Blog Reflection - WEEK FOUR

This week I produced a power point which was filled with my ideas and expectations of my music video. This was filled with images, so that people could see exactly what my idea is like in my head, because sometimes people may find it hard to understand when explaining things to them. This was then presented in front of my class members, so that I could see what people thought of my ideas. I think I done this successfully as I had never done a presentation on my own before and I think that I done quite well. I tried to get my ideas across as clear as possible an I'm definitely glad that I used pictures rather than words, as I think it made it easier for me to present, as I didn't have to keep looking up at the screen to read what I wrote, I just glanced at the pictures and knew what my point was. I then done a focus group afterwards so that I could get responses and that also went well. After this, I posted it on my blog and wrote an evaluation on how it went. This included quotes from the focus group and I wrote why I was happy with the feedback and the things that I would have preferred to of heard.  I was very pleased with the reactions I got with my peers as I wasn't sure if they were going to like my song or the ideas, and they actually really liked it. I am happy with this because now I am able to take these ideas forward and put them in to action. Hopefully this means I will be able to do things easily because I now have a clear vision in my head. If people didn't agree with what I done then I would have to change my idea which would take up a lot of extra time. Hopefully my partner will be happy to work with my song and take some of my ideas on board too.

Media Pitch Powerpoint

This is my music video pitch:


I think that my pitch presentation went successfully. I was the first person in the class to get up and do my presentation and I was happy with the response that I got. My ideas where all my own that I thought hard about to make it relate to my song as much as possible. I added examples of another music video that I would like it to be like which was, Eminem ft Rhianna Love the way you lie, as I thought the way the narrative was completely different to the performance was a good idea. I put in a lot of my ideas, through pictures so people could see my visual idea, instead of me just reading words off of the power point. This is because I think it's easy for people to mis-understand what people are saying so with images in front of them and me pointing to the images they are able to see exactly what I have going on in my head when I was speaking. This evidently worked, because the feedback I got from it linked back to things that where shown as well as what improvements I should make, so they were aware of the points I was trying to make. I think this was a good affect as the audience could clearly see my aim.

This is my focus group:


In my focus group done after my pitch I really was pleased with what people had to say. They liked my idea and song and agreed with a lot of what I said my expectations of the music video are. They said that they especially liked my idea of the flashbacks, so that the audience are able to see the good and bad times of the relationship as it would be less boring. One person said they liked that I was going to use bright lighting at the beginning to show the happier times and the duller light for the worse times. I was happy with that as I wasn't too sure if it would actually look good, or if it would look like I've filmed it like that accidentally. Lorelle said that 'when the music gets a slow tempo, and the lyrics are broken down there should be shots where you go from the good times to the bad.'(1:17) This feedback was good as I wanted to use flashbacks anyway and I'm glad that I now know where I should put them in. They all liked the fact that I was doing it from the girls perspective because in these types of music videos the girl is always made to be the bad person. Ella said she liked the way I was going to show that the girl is the one that's actually happy in the end and the boy is the one left heartbroken, because it's different to what it usually is. Kalkidan said that I should steer away from the typical romance and be more creative, which I agree with, because in love songs it's easy to stick with the basic conventions because they make the most sense.

Overall I really like my outcome of the pitch and focus group as I got to express my ideas and get feedback from it. I now know that my music video will be successful with my target audience.

Blog Reflection - WEEK THREE

This week I was searching for a song to use for the music video. I used unsigned.com as there were hundreds of artists I could chose from. It took a while to find an artist, but I realised that I couldn't be too picky, so I chose the next person I liked and that was Amy Piner with her song, The Break Up Song. This isn't the greatest song, however I realised that the words of the song were very meaningful and therefore it had potential of being a successful music video, especially because it's about love and heartbreak. I then had to ask for permission to use her song, and analyse her lyrics, where I discovered in more depth about the song and how much I would be able to play with it and have many different outcomes from it.
Also this week I done beach combed 4 music videos so that you can see what types of videos I find interesting and so that I could see how they reach their target audience.
I also done a representation post, on different theories and how different artists are portrayed in music videos. This gave me an idea on what to follow and what to avoid.
Also this week I looked at theories of representation and genre, such as Andrew Goodwin's Voyeurism, which gave me an insight in to how I should portray my artist and what key things attract certain audiences, when it comes to how an artist is portrayed.

Lyrics Analysis

Target Audience: 16-25

Gender: Females

Interest: R&B, boys, love, shopping, make-up

Location: London

Ethnicity: All ethnicity's as it is a general love song that can affect anyone

This song is about a girl explaining how she feels about a relationship she has just got out of. The lyrics show she is happy to see the back of her partner who clearly lied to her and cheated on her and therefore are able to sense her emotions.
 'No more lying, cheating,' is the first line of the whole song, which sets the whole song off and the audience know exactly what the song is going to be about. It could go in two separate ways though, either her ending up really depressed still, or the actual outcome which is her much happier and moved on.
'I thought that you were the one,

But now I'm happy to say,

I'll never see you again.'
These are the lyrics that show her emotions the most and that she is overcoming the heartbreak, especially that it says she's happy she'll never have to see this boy ever again. 

The tempo of the song is fast and slow at times according to the lyrics that are played, for example the music is faster during the chorus and the verses have a calmer piece of music. 
There is a break between the second verse and the next chorus and the music is completely different to the rest of the song, which breaks it up making it sound better. In this space there can be a montage of all different images flashing back and forth to emphasis the situations that have gone and on and what's happening at the time. This will give the audience full understanding of the relationship between the two characters so people are able to relate more and feel the emotions that they're feeling.

I like this song as there are clear breaks through all of the lyrics. Therefore I'll be able to produce a clear narrative which will be cut easily. I think the lyrics are quite meaningful, so they will be able to go with the music video, instead of having one completely different to the type of song it is. For example, when it says his been cheating there can be an example of it.

This song has inspired me to do my music video similar as it matches when the chorus/verses change. I would like to do something like this with my music video as it gives off a clear meaning without having to do much. The main difference will be the gender change and how the girl is going to be emotional and the boy is going to be out doing what ever he wants.

Song Lyrics

These are the official lyrics of the song.

Chorus:

No more lying, cheating,

Breaking my heart then leaving,

I wanted you to own up,

Stop playing games and grow up,

You think that you can be       ,

                                                  ,

Its time for you to wake up,

I think it's time that we should break up,

This has come to an end,

No I am not your friend and,

You are all alone now,

It's time for me to go now,

So now go and get gone,

I thought that you were the one,

But now I'm happy to say,

I'll never see you again.

Verse 1:
Why, am I, Here, Again,
You sad, Before, 
That you're just friends,
And now it's time to top the faking,
My heart            ,
Won't be breaking,

Chorus:

No more lying, cheating,

Breaking my heart then leaving,

I wanted you to own up,

Stop playing games and grow up,

You think that you can be       ,

                                                  ,

Its time for you to wake up,

I think it's time that we should break up,

This has come to an end,

No I am not your friend and,

You are all alone now,

It's time for me to go now,

So now go and get gone,

I thought that you were the one,

But now I'm happy to say,

I'll never see you again.

You twisted all that I say,
Like it was all in your head,
                                               ,
But she meant more than me,
I look back and laugh now,
How I was tricked and     ,
But now I'm seeing clearly,
I hope that you can here me.

Verse 2:
My faith in you has disappeared,
You're nothing to me now,
Let's make that clear,
Your smile ain't working,
Your charm has gone,
I know I won't go back for more,

Chorus:

No more lying, cheating,

Breaking my heart then leaving,

I wanted you to own up,

Stop playing games and grow up,

You think that you can be you,

                                                  ,

Its time for you to wake up,

I think it's time that we should break up,

This has come to an end,

No I am not your friend and,

You are all alone now,

It's time for me to go now,

So now go and get gone,

I thought that you were the one,

But now I'm happy to say,

I'll never see you again.

I'll never see you again,

Never see you again,

This is the break up song

Permission

Representation

Stuart Hall's theory was 'Encoding and Decoding.'

The old view of this reading, is that there is one set meaning when looking at something in the media especially in music videos. However the new view of this is that things are open to more than one interpretation. 

Stuart Hall said, 'The question of power can never be bracketed out of representation.' This shows that there will always be room for other things to be thought about something instead of one set meaning. Different people see different things and most of the time they're not actually correct with the meaning as the person who come up with the idea usually thought something completely different.

When it comes to decoding things, Stuart Hall says there are three things you should be aware of in order to see exactly what is being represented. These are:

- The dominant reading

- The negotiated reading

- Oppositional reading

Here is an example of texts I found and explained these different readings.

Laura Mulvey's theory - 'The Male Gaze.'
Laura Mulvey, used this phrase to describe what she saw as the male point of view adopted by the camera for the benefit of an assumed male audience. She herself said, 'visual pleasures and narrative anema,' which describes exactly what she is trying to say. She argued that the central active characters in films are male and that the male audience can connect with the characters in their viewing of the passive females. In other words, she says that women are viewed as a sex object for the pleasure of men.
Here is an example that me and my partner made of the ideal woman for men to look at.

Andrew Goodwin's theory - 'Voyeurism.'
Voyeurism is in virtually every mainstream music video, especially in the treatment of females. He says that women are often objectified in an attractive way, which is usually done through camera work and editing certain body shots emphasising the sexual side of the artist. Even in male videos there are girls portrayed in this way, making the women look weaker.
However, when a man artist is shown he doesn't have to have less clothes on for women to watch the video. In women music videos though, occasionally men are seen as the weaker sex.

My Song

My chosen artist is Amy Piner and I am using her song 'The break-up song.' She is from Cornwall, in the UK and she has two songs. I asked her for permission and this is the email  that I sent to her.

Beachcombing

The Prodigy-Warriors Dance


I find this video very interesting as it is original and I haven't seen anything like it before. It is an animated dance video and think it is a great idea. I find it amusing that the characters are made out of cardboard and are doing things that humans actually do. I think that the target audience would be young people that go out clubbing and enjoy music. I think this would be done through the narrative as the characters are doing things that humans actually do, there's just the twist of them being cardboard and not actual people. I think that these people would listen to the song when getting ready to go out themselves as it would put them in the party mood as they can dance about to it. However, these aren't the only people I think the audience is. They would also be older people. This is because the lyrics of the song originate from a 90's club song that older adults would know. Therefore, when they here this song they will sing a long and realise it is a new mix and will probably enjoy it and play it to other people that know the original.


Justin Bieber - Beauty and a Beat

This music video has Nicki Minaj and Justin Bieber in it. Both these artists are quite different as Justin Bieber targets teenage girls and Nicki Minaj has a wider audience including adults. Having both of these artists come together shows that Justin wanted to gain a wider audience himself so using Nicki gave him that chance. I think that it was good of him to do this as he is typically an artist aimed at young girls, so now by doing this older girls and maybe even boys will like this song. He is dressed in a vest which girls will find really attractive as you can see his arms and as he is is admired already, his fans will be happy to see this and are likely to watch the video repeatedly due to the fact thayt they just want to watch him. Nicki on the other hand is attracting the same audience here as she is wearing a pink tutu, which girls themself may look at and think they want something like that too.

Ariana Grande ft Mac Miller - The Way
This is Ariana Grande's first music video. It features Mac Miller who targets a male audience. She however, targets a young female audience as she stared in a kids TV show Victorious. Therefore, she only really has these type of people as her audience. By using Mac Miller, this makes her audience wider, which opens up her opportunities quite widely. She is dressed very girly, in a dress and the way her hair and make up is done makes her look quite innocent. The fact that there are balloons in the music video too, make it seem quite childish, making her audience even more appealed. However, her actual role with Mac Miller is to make them look as if they are in love which is the element that makes it target an older audience. I like the way the music video is filmed and I think that I will use some of these elements too.

Storm Queen - Look Right Through
I find this video interesting as I think it is actually quite strange. The narrative is very unusual and the actual characters in this shows that there was a lot of thought and imagination that went into this. The original of this song is house song, which is what a lot of young British people listen to and when this song had a music video everyone began to watch it, and because people already knew the song it got people talking about it straight away. This version of the song has more lyrics which is better for the charts as people like to sing along to songs on their radio. I think this song breaks some conventions of the genre, as most house songs don't actually have a music video, and when they do its usually at a club or festival showing people dancing and having a good time. I think that the concept of this is good and is actually hard to do as the elements of it are quite simple, but making it actually look good with things like masks can go wrong.

Blog Relection - WEEK TWO

I have learnt many different styles and techniques this week due to the video remake to Macklemore's Thrift Shop. There were many styles that I didn't actually know existed, and was intreged with the things that I saw in certain music videos, as they weren't the regular thing especially surrealism. This is the first time I have filmed and edited for a music video and I found that it is a lot more difficult than filming and editing anything else, like the opening sequence I done last year. The style I filmed in was Interpretative, which is definitely not a style I want to work with. However, I am glad that I done this as I am now more aware of the different ways I can film and edit my music video, even though it is a lot more technical that I thought. I also made a blog post which included examples of a lot of the different styles and techniques, which included a music video of each type. I analysed them, saying why they are the type that they are and pointed out the clear characteristics shown. This definitely helped me, especially when it comes to me watching music videos, as I am now able to notice what makes one music video one and another music video the other. I think that doing this task also helped me think of how I wanted to do mine and realize how hard some of them may be to actually do myself, even though they look great.

Genre Theory

What genre will your music video conform to? Will it be conventional or subverted? Why have you chosen it? What would the benefits be of this? 
Me and my partner Hardeep came to a decision that our music video will include the genres, performance and narrative. This is because we think they will be interesting to work with as we can use our imagination when coming up with a narrative, and also think that the performance element will be really affective. We have planned to keep some things conventional but subvert others as it will give a much better affect, rather than having it ordinary and boring. This will make it much more unique, and will benefit the music video as having more than one genre makes it more exciting. This will have a good affect on the audience as they won't get bored whilst watching it. 

How does the text meet your expectations of the genre?
The text is: Sky's the limit, by B I G.
In this Hip Hop video, Sky's the limit, there are many things that meet my expectations of the genre. There are many genetic things that are carried throughout this music video. This is shown in the whole of the mise-en-scene. This includes things such as, what him and everyone around him is wearing. He is dressed in clear expensive clothing with loads of jewellery on which is all you look at in the images. There are girls everywhere, dressed to look good and stand out so everyone looks at them. This makes biggie himself look good and is conventional as it makes him look powerful that he can have loads of attractive girls around him. Towards the end of the music video, there is all attention on him. He is on the red carpet, where there are screaming fans and paparazzi everywhere, which shows he is the powerful one which is how most Hip Hop videos are mapped out to be. This follows Neale's theory, ' A system of orientations, expectations and conventions which circulate between industry text and subject.'

How does the 'repetition and difference' theory apply to this text? What genre is it? What genetic conventions are presented?
The text is: All the small things, by Blink 182.

This genre is rock and the music video genre is performance. This video conforms to the repetition and difference theory. This is because, the video is mimicking a typical boy band video and really over exaggerating it. This is both repetition and difference as the typical boy band theme is repeated but the difference is, it's done so the audience can see that they're doing it as a joke, for example, dancing on the beach, rolling around with silly locations. I could apply this to my music video by having things in my video that are typical of my genre, but are used too much, so that its more of a parody. 

How will Bordwells' theory benefit your music video?
David Bordwells' theory of ' any theme may appear in any genre', definantly benefits my music video as it shows that there are no limits to what I can do. It can be as unusual as I want it to be and therefore it will actually look better than there being set rules as to what I can do in the music video. I think that my music video will be great and that this theory is very good.

What have I learnt so far...

Last year, I learnt many new things whilst doing all of my work. This includes things such as, digital technology, research and planning and post production. When it came to digital technology many things were included such as, hardware, software and online things. When using hardware, I used cameras and video cameras. These were used when it came to filming and also during planning as I had to take pictures of the locations I was filming at. I have developed my skills a lot from the beginning of last year. 

At the beginning of the year I done a continuity excercise and filmed at that time. At the end of the year I had done an opening sequence using the same camera and it is clear to see how my skills have developed. I used many different softwares throughout the year. This was for things such as, typography, editing, and just presenting my work better of my blog. This included, iMovie, LiveType, Photoshop, Final Cut, Word Excel and Powerpoint. I developed many skills by using all of this software especially when it came to Livetype and iMovie as these were the two most important things I used when it came to editing. 

The online technology included, Youtube, Blogger and Issuu. these were the three main things that I used and I think I used them very well. It was the first time I had ever used blogger and I have learnt to do pretty much everything on this. I had also never used Issuu before and I found this was great as I could post things that I had done on Word and Powerpoint which made my blog look much better and more interesting. I also had never embedded something from Youtube until last year and I now know how to do that aswell. 

During planning, I mainly just done research on the internet and used Youtube very often. This is because I had to find out a lot about British Social Realist films and found that I had to look at a lot of videos on Youtube in order to watch videos related to what I was doing. During my planning I done a vox pop, in order to find out what my target audience would like to see different in British Social Realist films in order for me to make a creative idea that would appeal to them. This was the first time doing this and I think it had a great affect. It was easy to go and look at again so I could remember what people had said as it gave full length answers with a lot more detail than if I done a questionnaire. In post production I used technology in my video, sound graphics and images. In my video I used Youtube mainly as it was what I put my final piece on. I think that this was the best way to publish it as it is easier to view things on there whereas other things would be difficult and not really easy to get access to. 

When doing my sound, I never used any technologies as there were mainly natural sounds. However me and my partner thought that an opening sequence needed a bit of sound and therefore searched for copyright free music online until we found something and placed that on to our final piece. 

The technologies used when doing the graphics were Livetype and Dafont which is an online website full of unusual fonts to make our work different from everyone else. It was the first time using both of these technologies and I think that they were both used well within the work that I done. The technologies used when doing images were quite simply a camera which was simple to use. 

The genre of my final piece of work was a British Social Realist film and there were many themes in this. I done a lot of research in to this and had to come up with a good narrative with an appropriate theme for it. I also had to select my camera language and mise-en-scene carefully as there were many different things I had to be careful of when doing this. I think I done well at sticking to all of the conventions of a British Social Realist film and I think if I was giving another genre I could do just as well and stick to the conventions of that also.

Our Section of Mash Up Video

Me and Hardeep Panesar, picked out the last 16 seconds of the song Thrift Shop by Macklemore, with the style Interpretative. We have decided on the shots we will do and we will make sure they definitely relate to the lyrics. As the section we got is very short we have a limited amount of shots to do and are trying to fit in as much as we can so it looks interesting. We are basically doing a shot for every line or word that stands out and is able to have a different image. Everyone in the class picked out a part f the song and in the end it was put together.
We had to film it and edit it within a week and we did so. During this we used, iMovie and livetype as me and Hardeep are the ones who added the credits at the end.
This is the final edit of the whole music video.

Blog Reflection - WEEK ONE

This week, was my time to decide whether I wanted to have a conventional or non-conventional music video.A lot of thought went in to this as I thought that a conventional one would be good for people to see as it's what they're used to and might find it more appealing, however having a non-conventional made me think that some people may prefer to be surprised instead of watching the everyday video.After thinking of these options I decided that I would have the video conventional, but subvert it in some ways to make it more interesting. I decided that I want to have a narrative plus a performance in my music video and I think that it's going to look great. This is because I think that having just one could get boring, and a lot of the time both of these are actually put together and tend to be successful all the time. I am going to be working with Hardeep Panesar, who I get along very well with, and am able to trust her to work at the best of her ability and will hopefully be successful. This is going to make things a lot easier when it comes to communicating as I speak to her on a daily basis and am able to organize things well with her. I think this is going to be very successful, because if I was working with someone I don't really speak to I wouldn't know what they are exactly like so wouldn't be able to trust that they will do the work set on time and to a good standard. Overall this week has been very productive and has set a basis for the rest of my work for this project.