Audience Feedback: Lew Parker

I posted my video on Facebook for the first time. I asked my my mum to share it with her friends also to broaden who could see it. Unfortunately we didn't get much feedback apart from 'That's so good' or 'you're so talented' so I took matters into my own hands and sent it to Lew Parker. I knew that he had helped George or more pulled George's to pieces so I thought it was exactly what I needed. And today he finally replied!

      

I agree with him with most basically all of it - I am going to take time to go through it and make sure the lip sync is on point. I also feel that the black and white is very basic so I feel grading or editing it more will be good. I feel I can incorporate more shots with camera movement for the performance element as I feel it is too static and needs some variation. This shouldn't be too hard to refilm hopefully! I will do some research into grading and see how I can use it as he seems to go on about it a lot so I feel it will be helpful! 

Analysing Professional Websites

Final Cut Pro Lessons

As we are editing using Final Cut, I thought it would be a good idea to re learn some of the skills I learnt at AS Level in order to be able to edit effectively. And, of course; learn new skills that I can use in my music video. The first tutorial I looked at was a split screen tutorial, as we had a good idea of splitting the screen into four sections and having multiple action shots in each section. We got this idea from a past student video, and so I thought it best to learn exactly how to do so using YouTube tutorials. This is the video I chose to use. 

I also wanted to find out how to use slow motion on Final Cut, I had already learnt this last year but as I haven't used the programme for a while, my skills are a little rusty and needed to be learnt again! We wanted to try and use slow motion in some of the clips where the two girls are playing with the leaves in the park to help create a bit more emotion and alter timings. I found another really usefulvideo to help with this. 

Lastly,my final skill that I wanted to learn was to do with changing the colour effect of certain shots, to either enhance the colour, or darken. For example, there is a lot of footage that we wanted to use in black and white and other footage such as the forest footage that we wanted to be brighter and bolder to reflect the moods and feelings of the shots. Here is a clip that I used and found useful.

Hopefully,when we have uploaded all the footage we have got from today I will have another go at editing using all of these new skills I have learnt!

Analysing Past Student Auxiliary Tasks

From analysing these past examples, I have decided to produce a website and a poster and these are the most effective ways of advertising my video from my point of view.

Past Student Work - Can't Hold Us

Here is a link to my analysis of this video - www.rawshorts.com/animations/pea3OeFSTr7xVW2ErXh0GQ

Past Student Work - Crash

Update on Blogging, Filming and Editing

I have spent my study period today watching two past student examples in order to be able to analyse and put my analysis up on my blog soon! I have already analysed the 'Viva Brothers' video and my blog post for that is already up! However, today I watched the 'Crash' and a student example from another school. I plan to have both posts up about these videos within the next few days. 

After I have completed these, I am moving onto analysing past student auxiliary tasks, I realise I am a bit far behind with these, however, I have finished both of my tasks and the website is up on the blog already. My poster is pretty much finished I just need to get a few more images and change a few bits around and that should be up within a few days too! My website is as finished as it can be, as we have not yet finished filming our music video; I cannot put the finished video up on the website; but, I have included a draft video and as soon as we have completed editing and filming, I will change the draft video on the website to the finished one and re post it on the blog. 

In terms of filming and editing updates, we plan to film some more scenes within the next week and hopefully have them all edited very soon. So expect some updated footage very soon!

Moving onto my evaluation. I have started to answer some of the questions but will still need a bit more time to develop my answers, and will hopefully have them all drafted by next Friday, watch this space!

Past Student Examples - Viva Brothers

Research: Final Cut Lessons - Split Screen

For my split screen I worked with Jack, we decided to recreate Examples - Kickstarts as this is is a perfect example of split screen here are some screenshots showing how many different ways he incorporated split screen:

The one we used the most is bottom left, we got 4 different people to sing the lyrics and then dance at the chorus. 

I didn't realise how easy it was to create a split screen, all you have to do is put two video clips on top of each other and then change the size of both clips so they fit the screen! 

I also learnt how easy it was to do a green screen. You put the clip with the green screen and the background on top of each other and then apply the 'keyer' effect which removes the green screen and puts your chosen clip in its place.

Storyboard: Demons

Slideshares didn't work when uploading this so I had to use the good old screen shots. So this is our storyboard, give or take a few shots! 

Audience Research Analysis

After having to wait a long time for enough responses, I am finally able to analyse the research I have gathered, after a lot of pestering friends to help me out! Here are the results I gathered from my survey that I created using Survey Monkey. I wanted to find out what sort of music people our age listen to, how they listen to it and how often; this is so I know how the best way to market and adverise our video is towards our target audience.

There were a few mixed opinions and the repsonses were much more diverse than I first thought they would be. Especially the range of genre of music that people listen to. Also, the difference in the types of all time favourite videos shocked me too as I thought many of them would be modern videos but I had artists such as Fleetwood Mac, Queen and Michael Jackson in there.

Analysis: Past Students Work

Research: The History of Music Videos

What is a music video? 
A music video is a short film that accompanies a song. There are many forms of music video: narrative, concept and performance, however many music videos in the 21st century are narrative. Performance videos are often associated with rock whilst many narrative music videos have an element of performance in them also. The purpose of a music video is to promote both the artist and the song to try and increase songs and get them to the top of the charts. 

The 1920's 
In 1926, with the arrival of "talkies" many musical short films were produced. Vitaphone shorts (produced by Warner Bros.) featured many bands, vocalists and dancers. Animation artist Max Fleischer introduced a series of sing-along short cartoons called Screen Songs, which invited audiences to sing along to popular songs by "following the bouncing ball", which is similar to a modern karaoke machine

The 1950's 
In his autobiography, Tony Bennett claims to have created "...the first music video" when he was filmed walking along the Serpentine in Hyde Park, London in 1956, with the resulting clip being set to his recording of the song "Stranger in Paradise". The clip was sent to UK and US television stations and aired on shows including Dick Clark's American Bandstand

Elvis Presley 
In 1957, the second music video of the story is set in United States, starring Elvis Presley item Jailhouse Rock, the famous theme prison rock, disseminated images in black and white of the time (although the original was engraved colour).

The Beatles 
In 1964 The Beatles produced a feature film A Hard Days Night. Which featured footage of them playing some of their songs. Some say that this is the start of the music videos. The next year they made various short films of them playing a song in order to promote their albums

Top of the Pops in the 1970's 
The long-running British TV show Top of the Pops began playing music videos in the late 1970s, although the BBC placed strict limits on the number of 'outsourced' videos TOTP could use. Therefore a good video would increase a song's sales as viewers hoped to see it again the following week. 

MTV and the 1980's
In 1981 MTV was launched as one of the first 24-hours a day music channel. The first music video to be played was “Video Killed the Radio Star.” This channel started the surge of music videos and it became normal for a song to be accompanied with a music video as part of the promotion for the artist. It was also in this time period that directors explored the music video adding story lines and effects.

 The most influential music video of the decade was released in 1983, Michael Jackson's Thriller, costing $500 000 to film and was nearly 14 minutes in length. It is said that Michael Jacksons music videos was “instrumental in getting music videos by African American artists played on MTV.”

The Explosion of the 1990's
The 1990’s was the rise of directors. MTV started showing the names of the person who directed the music video shown along with the artist name. This allowed directors such as Mark Romanek and Michael Gondry to start their careers. Mark Romanek directed the most expensive music video of all time Michael and Janet Jackson’s Scream which cost $7 million to produce.

2000's - The Internet
The website iFilm, which hosted short videos, including music videos, launched its service in 1997.Napster, a peer-to-peer file sharing service which ran between 1999 and 2001, enabled users to share video files, including those for music videos.

2005 saw the launch of the website YouTube, which made the viewing of online video much faster and easier; Google Videos, Yahoo! Video, Facebook and Myspace's video functionality, use similar technology. Such websites had a profound effect on the viewing of music videos; some artists began to see success as a result of videos seen mostly or entirely online. The band OK Go may exemplify this trend, having achieved fame through the videos for two of their songs, "A Million Ways" in 2005 and "Here It Goes Again"

Analysis: One Direction - Story of My Life

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Analysis: It's My Life - Bon Jovi

Its My Life - Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires

Analysis: The Cave - Mumford and Sons

Please feel free to click on the photo to make it clearer :)

Analysis: Demons - Imagine Dragons

Research: Controversial Music Videos Over The Years

Over the years there has been a drastic change in what people consider 'controversial' music videos. In this post I will be showing you some of the most controversial music videos over the years. 

1980's: Girls on Film - Duran Duran

Girls on Film was Duran Duran's 3rd single released on July 13th 1981. The single became Duran Duran's Top 10 breakthrough in the UK Singles Chart, peaking at Number 5 in July 1981. The video was made with directing duo Godley & Creme at Shepperton Studios in July 1981. It was filmed just weeks before MTV was launched in the United States and before anyone knew what an impact the music channel would have on the industry. 

The raunchy video created an uproar, and it was consequently banned by the BBC and heavily edited for its original run on MTV; the band unabashedly enjoyed and capitalised on the controversy.

Here are some screen shots from this so called 'controversial' music video 

Personally I feel the music video overshadowed the song's message of fashion model exploitation.

The raunchy aspect is shown through possible 'sexy' situations like the pretty woman massaging the man and the mud wrestling scene.

The song is pop/rock and the video is very fitting to the genre. The band are performing throughout the video which is linked to the rock genre. Also the bands outfits are also of the pop/rock genre as they;re wearing bandanas, and tight clothing. Furthermore pop and rock bands are often associated with beautiful women which is definitely included in this video! There are numerous amounts of women scantily clad throughout the video.

When it comes to editing most shots are 2-3 seconds long, there is an establishing shot of the ban which is longer but this helps set the scene and give the audience an idea of what is going on. The editing isn't exceptionally fast paced but this fits in with the pace of the song making it more aesthetically pleasing.

The mise en scene fits with the raunchiness of the song: massage oil, mud wrestling, alcohol, which all fits in with the mood of the song

The video uses a huge range of camera shots; from close-ups, long shots, low angle shots - which are mostly used on the band and so makes them seem more powerful and having a higher status than the others in the video. 

OKAY, HOLD UP, SO I ACTUALLY WATCHED THE WHOLE UNCENSORED VERSION AND HOLY MOLY NO WONDER IS WAS CONSIDERED CONTROVERSIAL!!!!! I THINK MY RETINAS ARE SCARRED. 

2010's: Blurred Lines - Robin Thicke

"Blurred Lines" is a song recorded by American recording artist Robin Thicke for his 2013 album. The single peaked at number one on the US Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, as well as topping the Billboard R&B Songs chart. It became Thicke's most successful song on the Billboard Hot 100, being his first to reach number one on the chart.

The music video was released on March 20, 2013, and was made in two versions; the first video features models Emily Ratajkowski (bit of a mouthful), Jessi M'Bengue, and Elle Evans being topless, the second features them covered. On March 30, 2013, the topless version of the video was removed from YouTube for violating the site's terms of service regarding nudity, though it was later restored, but flagged as inappropriate.

The genre of this music video is “Pop”, we get this impression through the clothing of the men and the modern day society of how stereotypical women are dressed - mise en scene. The men characters are dressed casually smart and trendy, whereas the women are dressed sexually and look inferior to the men. This music video can be controversial to the target audience as the main conventions are stereotypical to gender.

The ‘Mise en scene’ has been based in one set. The background is consistently light pink throughout the whole music video which could be a stereotype of women as the colour pink is a connotation for women. This can also be seen as feminism as this music video has been targeted at women who struggle to obtain equal rights in society.

 The low angle shot is another convention of where the men look more dominant and powerful than the women. The sexual, bite lipping face the female character is making is sexual and provocative to men as the male gaze is a key aspect in this music video. The close shot of the women lighting the  cigarette is another form of stereotype as women being taken for advantage.

Editing wise Thicke has used his hashtag #THICKE which is plastered across the music video. The hashtag trend is extremely popular in modern day society hence why Robin Thicke has used it. This will gain his media attention through social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook. The hashtag will be a common trend and lead people to follow the trend

So when I compare the two videos, I do not know which one is worse. Personally I find Blurred Lines disgusting and it actually makes me want to be sick. I feel that girls on film is more subtle in the ways it portrays women, but only slightly. The women in their video aren't constantly topless. 

Needless to say I did not enjoy analysing these music videos. *throws up* 

Update on Editing and Filming - 14th November 2014

Quick Update on editing and filming - Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires

Our 3 Key Ideas

If the presentation doesn't load, here is the link to the website I created it on as I had trouble getting it to load on the blog.

http://www.powtoon.com/show/eCqkI7aKUhm/a2-media-music-videos-our-3-key-ideas/#/