Schedule from the 8th of December to 14th of December 2014

This is our schedule for this week, as shown in the picture we did not shoot on Monday because we imported and experimented our footage with different effects, paces and cuts. We have successfully completed our tasks from last week therefore we are positively moving onto new tasks. We have printed out the political posters that we have made to use as props in our music video.  We are going to Trafalgar Square and Covent Garden to shoot on Sunday. We are going to focus on consumerism and capitalism by recording commercial and expensive brands like Chanel in Covent Garden. We are going to focus on the environment, the flow and the atmosphere of Trafalgar Square. 

Shooting Feedback - Yewande

On Thursday the 4th of December we had a short shoot of our dancer. We decided to shoot on the roof of our school, we wanted to get the backdrop of the less fortunate looking estates. Selcan and I along with two other models and our dancer at St Paul's went to shoot on Saturday the 6th. We chose this location because of the view from the shopping centre roof. Bringing the dancer along to this shoot was to create a contrast between the two backdrops, one is of estate buildings and the other shows the glamourous night life of the city. We also asked our models to bring a change of clothes for a more 'grungy' look, again to create this contradiction idea we have in mind. After returning from these shoots we have realised that our idea of setting and costume contrast works well with trying to communicate our message.

More Test Shooting

Selcan and I made a dolly out of a skateboard and took it out to the playground for some testing. Here are the results, we are very pleased with them and think that they would look even better in out selected locations.

Practising with our shots - possible shots to have in the final product

We went to St. Paul's Cathedral to portray capitalism and "presence of greatness" as Kanye's interpretation. This is a practise to get a better understanding of how we will shoot, how long it will take, the effort and the appropiate places to take good angles for our music video. We have edited the video to black and white and we added a white flash on "Christian Dior" to Dior's store to indicate the power that the big companies are gaining above small, independent businesses (consumerism.)

Music video update

Yesturday, at around 3:30pm, we decided to go to "Saint Pauls cathedral" to do some practice shots. This consisted of shots of the cathedral, shots using ourselves as models so that the audience gets the idea of what we are trying to reflect, and we also began to use "Time lapse" as we believe this will fit with our music video and ideas the best as we want to reflect a change of time and society, as a result we believe this technique does it the best.

The duration of this session lasted around 2 hours as we took quite a lot of footage, especially as we wanted different times of the day as well, I.E day and night. One of our shots consists of us standing on "Millennium bridge" during the night time and we use distortion of the lights to resemble untold truth.

All the footage we took will be uploaded as soon as possible.

We also did some filming at "Shorditch" where we found loads of shots and locations that we can use, one thing i'm referring to in particular is a wall we found that had graphite on it which said "Extortion" and we used this to our advantage by placing a model in-front of the graphite and testing out different camera angles in order to frame the model successfully.

This footage will also be uploaded as soon as possible.

Models

We went model hunting and took head shots of everyone we found. However there are still a few more models that we have in mind. The red crosses symbolise those who we thought would not suit our video after a short interview, and the green circles represent those who fitted the criteria.

Music Video Analysis - Andrew Goodwin

Model contract for our music video

We wanted to make an official contract for our models to read and agree to because we do not want to be responsible for any disagreements during our shoots as that will be a waste of time and we as a team will not get much work done. Therefore this contract will ensure that our models agree to our terms and conditions in a working environment. We also have a list of models that we have chosen from (casting list). This has helped us to choose the right people for our music video. We have kindly disregarded the unsuccessful candidates. In this document, we clarify the following areas: Purpose of contract, Description of service, their award, terms, working hours, wardrobe, cosmetics and transportation. We hope that this contract will clarify any confusions that our models may face before shooting.

Narrowing locations for the shoot

These are the locations that we first started off with at the beginning of the planning and we still want to shoot in these places to communicate our political views in our music video. We as a group want to portray the luxurious life that capitalism offers to certain people who can afford to live that lifestyle but on the other half of the song, we want to expose the reality that lies behind capitalism and the native outcome to certain people like homeless children, adults and less fortunate people. We believe that religious places, highly modern architecture, prestigious buildings are representations of capitalism. We are not planning to use only locations to communicate the negative outcome of capitalism, we are also going to focus on other big issues that our world is currently facing like; climate change, landfill, war and conflict. We many not be eligible to use our own footage for war and conflict or climate change therefore we may have to use secondary input from the internet, newspapers and experts.

A2 music video analysis - 'Cant Hold Us' by Macklemore

This is a music video of 'Cant Hold Us' by Macklemore and it has been done by media students. My overall opinion on this video would be that it looks professional, scheduled and prepared. I think that this group would've made a very detailed storyboard as this video is a mixture of caricature/animated and half live video therefore they would've had to draw out the contrasting parts. This encourages media students to consider their storyboard before shooting because recording without a plan could make the video look very unprofessional and rushed. However, some people may have the intention of making their video unprepared and realistic by shooting unexpected things but it would still be good to have some ideas about what they would want to shoot. 

This music video has a storyline and linear narrative that is shown clearly throughout the video. Following a linear narrative makes it easier for the audience to follow and understand the storyline as they are not expecting something completely different from the last shot or event. I think the use of linear narrative in this storyline has worked amazingly because the confusion from the characters of mixing up their bags is the only confusion that is presented to the audience so the linear narrative takes the audience on a mission along with the protagonists. 

They have used a lot of creative and interesting editing techniques in this video which made it even more attractive to watch for the audience. Different angles and compositions of shots has shown the different perspectives of the situation from the external characters. The change of density of the shots made it inescapable for the audience to give up on the mission of finding the correct bag and the less dense shots enlarged the complexity of finding a bag in a big world. 

The director of this music video has figured out the performance really well, in fact the video is mainly directed by performance. The lip sync was perfectly done. The mise - en - scene of costume in this video clearly defines the villain and the innocent. The stereotypical representation of the 'good' and the 'bad' made the video more hilarious and it highlighted the genre of comedy. 

Although this is a contrast to our intended music video for our project, the editing techniques and the denouement had an impact on me. 

Video treatment - written & visual

We as a group discussed and brainstormed visuals that would be suitable for the lyrics. We divided visual ideas between the 2 lines a verse to ensure clarify between the audience and the shot. This is a treatment for the entire song. We highlighted the lines to distinguish the ideas and new part of the song. 

Our Music video Questionnaire.

                          Music video Questionnaire.

 

1)   What would you expect to see in a music video for 2014?

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2) Would you expect a music video to convey meaning?   

 

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3) In your opinion, do you think a music video should be simplistic or abstract?

 

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      4) What do you not want to see in a music video?   

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 5) Are you politically aware?

 

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       6) What are your views on Capitalism?

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This is the template of our music video questionnaire, we are still in the process of gaining audience fed-back and so the results will be posted shortly this week. This will be the questionnaire given to our targeted audience in order to help us with some of the decisions to our music video and based on the types of answers will get will determine how we construct the music video.
Some of the above questions were also used in a clip previously posted of our audience research as we want to get as many responses as possiable.

 

    

Existing students blogs and music videos

                       Other A-level students who are also creating music videos and blogs


1) http://petesmediablog.blogspot.co.uk/2010/10/music-video-for-level.html

This is the link to another media students blog, who also has the criteria of making a music video. Pete, is also an A-level media student and by looking at his blog i can see that he has good and consise ideas for his music video, however he does lake on information and pre-production.

The layout of his blog is also quite bland and not as detailed as it may be expected to be at this stage. Although his blog isnt the most terriable it is of a basic standard and so helps us as a group acknowledge what our own blog should consist of.

In comparison to Petes blog, we have posted and focused alot on our pre-production so as not to lose marks. In doing this we have focused on: Demographics,psychographics,postmodernism, locations, models, costumes,target audeience research and much much more.

However, his final piece (the music video) is good as it uses a range of different camera angles and techniques.   

2) Existing music video by A-level students

 

Here is a music video i found that has been made by A-level media students. This video consists of good camera angles and a use of different techniques, for example; black and white. However, the video is out of time with the song and so the main "artist" lips are not in time with the song which creates a sense of disorganisation. It implies that the students perhaps rushed the video and so as a result lake the marks they needed.

 

One of the positive critisms i can give is that the video is unique in a sense because it is shown in black and white, this technique gives the audience a feel of something old and as a result they are not distracted by a range of different colours so they can focus on the video and all the implications that may errupt during the music video.

 

The student has gone for a simplistic storyline it seems as the main theme is "love" (or lake of). This will reach out to a particular type of audience and so may be affective to some extent, on the other hand that just makes the audience seem basic and narrow minded as most music videos focus on something simple rather than miore abstract.

 

Our music video "stronger by kanye west" will be more abstract and have a deeper meaning behind it which may not be entirely obvious to the audience. This means we require them to use some "brain work" and actually pick up on our hints throughout the music video . We dont want to treat our audience as "dumb" because we believe that our audience are their own people and they do to have a say in our message, if it wasnt for them or us we wouldnt even have a message to put across and so we acknowledge their importance.

 

 

Contacting Roc - A - Fella DefJam to get permission

This is a letter that we wrote to inform DefJam that Dimension would like to use their artists, Kanye West song 'Stronger' for our A2 Media project. We have clarified that we will not go against their policy and regulations. Also, we have also made it clear that we will acknowledge and credit any incorporation  from an existing media product that may have been taken from their labels artists. We have also explained our ideas to them to ensure that we are not remaking the original video for our project.

Def Jam - Roc-A-Fella research

This is a research that shows our knowledge of the recording label that Kanye West works with. Def Jam is one of the most successful conglomerate music company that works with a lot of famous and successful artists like Kanye and Big Sean. They are focused predominantly on Hip Hop and Rap therefore they have a specific, targeted audience and they use a lot of interesting ways to keep the artists fans entertained and informed about their favourite artists like live update of their social media.

HEALTH & SAFETY DISCLAIMER FOR THE SHOOT

This is the document that clarifies how we as a group will overcome the danger and risks that we may face throughout our shoot in different locations. In this document it explains the choice of our locations, the effect that we may have on our surrounding whilst shooting and how we will prevent injuries.

Director's Profile - Hype Williams

Music Video Analysis

MAKING OF THE PROPS

 This is a small video of a bunch of political and controversial newspapers that we have made and we collaborated them with existing political posters. The editing style will be more fast and edgy on the actual finished product. These props of newspapers and posters will be printed out and stuck on a black wallpaper for the shoot to create a powerful atmosphere and create a firm image of the models.

Billboard Poster

This is our group made billboard. It's one form of media that we plan to use to advertise our new single, band and group image.

Marxism,Postmodernism and identity.

Analysis of a music video - Connie Smyth

The music video, All of The Lights by Kanye West, is a good video to analyse and draw techniques from. The video starts with a young girl in the shot wondering the streets by herself. The reason this is significant to our own idea is because it represents vulnerability and this could link with our video as our message is that as a society we shouldn't be seen or treated as vulnerable within a society. There should not be inequality or indifference.

The video also uses lighting as a technique to enhance on the story. Although this is a good an interesting technique we may only use it vaguely as our main aim of the video is to create a story that will leave meaning and although lighting is important we wont use it as a main theme within our own music video. However, as the title of this music video is: All of The Lights, the technique is useful but also quite simply for the audience. The video follows Andrew Goodwin's Theory of the features of a music video, point 2. "There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals. The lyrics are represented with images."This idea is simplistic and helps the audience interpret the meaning of the video.

Teaser Video

This is a little taste and feel for what our music video will be like. Using specific shots, lighting and the black and white effect turned out very appealing and satisfactory. This was a group effort, filming and editing done by all three DIMENSION members. Enjoy!

Target audience research

Genre Research - Hip Hop

Story Board

This is an animated story board that we created. The ideas that are placed are not final but this is our starting point.

Practising and turning storyboard into visuals

This is footage that we have taken from YouTube and we edited in the style of distortion and reverse. It is of the twin towers collapsing, we used slow motion, jump cut, reverse and cropping to zoom in and out easily. This is in colour because we wanted to show the change and the development that we have made from colour to black and white.

This is the edited version of our first post. In the first video, we forgot to mute the background sound which was on top of the song. Therefore we muted the volume and allowed the song to be played on top of the visual. 

Andrew Goodwins Theory

Analysis of Postmodern music videos

Target Audience Research - Demographics

Psychographics and lifestyle - Target audience research

Target audience research: psychographics and lifestyle.
Week 2: Almost completed.

Costumes Mood board- Connie Smyth

Models Mood Board

                        

Possible locations for our music video.