An important part of music video for us this year is the colour grading of it. We have looked at these two videos (Wiz Khalifa and Rihanna) as they both have the muted tones we would like to achieve. We are learning how to achieve these by playing with the exposure, saturation and colour of our footage.
Here are some photos I found on http://www.weheartit.com/ that I thought represented the muted colours we wanted to achieve quite well.
Here is a screen shot of an establishing shot from Wiz Khalifa's Black and Yellow which I thought looked very effective. We are now trying our own establishing shots as we have a huge number of locations open to us.
Here is Nero's new video for their song "Reaching Out". Weirdly enough, this video seems to copy the effects used in Metronomy's "The Bay" that we have blogged a lot about before. It uses the same opening with the opening black screens and the continuous split screens. We are still using this effect in our music video. I also really like the old 80's feel to the footage in this music video. We are thinking about adding old home videos in our production to create the feeling of young vs old.
Digipak is a patented style of CD, DVD or BD packaging, and is a registered trademark of AGI World Ltd., an Atlas Holdings company Digipaks typically consist of a gratefold (book-style) paperboard or card stock outer binding, with one or more plastic trays capable of holding a CD or DVD attached to the inside. Since Digipaks were among the first alternatives to jewel cases to be used by major record companies, and because there is no other common name for Digipak-style packaging made by other companies, the term digipak or Digi-Pak is often used generically, even when the media holder is a hub or "Soft Spot" rather than a full plastic tray. Digipak-style packaging is often used for CD singles or special editions of CD albums and the tall DVD Digipak (DVDigipak) is used as a premium package for DVDs and DVD sets. Such packaging is less resistant to abrasion than jewel cases, so it tends to show signs of wear relatively quickly. Licensed digipak manufacturers such as domestic U.S. printer and disc replicator Oasis Disc Manufacturing recommend coating the raw printed paper with a protective UV coating, thus ensuring greater longevity. Although less vulnerable to cracking than a jewel case, the disc tray inside the package (particularly the "teeth" of the hub which secure the disc in place) remains rather brittle and is prone to cracking if the package is crushed. Digipak-style cases grew in popularity among record labels and recording artists in the early 2000s. Manufacturers have sought to reduce environmental impact and improve functionality by introducing recycled components into its trays; one has announced a 100% post-consumer PET tray made from recycled bottles, which also eliminates the need for the brittle "teeth". Another one goes one step further by totally eliminating the plastic tray and replacing it with a paper tray made from sugarcane and egg carton. Many printers use recycled or sustainable material for the board stock. Historically, Digipak was only available in large quantities. However, AGI has recently introduced a new product called digipak i-create for the consumer market. Digipak i-create is a web-supported concept that is aimed at music, photo and creative markets. IMPAC Group, Inc. originally owned the Digipak trademark. That company was acquired by MeadWestvaco (MWV) in 2000 and folded into its AGI Media division. Following this acquisition, the Digipak name and designs were licensed to manufacturers around the world. MWV sold AGI Media to Atlas Holdings in 2010.
We have now created our own Twitter account for Hunt The Noise. We will post updates on the DJ trio, answers questions from our "fans" and ask for opinions/audience feedback.
Here is Lady Gaga's new music video/a-whole-feauture-length-film for her single "Marry The Night". Although 13 minutes long, I have watched this over about ten times! I think as a piece of art its beautiful. But from a music video perspective, I really like the fast montage towards the end of the video where the music becomes more fast paced. We hoping to recreate this at the beginning of our music video as a "flashback" element.
As much as I hate that this is The Wanted, I do really like the effect used throughout the video. This is the effect that everything around them is in slow motion however they're still singing in time with the song at normal speed. Lana figured out that they had sped up the song as they filmed it, and slowed it back down to normal speed when the edited it. We could perhaps use this for our coursework.
This week we ordered our own green screen material off of eBay. Our plan was to make green screen clothes and having moving images on them, however unfortunately the material was too dark and therefore did not work!
On Wednesday the 16th we took a trip to RichMix in Shoreditch. We had a talk from Pete Fraiser, the chief examiner, about music videos through time and how to achieve a succesful music video for our coursework.
So music videos started very early - as early as the 1930's. However, this was not made to be a music video. An artist was experimenting with his work and put it to a piece of music so it infact promoted the art work rather than the song.
Dated 1945, we begin to see some of the early forms of music videos coming from Nat King Cole with Frim Fram Sauce. We see elements of voyeurism and the male gaze (the "shocking" shot of the woman's legs).
1964 we see The Beatles music video for "Cant Buy Me Love" which includes footage taken from the film "A Hard Nights Out". Here we see the concept of music videos developing.
The music video industry has now been discovered as people finally saw that there were huge amounts of money to be made from it. Queen released their famous "Bohemian Rhapsody" in 1975.
Now the market was discovered, MTV was founded in 1981. However, they were mainly british acts like Madness and the americans were yet to make their mark. Furthermore there was no black artists or music.
In 1982, Michael Jackson releases "Thriller". This is when black artists make a real breakthrough on MTV and Jackson opens up a whole new window for music videos - a real big money production.
We then see black artists like 50 Cent release his music and his videos are very stereotypical for a rap artist. It includes women in little amounts of clothing, big cars, big houses and "bling" (although I hate that word).
Then we see artists like Jay-Z release real pieces of art for music videos instead of just stereotypical products. The video had thousands of frames and as a media student you can really appreicate the work that has gone into it.
Clearly there has been a huge development in music videos and it very interesting to see the change.
Pete then gave us his top tips for making our video. TOP TIPS:
1.Practice
2. Choose a song
3. Write a treatment
4. Plan EVERYTHING
5. Set up a blog
6. Know your equipment
7. The shoot
8.Capture your footage
9. The edit
10. Screening
11. Analysis
can fulfil audiences expectations - codes and conventions
produce something they want
relate to them
Stuart Hall - Audience Positioning
- developed the concept of audience positioning as a result of examining new reports on industrial strikes
- audience watching a media text would be likely to fall into three categories:
1) dominant (or preferred) readings - audience adopts point of view implied
2) oppositional readings - audience challenges points of view implied
3) negotiated readings - audience sees both points of views
Aberrant readings - preferred reading is not recognised by audience at all.
Levi-Strauss - Binary Oppositions
In the mid-20th century, two major European academic thinkers, Claude Levi Strauss and Roland Barthes, had the important insight that the way we understand certain words depends not so much on any meaning they themselves directly contain, but much more by our understanding of the difference between the word and its 'opposite' or, as they called it 'binary opposite'. They realised that words merely act as symbols for society's ideas and that the meaning of words, therefore, was a relationship rather than a fixed thing: a relationship between opposing ideas.
For example, our understanding of the word 'coward' surely depends on the difference between that word and its opposing idea, that of a 'hero' (and to complicate matters further, a moment's thought should alert you to the fact that interpreting words such as 'hero' and 'coward' is itself much more to do with what our society or culture attributes to such words than any meaning the words themselves might actually contain).
Other oppositions that should help you understand the idea are the youth/age binary, the masculinity/femininity, the good/evil binary, and so on. Barthes and Levi-Strauss noticed another important feature of these 'binary opposites': that one side of the binary pair is always seen by a particular society or culture as more valued over the other.
When studying any kind of literature, it is worth looking for the ways in which layers of meaning are being created, shaped or reinforced by this sense of 'binary opposition'. In Simon Armitage's poetry, for instance, you might notice the binary opposition he creates between the ideas we associate or attach to 'sincerity', 'genuineness' and 'truth' because of our culture's utter dislike of their binary opposites, 'insincerity' and 'lies'.
Recognising such binaries can open up the ideas the writer is trying to express. Look out for these oppositions as they can allow a deep understanding of what is happening in the text as well as alerting you to the 'big picture' - what it is all about.
Here are some primary source photos I took myself the other day.
The first photo was a tunnel under a train track that I thought would be really good for performace scene. Moreover the lighting at the time (around 3pm) looked fantastic. The more natural lighting we can use the better. The tunnel was on a public footpath so we would have no problem with accessing it however we must be careful due to the amount of rubble etc there is.
The second photo was a tunnel under the m25 near my house. I thought this location would be really good for our opening shot, which we planned to have a tracking shot of our main character running. I like that the tunnel is really bare and simple.
For our opening shot we plan on using the black screens that open up similar to that of Metronomy's - The Bay. We also wanted to have the girl running with a flare similar to the ones used in Rihanna's video and Hurtwood House's coursework.
Before our actual opening shot we've decided to have a short "prologue" in which we will set the story of our narrative. They will include quick fast shots demonstrating the relationship between our characters. We've decided to have it practically silent for dramatic effect. We've looked at examples such as Maroon 5 - She Will Be Loved and The A Team - Ed Sheeran.
WE ARE NOW STORYBOARDING OUR MUSIC VIDEO
Tuesday, 25 October 2011
Here is our first storyboard, it shows the opening shot and what we hope to achieve.
We are thinking of making this animated to get a better idea of how it will look - this will help towards our decision making as it gives a very draft of how it will look and we can make changes early on in the process.
Creating a storyboard in general helps with organisation and timing.
Unfortunately I was really ill when we filmed this! I think our Prezi looked professional and we had all the necessary information within it for our audience (our media class) to understand what we are trying to achieve for our music video.
I found this video by Nero for the song Crush On You. I really liked how the voyeurism here was through Karaoke and we really like the idea of using it in our music video. Also, as we are using a remix of an old iconic song, it may be the kind of song adults may actually sing on Karaoke.
Here is Lil Wayne's - 6 Foot 7, I really like how he takes each lyric quite literally and uses an image for it in the video. I also like his reference to Inception with the element of the bath at the beginning.
We filmed some footage of nights out and day trips to put together in a video so we could practice some of the effects we are thinking of using in our own music video. First off we tried the "black screen effect" from the Justice - Phantom Part II. I think it worked really well and am keen in using it for a part of our coursework. Ms Poulten also suggested that we could perhaps use it as a "blinking" effect which opens up the option of exploring dreams/waking up. We then tried the "rewind-fast-forward" effect that we liked from Nicola Robert's - Beat of My Drum. We used it on a piece of footage of our friend dancing. I think it looks quite effective and would be good to use in our music video. Here it is...
We put it to a fast pace song (The Killers - Human (Ocelet Remix)) and by doing so we realised that perhaps Justice - D.A.N.C.E wasn't the right song choice for the video we all had imagined in our heads. Although a fun song, it may have been too slow and the video prehaps too iconic. It may have looked like we were trying to re-create the video just with our own twist on it. After a group discussion here are some of the songs we are considering.
Drugs In My Body - Theives Like Us (Tweleves Remix)
Good Points: Fits our genre, no "expected" video Bad Points: Too slow, male singing
South Central - The Day I Die
Good Points: Fits our genre, could be really imaginative video Bad Points: Iconic video, male singer
New Young Pony Club - Get Lucky (Tweleves Remix)
Good Points: Female singer, fits our genre Bad Points: Too slow
Youth Alcoholic - Fox N Wolf
Good Points: Fits genre, no original music video, female singer Bad Points: Didn't like the lyrics (too many maybe?)
Fleetwood Mac - Dreams (Tweleves Remix)
Good Points: Iconic song, fits genre, female singer Bad Points: Quick short (maybe add another loop)
WE CHOSE FLEETWOOD MAC - DREAMS (THE TWELVES REMIX) AS OUR FINAL SONG
In this video we see a clear representation of women through camera shots and angles.
There are cutaway shots of women in bikinis and we see a peep hole effect where the audience are teased with images of these women.
In this Madonna video it can be argued that she almost objectifies herself - controlling how much the men see at her show. However it can also be seen that she is empowering women through the fact that she is the dominant person controlling how much she allows them to see.
The idea of voyeurism is that the artist in the video will see an element of themself e.g, looking in a mirrior, hearing themselves on the radio (going from diegetic to non-diegetic) or on the TV etc. Lucky for our group, at the beginning of song there is the tuning of a radio. This therefore means we can add voyeurism through the radio.
As you've seen through my blogging, we have a keen idea to use masks - giving our artist no identity (and then doing the lip syncing via our green screen tops).
I put together a few pictures found on http://www.weheartit.com/ that may help inspire us.
This week we have finalised our song choice and gathered some potential footage we could prehaps use or maybe just experiment with. We are in the middle of editing it to The Killers - Human (Ocelet Remix) as this is a song that fits with our genre - so far it looks quite cool. Also, our own green screen material has arrived! Meaning we are now going to make some tops out of it and hopefully be able to use these in our video.
I really like the opening shot of this video by Mac Miller. Its a good location (similar to our AS coursework). I also like idea of going into a completely different world (when he goes through the door). From there on he's used the idea of the UV paint which we wanted to you and can hopefully still recreate somehow. He also has characters in full fancy dress outfits/costumes which we also wanted to use.
In this video, I really like the use of the masks. This is an idea we're toying with - having people in constumes/masks. I like the idea of our characters not having faces in the video however we need some lip syncing in the video to gain marks. Its an idea we will have to talk through with our teacher.
In this video, it is the beginnnig that I really like. The use of the SnoriCam look amazing and we can't work out how it's done! Its definitely some kind of SnoriCam but we just can't see how it is attached...
Digitalism has remixed tracks for The Presets, Tom Vek, The Futureheads, Daft Punk, Tiga, Klaxons, White Stripes, Monk, Depeche Mode, Cut Copy and many others, including a re-edit of "Fire in Cairo" by The Cure (entitled "Digitalism in Cairo"). Their tracks and remixes are played by DJs such as Erol Alkan, Soulwax, Boys Noize and Justice.
Digitalism have made appearances at festivals such as Coachella, Lollapalooza, South by Southwest, and Ultra Music Festival as well as various clubs worldwide.
Moelle and Tüfekçi met at a record store in Hamburg and became friends. Later, the store's owner asked them to DJ a party, and they then began mixing and recording. Moelle said they record in a World War II bunker they own in Hamburg.
Journalist Dan Collacot interviewed the duo after watching them play a set. He said..
"my heart is still pounding from the adrenalin-fuelled set I’ve just witnessed from German electro dance duo Digitalism at XOYO. I say dance but their music has a truly schizophrenic edge to it.."
When Digitalism spoke about their crowds they said..
"It’d be nice to see everyone uniting again over a good mashed-up sound, and to have the girls back. There seems to be a lack of girls sometimes at the moment. It needs to be sexier again."
I believe the duo come across as really down-to-earth guys that are really about just making good music. It is clearly their passion. They are big in the electro-pop scene however not so well known in the mainstream music industry so there isn't really a definite way they represent themselves.
However, at the beginning of their career their image was very "geeky" and it was obvious they had chosen their own outfits. But now, as the duo are more serious about their music and career their image has become very smart and serious.
Images, Colours and Symbolism They Often Use..
They duo often use the colours green and black, as it was the cover for their album. They also use a digital font which they use as their back drop for their sets when they play live.
Their music videos often use "sharp" shapes like in the "2 Hearts" video where hexagons are used throughout. This again keeps it looking all very..digital.
EVALUATION OF "JUSTICE - PHANTOM PART II"
Phantom Part II is the 6th single on Justice's album "†". It was realeased in 2007 under the record label "Ed Banger Records".
The video uses a lot of everyday footage like the band tour - which looks like they have filmed themselves.
It also contains a lot of footage of their live sets.
The video is quite relaxed and almost seems as thought it has just been thrown togther - which I actually quite like. And true to their albums name, they have the "Justice" symbol too.
This is advert for Channel 4's Street Summer gets me excited every time I watch it! The effect used looks amazing and reminds me of "Google Maps". It looks quite difficult to re-create but hopefully if we experimented enough we may be able to achieve something close. I think it looks really original and would stand out from the other music videos (hopefully).
I love Wretch 32's new video. I think what I like the most is that visually it looks quite simple, professional and modern. Plain colours are used and its white, grey, blacks and light blues that are used. The constant colour themes are asthetically pleasing and I believe makes the video look "neat". Again, when the young boy is running with the flag, its done in slow motion which is an element we're really keen on using.
I found this video courtesy of my brother and thought it was really cool. I love the animation and that everything that happens in the video, happens on the beat of the song.
- What I really like about this video is the use of the SnoriCam towards the end. In AS we didnt have the chance to use one so hopefully A2 we do. Also really like the colour grading of the video. The light colours keep it simple and fresh. Almost as if Rizzle Kicks are a fresh new sound to the music industry.
Prophet...
- I believe this video is extremely clever. After watching it over and over with Lana we think that the video is made from a large amount of still images put together - similar to stop animation. I also really liked the light effect used. We have this avaliable to us as it is a setting on Lana's camera. Hopefully we can play around with and find a way of incorporating it into our music video.
Heart Skips a Beat...
- In this song where Rizzle Kicks are featured, the element I really like is the location. It is very similar to the ideas we had for ours. Also, slow motion is again used.
Here is Coldplay's video for their new song "Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall". They've used the UV paints idea which we would still like to use in our music video. It looks very colourful and has real "fun" feel to it.
This scene(< link as embed code disabled)from The Orphan is one of the most amazing scenes I have seen in a film. I believe it is the simplicity of it that stands out so much to me. It allows you to truly understand what it's like to be deaf and it really is breath-taking - I found myself rewinding it over and over again. The overall film is not brilliant however if they had played on the idea of having scenes from the young deaf girl's point of view, it could have been beautiful (although still a "horror" film).
The artist "example" recently released his new video for the song "Stay Awake" (a matter of nights ago) and his stolen our idea!
At 2:50 you see the colourful flour paint idea we want to use.
During our free periods, Andrea and myself decided to play around again with the green screen and see what we could come up with.
We had fun with it so the video is quite cringey, but allowed us to experiment.
We found that when we filmed with the Flip camera, the green screen didn't work so well and so we had to use the new Panasonic cameras. You can see the difference in the bloopers video.
I really enjoyed using the green screen however as it can only be used in the media room, we have bought our own.
We are think of making green screen t-shirts so that we can having images on the characters in our music video.
I believe that our re-make of Rebecca Black's "Friday" was surprisingly good. I was very happy with the final result and thought it looked almost identical.
I found filming and editing very fun. We filmed chronologically so that it was easier to edit, however there were shots we filmed continuously in the car and then added an insert.
I didn't really find it difficult editing the video to fit with the lip syncing, as Lana was clear and it was easy to match up.
We noticed some continuity errors like in one shot the door being closed, and the next it was open. However this is good practice to make sure we don't make the same mistakes in our real coursework.
Moreover, we forgot to film a section of the video so Lana had to film it on her iPhone. The shot was therefore different as iPhone's shoot portrait (hence the black screen at the beginning). This highlighted the importance of sticking with one piece of equipment and also follow storyboards to the very last detail.
We also learnt the importance of learning lyrics as there are a few at beginning Lana didn't know and it is obvious to the audience.
I believe we have learnt a lot from our preliminary exercise and we had lots of fun doing it.
As seen in a previous post, one of the ideas we are really excited about is the paint balloon fight. This has the potential of looking fantastic in our video as the colours will be bright, and if put into slow motion I reckon it could look really professional. I went on YouTube and found some cool videos.
We also really liked the idea of a flour fight.
I also really liked the idea of some of our characters being dressed in paintballing outfits. I think they look really intimidating and then to see them have a water balloon fight could be really comical. I also like the idea of people being "masked" as it can look quite scary and mysterious.
Today we messed around with the green screen to see what kind of things we can do with it. We also took this oppurtunity to practice some more lip syncing.
PS. We have basically finished our preliminary now, just editing and putting together final pieces. Will upload on Monday!
Looking at Digitalism (a electic duo similar to Justice) I will be able to see some of the conventions used in our chosen genre. Here's their video for their catchy song "Pogo".
Looking at this video, it is obvious that these kind of music videos try to be as different as possible. They are mainly performance based.
Here is Eliza Doolittle's video for Mr Medicine. Myself, Lana and Yasemin really like the idea of fancy dress (again shown in Badman Riddim - Vato Gonzalez). We also liked the idea of somebody walking along and gradually being joined by more people. This same idea is used in Massive Attack - Unfinished Sympathy.
However, to achieve a top grade we wouldn't be able to use one continuous shot. Therefore, we may only use this as a small element of our music video.
For our preliminary exercise in A2 we must re-create a music video shot for shot. At the moment we are currently storyboarding, filming and editing our version of Rebecca Black's "Friday".
In the video for the song "Badman Riddim" by Vato Gonzalez, I really like the backgrounds that the artists perform in front of. The skate park I found in London will be perfect for shots similar in our music video.
I want the life in this video :( and now very tempted to buy roller skates! However, in this video for DJ Fresh's No.1 song, we really like the slow motion shots. In our music video we hope to create a similar effect with shots of people partying in slow motion, or the shots where we are hitting the drums.
Last Friday night, I went up to Southbank with my boyfriend and found the skate park.
The colourful graffiti is perfect for our video, as is the red lighting at the back.
Here is a proper picture as the picture I took was extremely blurred.
Here are 3 possible choices we have narrowed our ideas down to..
Is Tropical - The Greeks
Good Points: Upbeat, different and good lyrics Bad Points: Controversial video (difficult to make something better), restricted to one genre and male singers (involves relying on other people).
My Moon My Man - Feist (Boys Noize Remix)
Good Points: Good beat, allows a wide range of possible ideas for videos and no original video. Bad Points: Not upbeat enough, not a variety of lyrics and original song is associated with more slow, indie genres.
D.A.N.C.E - Justice
Good Points: Upbeat, already had ideas that fit this song and targets our audience. Bad Points: Iconic video, a set genre and predictable outcomes.
As a group we have chosen to use 'Justice - D.A.N.C.E'. Here are the lyrics.
Do the D.A.N.C.E
1234, fight!
Stick to the B.E.A.T
Get ready to ignite
You were such a P.Y.T
Catching all the lights
Just easy as A.B.C
That's how we make it right (x3)
Do the D.A.N.C.E
Stick to the B.E.A.T
Just easy as A.B.C
Do the Dance (Do the Dance)
The way you move is a mystery
Do the dance
You're always there for music and me (x3)
Streaming through the radio
Dancing all around
Spread the word in stereo
At the speed of sound
Do the Dance (Do the Dance)
The way you move is a mystery
Do the dance
You're always there for music and me (x2)
Do the D.A.N.C.E (Do the Dance, Do the Dance)
Stick to the B.E.A.T (Do the Dance, Do the Dance)
You were such a P.Y.T (Do the Dance, Do the Dance)
Just easy as A.B.C (Do the Dance, Do the Dance)
Under the spotlights
Neither black nor white
It doesn't matter
Do the Dance (do the dance)
As strong as you might
Working day and night
Whatever happens
Do the DANCE (do the dance)
Under the spotlights
Neither black nor white
It doesn't matter
Do the Dance (do the dance)
As strong as you might
Working day and night
Whatever happens
Do the Dance (Do the Dance)
The way you move is a mystery
Do the Dance
You're always there for music and me (x2)
Today we had our first lesson with our A2 teacher - Miss Poulten.
We were each given two cards which asked us to find music videos of perhaps a certain era or genre and find a specific element which we would like to use in our music video. The two cards I was given were "music video from the 1970's" and "music video with a lead female vocalist".
Music Video's from the 70's.
In this music video, Blondie - Heart of Glass, I really liked the beginning shots of different cities and towns. I really look forward to using lots of different locations for A2 and I would really like to make that apparent in my coursework.
In Bob Marley's "One Love" music video, I really like the idea of other people singing the lyrics. In my A2 coursework I'd really like to get a lot of people involved (starring in the music video) rather than having just one character, like in my AS coursework.
Music Video with Female Lead Vocalist.
In Beyonce's "Run the World" video, the element I would really like to achieve is the use of the natural environment. I think the use of the desert and things like the fire look very effective (used at the beginning). This is also very apparent in one of the student's music video at Hurtwood House. I also really like the rich colours used in the Run the World video.
Nicola Roberts has a very simple music video. I really like the light lighting and that it is a fun and upbeat music video.
