Inspirations for Music Video

Below are some images from music videos that I like and hope to produce and include some similar footage for my own music video. 

I particularly like the use of light in this shot from the music video of Ellie Goulding's 'Your Song.' The light is behind the artist which creates an outline of light around her head.

This shot from 'Broken Hearted Girl' captured me because of the way two shots are merged together to create one. It appears as thought the artist is watching herself in a past time.

This is an image from Ellie Goulding's 'The Writer' I felt really portrayed Ellie in an angelic, innocent manner through the use of lighting and the extreme close up gradually zooming out whilst she sings. This is the effect I hope to get for our music video.

This image is not from a music video however I would like to film a sunset on either the beach like this or in a field and include it as extra footage.

This image conveys lots of nature themes for example the emptiness of the field and the long grass, which I believe would be a perfect location for our music video.

I really like this image because it shows freedom and loneliness at the same time and I think the idea of the waves bashing against each other will be a great piece of background to include whilst our singer performs.

Music Channel Research

After carrying out research on www.BARB.co.uk, we have found the music channels that would air our music video. While carrying out this research we also found the viewing figures for each of these channels, this shows how many people we could possibly reach if our video was shown. These include:
- Smash Hits - daily views* 140,000 - weekly reach* 741,000
- The Box - daily views 213,000 - weekly reach 1,080,000
- 4Music - daily views 1,006,000 - weekly reach 4,259,000
- MTV Hits - daily views 261,000 - weekly reach 1,362,000
- Viva - daily hits 1,047,000 - weekly reach 4,458,000
- Kiss TV - daily hits 189,00 - weekly reach 953,000

* Daily views - the amount of views that channel receives on average throughout the day.
*Weekly reach - the number of people who have viewed this channel throughout the week for 3 or more consecutive minutes.

We imagine our particular music video, if it was to be published would be shown on channels such as 4Music and MTV Hits due to its genre.

Letter to Record Label

SONY MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT UK
9 DERRY STREET
LONDON
W8 5HY
FF:
EPIC RECORDS
550 MADISON AVE.
NEW YORK, NY 10022-3211

Dear representative of Sony Music and Epic Records,

We are a group of Year 13 students from West Hatch High School sixth form, currently studying Media at A Level.

We are writing to you to ask you for your permission to use a track that you own the copyright for, to create an original music video that will be submitted to the exam board as part of our A2 Coursework.

The track we would like to use is Lenka – The Show.  We would really appreciate your permission to use this song, as we believe it would be perfectly suited to the style and generic conventions of the music video we would like to create, and would work coherently with our ideas.

Failing to receive a reply from you within 4 weeks, we will assume that you are allowing us to use this track.

Thank you for taking the time to read our letter. We are very grateful and hope to hear from you soon.

Yours sincerely

Ella Trainor, Georgia Surridge and Maisie Linnane.

West Hatch High School
Chigwell Road
Essex
IG7 5BT

Tel: 0208 504 8216
Fax: 0208 559 2695
Email: admin@westhatch.essex.sch.uk

I was highly inspired by music video director ________

-the way it focuses on main star, follows her throughout her journey, neutral colours ect represent her innocence, want to portray this in our music video,.

Group Meeting

Today we had a discussion regarding predicted weather. There is a high possibility that it is going to snow in November, therefore we are preparing to begin filming earlier than planned as we think that the snow will have a suitable effect on our footage.

Typical Demographic

This is Alice, she is 19 years old & lives in Brentwood. She enjoys watching TV channels such as E4 & Sky Living. In relation to music channels, she watches Viva, 4music, Mtv, The Box & Smash Hits. Her favourite genre of music is Pop/Indie & Indie/Rock.

She typically reads fashion magazines, for example, Vogue, Elle and Look, she also has a Rolling Stones monthly subscription from the US as she is extremely passionate about music. She also reads the film magazine, Empire.

Alice pursues lots of hobbies when she is not studying, for instance, spending time with friends & listening to music on her iPod or on radio stations, XFM, Capital FM & Radio 1. She also likes playing guitar, writing songs, horse riding, jogging & going to festivals such as Virgin Festival & Reading Festival.

Her two favourite films are Juno & Twighlight. Ellie Goulding is her best-loved artist & You Me At Six are her favoured band.

Shopping centers Alice goes to consist of Lakeside, Bluewater, Westfields & the West End. Her most commonly visited shops are Topshop, Urban Outfitters, River Island, Selfridges, All Saints & New Look, there are also many boutiques and vintage shops in London that she buys lots of her clothes from.

My Inspiration

Before we made ideas for our own music video, we looked at different music videos with the same genre to look at the conventions & for inspiration.
This music video (Ellie Goulding-Your Song) was my inspiration for the costume & settings which we then showed on our costume mood board.


I like this music video & found it a big inspiration because i like how natural it looks, with the natural light as it is shot outside & the basic costume. It looks natural & realistic & not acted out which i think is effective with the song.
I want to take some of these ideas & use them in our music video, for example, as we are shooting in the winter our main actor can wear coats & hats & scarves to make it look natural & we will be filming outside alot in the natural light. I think this will suit our music video & will work well.

We also looked at alot of stop motion videos. These were very inspirational as i liked the effect of being able to make the impossible possible through the stop motion. These music videos were inspiration for me-



These videos inspired us to use stop motion in our music video. For example, we are going to use stop motion to make a flower grow around our main actor using post it notes. We are also going to use stop motion when she eats the chocolate love heart. This will look effective within our video as i tihnk it will suit the music & the timings of our video.

Another inspirational video for us was the end credits of the film 'Juno'.


We liked this video because we liked how everything around her was a sketch but it was still life like. We wanted to use this technique within our music video as we thought it would look nice & would make a normal shot look more interesting. We would like to use it by making sketched flowers in a shot to make the shot more interesting & different.

Pink panther editing exercise

• Firstly, we had to create a folder called 'Pink Panther Exercise'. We then transferred files from a USB to the folder.
• Once this was completed, we opened Final Cut & imported the song & the picture files to it so it was ready for editing. As we used personal photos we also imported those.
• We then had to drag the song to the timeline & trim it to fit 30 seconds.
• The next task was to then mark the song by playing the song through & pressing the 'M' button to the beat so that the photos would change in the right time.
• To add photos, we dragged them into the timeline & trimmed them so it fitted the markers. We did this for each individual marker & then checked that they were in time.
• Once we had added all the photos we saved our project & exported it into a video file to upload onto Blogger.

Target Audience

Our target audience are teenagers and young adults ages 16-24 years old.

TimeLine

Here is the timeline that we have produced for our music video. We have shown time codes, shot description, camera angle and any edits or after effects that will be added in. We will be using this to help us create the story boards for our music video.

Lenka

This is a picture of the artist of our song 'The Show'

Lenka is an autralian singer & songwriter & can play the piana & trumpet. She is most well known for the song we will be creating our music video to 'The Show'. She is 33 years old & was born on the 19 March 1978. 

Lenka was once a member of the Australian electronic-rock crossover bank 'Decoder Ring' for two of their albums. She then moved to California in 2007. Lenka then released her debut album on 24 September 2008, 'The Show' being the first single chosen to release from the set.

Her song 'The Show' has been used in several television adverts including one for TM Homeline- 

I have been researching the artist of the song we have chosen. I have was watching the video of a new song of hers called Two, the video was very clever, however the editing of it was quite basic. She asked fans to send small clips of them clapping in front of an interesting background and she has used all of these clips to produce a music video. It works well and is very effective. It has made me realise that although we are trying to think of very complex things to do, sometimes if you do a basic idea well it can have a better effect.

Props

After producing our mind map and timeline, I have come up with a list of some of the props we are going to be using.
-Helium heart balloon
We need a heart balloon with confetti in. Our main actor will hold the balloon & pop it with a pin & confentti will come out. She will also use a balloon in the end shot where she lets it go & the camera follows it as it floats into the sky.

-Pink post-it notes
We also need post it notes for our music video. We will be doing a shot where our main actor will be standing against a blank background & we will use post it notes with a picture of a flower on them to grow around her. There will be stop motion in this shot & it will be shot in the drama room.

-Chocolate heart lolly.
We will use this prop in the shot where our main actor eats half the love heart & then gives it to a stranger as she walks away. We will be using stop motion in this shot.

-Wooden swing
Our main actor will be swinging on this as she sings along to the lyrics on the song.

Stop Motion Inspiration

I watched some stop motion videos. After watching these it made me want to use stop motion in our own music video. However I wanted to create a completely different idea to what we had seen in the other stop motion videos.
Here are the two stop motion videos I watched during research.

Video 1 


Video 2

Inspiration

I saw a photo of a friend in a field like this and thought it would be a very good location to use for out music video and would fit in with the genre of our song.

Music Video Analysis

Buzzin – Mann Ft. 50 Cent

Released 2011-10-14

Label – D. Rec.or.d

The genre of this music video is hip-hop. Hip-hop has many characteristics, which are used in most videos, for example, there is rapping in hip-hop songs, as well as DJ scratching which both occur in this music video. Other conventions are male artists performing to the camera, sexualised woman dancing, males often wearing baggy styled clothing & displays of money, expensive cars, jewellery etc. This music strongly conforms to the content conventions of a hip-hop music video as we see all those things within the video. Finally, the style of hip-hop music videos include low angle shots of the male artist to make them seem powerful, editing that fits the pace of the music & the use of bright lighting to make the artist seem important & powerful. Yet again this is evident throughout Buzzin so it conforms to these conventions.

This is a low angle shot of 50 Cent, which makes him look powerful; this is a typical characteristic of hip-hop music videos.

Another typical convention of hip-hop videos is the use of sexualised women dancing with little clothes on. This also relates to Andrew Goodwin’s ‘Dancing in the Distraction Factory’ theory.  This music video contains the voyeurism of women, which occurs throughout the video. The women are seen as sexualised objects with the focus on how they look. This is extremely common in hip-hop music videos.

This is an image of 50 Cent wearing an expensive diamond chain. Yet again, this relates back to Andrew Goodwin’s theory as he is singing about having a diamond chain on his neck & at that point we see a clear shot of his chain, therefore the lyrics relate to the visuals. It is also another convention of hip-hop videos as he is singing about his expensive jewellery.

Here is another image of 50 Cent with money falling from the air. Again, the lyrics relate to the visuals as he is singing about money as it falls through the air. It also conforms to the content of hip-hop music videos as they often show money & sing about money.

Finally, here is a shot of Mann, as you can see he is wearing baggy styled clothing, another content convention of hip-hop music videos. To conclude, this music video as a strong example of the conventions of hip-hop music videos as it has contained all the typical characteristics within it.

Another point in Andrew Goodwin’s theory is that the record label demand lots of close ups of the artist throughout the video. This music video consists of mostly shots of 50 Cent & Mann throughout so it conforms to this point. Here are some photo examples of this – 

Finally, Andrew Goodwin’s theory states there is a relationship between the music & visuals. This is illustrated in this video as in the music the DJ scratches & we see an image of this.

This music video includes representations of young males within the music industry. They are stereotypically seen as only interested in making money & being powerful & showing their wealth by singing about them in the lyrics & images within the video. This music video is a clear example of the stereotypical way these people are.

Presentation and Survey Data

Today we presented our pitch of current ideas to our peers, we then asked them to complete our survey consisting of open questions to encourage detailed suggestions as well as criticisms for our music video. The reason we handed out these surveys was to gain feedback which will help us improve our music video & so we know our audience will enjoy it. After reading through the comments we began to quantify the data into categories of positive and negative feedback and made note of ideas we need to discuss in our next group meeting. These are as follows;

-They liked the idea of our artist in a maze - showing that she is confused 

-They liked our ideas and would like to watch the finished piece

-They liked that our music video will be part narrative and part conceptual

-They want to see split screen edits

-They like that one of our locations would be in a flower field

-They like the way we are planning to use stop motion in out music video 

-They like that we are planning to use an edit to speed up the people around her
-They thought that our ideas were very targeted towards females. 

-They are unsure how we will do the stop motion - if its not done really well it will not look good
-A common answer that the way the narrative will tell the audience about her relationship and her emotions.
-They believe that a typical pop/indie music video will include a lot of performance, and that the lyrics connect to the visuals.
-They mentioned that they think more stop motion should be used throughout our video
-They think that all of our ideas could produce a high standard music video but do think they they need to be done well to a very high standard for it to be successful.
-They think that filming in London is very common and will also be very hard to achieve because it will be very busy
-They think that a typical pop/indie music video should include lots or different colours.
-They also mentioned that our genre of music should include lots of visuals of the artist in the video.
-They want our music video to show relatable and likable characters.
-

Lip Sync Practice Tasks

As practice for our music video, we had to start to create the first 30 seconds of a music video. The music we did it to was Its Not Unusual - Tom Jones. We shot difference scenes & different locations & then transfered the footage to the editing stations & briefly edited it to be in time with the song. As you can see we had to make sure that the singing matched up with the song perfectly for it to look effective. This was a helpful task as it taught us more about lip syncing & was good practice.

Final Presentation

We showed this presentation to our class and talked through our ideas and to get some feedback that we will use to improve our music video.

Music Video Analysis 3

Title: Right There
Artist: Nicole Scherzinger
Album: Killer Love
Producer: Jim Jonsin
Genre: Pop
Release Date: 6th June 2011 (UK)

This music video for Nicole Scherzinger's 'Right there' demonstrates what is known in the media industry as 'the male gaze'. This describes the way in which the camera scans up and down the female body as if from the perspective of a heterosexual man.

Although similar to voyeurism, the male gaze, introduced by Laura Mulvey, seeks to suggest the power of men over women, whereas voyeurism focuses on the sexual activity. There is evidence of both theories in this video.

Gender and representation has a major influence in the video. For example the whole cast of dancers are female, and throughout the video no males are shown. The song itself is metaphorically all about sex.

The following 5 screens grabs are all within the first 9 seconds of the video. They all show Nicole in explicit sexually associated and revealing positions which could be perceived as dehumanisation. 

The screen grabs below show the downward movement of the camera on Nicole further supporting the male gaze.

There is an amplifying relationship between lyrics and visuals during the video, for example when Nicole sings 'put your hands on my body' she is shown dancing backwards with her hands on her stomach.

A second example is 'me like the way he go down down down down...' is accompanied by Nicole bending down with her legs apart. Matching visuals and lyrics enable the audience to engage further in the song because they are exposed to both phonological and visual information which requires less deep thought processing.

In this shot the camera is looking slightly down on Nicole which could symbolizse a males perspective because males tend to be larger in height in comparison to females. It could also suggest he is superior to her as he is higher up. This joined with her open armed gestures and lack of clothing causes her to appear like his slave.

The video shows numerous shots in which the audience literally can't even see the dancers faces, focusing their attention on the girls figures.

Another sexual reference is specific dance moves with the girls legs wide open.

The majority of video is of the star, Nicole Scherzinger, this consists of lots of close ups of her to highlight 'orgasmic' facial expressions.

Music Video Analysis Improved

Don Diablo & Example – Hooligans

Year – 2009

Director - Ben Newman

Label – Data Records

This music video is both performance & narrative, but it is mainly performance throughout. A brief introduction of about 30 seconds sets up the story for the music video, where a rude boy is queuing outside a club & pushes to the front & then gets chucked in by the bouncers. This then continues to the club where the artists are performing. According to Andrew Goodwin’s points in ‘Dancing in the distraction factory’, this music video has a relationship between the lyrics & the visuals. For example when Example sings ‘loose your Rolex rip your t-shirt’ he pulls at his t-shirt, which directly relates to what he is singing. He also sings ‘where’s all the hooligans’ as all the people in the club are jumping around in the background which would suggest he is referring to the ravers at the club as hooligans as they are going crazy & all look wild & rowdy. The lyrics of the song are about people going out raving & so the video is of people at a rave, which therefore directly links to the lyrics.

A very common camera technique used throughout this music video was a point-of-view shot. This was effective in this video, as it didn’t make the music video look staged; it looked like the cameraman was part of the crowd bouncing around with the other ravers§. The video has also got good mise-on-scene as in every shot you can see that they are in the same club, it flows well & it consistent with what is going on within the video as everyone is raving & enjoying themselves.

Characteristics of the electronic dance genre include danceable electronic beats & often shouting. It also has a larger focus on the beat, & less focus on the actual music notes. This song conforms to all these characteristics & it works well.

The music also relates to the visuals because the edits are very fast & snappy like the music is which makes it interesting to watch. The editors have also managed to make perfect cuts with the beat & the ravers are also jumping to the beat so it looks realistic. Also, in the background of the music there is a loud horn often being played during the song. At about 2:32 minutes in we see a boy pressing the air horn which therefore illustrates the visual to the music.

These horns are often associated with the police & craziness & as the song is about hooligans is fits in well. Also, as the music turns to just the horns, you see clips of girls holding their bleeding ears which amplifies how loud the music is.

All these things amplify the relationship between the music & visuals & make the music video more exciting & interesting to watch.

Andrew Goodwin’s fourth point in ‘Dancing in the distraction factory’ states that the record labels demand lots of close ups of the artists in their music videos. This music video follows this point, as there are over 55 close up shots of Example & Don Diablo throughout. The camera often does straight cuts from the artists to the crowd as well as to other shots. Example & Don Diablo come across as wild ravers with a lot of energy & have a lot of fun performing & partying. This ties in well with the type of music they make. These are also sometimes seen as stereotypical characteristics of young people now days. This music video could also be seen as a negative representation of teenagers as it would suggest that they like to get drunk & go raving. They make them look out of control & like troublemakers. For example, when they are in club & a boy gets bottled, when Example sticks his middle finger up at the camera & when the boy at the beginning is rude to everyone.

Audience Survey - powerpoint presentation

   

Fantasy & Lies Productions

LENKA – THE SHOW ღ

Ella Trainor

Georgia Surridge

Maisie Linnane

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

MALE          FEMALE

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

1.    Initial comments on our idea….

2.   Do you believe our idea is accomplishable?

3.   In reference to issues with our idea, are there any changes you would suggest?

4.  Would you want to watch our completed music video?

5.  What do you think a typical pop music video should include?

6.  What was your favourite idea?

Thank you for your time J

Group Meeting 4

Today we completed our timeline for our song. We are now focused on completing our powerpoint which we will be presenting to the class next week.

Characteristics of pop music

• It aims to appeal to a general audience, rather than a particular sub-culture or ideology.
• It has an emphasis on recording, production & technology over live performance.
• It has a tendency to reflect existing trends rather than progressive developments.
• Much of pop music is intended to encourage dancing, or uses a dance-orientated beat or rhythm.
• The main medium of pop is the song which is often between 2.5-3.5 minutes long.
• Is is generally marked by a consistent & noticeable rhythmic element.
• It has a mainstream style but traditional structure.
• Common variants include the verse-chorus form & the thirty-two-bar form.
• It features a noticeable rhythmic element, melodies or hooks.
• The lyrics of modern pop songs typically focus on simple themes such as love & romantic relationships.
• It has a focus on the individual song or singles, rather than on albums.
• The typical instruments used in pop music are guitars, drums, piano, keyboard, drum machine, sequencer etc.
• It usually is recorded & listened to on the radio or at home.
• The song lyrics often deal with social & young peoples problems.
• Pop music varies according to fashion.