Final Cut Snapshot Rough Cut Final

This is what our final cut express rough cut looks like. We have filled all of the space with the music however we need to add extra shots that we are yet to film such as another stop motionof the words 'Love is Dead' and of someone playing and singing on the piano.

Ellie Goulding - Your Song Music Video Analysis

I once again chose this song to analyse as it is in the same genre as Angels. The song involves of just her singing with a piano in the background.
Like the others this doesn't really have a narrative to it however it does have more of one than the others. This video starts with her on a train and then the setting quickly changes and goes to many other different locations but occasionally flicking back to her on a train. The filming is sometimes hand held which gives this video a sense of a home video with friends and in one shot it shows her friend filming her then changes to the footage on that camera, this gives this music video a real homely feel. The video consists of shots of her with her friends having fun, standing/sitting singing the lyrics and sitting next to a man on the piano who is playing the song. All of these shots are mixed together randomly and quickly to make up this video.
All of the shots are cut on the beat and the shots where she is singing are longer than the shots of her having fun which are shorter and faster to match the action. The camera shots use a range of different angles and distances but what really catches my attention is that they use a lot of blurring. They blur in and out of focus on a lot of things and this really gets my attention and I think that it is a really good idea which not many people use.

Adele - Make You Feel My Love Music Video Analysis

This song is similar to our chosen song as it is as simple as a piano and her singing a slow, sad song which is why I decided to analysis it.
All of this video is staged in the same place - her apartment/room. It starts with no music being played but shots of the surroundings until the music starts which is when you see Adele in her apartment. Before the singing starts the camera shows different shots of her and then the narrative starts. There is only a very small narrative in this video but it starts with her picking up her phone and sending a text message to what we assume is her boyfriend. For the rest of the video she is waiting for him to reply. One thing in this video that does not normally occur is that you can hear everything she is doing over the top of the song, for example when she puts her phone down onto the table and when she starts moving on her bed you hear a rustling.
A genre characteristic for a sad/slow pop song is that she is singing on her own with no one around her.
There is little relationship between the lyrics and visuals apart from the emotions you can see on Adele face for example a tear drop that amplify the meanings of the lyrics.
The relationship between the music and visuals is that the shots are long quite long to match the tempo of the song. The shots occasionally cut on the beat however when they do not they change on a loud note of the piano or of the singing to amplify that part of the song.
There are a lot of close ups on Adele's face which shows all of her emotions clearly, this could be apart of the record label as they may be trying to make Adele a reachable person to fans so that they can link to her and what she is feeling which is also what the song represents.
The only voyeurism in this video is that we are watching Adele in her room which can be a very private place and we are watching her private emotions. We also watch her watching her phone waiting for the reply and of her staring out of the window at the rest of the world.
In the background of the song the TV is playing however we do not see what it is and can not make a link about it, apart from this there is little or no intertextual references.

Idea's for Digipack

- Angel sitting on a bench with the sun shining down on her. Either from behind so the wings show fully sticking out of the bench or from the front to show her face with just the tops of the wings sticking out behind her.

- Someone playing the piano. Maybe in black and white with an over the shoulder shot of her hands on the piano.
- Angel outside of a church at night in front of the spot light with arms spread wide with back to the camera making a shadow of her really big church.

Filming Review

Filming in Cambridge
Whilst we were filming in Cambridge we had some trouble with people walking into and around the shots. it was hard to control the the shots so that people were not getting in the way or making it obvious that we were filming such as staring at the camera. At one point during the filming of the telephone box people kept walking in front of the camera. To try and stop this we had Alistair and Bekki standing on either side of the shot redirecting the people around the other side of the telephone box and out of the shot. In other shots we just have to cut the shot before people enter it.

Filming in House
The only trouble filming in the house was that my family would be there as well. This could mean that they could have gotten into the shots or want to get to the places where we filmed. Luckily they did not however my dog did get in the way of some shots. At one point we had to have Alistair keeping her amused outside whilst we filmed the shot.

Final Cut Snapshot 18/10

This is a snapshot from our project which shows the work we have done so far. We have got some spaces for where the stopmotion will be going which we are yet to film but we have marked these places using the mark tool.

Charlene Soraia - Wherever You Will Go Music Video Analysis

This song is from the same genre as Angels - Jessica Simpson as pop an is similar in other ways such as it is just her singing and a piano. This video is very simple as it just consists of Charlene Soraia singing into a mic and a man playing the piano in a studio however is filmed in a way that links with the song and keeps the viewer interested.
A genre characteristic for pop is that if they are performering the song on stage/to people/in a studio. In this video they follow this convention by having her performing the song in a studio and singing to the mic.
There is very little relationship between the lyrics and visiual apart from in one point of the video where the camera shows the sheet music which has the words hand written on them.
The relationship between music and video is that the cuts and fades are on the beat. The different shots are all slightly longer than in other videos as it fits with the tempo of the song as it is slow. There are shots of a man playing the piano and this is all in time with playing and also they show the sheet music for the song visually linking the piano to the song.
In this video there are a lot of close ups on Charlene's face as she sings into the mix. This could be for the record label so that she is recognised as an artist and so people are familimar with her and feel as if they know her.
There isn't really any voyeuristic in this video apart from the fact that normally you don't get to see someone performering their song in a studio environment.

love is dead chain lettering

Stop Motion Ideas

- "Loving angels instead"
Spelt out with scrabble tiles, one letter at at time as if people were actually playing scrabble. "angels" will share the 'n' with "loving" and the 's' with "instead".

-"Wings unfold"
The word "wings" spelt out in dice, on a blue background with clouds above. Will be 'washed away' by dice rain, then one cloud will float down, open up and have the word "unfold" written inside.

-"Love is dead"
The words "Love" and "dead" made with thin necklace chains on a piece of white paper with the word "is" written in black in-between them and from each side pull the chains to straighten out the words.

- "waterfall"
Blue buttons flow on screen and spell out the words "water" and "fall.

-"and through it all"
Each word written on the inside of each finger and being revealed one by one.

Lyrics analysis

Our video connects to the lyrics in a suggestive manner, by showing an angel carrying out everyday tasks which reflects the words because the song is about the concept of angels. Rather than interpreting the lyrics literally (i.e showing a man loving an angel) we've introduced the character of an angel, but we have also added a more illustrative technique by using stop motion to spell out the lyrics. An example of what we will use in the video is using scrabble tiles to one by one come into the shot and move around to create the words 'loving angels instead'.

Music video advertisement, research

This is our practice magazine ad for a  indie band 'Holly D'Hibbet'. We researched Indie bands and found that they use a lot random abjects which seem to link with nothing. We took this idea and used Yoyo's to tie Holly up, one around her head, one around her arms and the last around her neck like a tie. We used yoyo's to give extra colour to the photo and to show her things about her such as her age (she must be quite young to still enjoy yoyo's) her 'fun side' (showing she isn't to shy to play with things others would not) etc.

Indie posters/adverts also seem to either be really colourful or in black and white. We decided to go with the colourful option with our main colours being blue and orange. Holly is wearing a blue shirt and has an orange yoyo in the centre of her therefore we made the writing the same colours with her name being in bold and at the top of the image to show that it is the most important, and then with the other writing written smaller and in orange.

The outfit Holly is wearing goes along with the fashion of Geek Chic which is very big at the moment in indie music. She is wearing the big geek glasses and a shirt which is buttoned all the way up.

MTV Video Music Awards Task

Best Art Direction Nominees -
- Adele - Rolling in the Deep
- Death Cab For Cutie - You Are a Tourist
- Kanye West ft. Dwele - Power
- Katy Perry ft. Kanye West - E.T
- Lady Gaga - Judas

The Winner of this catagory was Adele with Rolling in the Deep.
Our Winner would have been Kanye West ft. Dwele with Power.

We choose this because the video is of a moving painting. The painting is in the style of Greek Godswith Kanye West in the middle staring straight through the camera. He is holding a strong position showing his 'Power'. The video has strong links to the theme of the song and it is the classic thought of art that we have.

In this video it zooms out from Kanye's face but then it does a fast zoom and moves to other people in the video, this all happens on the beat of the song.
The two women next to Kanye are holding sticks they both knock them on the floor on the beat.
The video is called 'Power' and everything in the image sumbolises power as it is a Greek God.
He is staring striaght at the audience through the camera which shows voyuerism.

One of the Lyrics is 'White World' and this links with the fact that all of the people arounf him in the video are white.

There is intertextuality to Kelly Rowland. There is a genre characteristic of women half dressed around him yet it is not quite right as they are dressed as if from many years ago.

Location Report

Location One - Michaela's House
We shall be using the bedroom, living room, kitchen and the drive-way.

Bedroom -
-Filming her getting out of bed and walking out of the door.
- We want to get a shot of her hand turning on the light however this could be difficult as the light will be off at the beginning of the filming therefore could be dark/black.
- There is only a small amount of space where the bed is. This could make filming difficult.

Living Room -
- Filming her reading a book and of the dog wearing wings looking out of the window.
- It could be difficult to get the dog into the wings and for her to do what we want.

Kitchen -
- Filming her making a cup of coffee and the word 'Angels' made out of Alphabetti Spaggetti.
- The spagetti could go everywhere. Could be difficult to find the letters.
- My family may want to use the kitchen/ get in the way of shooting.
- My dog wonders around the kitchen, she may get in the way shot/knock the camera.

Drive-way -
- Filming her walking out of the gate and down the drive.
- Cars could be driving past and ruin the shot.
- A car may come up the drive.

Location Two -Cambridge
We are wanting to shot around Cambridge at Jochoclatte, Parkers Piece and The Grand Arcade.

Jochoclatte -
- Filming her walking in to the coffee shop and sitting alone drinking it.
- Must ask permission [Michaela knows the owners should say yes.]
- Makes sure we don't get in the way or customers.
- Other custometrs my get in the shots.
- They have a big garden at the back with lots of space, should be fine to film in.


Parkers Piece
- Filming her sun bathing and relaxing on the grass.
- Could be lots of other people around. Make sure not to get in their
way or for them to get in ours.




Grand Arcade -

- Filming her walking up the stairs and/or escalator.
- Must ask permission
- Lots of people around, try not to get in their way.
- Difficult to film on an escalator - lots of people and it moves.


On the Streets -
- Filming her walking along the streets past street names such as 'Adam and Eve Street', 'Paradise Street' and Emmanuel Street', giving money to a person playing an instrument.
- There will be lots of people walking around who probably will walk into the shots, will have to ask them to walk around, but try not to get in their way.
- Ask permission from the person playing instrument to be in our video.

magazine ad/digipak ideas

-angel on bench
-angel dog looking out window
-angel with shadow on church arms outstretched

Possible errors & Back-up plans.

Possible Errors/Backup Plans:
- Unable to get the wings in time for filming: move filming weekend from the 30th sept-2nd oct to 7th-9th oct
- Unable to shoot all or not enough footage during booked filming weekend: use backup filming days after rough cut deadline or shoot footage during lesson periods.
- Battery of camera dying during filming: make sure camera is fully charged before and after filming sessions.
- If unable to get filming permission from Costa Coffee, filming can be done in Jocholatte as Michaela knows the owners.
- If unable to get filming permission from Tesco's: possible back ups are - Sainsburys or isleham co-op.

Reflection

Unfortunately I wasn't here at the beginning of the video task so I was both unaware and unable to contribute towards the research, planning and filming. However I was here for a large part of the editing.

The planning my group did was two initial song ideas with video plots briefly noted. The song they chose was Dizzee Rascals 'holiday'. Within the initial idea of the music video they included costumes & props that were needed for filming and a shot list was prepared In a separate blog post. I think this planning was sufficient for a preliminary but with our final music video much more detailed planning and research on similar videos will be needed.  

 I was told by my group they only had one day to film all the footage for the task and because of this there is a lack of scene change (other than green screens) leaving not much selection in editing to put together a variety of shots to keep the audiences interest. In the future we will have to set aside a few different days for filming to allow location change and to keep the audience entertained and interested we will need a range of different shot types and angles.

 

As ollie didn't know the words to Dizzee's song it made it hard for him to lip synch to it correctly and so in the video it is alittle off, but to distract the viewer away from this we added bold white text over the shot with certain words or sentences of the song like 'south of france' and to break up the long clip of ollie singing we added 8 black screens into it with the first 7 spelling out 'H.O.L.I.D.A.Y' from the individual letters and the last with the full word across the screen. 

 What worked really well was the magazine advert for the song as we brainstormed ideas together and once we knew what we wanted we were able to photograph ollie. We were left with several good pictures we could chose and using photo shop created exactly what we wanted. 

In our final music video we will start with 3 possible song choices all with brief ideas of a music video and have a blog post for our final idea which will be in great detail. We will set up more days to shoot and take a variety of different shots. 

Colin Tilley

Colin Tilley is a successful music video director from California. He got into directing two years ago and has worked with people such as Lil’ Wayne, Ciara, P Diddy, Keri Hilson, Justin Bieber. He has also worked closely with Chris Brown where he directed all of his songs from his album F.A.M.E expect one. Tilley has won several awards including Video of the Year at the 2011 BET Awards for Chris Brown’s ‘Look at Me Now’ and Best Male Video at MTV’s 2011 VMAs for Justin Bieber ‘You Smile’. He was also nominated for three other videos at the VMAs including Best Hip Hop Video and Best Collaboration.

 

Keep, Grow, Change

In my group we did both research and planning on our own and as a group. We had a lot of planning about what our video would contain and look like but we had little research on other music videos from the same genre. We used a lot of editing skills in our video. The main editing skill we used was the green screening technique. We had many different shots taking in front of the green screen and edited in different countries around the world, we used different props and outfits to show that the people were really in the places and then chose images that are easily recognisable to everyone. We also put lyrics and letters over the top of our video fitting in with what is being said and when it is being said for example ‘Take a Chance’ and we spelt out the name of the song ‘Holiday’. We made sure that all of the text came up on the beat as well as all of the change of scene. I think that our video was quite funny in parts, which adds to the feel of the video and our artist making them more likable. I also think that we had a good idea for our video. Our song was Holiday by Dizzee Rascal and we decided to ‘travel the world’ and pretend that we were on holiday and that other people were on holiday and having a good time. The green screening wasn’t 100% clear, in the New York scene we had Alistair dressed up as the Statue of Liberty wearing a green Liberty hat however the colour was too similar to the background and it disappeared into the background. The worst part about our video was the lip syncing. At first we had our friend being the artist however she did not live up to our exception therefore Ollie stepped in however he did not know the lyrics either. He knew some of the lyrics and those fitted well. This is the main thing I would improve about our video if I got the chance.

Photos from Filming