One of our group members was browsing Youtube when he found out another A Level Music Video for 'Corner'. When he watched watched it he noticed that the work was similar with their ideas as to the ones which we want to use. By doing this it means that we are less likely to make some of the same mistake, and we may gain some ideas. Also it means we might be able to picture our music video as a whole.
Positives;
The cutting of the music makes it interesting and adding controversy. This helps to maintaing the audiences attention.
The opening sequence was in time with the music and matched the feel of the song, also the close up shots made the characters seem mysterious and make you want to carry on watching the music video
They show past memories differently by editing them differently to the rest of the video, which makes it obvious they aren't at the present time
To help show the differences between before an after the accident through the use of parallels, this makes the audience feel more sympathetic towards the female character
The idea of the music video is strong and rerflects the song lyrics well
Negatives;
Many of the shots seemed the same, being either long shots or walking shots, they could have used a larger viariety of shots such as close ups to make the video more interesting
The middle of the music video could of been improved by faster editing as it seems not much is happening
The shot before the car accident seems to try and build tension, which doesnt seem to fit with the music, as the tempo of the music doesn't change, and the video no longer fits
By breaking the sound it no longer seems to fit with the song. At a talking point it seems to disrupt the song, and make it not flow so well
As we have had to change the ideas of our music video we think it would be best to create a new storyboard to follow for when we are filming.
Below is our new storyboard;
By desiging a schedule we are more likely to get all of our filming done over the next few weeks. We are hoping that by organising ourselves we can get the filming done efficiently and quickly. This will also enable us to have a longer period of time to edit our video. Below is an image of our filming timetable;
By planning our filming out in a table like this and then printing the table it means that the three of us know what we are expected to do and when. By having the props written in the table it gives me an idea ofwhat I should take with me when I was being filmed. Overall the filming should take no more than 4 weeks which we believe is a reasonable amount of time and we can use our lesson time to edit the footage. However during lesson time we can also go out filming in case we have missed anything or if we need to re-film if the quality of the footage isn't good enough.
We believe the table will benefit us and help us work more effectively.
Today in class we continued analysing Channel 4's 100 greatest music videos;
74. Wu-Tang Clan - "Gravel Pit" - 2001
73. Basement Jack - "Where's your head at"
72. Robert Palmer - "Addicted to Love" - 1992
71. Bjork - "All is Full of Love"
70. The Police - "Every Brreath You Take"
69. Frankie Goes to Hollywood - "Two Tribes" - 1984
68. Madonna - "Ray of Light" - 1998
67. The Beastie Boys - "Sabotage" - 1994
66. Bob Dylan - "Subterranean Homesick Blues" - 1965
This music video was filmed in the form of a documentary, and is very iconic as people remember it. What makes the song rememberable is that it was filmed in one take, and Bob Dylan isn;t lip synching, he decided to sing aloud. The song lyrics are written on card and are being thrown away, which shows that they are being ignored. Also the video was Bob Dylans idea and they never did a second take.
65. The Aphex Twin - "Windowlicker" - 1999
64. Bjork - "Human Behaviour"
63. George Michael - "Outside" - 1998
62. Blur - "Parklife"
61. The Prodigy - "Smack My Bitch Up" - 1997
"Smack my Bitch up" is one of the most controvesial music videos, the lyrics are indefensible as the song is about men hitting women. The video was so controversial that they tried to ban it as the video emphasised the lyrics, and it was even spoke about in the Houe of Commons!
The fact that it was filmed from a persons point of view made us believe that it was a man mistreating the women, however the end of the video revieled it was a woman, who had had to act as maly as possible. The music video only took one night to film and was on a low budget
After fiming our focus group we analysed the answers we were given, by doing this we will be able to produce a better music video which people will enjoy more.
Do you like the song?The majority of the answers which were given were positive, which meant that the people liked the song. This was a good response for us because it gave us a boost in confidence that if the song was liked a bit more it means it automatically means people are more interested and may like te music video.
Describe the song in a few words.
The song was mainly described as 'emotional' which people then elaborated on and said it could be seen as both 'sad' and 'happy.
They said his as they believe that in some parts of the song it was seen as sad, because it sounded like the girl was scared and alone and needed someone with her. They believed it was happy in some places however as it was as if the girl was being strong and from her singing automatically seemed happy. I agree on this and belive it will be important for us to include both sad and happy emotions.
The song was also described as 'like a lullaby' which shows the song has a very dreamlike effect to it as that of a lullaby does, also it is a simple song and has a simple tune to it.
Finally the song was also described as 'cute' this is abit like 'like a lullaby' as you would expect a lullaby to be cute. The fact it was describd this way means we will try and involve cute things into our music video, and try and make the couple look as 'cute' as possible.
What artists style is the song similar to?We were given different examples of artists wich the group believed the song sounded like, these included 'Ellie Goulding', 'Tracy Chapman', 'Birdy' and 'Ingrid Michaelson'. The fact that 2 of these artists have already been shown on my blog from previous work to do with the music video shows that the group have the same idea as us for the music video. Below is a song by Birdy, who was said sounds like our song, which I agree with;
Would you expect the digipak to have a photograph or an illustration? The answer we was given was photograph. We are taking this into account when producing it and already have a couple of pictures which we could include on the digipak.
What kind of Narative would you expect for the music video?We were given many different answers to this question, but the main idea we was recieving was that a couple should be in love in the music video. This then however left us with 3 outcomes, the first being that the girl and the boy break up throughout the video, which can be seen as a traumatic experience and very heartbreaking. However as a group we believe this will be too much like a chick-flick movie and wouldnt want the music video to seem to much like a film.
The next option we had was death, with one of the two main characters dying, this has a greater impact of emotion and trauma and can relate to the song better of the artist feeling alone. Also it means we will be able to bring in more emotion, with at first being happy and after the death experience the emotion changes and the character becomes sad.
Our final option that we had was letting te two caracters stay together and just tell a love story, however the possiblities which we could come up with for this are too many, and it will take us too long to chose which one we think is the best.
Other informationInformation about the group we filmed, all of the participants were of the same age, all being 17, three of them were female and one of them was male. This meant our group didnt have that much of a variety of people for different ideas of people from different backgrounds. However, from most of the group being female it shows that most of the artists fan base is more likely to be female thus meaning that our video is more likely to appeal to females.
In order to gain a better understanding of what people think of our music video we filmed a focus group. This also enabled us to gain ideas for the digipak. After filming the focus group we can evaluate the answers given and use tem to produce a better music video.
Here is the footage of our focus group;
To gain ideas and a better understanding of what we want the outcome of our music video to look like each member of the group created a moodboard. These were all done seperately and it meant we could all put our individul ideas into it. The moodboard consists of areas of mise-en-scene, this means it will be easier for us to produce a storyboard.
Image 1, 5 and 8 are all of jewelery and involve loveheart necklaces. I used tese images cos it displays what kind of emotion will be displayed throughout the music video. Also the first image is an actual image we took of the the necklace which belongs to the girl in the music video, she will be wearing it for most of the video. All images have quite a vintage feel to them, which is what we are going for in our video.
Image 2 and 12 both have quiet a negative aspect about them. Image two being of a gravestone shows that there is going to be death in our music video and image 12 shows that a girl is alone and looks as is she is looking out for something/remorsing.
Image 3, 7 and 11 all show a young girl. In image 3 and 6 she seems to be happy and looking towards something and laughing. I used these images as this is the emotion which i hope is shown in the music video. Also both the locations are somewhere, where we hope to film. Image 3 just shows a brick background, this is ver simple, however i think it would look good as a location where the female is lip synching. Image six however we just hope to film at as it looks cute and vintage which is what we are going for in our video. Image 11 however I included because this is like a part of the footage which we hope to have at teh end of our music video.
Image 6 and 9 both show a couple, they both seem to be very emotionally attached and this is what we hope the couple on our screen are going to look like. We are hoping to see some real emotion which means the two people have to be confident around each other and in front of the camera. Also the lighting in these iamges is the lighting which we hope can appear in our video, with the sunsetting behind the couple.
Image 4 and image 10 are both of a beach location, image 4 shows a loveheart in the sand, and we are hoping to reflect on that by showing two people in love whilst walking along the sand. Also image 10 seems to be a cute and vintage location which would be nice for the girl to sit infront of and lip sync.
So that we can film our video more efficiently and be more organised when it comes to filming. By doing this it will allow us to prepare all of our props and prepare anything we may need for filming. Below is an image of the table;
From the table you can see that we are hoping to spread the filming out throughout the week. We want to try and get it done quickly however we do not want to try and do too much in one day. We want to organise everything before we begin filming, hence why we have decided to use monday and tuesday to just organise our props and check the weather. We have left friday blank incase any of the days change because something comes up.
Allie moss sings the song 'Corner' which we are using in our music video. She is an unsigned singer as well as a guitarist and a vocal coach, Allie Moss originally comes from New Jersey, America. She released her first EP Passerby in 2009, however has recently recorded and released 'Late Bloomer' in 2011.
She also has her own website; http://alliemoss.com/ this website updates fans with information on upcoming concerts which she has.
When not song writing she preforms as a lead guitarist for her friend Ingrid Michaelson their concerts.
Her song Corner (the song we are using) Is her most popular song and what she is well known for, it reached number 70 in the UK charts and was played in the BT Infinity advert.
Previously we have thought about going to Walton-on-the-Naze to filma section of our music video on the beach, however we have previously mentioned that maybe as the weather is getting colder this wouldn't be suitable , today we finally decided to change our minds and not travel to the beach this is bcause of a few reasons;
The days are becoming shorter meaning filming after about 3 or 4 oclock the footage will be really dark and will be a problem
The travel cost there is expensive, and we feel we do not want to waste our money with filming there if we will just have to refilm the section elsewhere
It will be cheaper to film in London, as this will only cost £3 to get to, we will change our location to London
Ashleigh works, this means we have to plan our filming around the hours she works and can only film at weekends unless we film without her
There are other locations which are free to travel to and are closer. E.g. the park
Days are getting colder and darker meaning if we want to film on a sunny day this limits the times which we can go
Before we had selected our music for our project we were told to use websites such as newgrounds.com and unsigned.com. This was so that we could not break the law by making the mistake of copyrighting any music. We would not be able to use a copyrighted song unless we got in touch with the artist and asked for their permission. This means that it is easier to get an unsigned song because it would be quicker and easier to get permission to use that song, than someone who is signed, and more famous who does not have time to respond to our request of using their song.
When filming and editing our music video we soon learnt that it is a lot different to last years task of filming and editing our music video. We learnt different things to help us get the timing of lip syncing correctly.
Below is a list of the things which we learnt;
Shooting in whole takes helps to make the editing process a little easier and quicker
To make the lip syncing more effective, we must sing the song out loud so it looks more believable
We must know the song, the timing and the lyrics so that we can produce better results
Vertical editing is quick and simple to carry out once understood
The pen tool is useful for changing a clip from a long take without removing any of the original footage
You can use the pen tool to either perform straight cuts or dissolves, the different places you place the pen tool on the clip determines the different cuts.
Once placed on the correct point on the timeline, we must lock the layers so that it becomes impossible to change that clip or move it until you unlock it. This is useful as it avoids you making any accidental mistakes.
What can we improve next time we are filming and editing.
There are a few things which we have discussed as a group which we think we should do in order to make our overall music video more believable and professional.
Below is a list of things we can improve;
We must be comfortable singing the song and performing in front of the camera
We must act whilst singing, to show emotion and make the lip syncing look more believable and have a higher effect
We must work quicker with filming and editing so we can meet our deadline, however we should not sacrifice the quality of our work
We must practise and experiment with the other features of Final Cut Express such as the filters to figure out what they do, this can up the standards of our music video
