Amar and Aaron's Talk

Amar and Aaron gave us a talk on making music videos, telling us some things that we might want to consider when making our music video and some things that possibly wouldn't be possible to do in our music videos, for example what was realistic and what isn't, things like location possibilities, what we can control and what things we might want to look out for.

The most important thing that we got out of their talk was that a lot of planning is essential in making a good music video. Looking at things we can control, not only in the location, for example passing people, background noise, or difficult lighting, but also for the people, passing people through our camera shots, or group members not turning up.
Other planning includes digital images or our location, or if we are good drawers (which we are generally not) we could draw pictures of our location, making storyboards to show our camera angles we will use.

Before we take our footage back to the classroom to edit and complete, it is important to get a lot of footage, so that when we go back to the classroom, we have a lot of excess footage which enables us to get the perfect shots and play around a lot with camera angles .

One of the things that was good to note is that we are not making a short film according to the lyrics, but an actual music video that can be completely unique and doesn't actually have to be completely synchronized with the lyrics. It can have very strong visuals, with small connections to the lyrics, and some professional music videos are not actually connected to the lyrics at all.

Target Audience - Teenagers

Our target Audience will be mostly aimed at teenagers who would see it on youtube or on music channels like mtv. The aim of a music video is to capture the audience so with this demographic in mind our video will have to be exciting and fun to watch instead of meaningful or deep which makes it a bit to heavy for casual watching.
To capture our target audience, making it fun and unique we have gone for using UV paint, glow sticks in a dark room, and the use of bubbles. This makes it more lighthearted and fun to watch.

insane in the brain

Cypress Hill's Insane in the brain song uses alot of bright lights which are from the raw footage accompanied with minor editing. For out video this would work better because of the time constraints. If we can get as much of the effects done in the filming stage it will save us alot of time during the editing phase and make it look alot better as well.

Rhianna Rude boy Video Analysis

Rihanna's Rude boy video has influenced our approach to the bubble pop video. The amount of colour and editing in this video has alot of similarities to the themes in Will.i.am's work which uses alot of bright lights and editing, for example check it out.

Location Research - Max Smith

For the darker scenes we will use the college rooms with black out blinds, this will allow us to make the room dark enough that the blacklight and the glowsticks show up. If the room is too bright then none of our bright colours or effects will show on the video. The shots in this scene will mostly be close ups due to the space restrictions of the room. this would also cause problems if we tried to use bubbles as there would be no place for the member of our group bowing the bubbles to hide.

The bubble scenes will be shot outside, in the woods around Long Road Sixth Form College, this is to allow for ease of access and use, we will use long shots and close ups with bubble raining down on vicki. However this limits us on how far out we can go because if you extend the shot too far out you will be able to see the people blowing the bubbles. This would ruin the effect of the scene.
We will use alot of close ups as this will be the best time for our group to demonstrate lip synching.

Equipment

 Portable Black Light

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Portable-violet-light-torch-Blacklight/dp/B000JU0MQS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1316701237&sr=8-1

 

UV Face Paint

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stargazer-Neon-Face-Body-Paint/dp/B0026LHUS6/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1316701489&sr=8-2

Glow Sticks

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Glow-Sticks-Colours-Bracelets-Connectors/dp/B004FQG7M0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1316701581&sr=8-1

Bubble Wand - however the one we will use will be a bit bigger

Planning.

Shotlist

• Close Ups - By using close ups it not only relates to a number of Rihanna's and Will.i.am's videos but also it keep the audience entertained by having close ups of different items and features on the main character. 
• Establishing Shot - We need an establishing shot when ever we change location to help the audience understand what's going on and also to make them aware that the location has changed.
• Mid Shot - The majority of our shots will be mid shots because we are trying to make the audience aware of our props and interesting costume ideas such as the UV paints etc. 
• Long shot - We may use a few long shots throughout the video but because we want the focus to be on the main singer.

Student Video

This video has influenced us mainly because of the use of UV paints and glow sticks. By watching this video it had given us an idea of what the UV paints will look like and the effects they give. After watching this video it has guaranteed that we want to incorporate the use of the UV light, paints and glow sticks.

Bubble pop

Initial general ideas - spider diagrams etc
-at the beginning there is a drum beat which would be far enough spaced apart that we could make cuts to all the band members this would be a good introduction as it would introduce all the members.
- start with empty room, using masking as the beats go on slowly have the different band members appear
-Use of bubble machine which would spray bubbles at all the different band members, this would fit with the lyrics and give band members something to do on screen, instead of miming band instruments


Discussion of genre of track and convention requirement
The song has a strong techno/electronica back ground, one of the conventions of these styles of song would be to has alot of bright colours and fast moving.

Embedded videos that have influenced your thinking and notes

This video has influenced our ideas from the use of colours. Although we would have more structured transitions in our video.

Location props and costume ideas
    Costume:
The clothing of each member will have to be bright colours which we'll make stand out even more using editing, UV reactive flourescent colours would work well so we could use glowsticks, and UV lights to create a theme of electronica conventions, for example daft punk around the world

Discussion of key narrative elements or abstracts.
Max will be able to bring in bubbles that wont burst when you touch them, so we can use that to great effect. We may also use fancy dress in this video.

Truth or Dare

Initial general ideas 
 - To start with have a close up of a bottle spinning, zoom out to show us sitting in a circle - having a game of "truth or dare".
 - Versus can show a story happening, showing group members doing "Dares" and then when the song goes back to the chorus we can go back to the sitting in a circle, spinning a bottle playing "Truth or Dare"
Discussion of genres of track and convention requirement 
 - Rock music so there should be quite a lot of fast cuts to keep up with the speed of the music.
 - Steady but fast moving camera
 - Showing the "band" and instruments
Embed videos that have influenced your thinking




This music video of the same name influenced our music video by showing a similar style of music and using instruments and band members in the chorus to enforce the rock genre conventions.

Location, props and costume ideas
 - Garage
 - Spin the bottle outside on the grass
 - Props: Bottle to spin, Instruments, casual wear for costumes.
Discussion of key narrative element or abstracts
 -

Song Choice - Truth or Dare by Pink Spiders

Our group has chosen to create a music video for the pink spider song Truth or Dare. We chose this song after studying the genre conventions of rock music, this song would allow us to display our abillity at lip synching and band performance during the chorus and use abstract footage for the verses. This would work best for our group because of our member composition being 3 guys and 1 girl, the other songs would force us to focus on only one member (Vick) to make sense with female vocals. The sheer amount of time spent lipsynching would overshadow all other members of the group. Using this song we could avoid this scenario by either transforming the verses into a story based theme following one person all the way along, or create an abstract video using a strong focus on editing. This would give us another way to display the editing phase of the video creation.
Our plans for the Music video are as follows:
Verses:

• For the verses we could use alot of fast cuts and bright images of the band members and use lighting to fit with the fast paced music and rock conventions. 
•  We could make it abstract using for example paper cut outs, plasticine or lego so that we could demonstrate our abillity with editing whilst still being given the creativity and freedom to have it fit in with the conventions of Rock Music Videos
• We could use a story convention by following one band member all the way from the beginning to the end through and event with cuts to the chorus to move the plot forward

 Chorus:

• For the chorus we can cut to a scene of the group members playing instruments and displaying lip syncing so that there is evidence of our ability with editing and final cut. 

Music Award Ceremony Analysis - MTV 2011

Function of the award show:

• Brings publicity to the mtv and increases number of viewers
• Gives the artist something to aim for and increase visibility to public and media
• Bring money and credability to record label

Who it is aimed at

• Aimed generally toward teenagers who follow the favourite artists
• Newspaper and magazine editors who can later publicise key events.

Genres of Music

• Very mainstream artists of pop an hip hop music
• Artists like katy perry, Jay Z, Kanye West, Britney Spears, Lady Gaga, Adele, Beyonce, Nicki Minaj

How are the artists represented

• They all dressed up

Goodwins Music Video Analysis - DJ Fresh - Gold dust

• Brightly coloured clothes, compared to the males, girls have brighter clothes/less clothes
• No connection to lyrics
• Fast beat - fast dancing, slow parts in the song have slow visuals
• No intertextual references

Goodwins Music Video Analysis - LMFAO - Party Rock Anthem

• Dancing along with the beat is the relationship between music and visuals.
• They do what the lyrics describe such as 'put your hands up' and 'shuffle'
• There is no intertextual references
• Alot of close up so could be a demand from record label
• Genre characteristics - style of clothing, bright coloured clothing
• Music fast - as the music speeds up the dancing speeds up.