyright music onto the internet we could face running into trouble with the artists record label if they discovered our music video.

Lip Sync Video Task

We was given the task to pick a soundtrack, film ourselves lip syncing to it, edit and produce a short music video of us lip syncing to that soundtrack. This task helped us learn to edit footage so that it matched the lyrics of the soundtrack in preparation for when we produce our actual music video. To edit this piece of filming we used new software we have this year called Final Cut Express, which offers many more effects and than last year’s iMovie software.

I think that our lip synch music video task was pretty good for our first attempt to lip synch and edit so that the lip synching and music were in line with each other. However there are some parts of the video where the lip synching was slightly off and we didn’t really use any fancy transitions or effects, which made our video very basic.

Research into Music Videos

What Do I Think is a Successful Music Video?

Justin Bieber - Baby ft. Ludacris
Being the most popular video on YouTube of all time and the first to break the 300 million views mark, this music video has a staggering over 330 million views and counting, it has only been uploaded for 7 months, since 19th February 2010 and has managed to outdo any other video on YouTube, taking in consideration that YouTube has been around now for 5-6 years, is a huge achievement. What I think makes this music video so successful is that Justin Beiber sings as well as a young Michael Jackson, the lyrics are pitched perfectly in reference to young love, which millions can relate to in some way or another. The song has a chorus that glides effortlessly into your head, so next time you hear this song on the radio, television or wherever you may be, the first thing you will remember is, Justin Bieber - Baby. "Baby" is a model for what pre-teen pop can be. It will instantly excite many young fans, and then it is likely to make parents smile when they hear it, too, and understand why Justin Bieber makes an outstanding musical role model for their children. In addition to his success is that this video is featuring a world known American rapper, Ludacris, which I think has helped raised this music videos profile.

Analysis on Previous Media Students Music Videos

(<< Sceenshot of the students music video)
The Moldy Peaches - Anyone Else But You is the soundtrack these students used for their music video. The costume they used, which was country styled clothing and location, which was on a farm matched the genre of the song perfectly. Though the music video did not consist of pure lip syncing; it contains enough for them not to lose any marks in that criteria, which I will take into consideration whilst making my music video. Some of the shots they took matched the lyrics of the song, for example when the lyric ‘my body’s swinging from side to side’ came on they had a shot of their feet swinging from side to side, again I will be taking this into consideration to help give me some ideas of the types of shots I could use. What makes this video different to the ones I have analyzed is that if these two are not a couple outside of this video then it is very convincing that they are. They also appear to be having fun whilst making this video, too, which just puts a smile on your face and works much better than when it appears that someone is not enjoying the experience of making their music video.


(<< Screenshot of the students music video)
Spread Love - Is the soundtrack these students used for their music video. During this video there was one great shot that really stuck to me, which was when one of the students was playing the guitar and there was an extreme close up along the strings of the guitar at an angle, which was very well executed and worked well with the genre of the song. However what didn’t work very well was the extreme close ups on the main singers teeth, he had bad teeth, but that’s not why I’m criticizing it, but more the case that when that shot comes on, I just can’t help but stare at the state of his teeth and that’s where my attention goes throughout. Another fault I picked up on was that the main singer wore his spectacles during the entire video, which doesn’t really help him create the rock and roll feel that the song brings, which is a point I have taken in account for when making my music video.

Analysis on Channel4 ‘The 100 Greatest Pop Videos’

I watched the whole video of Channel4 'The 100 Greatest Pop Videos'


Godley and Creme - Cry
This video features a sequence of morphing faces singing the song, a very simple music video but very interesting to watch. It has given an inspiration, which I could use in my music video, a sequence of morphing faces lip syncing the song, which i could achieve with the use of dissolve shots.



Eminem - Stan (Short Version) ft. Dido
This video tells a story and the video matches the lyrics throughout. it has given me an idea, which i could use in my music video, have shots, which helps tell story rather than a load of random meaningless shots, which could help keep the viewer more engaged and interested.

Brief & Music Promo Brief

Task
1) Produce a music promo video up to 5 mins, either working on your own or in a group of up to 4 members.
2) Produce a 'digipak' for release on DVD and a magazine advertisement for the DVD.


______________________________________________________________________________

G324: Advanced Portfolio in Media (50%)
- Music Video
- Magazine Advert
- DVD
- Blog

G325: Critical Perspectives in Media (50%)
- 2 hour exam
- Section A – 1 hour (2 Questions 1a+1b – 30 minutes each)
- Section B – 1 hour (Postmodernism)

Section A questions: To write about the whole (preliminary, thriller, music video & ancillary task) of your coursework with regard to 1 or 2 of:
- Creativity
- Digital technology
- Research & planning
- Post production
- Using conventions from real media texts
________________________________________________________________________

What is The Purpose of a Music Promo Video
1) Advertisement
2) Draws attention to the music / song
3) Illustrates the song
4) Appeals to a visual audience
5) Expresses an individual’s emotions
6) Tells a story
7) Markets an image
8) Promotes the artist / single / album
9) Persuades audience to buy CD/Download
10) Raises the audience awareness or profile of the artist/ group
11) To make an artistic statement e.g. talking Heads ‘Once in a lifetime’
12) Product placement e.g. Christine Aguilera (Not Myself Tonight)

How Do We Measure Success Criteria
1) Word of mouth
2) Number of hits on YouTube
3) Newspaper articles / TV reports
4) How many times shown on television
5) Amount of publicity
6) Downloads (legal / illegal)
7) Charts
8) CD sales

Music Websites I Will Be Looking At
www.unsigned.com
www.myspace.com

Last Word
1) Is it worth noting how there has been a massive switch in the importance of YouTube from television channels such as MTV
2) Most viewing of music videos now appears to be online

Hello

Theories I Have Studied

The Effects Model:
This model believes that the consumption of media texts has an effect or influence upon the audience and is normally considered that this effect is negative. Audiences are passive and powerless to prevent the influence, the power lies with the message of the text.

Gratifications Model:
This is the opposite of the effects model whereby the audience is active and uses the text and is not used by it. The audience uses the text for its own gratification or pleasure; here the power lays with the audience not the producers.

Reception Theory:
This considered how texts were encoded with meaning by producers and then decoded (understood) by the audience.

Audiences and Audience Theory:
Suture is an element of one of the audience’s theory.

Suture:
Classical Hollywood narrative and editing and music 'sutures' or positions the audience in certain ways making only one preferred reading possible, however unconscious the audience is of that position.

Why have I studied these?
The reason why I have studied these theories is so that I can now look at my music video and test these theories against it and see first whether my video contains them and whether the theories are accurate or not and how effective they are.