Research and Planning

Preliminary music video

This is our finished preliminary music video, we did this to gain experience in lip synching, filming techniques and editing. This was important to ensure the quality of the final music video was done to the best of our ability.

Album cover

These are the photos of the front and back cover of the album in the cd case. Similar to the preliminary video the reason we did these was to gain experience of the software Photoshop and to practice and improve our creative, album-making skills.

Website analysis

This is the analysis of a website I did on Ed Sheeran's website to gain experience of what a real music artist's website looks like:

History of Music Videos

This is the URL for the timeline of the history of the music video:
http://www.tiki-toki.com/timeline/entry/305117/History-of-music-videos/#vars!date=1975-05-30_19:13:50!

Goodwin's music video analysis

 

The music video I analysed was Californiacation by Red Hot Chilli Peppers.

• The genre characteristics of the video show all the band at some points especially during the chorus. this is a genre characteristic of the indie/rock music. 
• There is a relationships between lyrics and visuals, for example, when the lyrics are "Edge of the World" the visuals are a cartoon character jumping off the edge of a cliff. Also there is an example where the lyrics say "Californiacation" and the character crashes, which could add a meaning to the word 'Californiacation'
• There is a relationship between music and visuals, for example, on part of the video when the cartoon character is swimming there is a drum beat on each of the character's swim stroke.
• The demands of the record label are seen as there are close ups of the artists by themselves and also they are shown playing altogether. This could've been done so that the audience recognise their face when they see them elsewhere.
• There are also examples of voyeuristic treatment of women and the female body as there are female characters on the video game in the video dressed in short skirts showing them in a negative light. 
• There is one example that I noticed of intertextual references which is the reference to the video game Grand Theft Auto, which is what the character in the video game is based on.

Blurred Lines- The 'Male Gaze' Theory

Here I have applied Mulvey's Male Gaze Theory to the music video Blurred Lines By Robin Thicke. I did this to view and analyse an example of  pop video and how this may be controversial in it's portrayal of women. this is important for our video as we may also include a female actress.

 

Here I have commented on what is considered the some of the best music videos of all time:

The Best Music Videos of All Time

Beastie Boys- Sabotage (1994)

The music video is directed by Spike Jonze and is an entertaining spoof of a 1970s police drama, based on series of the time such as ‘Starsky and Hutch’. The Beastie Boys are cast as stereotypical cops with roof jumping, car chases, large moustaches and sunglasses reinforcing this. However, the comedic nature of the video doesn’t take away the editing techniques in the video as ‘The Time Magazine All-Time Top 30 Music Videos’ article states “the edits are perfectly syncopated to the song’s ragged beats, and the doughnut-eating breakdown is sublime in its pacing.” Making it an entertaining but well executed music video.

Michael Jackson- Thriller (1984)

This music video is unique due to a large section being a storyline leading up to the music track. Directed by John Landis, the music video has a cheesy and completely unique for the time it was released. The video was filmed for $500,000 and it set the scene for other pop promotion videos to be something more than just the song.

 

The Prodigy- Smack My Bitch Up (1997)

 

This music video created huge controversy when released due to the amount of explicit content throughout the majority of the video. It is shot in first person view; the controversy is created due to the character taking drugs, drink alcohol, engaging in violence and the video also contains nudity and sexual scenes. The video was labelled the most controversial music video of all time in 2010 poll; the clever twist at the end also leaves a surprise to the viewers. The video created a huge amount of publicity for the band and the song because of the reaction it gained for the public. MTV initially banned it from being shown on their channel, however, due to the demand of the public they allowed it to be shown but only after midnight.

 

Peter Gabriel- Sledgehammer (1986)

The cleverly created music video directed by Stephen Johnson is a stop-motion 5 minute long video with Peter Gabriel having to spend 16 hours under glass sheet to create the video. The video is still the most played clip in MTV’s history and won a record 9 VMA awards in 1987. The video features pre Wallace and Gromit work from Aardman Animations to create the stop-motion effect which allows the video to open new boundaries to what can be done with a traditional music video.

 

Queen- Bohemian Rhapsody (1975)

 

The video concept is simple and effective and it just focusses on the band, the fading faces were a ground breaking special effect at that time. Even with the special effects the whole video took just four hours to create and cost just £4,500. Due to their success all consumers would have wanted to see was the band playing the music, and in that respect the music video delivers.

 

The Greatest Album Covers of all Time

The reason I did this piece of research was to see try and gain some ideas of what our album may include and also if I can find any general characteristics of a great album cover.



 

 

Our chosen actress

 

This is the actress we have chosen to be in our music video; we have done this for a number of reasons. Firstly we previously knew the actress enabling us to remain in contact and making it easier to sort when all of us are available to film, making planning the filming schedule easier. Also our actress is experienced in musical theatre, making the filming easier as she is used to being filmed and performing in front of people. Also her experience in musical theatre meant she is an able dancer, this allows us to incorporate this in the fast paced song made by Calvin Harris, adding to the entertainment value of our video.
The dancing we will include can be expressive in relation to the song and the lyrics, allowing our target audience to look up to the young artist, and relate themselves to her.

 

 

Goodwin's Music Video Analysis- 'Riptide' Vance Joy

 

This is a textual analysis of the music video of 'Riptide' by Vance Joy, I applied Goodwin's Music Video Analysis to research how much of the theory I could apply to an existing video.

 



 

Group pitch

This is the pitch that our group has created to propose to a production company to show them what we plan to do with our music video.

HGSC- Pitch

 

Song choice: Jessie J- it’s my party (pop)

Location: studio 1(photo studio) - by using a white background in the studio, the main focus would be on the actress ensuring that the audience in drawn in by the music video.

The overall effect that we are aiming for in our music video is an up-beat, modern effect. We are also aiming for the music video to have a lot of attitude and colour used throughout. We have the idea of including a range of different outfits to portray the actress in a variety of ways.
Our music video will mostly appeal to teenagers as the song is very up-beat and teenagers will be able to relate to this video. The clothes that our actress will be wearing should be clothes that the teenagers could like or have a similar dress sense.

Our group is dedicated, persistent, creative and outgoing. Last year in our group we had no disputes and everyone knew what role they were playing in our group. This resulted in a great outcome for the group and therefore achieved what we aimed for. We have already organised each role that everyone will be playing towards achieve the best outcome possible for the music video. HGSC will be outstanding from other groups because we are organised, imaginative and enthusiastic, towards the work we will be producing.

 

Group pitch to a production company

 

Pitch notes

These are the notes from our music video pitch to a production company that we filmed  that we filmed :

 

 

Music Video Regulation Prezi



This is some research I did into the regulation of music. I did this in order to gain extra knowledge into what has been banned or seen as controversial so we didn't include any of this content in our video. 

 

Artist Website Research

This is some research I did on singer songwriter Ben Howard's website and more specifically how it advertises him as an artist to create a bigger fan base. I did this to experience what existing websites are already out there to try and take good points to possibly include in our website as part of the ancillaries.



Case Study- Music Video Director

This is some research George did on the music video director Spike Jonze. The reason he did this is because Spike Jonze is a successful music video writer so by looking at some of the videos he has done I may be able to  get ideas from his work.

Star Theory lesson

These are some notes I took from a lesson on 'Star Theory':

Star Theory

What makes someone a star?

·         Popularity

 

·         Talent

·         Publicity and gossip surrounds them

·         Sponsored/endorsements

·         How they present themselves or are presented/their image

Some common values of music stardom:

·         Youthfulness

·         Rebellion- or not rebellious

 

·         Sexual Magnetism

 

·         An anti-authoritarian attitude- doesn’t care what people think

 

·         Originality

·         Creativity/talent

·         Aggression/anger

·         A disregard for social values relating to drugs, sex and polite behaviour

·         Conspicuous consumption, of sex, drugs and material goods

·         Success against the odds

Richard Dyer

·         Dyer has written about the role of stars in film tv and music

·         Irrespective of the medium stars have some key features in common

·         A star is an image, not a real person that is constructed out of a range of materials (eg advertising, magazines etc as well as films)

 

·       Stars are commodities produced and consumed on the strength of their meanings.

·       Stars depend upon a range of subsidiary media- magazines, TV, radio, the internet- in order to construct an image for themselves which can be marketed to their target

· The star image is made up of a range of meanings which are attractive to the target audiences

·      Fundamentally, the star image is incoherent, that is incomplete and ‘open’.  Dyer says that this is because it is based upon two key paradoxes.

Paradox 1:

 

·         The star must be simultaneously ordinary and extraordinary for the consumer

Paradox 2:

·         The star must be simultaneously present and absent for the consumer. The illusiveness is part of the stardom.

The Star Image

·         The incoherence of the star image ensures that audiences continually strive to ‘complete’ or to ‘make sense of’ of the image.

·         This is achieved by continued consumption through of the star through his or her products.

·         In the music industry, performance seems to promise the completion of the image, but it is always ultimately unsatisfying.

·         This means that fans will go away determined to continue consuming the star in order to carry on attempting to complete their image

·         Finally, the star image can be used to position the consumer in relation to dominant social values (that is hegemony).

·         Depending upon the artist, this may mean that the audience are positioned against the mainstream (though only to a limited degree, since they are still consumers within a capitalist system) or within the mainstream, or somewhere in between.

Ed Sheeran Star Theory

This is some research that a member of our group has made applying the star theory to Ed Sheeran.

 

Case Study- Spotify

 

We have done a case study on Spotify as the music business is ever-changing and modern apps such as Spotify are dominating the world of music.

Spotify is a music streaming service mostly used on phones or tablets. Music can be browsed or searched for by artist, album, genre, playlist, or record label. Premium subscriptions remove advertisements and allow users to download music to listen to offline.

 

It was launched in October 2008, as of 15 September 2010 the service had approximately 10 million users, including 2.5 million users with paid subscriptions. The service reached 20 million users with 5 million paid subscribers by December 2012 and 60 million users with 15 million subscribers in January 2015.

 

Spotify can be an alternative to iTunes as it can be cheaper. It could be seen to expand in the future as the numbers of premium subscribers are rising rapidly. However, artists like Taylor Swift do not agree with the idea of Spotify as they are not making as much money as they would if the song was being sold on iTunes causing them to have all their music removed off of Spotify. 

Our Target Audience

Storyboard

These are the scans of the storyboards we created as part of our planning process. The reason we made the storyboards was to help us put our initial ideas into a more organised way that would help us picture what the outcome of the film was going to be. As we began filming we started to get more ideas about what we could include and how we could improve some aspects of the shots. Also there was some shots that we experimented executing but found that these either wouldn't look good in the film or were too difficult to pull off. For these reasons the final outcome isn't exactly how we planned but it is an improvement and the storyboards provided us with a platform to start on.

 

Filming schedule

This is a graph we made to show what our schedule is of when and where we will film. We have done this to ensure we are organised with how we film and have all the necessary footage to complete our music video. We have planned the filming with time before the deadline to make sure that if we do not have sufficient footage we have time to go back to a location and accumulate more footage.

 

Filming schedule | Create infographics