Group Blog Update

As our group we have not filmed footage in a while because we have been completing further research to ensure that any filming that we carry on with remains relevant to our chosen style. Whilst completing our research on the video we have also looked into the background of our artist and have looked at the sorts of merchandise that we could create. To do this we have created a logo for our artist that will appear on the merchandise and on our album cover.  We have also completed a risk assessment where we looked at the possible issues that we could come across while filming that we would have to be careful of. We did this so that we were aware of anything that we should look out for whilst we are out filming both inside and out. 

After completing this research we are ready to go out and get more footage and then we will begin to edit our video so that we can see if we need to add any sort of parts to it. 

Group Blog Update

In our last lesson as a group, we continued with the storyboard planning of our music video. On our group blog we have added a post with the timings for each line in the song. We did this so that we could decide on what shots we want to use to represent lyrics and so that we had an idea of how much time we would have for each clip in our video. After producing these timings we are going to cut through clips after every couple of lines to keep the song flowing. We decided to do this because if we cut after every line then the song would appear too fragmented and therefore it would be hard for an audience to follow in depth. We also decided that it would be easier to put together if we used longer clips because we would not have to cut as much and we could put more of a narrative together to go with the song.

Personalities

In lesson we looked at personality features and what makes a good team leader. We looked at this short presentation to look at different features of our own personalities and used this as a guide into picking the roles for each member of our group. We looked at each other's strong points to find out which roles each of us would suit for this coursework. From looking at this presentation we all had a mix of features from each of the boxes so we had to put our features together. In the end we decided to go with Graeme as our team leader because overall he had the best leadership qualities and he has good time management skills. Me, Liam and Jacob all have responsibilities of getting ideas together and analysing the music and lyrics in the song. So far we have gathered a range of ideas that could potentially be used in our video and we are beginning to filter our ideas to get rid of ideas that we think the video could be better off without. Our ideas have changed a lot already and we are still in the early stages, this is because when we come up with ideas individually and then have a group discussion we tend to develop and change a lot of the ideas that we have come up with. 

Group Blog Update

In today's lesson we spent more time on our group blog to get our posts up to date. We put posts up showing our progress in our research and planning. We also changed the look of our blog so that when people view our blog it instantly relates to what we are doing for our course. We have added a background of the artist whose song we are using, this will eventually be changed to a picture of our own artist so that all of our coursework links in and makes everything stand out more. We are going to spend more time on our group blog because we need to get ready for filming which means that our research and planning needs to be completed. We have completed our research so far by looking at different songs that we could use and looking at the ideas and meanings behind lyrics to see what we can do to represent the lyrics in our video.

Music Video Research

Previous A2 Music Videos
In today's lesson I spent my time on YouTube looking through videos from the past couple of years for the course that I am doing. I looked at other videos to see how other people approached this task and so that I can become aware of the mistakes and problems that people came across when they did this task.

Carol Vernallis Music Video Analysis

• Carol Vernallis Theory
• Carol Vernallis' theory is based on the editing of a music video. She bases her theory on four key concepts of the editing, this is the narrative, editing, camera movement and framing and the deigesis. She suggests that a music video is a visual response to the narrative, therefore whatever is happening on screen is a representation of the lyrics chosen by the artist. Vernallis also says that the narrative may not be completed and the video does not always show this. This is because of the editing of videos where the video appears partial and fragmented. Artists will sometimes choose to leave the video unfinished which leads the audience to question the narrative of a song. Vernallis also says that music videos may disrupt or break the conventions of continuity editing. The editing may also become visible and obvious, again breaking the continuity convention by making the editing stand out. A few examples of this are jump cuts, breaks of the 30 degree rule, cutting with the lyrics, extreme changes in pace, juxtaposed frames and graphic matches. She also says that establishing shots are one of the main features of a music video and are used frequently throughout a music video. The style of framing of the video is quite distinctive of the video and the camera may also move with the lyrics. Extreme/master shots are also common. The actions in the video won't always be completed and may be disrupted and there will be many repetitions throughout the video and some frames will appear more important than others due to the way they have been shot/framed.
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This video represents this theory well because the video fragments the song and uses clips in between to represent the lyrics of the song and almost narrates the listener through the meaning and lyrics of the song. A lot of jump cuts are used through the video to constantly change what is going on so the video is explained to the audience.

Group Blog

This is a link to our group blog. This blog has been set up to show the research that my group are completing directly relating to the song that we have chosen. On the blog we will have a questionnaire aimed towards various audiences so that we can find out what different people are looking for from a music video from that particular genre of music. We will include group discussions and mind maps on the blog to show our progress leading up to the filming and editing of our video, we will also post pictures from our filming sessions to show the progress that we are making on this project. The song that we as a group have chosen is Justin Bieber's "As Long As You Love Me" acoustic.

Music Video Directors

Michel Gondry

In class today we were looking at the different styles of music videos based around which director it was from. We looked at two videos at the start of the lesson, one from Kylie and one from Chemical Brothers. Both videos were from a director named Michel Gondry. We compared the two videos and looked at the how the particular style of the director had been used to represent the meaning of the songs.



This is the video for Kylie Minogue - Come Into My World




This is the video for The Chemical Brothers - Let Forever Be


Chris Cunningham

We then looked at Madonna - Frozen which was directed by Chris Cunningham who has also directed the videos Come To Daddy and Windowlicker by Aphex Twin. Although the videos are quite different, there are similarities that can relate them. This comes in the form of in the Madonna video, a crow is used to represent the song and the video is quite dark and sinister. The video for the song Come To Daddy is also quite dark and sinister with an aggressive dog being used in the video. This is the sort of style of this director and although the videos look noticeably different, the ideas behind the videos are very similar.






This is the video for Madonna - Frozen






This is the video for Aphex Twin - Frozen

Semiotic Theory - Music Video

There are three stages of the semiotic theory:

Perception
The person becomes aware of a sign.

Manipulation
The person interprets the sign and decides how to respond to it.

Consummation
The person responds.

Album Covers

The semiotic theory can be represented in music through album covers and music videos. The connotation of an article is what the article would mean to a member of the audience, this makes music more personal whereas the denotation of an article is what it was intended to mean. This is the meaning that the musician has given a song. They often represent this through use of their music videos.

This is a Little Mix album cover, their target audience is young girls and I think that this album cover is appropriate for this target audience because it shows the artists on the cover and the fonts used are bold and clear so they stand out. The colours are also light and feminine which again relates well to the target audience. The way the cover has been put together makes it obvious who the target audience is. This is what semiotic theory is all about because it stands out to a target audience because of what they expect from this sort of artist.

Andrew Goodwin

Goodwin's music theory:
"Music videos ignore the common narrative as they are essentially advertisements. As consumers, we make up our own meanings of a song in our minds; a music video can anchor meaning and gives the record company/artist a method of anchoring meaning."
What he means by this is that everyone can look at the lyrics of a song in a different way, people often relate the lyrics of a song to situations they either they are in or have experienced. This gives people their own perspectives of a song, but companies use music videos often to show what the song means to the artist.

Goodwin has six different conventions within a music video.
1) A relationship between lyrics and visuals, which illustrate, amplify or contradict the lyrics.
2) Through beats, seeing the sounds (the relationship between the music and the visuals, which illustrate, amplify or contradict the music).
3) Genre-related style and iconography present.
4) Multiple close-ups of the main artist or vocalist; the creation of a star image to promote a recognisable brand image.
5) Voyeurism often plays a major part, especially in relation to females.
6) Intertextual reference to other media texts may be present, especially in humorous videos.




Jessie J's "Price Tag" is a good representation of Goodwin's music theory because the video uses the contradictory text of the theory. This is shown when the lyrics are "It's not about the money" while the artist is dancing in front of a tree with dollar notes falling from it. This is contradictory because the song is about not needing money to have nice things and the visuals are constantly showing a lot of money.

Intertextuality

Intertextuality:
Intertextuality is recreating an original text in your own way in a new media.

Californication - Red Hot Chili Peppers
This music video is a good example of intertextuality because the idea of the video is based around a video game. Throughout the video, the images are constantly switching from band performance to their perception of a video game. This is an original idea for a music video because it had not been done before and they used the idea well to create this video. However, as a group we will not be using this video for inspiration because it would not be suitable for the video style that we want to do.

Album Covers

Definition
An album cover is the front of the packaging of a commercially released audio recording product, or album. 

History
In the 1920's, music was sold in collections known as 'albums', this at the time was a vinyl in a clear sleeve which would have had the artist name and title of the album written on the front of it. In 1938, Columbia Records hired Alex Steinweiss as an art director, it was this that brought about the invention of album covers. After this being introduced, in the 1940s other companies began to follow the new trend of including album artwork. From the 1950s through 1960s, LPs were the most popular form of music, they were sold in a cardboard sleeve which was printed with an album cover to represent the band/album.In the 1980s CDs became popular and they were sold in plastic cases with the album cover inside, this is still hugely recognisable in stores. A huge amount of music sales in recent times though is online downloads, this means that people do not hold a physical copy of an album so therefore do not need the packaging. Album covers still come with the albums, but it is a digital version of it. As of 2008, CDs still sold more than album downloads, but figures are constantly changing and downloads are catching up, but I think that album covers are still important because they help fans to recognise their music and can add character to an album as opposed to just giving them a name.

Favourite Album Cover

Nirvana - Nevermind

This is an album that I have liked since I was only young, I have always been a fan of Nirvana and this album cover is completely unique and recognised straight away by the majority of people. The album cover shown is a circumcised baby boy that appears to be chasing after a US dollar note on a fishhook. The idea was brought about when Cobain was watching a program on water births with Dave Grohl. Cobain gave his idea to the art director Robert Fisher. He managed to find some footage of water birth he thought would be useful but they turned out to be too graphic to use for this purpose. The photo that they wanted to use was also owned by the stock house that wanted £7,500 for its use. Instead of this, Fisher sent a photographer to a baby pool to take some pictures, this left the band with five shots to choose from and they settled on the image of 3 month old Spencer Elden. Elden is the son of the photographer's friend, however, there was a lot of concern because Elden's penis is shown in the picture. An alternative cover was made for the album because they were worried that the current picture would offend people, but Cobain was reluctant to change the cover and his only compromise was to put a sticker over the penis saying "If you're offended by this, you must be a closet paedophile". This was not how the company wanted the album to look so they allowed the original idea to go on display. The album was released on September 24, 1991 and has sold over 30 million copies worldwide. This album cover defined Nirvana and members of the public recognise this album as one of their most successful albums because of the song "Smells Like Teen Spirit".

Summer Work Week 4

Plus 44 - When Your Heart Stops Beating

 

The music video for this song was directed by Liz Friedlander, the video consists of the band performing in an abandoned warehouse with crowds of people dancing and couples arguing. The video is quite chaotic which represents the style of the genre along with the style of the band. The camera work throughout the video is quite strange in the sense that the camera will zoom in on a subject and then zoom out and the environment has changed where the subject has remained the same. Director, Liz Friedlander is an American film, music video and TV director. She has worked with artists such as U2, Megadeth, Avril Lavigne, REM and 3 Doors Down. 

Summer Work Week 3

Korn - Freak on a Leash

 

The music video for this song was directed by Todd McFarlane assisted by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris. McFarlane is a Canadian cartoonist, artist, writer, toy designer and entrepreneur. He is best known for his comic books. This is shown in the music video for Freak on a Leash where the music video cuts between a cartoon and real life filming. The style is very different because the video represents a bullet fired in a cartoon poster that exits the poster and makes its way through real life situations until it ends up back in the poster. It is a very unique style that is not commonly seen in modern music videos.

Summer Work Week 2

Sum 41 - Still Waiting

The music video for this song was directed by Marc Klasfeld. Klasfeld is an American music video director, he has directed over 200 music videos for artists such as; Britney Spears, Jay-Z, Kid Rock, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Avril Lavigne and Aerosmith. He has won multiple MTV Awards and has many nominations. He is also a known director for TV adverts from the likes of; NFL, Target, Nike, Motorola etc. this particular music video is made as a spoof which targets bands which names begin with 'The' such as The Strokes, The Vines etc and it mocks trends in music.

Summer Work Week 1

The Police - Every Breath You Take

 
 
The video for this song was directed by a rock duo called Godley & Creme. The pair were originally performing artists but then turned to directing music videos. This particular music video was praised for its black and white cinematography and won an MTV award in 1999 and a VH1 award in 2002. The black and white suits the video well because it is not a positive message through the song, it is written about the obsession of a lost lover and jealousy, therefore the video has done well to keep that in perspective by giving off a dark vibe from the song. 

Godley & Creme have also worked with artists such as Ultravox, Duran Duran and Frankie Goes To Hollywood which are all artists from the same era and could be compared similarly to each other. 

Pastiche and Parody

Pastiche and Parody

Pastiche

I think that Pastiche is a more serious version of what a parody would be. This is due to the mixing of styles that it produces. This is shown in the likes of the film Shaun Of The Dead where the main idea is a horror film about the living dead, but with a parody idea it has been turned into a comedy. The music video Thriller by Michael Jackson also does this because the video starts out serious but then it becomes comical when there are dancing zombies. These two examples are very different in terms of the text they come from, but they can also be put into the same category for the ideas that they portray where they have taken something that is seen to be serious/scary and have made it a funny concept.

This is the extended version of the Thriller music video by Michael Jackson, this shows the serious side of the concept behind the video and then leads onto the parody during the song.

Speech in a dead language

This is another way of showing a social trend. It is said to be a language that no one understands and no longer exists. Examples of this can be seen in everyday life by the clothes that people wear and the way that it is constantly changing.

Displaces 'real' history

Replacing history with the modern unknown.

Parody

Parody is a way of being able to mock something whilst making it funny at the same time. A good example of this would be Austin Powers, this is a film about a spy which can relate to the likes of James Bond, but the story lines through the film and the style of the film have made the film a comedy. In Pastiche terms relating to parody, it says that the ways in which articles are mocked all follow the same styles from history which may no longer be recognised in modern day society, but they all relate. This explains the theory that there is no longer individuality because everything that is considered to be 'new' has taken ideas from something that already exists.This means that nothing that is coming out is truly original and that history is repeating itself.

The Pink video "Stupid Girls" is a good example of parody, it takes stereotypes of "dumb blondes" and celebrity obsessives. Throughout the video it exaggerates the typical behaviour that people expect to see from the stereotypical people who fit into these categories.

This is the official music video for "Stupid Girls"

Comparing Music

In Today's Lesson
In today's lesson we went around the class and looked at the music videos chosen by each of us. Looking at our research, a lot of the songs chosen were from a few years ago which could be a result of our age group where we still enjoy listening to music from our childhood years. It was also common that our current music tastes were due to influences taken from our parents through our childhoods and friends that have introduced us to certain artists or genres. Each of us gave the same layout as the one shown in my blog with the videos shown and a short explanation of why the song relates to them.

Lip Syncing

Foo Fighters - Learn to Fly

Today in class we split ourselves up into groups of 3 and practiced lip syncing for when we come to creating our own music videos. We lip synced 'Learn to Fly' by Foo Fighters. This task was difficult for me as I have never done this before and being filmed on my first attempt at it was slightly off-putting. It was a fun task that has helped me to understand what the aim of our coursework is and what I will have to do. In order to be able to lip sync properly I will have to ensure that I know the song in depth so that I do not make any mistakes during filming.  

What Makes An Effective Music Video?

Wheatus - Teenage Dirtbag
This song is a cliche story about teenage romance in high school. It tells the story of a 'nerd' who's in love with more popular girl. The video backs this up with its layout by using the lyrics in line with the video to show the different parts of the song. It also reverts to filming of the band in the same environment (Hight school) which again relates to the lyrics and the story of the song.

This shot is at the beginning of the music video and shows the 'nerd' looking lovingly at the more popular girl getting out of her boyfriend's car at school. The clothing used represents the differences between them the way the girl is dressed in nicer clothes and by the way she looks. She is shown to be too good for the 'nerd'.

The video also uses shots of the band throughout the video. This shows the performance of the song and also shows the style of the band and what they represent. The shot used is in a high school gym which relates perfectly to the song and the area the lyrics are based around. This links the band to the video and their style and what they represent as a band and through that particular song.








The video reverts between the band and the story the whole way though. Each part of the video is used to represent the lyrics at each point. This is effective because it helps the audience keep up with what the song is about and also gets the message through to people a lot quicker and easier. This helps people to understand the song and gives them a better idea of what the band is all about.

During the chorus, the focus goes back to the band. However at this point there are crowds of teenagers around the band all going crazy. This part of the video is used to represent the band and also the audience. It fits in with the cliches of teenagers and gives the song a lot of energy, making the song exciting and shows off the sort of audience that this music has.





I think that this video is a good representative of this genre because it tells a story of cliche teenage behaviour and also explains it through the lyrics and music video. The performance of the band is also shown in the video which represents the style of the band and allows audiences to relate the genre of music to a particular style. The location used is also very well planned out as the audience of this music is predominantly teenagers which are also likely to be high school students themselves. I think that this video is a good choice to represent the genre of my choice because if this because it is also a song that relates well to my childhood as I grew up listening to this sort of music and this song in particular was a part of it.
I think this video stands out from other music videos because it represents the audience of the music as well as the band itself. However, looking at other music videos from this genre, there is a trend throughout which shows that the bands from this genre represent their audience a lot through their videos and also give off different impressions from their style and behaviour in their music videos. So although the videos are very similar, they are also very different.

Childhood, Memory and Current Music Videos

Childhood Song

Sum 41 - In Too Deep





This song was a big part of my childhood because I used to love this genre of music. I used to watch Kerrang a lot and this song came up quite a lot and it grew on me more each time. I also love skateboarding and used to play on all of the Tony Hawk games which all featured songs similar to this. I liked this style of music growing up because I have always been into the American style and wanted to follow in their footsteps by playing guitar and wearing their clothes.

Memory

Metallica - Sad But True






This song is a memory because this band became my favourite band around the ages of 15/16 and I went to see them when they headlined Download Festival 2012. This band became my favourite when I moved on a bit from punk and became more interested in heavier music such as metal. 

Current Music Taste

The Offspring - Want You Bad




This is a song that represents my current music taste. I still have a keen interest in the punk genre and still like the style and representation of the genre. I listen to this music a lot and enjoy it as much as I used to when I was growing up.

Introduction

What you will find on my blog.
On my blog for this project you will find examples of music videos from a range of genres with explanations of the music videos on how they represent the song. The information on my blog will all relate to the set tasks throughout the course and will be included to show what work and research has been done when looking through music videos and finding ideas for my own work. On my blog you will also find information on my background research about meanings of chosen songs or what different bands represent.

What genre I am going to use.
I am going to use the punk genre for my music videos because it is a genre that I enjoy and the music videos relate well to what the genre represents such as rebellious attitudes and skateboarding. I also used to watch a lot of these sort of music videos growing up through the likes of Kerrang when I had music channels on so I am already aware of the types of music videos from this genre. This genre played a huge part of my childhood and has influenced me in various ways to the person I am today. 

What I think of this work.
I think I will find this work interesting because I enjoy music and learning about the surrounding areas of music. I think it will be a difficult course but with the right research it can be made easier. I think I will be alright in this course when doing tasks relating to my chosen genre in particular because I know a lot of music videos from the genre already and will enjoy watching the videos because I love the music. To help me complete tasks of looking at music videos, I will also do research on the chosen songs to find out the various meanings behind the lyrics and look to see how the video could possible represent what the lyrics are trying to say and the message that the song is trying to portray.

• What are your initial ideas for your Music Genre? Why?
• Have you any ideas about the blog, do you think you will find it interesting? Are you looking forward to doing this work? Do you think this will be difficult? What kind of support do you think you will need?