Research: Costumes, settings and location.

I looked into costumes, settings and location and reviewed how perhaps it contributes to the success of music videos.

Costume:

All three of these examples show that that big musicians tent to wear basic and affordable clothing. This attracts a wider audience as more
people can relate to the artist and dress like them.

Setting and Location

Music video's tend to use a range of settings and locations. This makes the video more appealing to the audiences. They also tend to be outdoors to show the 'real world'. The first example is Ed Sheeran's A Team. The music video was filmed in a park and around angel station. The second example is Gary Barlow's What goes around comes around. This video is almost an anomaly due to location and costume changes. However, it almost told a story as narrative was Gary Barlow moving about with his piano and engaging with other people. 

research- previous student review

11. Yacine, Andrew, Ryan, Mazlum from 283goswell on Vimeo.


Out of all the previous student videos, i particularly enjoyed this one mainly because of the strong effect and simplicity of it. I felt that the pace and movement of the singer and narrative in general perfectly match the song; which is why it felt like it was the actual music video for the song. The lip syncing was very much on point with no errors to my knowledge.

The guitar was the key prop in this music video- the playing of it seemed realistic

This was a very powerful shot showing the girl leaving his life as she appeared in the reflection and disappeared as the camera moved up. 

Here, the time laps introduced a new base track. i felt that it was done well.

This shot rounded up a really good music video. the hot air balloons symbolised in some aspects the story of the music video.

research- Mulveys theory

Research: Reflection of progress.

Compared to last year i think the quality of my blogging has improved however i need to improve my timing. out of 20 i would rate myself 9. Ive now used different Ict skills to present my work.

Research: Copyright Clearance

During the summer holiday we had a task where we had to get the copyright clearance of the song of our choice. As I was looking through many artists and bands I ended up going for Ellie Goulding's song 'Hold My Breath' and went on to search for the information needed in order to get in contact with the copyright holder. 

 

I found there address and decided to send them a letter but unfortunately didn't get no reply back. The letter was sent on Wednesday 13th September 2014, I have attached the copy of the letter I sent to the record company. 

Reflecting back on the AS year: Technical Skills

In AS media we learnt a variety of technical skill in the areas of editing, film making and sound such

Film making:

180 degree rule - this was when the camera had to be maintained on one side of the axis for every shot in the scene. The camera passing over the axis is called jumping the line or crossing the line. The 180 degree rule is used so that for example, in a football game if the cameras crossed the line the audience would think the football teams changed sides or they'd be lost as to who's scoring where.

A diagram that shows the 180 degree rule.

Use of Tripod - the tripod came to a great use for all of us as students as we were learning how to use all of the equipment and make our shots steady.

Editing:

• Match Cut - this is when editing occurs on an action as a result making the action appear seamless. For example, if there's a mid shot of a person kicking the ball, then cut to a close up of the ball being kicked, the close up would emphasise the person's action.
• Cross Cut - when the editing takes us from one situation to another and usually continues back and forth to suggest the 2 things have something in common/are linked. An example would be a shot of a police car chasing the criminals and then a shot of the criminals in their own car.
• Shot/Reverse Shot - this is a techniques that's mainly used in conversations such as cutting from one person speaking to the other person speaking, and back again.
• Credits - this played an important part of editing our final piece as we learnt to put the credits in order and properly to indicate who had what role within our group.

We all learnt about all of these different types of editing so that we could use in our own work. This was to achieve flawless editing and so that  the audience would enjoy what they were seeing.

Sound:

• Diegetic - this is the sound that's actually being heard on the set such as the actor's voice, traffic noise and so on.
• Non-diegetic - this is when the sound is added in post-production such as sound effects.
• Dialogue - conversation between 2 or more actors.

These 3 types of sound came in to hand when we had to do our own work as we learnt when and why non-diegetic and diegetic sounds were used for. For example, they would help with setting the mood and add emphasise to situations.

Reflecting back on AS year: Music Videos

Looking back at the lessons in June we went over the features of a music videos which were:

• To promote the artists and their music.
• Show the audience what the artist is all about.
• To give visual pleasure the viewers other than just listening to the song. 

Music videos are mainly filmed and directed for the audience's pleasure as the artist makes every bit of the music video by following certain conventions depending on the genre and the artist.
For example between Cheryl Cole and Trey Songz the music videos will differ in many ways such as the lighting or effects they would use in their music videos. The use of camera may have different emphasis on different things or people in different ways and so on.

We learnt that MTV was first launched on the 1st August 1987 and the first music video to be shown on MTV was by The Buggles - Video Killed The Radio Show. On 2^nd December 1983 Michael Jackson’s Thrilller was the most influential pop music video of all time as it was a staggering 14 minutes long as not like any other music video done before, which led it to be aired twice every hour. Thriller cost a total of $500,000 to produce and it sold 9 million units. In comparison, we also looked at Lady Gaga's music video Telephone which featured Beyoncé. Compared to Thriller, Telephone is 9 minutes long but cost the same to produce $500,000.

Research- Carol Vernallis theory

Research- Goodwins theory

Research- Functions of a music video

For this, I looked at Rihanna's popular  'what's my name' and looked at the function of this music video and others in general.

Research- Copyright clearance

My summer task was to try get a copyright clearance from a record label. This would enable me to use one of their songs for my A2 coursework.

Reflecting back on the AS year: Technical Skills

Reflecting back on AS year - Music Videos

During the end of our AS year, we had a few introductory lessons concerning our A2 media coursework. we looked at the conventions of a music video. we looked at two very influential music videos that were popular on a global scale:

Michael Jackson- Thriller

This video was without a doubt the most influential music video released in its time. Its quite unique in the sense that it is 14 minutes long. This music video was a hit on on MTV. It cost producers around about $500,000.

Lady Gaga- Telephone

In 2009 Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” had 30 million views within the first 5 days on YouTube with 7.4 million digital copies sold. Unlike Thriller, Telephone is a 9 minutes long video but had the same budget of $500,000. Extensive product placement such as virgin media helped fund the video. What was different to the video was that the music video had credits which aren't a typical convention for a music video. Both of these are events music videos meaning that it’s a staged video that has a narrative.

I am looking forward to watching some more inspirational music videos and eventually create my own.