Location Planning

We have decided that this is a good location for filming because the lighting in this area is good , especially for filming at night, we also like this setting for filming because it looks good on camera and there isn't too much in the background that won't look good.

we may use this setting, which is close to the one above, for the scenes with the torches and sparklers in. The only problem we could face with this setting it that is may be quite dark. We are still considering other locations for these certain parts of the video.

The two images above are also very close to the two above locations. We have decided not to use this location in the video, as it would be quite difficult to film here and there is no light at all that  comes onto the bridge so you wouldn't be able to see anything on the video.

We really like this location and think it will work well and look good in the music video. However the gates at both ends get shut at night, which is when we would need to film. So if we can get in touch with someone who could leave it open for us to film in then we could use it as a location.

These two settings both look good on camera during the day, however they don't have much light on the night. It would be very hard to make anything out on the video so we have decided not to use these locations.

This image is an experiment of what effect we want to have projected onto a screen where the artist will lip sync. I like this, it will look a lot better on a night time as the lights will stand out a lot more. Also we will be taking a video and not an image, but speeding the video up to get kind of the same effect as this picture.

My Audience

Rita Ora - How we do music video
Our audience for the music video is going to be teenagers, mainly girls. Looking at the statistics of the official music video it shows that the main audience for the song is girls aged between 13 and 24, there is also a big audience of men between the ages of 18 to 24.

This image is from you tube  underneath the music video there is an option to look at statistic. I looked at information from here and also information I gathered with the survey I made that is down the side of my blog.

Looking at the results from my survey, the majority of the people that filled it out were female and aged between 16 and 19, which is the main audience group we are aiming for in the video. We decided to base the style of the people in the video on the skins characters.Skins is a British television series about some teenagers who go to sixth form and it is all about their life.
The majority of people that filled out the survey mainly liked pop music, with some others that said different genres, pop was definitely the dominant genre of music that people liked. The results also show that people prefer a performance video over the other styles of music videos, narrative was also a popular choice. Our music video has a narrative of a girls night out but it isn't the main part of the video, the performance what the video is focused on.

Deconsruction and Reconstruction of music video Evaluation

When first looking at the first 30 seconds of the coundown music video we saw that a lot of work would have to go into the editing in order to have all the split screens and green screens in the video. We organised a plan as a group and followed it quite well. Below is a table showing what we did on each day that we planned. I think that having a plan for the video on what we was going to complete each day helped a lot as it gave us plenty of time to get everything done.

Date/ Time	What tasks we completed	Who?
Monday 1st October 10.20 til 11:30	Filming – Filmed the first shot (15 seconds long) Did a few different versions of the shot, some with actions, some without	Yasmin and Laken
Tuesday 2nd October 1:40 til 2:50	Filming – Filmed the rest of the shots were Laken wears the turtle neck and did some work in with the green screen Filmed the close up shot with turtle neck on “If you leave me your outta your mind”	All
Wednesday 3rd October 9:00 til 10:10	Filming – Filmed the two different shots for the split screen and the other shots where Laken has to have her hands around her face etc	All
Thursday 4th October 11:30 til 12:40	Filming – Filmed Laken blowing a kiss, moving shoulders and the last remaining shots with the turtle neck that we needed to reshoot or finish off We then went into the green room to do some of the shots with Laken walking	All
Friday 5th October 2:50 til 4:00	Filming – Finished the shots in the green room, the clock and finished all of the filming completely	All
Monday 8th October 10:20 til 11:30	Editing – Put the first few clips into and edited them with the levels and also started editing the videos that needed to be put into the split screen effect	Yasmin and Laken
Tuesday 9th October 1:40 til 2:50	Editing – Put all of the videos in the right places for the clip and matched up the sound with Laken lip syncing, We also started editing the green screen on some of our videos, adding in a striped background	All
Wednesday 10th October 9:00 til 10:10	Editing – We finished adding the background to all of the green screen videos, put all of the last parts of the video together and added lines onto the last clip of Laken blowing a kiss. Finished all editing.	All

At first we only planned to film for a few lessons but by the end of the lessons that we planned out we still had more filming left to do so we had to set out a couple more lessons for filming. Getting everyone together and the costumes (as we didnt need any props for this music video) went well. For the costume for Laken we had to use a scarf and jumper as a turtle neck jumper as no one had one to use but on camera you couldn'tt tell that it wasn't a turtle neck. Other costumes included a dress, the two different dresses are very different, it was hard to create a costume that matched that outfit. We also looked at the make-up that Beyonce had on in the video and tried to re-create that look as best we could.

When filming we made sure we looked back at the music video so that we could frame Laken properly in the screen. I am happy with the different shots and the way we framed them. The lighting in Beyonces video makes it look quite vintage, we edited the lighting in our video to by adjusting the levels, this improved the look of the video but I think that we could have looked more at the lighting, this could have improved the video overall.

I don't think that the shots with the striped background look very good, I think that the reason the image doesn't look as good on those shots is because we didn't get the lighting on the green screen right. If we spent time trying to get this right then it may have looked slightly better when we edited it. After using the green screen for this video I have decided that I don't want to use this method in my music video.
The main shot that i really liked out of the section of the video that we did was the split screen shot. I think it looks really effective in the video, even though it took a long time to edit it and put it together I learnt a lot when creating the split screen and I would like to use something like it in my music video.

I think that using this in my music video would look really good. Having the artist perfoming to the camera in one half of the screen and on the other half have a clip of the artist and friends or something similar. Split screen is really effective in music videos, a lot happens in one shot and it can be really interesting.

Also when I start planning my video I am going to make sure that I plan it really well and think about each detail and what problems could occur when filming and think about all of the costume and work out which days I can film with the people that I want to be in my video. For the beyonce video we spent a lot of time planning out what we was going to do on each day and making sure that everyone would be there and that we would have everything we need on the day.

Reconstruction of a music video

Countdown Remake

 

I think that the music video went well. The editing was the main task for this because of all of the green screens and split screens but i think the video works and a whole.

Production Plan

Times and dates

Monday 1st October 10.20 til 11:30 - Filming (Laken and Yasmin)
Tuesday 2nd October 1:40 til 2:50 - Filming (All)
Wednesday 3rd October 9:00 til 10:10 - Filming (All)
Thursday 4th October 11:30 til 12:40 - Filming (All)
Friday 5th October 2:50 til 4:00 - Filming (All)

Monday 8th October 10:20 til 11:30 - Editing (Laken and Yasmin)
Tuesday 9th October 1:40 til 2:50 - Editing  (All)
Wednesday 10th October 9:00 til 10:10 - Editing (All)

Props/Costume

• Turtle neck jumper
• Black leggings
• White socks
• Black shoes
• Black skirt
• Black vest top
• Make up - Similar to video

Locations for filming

• Against a White wall
• Green room - For parts with the striped background

Deconstruction and Reconstruction of media text

Group names and roles
Paige Jones - Producer
Laken Baldwin - Editor - Cast
Natasha Majero - Director
Yasmin Burhan - Camera
Rachel Escritt (Editor)

Media text we will be recreating - Beyonce - Countdown

Codes and Conventions

Codes and conventions music videos and Genre

The genre of a media text is a way of constructing meaning and creates an audience for the text. Genre is a firm set of rules/way of doing things, they can slowly adapt over time because of different influences.  The different codes and conventions of a media text allow the audience to become familiar with different genres and it ensures a certain text works well and fits into a genre.

The genre of music that I am studying for my music video is pop. Pop music aims to appealing to a general audience rather than a particular sub culture or ideology. It is generally more focused on the recording, production and technology side of things more than a live performance. The main aim is to promote the artist. The lyrics of pop music generally focus on simple themes; the theme is often love and romantic relationships.

Codes and conventions of pop

• Pop music is very electric, often borrows elements from other styles of music including urban, dance, rock, Latin and country – Core elements which define pop
• Generally short to medium length songs
• Common – repeated choruses, melodic tunes and catchy hooks
• Main goal of pop music is to be pleasurable to listen to rather than have artistic depth
• Pop music is commercially recorded and desires to have a mass audience appeal
• Pop music has absorbed influences from most other genres of popular music
• Close ups are often the most dominant shot used in pop music videos to create emphasis on the artist, location and emotions. They are also used to reflect the words of the song, showing the artist lip syncing.

Jessie  J - Price tag

Jason Derulo - It girl

Other shots typically used in music videos are long shots; these show the setting of the video. Mid shots are also used a lot. Music videos intentions are to promote the artist, and give them a unique style, different shots help to show the artists style off well.Mise-en-scene in music videos is often used to add glamour or style to the artist which could single them out from other artists.

Alexandre Burke is framed in the centre of the frame, wearing a leather jacket, adds to her looking like the dominant character, the males all placed behind her in lighter clothing looking at her. She is the dominant character.Women are usually made to look modern and independent and dominant such as the Alexandre Burke video where she is dominant over the men (Bad boys).

Costume usually relevant to the genre, mood and storyline of the song – Creating an on screen image for the artist
Lighting emphasises the mood of the songColour – sets the mood for the video, creating either a sad or happy etc. atmosphere
Usually set in mansions, nightclubs, boats, beaches, streets, all settings associate with the good life and rich people
Modern stylish clothes which are normally designer especially on male artists

Usually pop music videos are performance based; if there is a narrative it isn’t very often that it is the most dominant part of the video.

In the Katy Perry video – The one that got away, it is mainly based on narrative. A song with a narrative based music video includes a narrative story of the lyrics and acted out in some way. It relies on imagery to produce a story for the audience to follow. A common story for pop music videos is Romance, showing a relationship and a story that goes with the song lyrics.
This video is a story of a broken down relationship which ends with the boy in an accident that kills him. It shows the past and present Katy, with clips of a kind of flashback and the two different stories running alongside each other

Performance based videos tend to show the band or artists mostly performing there song, possibly at a gig or in a studio setting. Pop videos are often set in a studio.

A lot of pop videos are mainly performance based; this helps the audience to connect with the artist. Often if the music video has a narrative the performance part of the song is also in the same setting as the narrative, it helps to connect the two together. The narrative will run alongside the performance side of the video, but the performance side will be the more dominant part of the video.

In the three images of different music videos to the left they all show the artist performing to the camera. This makes it better for them to connect to the audience.

Pop music is usually about the good things in life. A lot of the themes in the songs include, love, teen august, rebellion, coming of rituals, currency of cool, friendship etc. The themes of the songs are reflected in the music video. For example, Rita Ora – How we do (Party) is about parties, being young, and friendships/relationships. In the video she is shown at a party and is surrounded by friends, having fun.

 

• Typical summer pop song
• Quick paced shots from clip to clip
• A lot of action happening fastParty atmosphere, people having funClothing of Rita Ora is revealing, also makes her look quite glamorous, she is wearing well-known brand boy London in the video
• Relaxed fun atmosphere
• Night time location

 

Artists like Miley Cyrus convey the new conventions of pop videos where there are flash cars, women showing more skin and having a setting somewhere hot and sunny (especially in male videos). Older pop music videos aren’t as glamorous as current music videos. Pop music tends to follow the current trends rather than creating any of its own; it is influenced by the trends at the time of the video.