Diary Entry 4

After going to Hoult's Yard and seeing the spaces we may use, we have started to draw our story boards and get organised with exactly what we want. Rachel and Hana are mainly doing the story boards, with Rachel writing up the shots and lyrics and Hana concentrating on the drawings. Emma and Jonny have been focusing on getting in touch with Tynemouth Station and getting permission to film there.

Costumes

Dancers

Girls - The dancers will wear black the whole way through the video in order to make in order to ensure Sarah stands out.

Boys - The boys will we be wearing dance clothing for the auditions and station shots e.g loose fitting clothing, tracksuit bottoms and trainers.

Sarah (Lula)

Studio - For the studio we want Sarah to be in a black like the dancers, yet slightly different as she will be wearing a black crop top and patterned black leggings. The clothing will be quite tight to resemble the dance element throughout the video.

Loft - Sarah will continue to wear the black crop top for the loft scenes but with light, pink, patterned harem trousers and black, high heeled, wedged boots.

Station - At the station, Sarah will be wearing a crop top again but this time it will be a light pink and lace. She will be wearing black, loose fitting trouser and trainers in order to convey the genre of the music and the urban area that surrounds her.

Locations

We have visited a studio location in Byker named Hoults Yard. We knew about this location as Rachel had worked there for the Northumbria University advert shoot, the year before. Inititally we were set on the idea of a large warehouse space and having viewed that first we were ready to book it but we asked if there was any similar but smaller spaces. We then looked at 3 more spaces and decided they were more suited to what we were interested in. One room is in a sort of basement setting with green pillars, which we thought were and interesting feature. The second room was a long, run down looking room with 4 pannelled windows taht we plan to use for the main dance scene. Finally we looked at a loft which had a lot off wood and thought this was perfect for the main performance part of Sarah singing. For the spaces we looked at it is usually £250 pounds per day yet because we aren't an official company and are students, we were given an offer of £75 for the day. Another part of our video is going to be set in Tynemouth Station as it has recently been refurbished and has spotlights which would be ideal for our final dance scenes.

Diary Entry 3

We have had the idea to use warehouse or studio space for the dance scenes in our video and have been researching possible areas. We have found a possible warehouse in Byker and have spoke to Julie Kemp about arranging a suitable time for us to go and visit it.

Julie's business card:

Transcript of phone call with Julie from Hoults Yard (Locations)

Roles Within The Group

We have designated different roles within our group to benifit the efficiency and organisation levels within our group. These are the roles we decided to format within the group:

Jonny - Focus on producing a good blog and adding the necessary pieces of information to improve the quality of the blog

Rachel - In control of the camera work and the general organising of the group

Emma - In charge of the editing the clips

Hana - In control of performance and costume design

Powerpoint Pitch Feedback

Powerpoint Pitch

Each group was asked to create a presentation to pitch to the rest of the class. This is the powerpoint pitch we created...

http://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/14437884?hostedIn=slideshare&page=upload"

Simply click on the link and our power point pitch will upload on a separate tab.

Diary Entry 2

After having annotated the lyrics of the song and creating a mood board, we have our initial ideas for our video. We are in the process of creating a power point presentation which we will show to our peers and target audience. We are also using social networking as a way of communicating and discussing our ideas and have created a private Facebook group, in order to do this.

Moodboard

This is the moodboard we created which includes various ideas and thoughts...

Lyrics Annotations

These are the lyrics of our chosen track, Radioactive. We have annotated the lyrics thoroughly and established various ideas as to what is going to happen in the video in sync with the song lyrics. As you can tell, we have annotated almost every line of the song so we are not struggling for ideas when the production of the video comes round.

Conventions of a successful music video

Track Choice

We have now decided which track to use for our music video.

Rita Ora - Radioactive

We decided this would be the ideal song to create a music video for. We had ideally planned for a track which is upbeat and "dancy". This song matches both of these elements nicely. The lyrics within this song are also clear enough to make a clear link with the narrative. A constant reference to the word "Boy" means we can depict a relationship narrative and we can use the track name of "radioactive" as a metaphorical device to depict a typical teenage "up and down" relationship.

Diary Entry 1

We are currently in the process of deciding which song we will use for our project. We have all said we like the idea of using a generic, pop song which is upbeat and 'dancy'. We have narrowed down our ideas to four Pop artists: Cheryl Cole, Rita Ora, Rihanna and Cher Lloyd and each of us are looking at a specific one. Jonny has taken up the role of researching Cher Lloyd tracks, Rachel - Rita Ora's, Emma is researching Rihanna tracks and Hana is focusing on Cheryl Cole's music.

Once each member of the group has gave feedback to one another we will decide which track we will use for our project.

Practice Video - Preliminary Task

The class were set the challenge of producing a music video for Avril Lavigne's song "Girlfriend". The videos that were created were predictably weak in terms of quality. This is due to the fact that it was most peoples first time taking on such a task. This is the video we created...

Analysis of Pre-Existing Music Videos

The track does not actually start until after one minute into the video. This period of silence mixed with little snippets of the song paths the way for an impressive introduction to the main singer, Cheryl. Cheryl is recorded in three different locations within the first minute of the video – a feature we will aim to replicate when producing our own music video. Cheryl is recorded walking slowly through a tunnel, walking by a lake or river and then pictured walking through an American-style underpass. Another interesting feature we noticed was the inclusion of the slogan “The only way to a woman’s heart is along the path of torment”. This is a somewhat romantic quote from Marquis De Sade and adds an element of uniqueness to the video and provides an incentive to continue watching the video to see what relevance this quote actually has on the protagonist of the video, Cheryl. We have been contemplating including a quote such as this as we believe it has great effect on the video.

Another feature of the video which we noticed was the choice of clothing. Cheryl is wearing bright, colourful, stand out colours. This is a vivid contrast to the backing dancers who are all wearing dark or black clothing. This choice of colour and clothing emphasises the importance of Cheryl in the video. Cheryl is always at the forefront of the dance troupe to show a form of superiority over her dance troupe. Another noticeable element of the video is that all of the backing dancers are male. We are up to this point undecided as to whether we are going to replicate this feature. We have the resources to include both male and female backing dancers so we may end up filming with both to see which one is more effective to our video.

Although we do believe that Cheryl’s performance looks very effective in an outdoor location, we have so far planned to record the performance in an indoor location. This is because we need to be wary of weather conditions, actor preferences amongst many more factors. Being indoors allows for the utilisation of suitable light types and various effects we aim to include. The glow paint feature we planned to involve would be a lot less effective and eye pleasing if recorded outdoors. 

This is another music video we decided to analyse due to its upbeat performance and lack of a definitive narrative. Unlike Cheryl’s “Call My Name” video, this video begins in sync with the start of the actual track. The beginning of the video shows Rita, the protagonist of the video, walking through an unused sub-urban area. One noticeable feature we noticed was the recording of only Rita’s feet. It is a simple yet very effective piece of camera work and a feature we are strongly thinking about using when it comes round to producing our own music video. Rita is also recorded meeting up with what seems to be her dance “crew” and this generates a real togetherness with Rita and her dance troupe which is an effective technique when trying to represent a particular urban style genre.

Rita Ora’s dance sequences are different to Cheryl’s. Rita is involved within a dance crew whereas Cheryl is joined by back up dancers. Within the “Hot Right Now” video we see Rita joined by a whole bunch of break dancers along with performers who are experts within the field of street dancing. Our own dance scenes may yet include elements of both the previously studied videos. Resources and performers available will be critical in the formation of our video. So far, we have decided include back up dancers but this is not to say we won’t transform our idea and go for the typical dance crew inclusion.

The location of the “Hot Right Now” video is interesting. The sub-urban area where the video is recorded is very representative of the urban dance genre. The graffiti stained walls and unused park areas develop the very urban style sense of the video. The clothing range of the dance crew varies widely. This is a vivid contrast to the all-black approach the producers of Cheryl’s “Call My Name” video took in terms of the dancers clothing wear. Another difference we noticed is the inclusion of both female and male dancers in the “Hot Right Now” video. 

We watched this particular Beyoncé video in hope of gaining some ideas for the performance side of our video. The entire music video is recorded within a studio which is similar to what we are hoping to do. Beyonce is situated ahead of the backing dancers which emphasises her dominance and importance within the video. This technique also represents with her identity of being a somewhat powerful woman. The dancing is entirely in sync and this looks very effective and is a feature that we hope to develop and include within our video.

One very clever piece of editing is the constant changing of clothing in sync with the change of key. The change of clothing depicts many different eras of time and different occupations. Beyonce and her backing dancers wear classy golden suits at one stage of the video, possibly representing the jazz genre. This quickly changes to Beyonce wearing a white suit and then a black suit and top hat. The three stages of clothing change is directly in time with the sound of the change of key in Beyoncé’s voice. We have not planned to use as many different changes of clothing in our video, but after watching this video we have realised that many different clothing ranges look effective to the viewer(s).

Beyonce is constantly looking into the camera whilst performing. This helps with the connection and interaction the audience has with her and looks very effective. Despite the entire video being recorded in one studio room, there are 20+ camera angles used. Due to this number of camera angles used the video never becomes tedious as there is always different views of Beyonce and her backing dancers. The video has clearly been recorded many times to include so many camera angles and this is the sort of realism we have to deal with in order to make the video the best that we can make it.

This is the fourth video we decided to look at due to the upbeat nature and the female singer influence. There are also dance scenes within this video which we have looked at closely to gain ideas for our video. The beginning part of this video features a seemingly popular recording technique where the lower legs and feet of the protagonist, Cher, are recorded. The camera then pans upwards to reveal Cher’s figure and a jacket which reveals the name of the track of which the video was created for. Up to this current point, we have not yet decided on a name for our artist but including the name of the track on the back of her jacket may be an idea we look into.            

We noticed that Cher is very confident in front of the camera.  Having an air of confidence in front of the camera always benefits the singer in a video and we will make sure our actress' and actors will not be camera shy as this will totally dampen the professional look of the video. Cher has a very distinctive attitude throughout the video - an attitude which symbolises the teenage genre. The dance scenes within this video are much less effective than the dance scenes in the previously analysed videos. The dance groups featured behind Cher have no rhythm or structure to their dance moves, thus giving a party-like effect to the video rather than a professional dance look. We aim to record very professional looking dance scenes with our actresses and actors so we will look to follow the Beyonce and Cheryl videos as an inspiration in preference to this.

Cher's clothing is a feature we looked at when studying this video. We see she is wearing very casual clothes for the bulk of the video. The grey cotton pants, white t-shirt and hi-tops combination develops a sense of artist identity as we see she is not one of the typical "glamorous" artists as she aims to stick to the urban genre of the track. We must consider clothing styles carefully when producing our video, thus far we have opted to make our dancers wear black clothes but to have our lead dancer wearing different colour clothes in order to stand out.

This is the fifth music video we looked at in order to gain ideas for our own video. We studied this video particular for the dance patterns and how the artist identity is developed throughout the video. This video features a female lead dancer, being the main artist Rihanna, and a male back up dance group. Rihanna's female dominance is portrayed as she is at the forefront of the dance routine and she develops a real aura of power throughout this video. We will make sure the main artist in our video has the lead role in our dance video to develop her powerful persona.

Rihanna's dance scenes subvert the norms of where dance scenes are stereotypically recorded. We have planned to do something out of the ordinary and record our dance scenes in a place which hasn't necessarily been recorded before. We have ideas of various warehouses and buildings but we are aiming to avoid the typical dance studio feel where a lot of pop/dance videos are filmed. We also noticed Rihanna actually sings the track whilst she is dancing. So far, we had planned for our artist to sing the track seperately to the actual dance scenes but after seeing this we are in the stages of contemplating different ideas.

The dance scenes in this video are recorded in more than just one location and this is a technique used by the producer to keep a viewer interested. If the dance scenes were all recorded in one particular location, the video may become very repetitive so we have planned to include various different locations for our dance scenes to be recorded. We aim to cut and match the dance scenes in the different locations as we believe techniques like this will look effective and fit in with the typical conventions of dance/pop music videos.

Project Overview

We have been set the task of creating a music video in A2 level media studies along with a digipack and an advert promoting the actual music video. Our progress throughout the project will be stored on this blog accordingly.

History Of Music Videos

We decided to do some research into the history of music videos as an element of further reading. We searched the internet for key times and occurances from the 60's up to more recent dates. This is some of the information we found:

In 1965, Bob Dylan produced a video for his song, Don’t Look Back. His black and white video didn’t contain any editing techniques as it was shot with just one camera. His video shows him standing at the right hand side of the screen, holding cards with lyrics on them and as each lyric was sung he dropped the card and moved onto the next one. The aim of this video was to make Bob Dylan more recognisable.

In 1964, The Beatles produced a black and white film of them acting as different characters while singing their songs. The film contained them running away from fans, with them not actually performing the song. This film was sent all over the world, as it developed their artist identity. The Beatles then produced a video in 1967 for their track ‘I Am the Walrus’, where they gave a  strange message of  ‘Everybody smoke pot’. This shows that they’re targeting the younger generation.

In 1975, Queen produced a video of one of their songs, Bohemian Rhapsody, produced on a 2 inch video tape. The video was showed on Top Of The Pops. This video was an amazement to all viewers, as it was something completely different to all the other videos. Thousands of pounds had been put in to produce this video as it's impact was highly anticipated by the music world. The video showed elements of performance and their fashionable image.

In the 1990’s, Madonna created a video for her hit song, Vogue. The video shows her dressed as the style of Marylyn Monroe and other glamorous  people. 

Michael Jackson shocked the music world with his 14 minute music video for thesong Thriller. The video is recorded in the form of a short film and is based on a horror genre.  Throughout the video, the song stops at parts and carries on with the narrative while a creepy voice is talking and creepy music is playing, which builds the conventions of the horror genre influence even more.