First Shoot

We filmed Rachel our main artist today. Although the shoot went really well, we did not use the magenta light which would have prevented the green glow, or at least improved the look of the shot. We are going to refilm this exactly the same, just with the magenta light on.

Filming close ups of main artist

I wrote the lyrics out to hold up for my protagonist to ensure that she would get the words right so the lip syncing would be perfect throughout the music video.

Rehersals

Rehersals

Today we did some dance rehearsals as we are going to have a group dance section within the music video. Some of what we did was very beneficial however it will need some changes and lots of tweaking as we dont feel that a lot of it fits with our genre and song. However it is just in the ideas stage at the moment with lots of different ideas and opinions going into it.

 

Production Difficulties

Today, November 30th, we were supposed to begin shooting some scenes in the green room. Our plan was to shoot all the close ups of our representation of Rihanna lip syncing. However Rachel was unable to attend so we have had to reschedule for next week. This is a large problem, one we could face again. It may have been easier to select someone at college to be in it as there wouldn't be transport issues. We are now behind in our schedule.

Main artist representing Rihanna in potential outfits

We selected these outfits for different reasons. We chose the white dress as we would like to shoot her against a black background and thought it would be a good contrast. We also want to do some filming outdoors in the rain in a 'dingy' kind of setting and also thought a clean white dress would contrast well with that. We thought the sparkly dress fitted the genre well as it is quite revealing, which is a convention of the R'n'B genre. It also looks expensive which expresses the wealth and 'bling' which is almost always present in an R'n'B genre music video.

Health and Safety

Inspiration for my music video

Other than obviously taking inspiration from Rihanna's video Umbrella I have been looking for inspiration elsewhere and have found a lot of it in Beyonce's videos. I watched this video of 'Single Ladies' by Beyonce and I like the black and white video. I think it looks really effective and so I have decided to use black and white clips in my music video.

 

I have also watched Halo by Beyonce and at one point she is practicing a dance routine in a black leotard and tights, Beyonce is also wearing something similar throughout the Single ladies video. I liked this as a choice of oufit because it shows that she is a performer, particularly talented at dance. The video to her song Halo has a narrative aspect whereas Single Ladies is simply a dance routine. I want to do something similar to Single ladies by not having a narrative and just having it simply performance based, so I will have Rachel lip syncing a large percentage of the song to create the idea my protagonist is performing the song throughout the video. I also want to shoot her in point shoes showing her talent at dancing. Along with doing some jumps which show her ability again. Also whilst lip syncing I would like her to be mobile and dancing around to make the shots more interesting.

 

 



Selected Locations

We've chosen to use the green room for the scenes with just the main artist in, as its perfect because we want to edit different backgrounds in. Also its big enough for mini dance routines for the main artist to do on her own. We decided that the threatre would be to big for these scenes and wouldnt work because its not the right background setting.

We have decided to use the threatre for some of scenes where we are having dance performances with the main artist and all the backing dancers. As its a bigger enough space for us to film it and to make sure the dancers have enough room to perform.

Findings from research into codes and conventions of genre and music video

Upon questioning people on the codes and conventions of our music genre we decided we should include such things as our artist wearing minimal clothing and perhaps some kind of 'bling' to connote a rich lifestyle and portray sex appeal typically stereotyped with this genre. We're also going to include a performance element, by having people including our main artist dancing and also singing in time to the music to portray her singing, this would be expected in the music video. We will also look for influence from Beyonce as the people we questioned decided she was most likely to perform similarly to Rihanna's song umbrella.

Video Evidence

Video Evidence

Video Evidence

Today we filmed responses to our questionaire which was researching into the codes and conventions of our genre. We asked people our age who also fit the age of the target audience for our chosen song.

Research into codes and conventions of genre and music video

After listening to the song what would you expect to see within the music video?

 

What type of conventions would you expect to see in this particular genre music video?

 

Out of these 3 female’s artists, who would you think would be more likely to be in this genre of music video?

What gender and age do you think this music video would appeal to?

 

Animatic

Umbrella Storyboard

Remake of Taylor Swift 'You belong with me' music video

Codes and Conventions of selected brief : Music Video

Umbrella-Rihanna
The song is the genre R'n'B and the video fits the conventions of this. It shows Rihanna in minimal clothing, which is very typical of this genre. It also has a lot of close ups of the artist, giving the audience what they want to see. Rihanna is also shown dancing. This shows she is talented, not only at singing and the audience like the see the artist perform.
Rihanna is shown in a dark setting, dressed in all black, this gives off connotations of being 'bad' later in the video she is shown dressed in white ballet dancing, this contrast almost suggests good and bad, angel vs. devil.

 

 

The video is performance based, showing Rihanna dancing, making her look good. There are lots of long shots to show her dancing and also show her minimal amount of clothing stereotypical of the R'n'B genre. She is very sexualised with medium close ups of her legs and she uses a prop to dance with (umbrella) relevant to the song's narrative, the editing also fits this as in one scene of the video she is dancing and a water edit has been used.

 

 



 

Evaluation

To prepare for our coursework, we made a 30 second remake of an original video. My group picked 'You belong with me' by Taylor Swift. My group consisted of myself, Megan Coggin, Lois England, Alicia Baldwin and Sophie Marshall. We divided up the roles so we each had one. Sophie and I were to share the roles of filming and editing, while Megan was producer and Lois was director. However we ended up sharing roles quite a bit, Megan did a bit of filming and we all ended up chipping in ideas for directing on the night. We also took turns at the editing.
Previous to filming we made a production plan which included the props we needed, when and where we would film the video and what time, who was to be included and story-boarded the original video.In our video there are shots which needed to be filmed from outside a window.

 

We struggled to recreate this as we could not film from the outside of my house and get a close enough view of what was happening inside. We attempted to create something which looked like a window out of some glass from a photo frame and drawing lines on it.

When filming some of the footage Megan was in the shot as it was filmed in the mirror however we did not notice this until we were editing. Fortunately we had enough footage to be able to not include these parts. However this meant that some of the footage we did use, the lip syncing did not go with the music. This is definitely something I would change if I were given the task again.

From this task I have learnt I must leave time to refilm shots if not perfect and that props should be prepared previous to filming as we could have made a better window as although the idea was good, the lines did not look very convincing. Over all I was disappointed with quite a few aspects but I have learnt a lot and will not make the same mistakes in my actual coursework.

30 second music video storyboard

Audience Key Terms

Qualitative data: This is in-depth data which gathers detailed answers often including the audience’s thoughts and feelings, leading questions.

Quantitative data: This is data which is measured in numbers and groups, answers are often recorded as yes/no type questions which can be put into graphs and easy analysed.

Psychographic Data: This data includes people’s thoughts and feelings, interest’s lifestyles, answers questions with varied opinions and in-depth detailed answers.

Demographic Data: This is ‘pure’ data, for example a question such as “are you male/female?” easy to answer because it is either one or the other, not expectations or different opinions.

Cast

Artist:

Rachel Watkinson

Backing Dancers:

India Brumhead

Olivia Lake

Ellie Needham

Alex Settle

Lydia Kemp

Victoria Snowden

 

Still need male to represent Jay-Z

Umbrella-Rihanna

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvBfHwUxHIk

This is my chosen song, Umbrella by Rihanna featuring Jay-Z. I will be recreating a music video for it, using this as inspiration. The genre of this song is R'n'B. The codes and conventions of this genre are:
Minimal clothing;
'Bling';
High heels
Sexualised women.
I've chosen this video for inspiration because it has a wide range of different shots of the protagonist and fast editing, fitting with the dance routines. The lighting and settings are dark.

Umbrella Lyrics (chosen song)

[Jay-Z]
Ahuh Ahuh (Yea Rihanna)
Ahuh Ahuh (Good girl gone bad)
Ahuh Ahuh (Take three... Action)
Ahuh Ahuh

No clouds in my stones
Let it rain, I hydroplane in the bank
Coming down with the Dow Jones
When the clouds come we gone, we Rocafella
We fly higher than weather
In G5's are better, You know me,
In anticipation, for precipitation. Stack chips for the rainy day
Jay, Rain Man is back with little Ms. Sunshine
Rihanna where you at?

[Rihanna]
You have my heart
And we'll never be worlds apart
May be in magazines
But you'll still be my star
Baby cause in the dark
You can't see shiny cars
And that's when you need me there
With you I'll always share
Because

[Chorus]
When the sun shines, we'll shine together
Told you I'll be here forever
Said I'll always be a friend
Took an oath I'ma stick it out till the end
Now that it's raining more than ever
Know that we'll still have each other
You can stand under my umbrella
You can stand under my umbrella
(Ella ella eh eh eh)
Under my umbrella
(Ella ella eh eh eh)
Under my umbrella
(Ella ella eh eh eh)
Under my umbrella
(Ella ella eh eh eh eh eh eh)

These fancy things, will never come in between
You're part of my entity, here for Infinity
When the war has took it's part
When the world has dealt it's cards
If the hand is hard, together we'll mend your heart
Because

[Chorus]
When the sun shines, we'll shine together
Told you I'll be here forever
Said I'll always be a friend
Took an oath I'ma stick it out till the end
Now that it's raining more than ever
Know that we'll still have each other
You can stand under my umbrella
You can stand under my umbrella
(Ella ella eh eh eh)
Under my umbrella
(Ella ella eh eh eh)
Under my umbrella
(Ella ella eh eh eh)
Under my umbrella
(Ella ella eh eh eh eh eh eh)

You can run into my arms
It's OK don't be alarmed
Come here to me
There's no distance in between our love
So go on and let the rain pour
I'll be all you need and more
Because

[Chorus]
When the sun shines, we'll shine together
Told you I'll be here forever
Said I'll always be a friend
Took an oath I'ma stick it out till the end
Now that it's raining more than ever
Know that we'll still have each other
You can stand under my umbrella
You can stand under my umbrella
(Ella ella eh eh eh)
Under my umbrella
(Ella ella eh eh eh)
Under my umbrella
(Ella ella eh eh eh)
Under my umbrella
(Ella ella eh eh eh eh eh eh)

It's raining
Ooh baby it's raining
Baby come here to me
Come here to me
It's raining
Oh baby it's raining

Codes and Conventions of a soap opera

Codes and Conventions of a music video

Production Plan

Location: Lydia’s House – Lydia’s room mise-en-scene of a teenage girls bedroom.

Equipment needed: video camera, tripod, change of outfits for Alicia Baldwin including: geek glasses, big white signed tshirt, checkered pjs, pen and paper.

Actor: Alicia Baldwin

Time/Date to start filming: Sunday 7th October at 7.00pm – 

Deconstruction and Reconstruction of a Media Text

Taylor Swift: You Belong With Me - this is the one of the songs we have created a storyboard for. We are going to take 30 seconds from the official video and try and recreate it. This will give an idea of how to create a music video and represent the codes and conventions of this genre. The genre for this is contry-pop. The target audience for this genre and video imparticular is young female as the song is quite girlie and cheesy and therefore catchy.

Job Roles:
Cast: Alicia Baldwin as Taylor Swift
Robert Gibbs as Lucas Till

Director: Lois England and Alicia Baldwin

Producer: Megan Coggin

Camera/Editor: Lydia Barrett and Sophie Marshall

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bKAaKwX5aA

Skills Development Essay

In my first year of Media Studies I studied the codes and conventions of different film trailers, of a number of different genres, what they had in common and what they did differently, I looked at what worked best and decided on which genre I found most interesting. My chosen genre was horror. I researched a number of different horror films, my favourite being Prom Night and I initially decided to make my film trailer similar to this, however after later research I decided a trailer similar to Paranormal Activity would be a good idea as the home movie idea was easy to create and ver effective. In addition to the film trailer I also made 3 posters, one main poster and two teaser posters. I again had to do a lot of research into posters, looking at what must be included and also what to exclude from teaser posters to ensure I didn’t put too much information on mine, as teaser posters don’t give much away. I used Photoshop to edit my film posters, toying with colour photos and black and white. I found Photoshop a great program to use as although it is quite complicated, there is so much you can change and manipulate when using it. All images and film had to be original and produced by myself and my partner.

I studied the genre horror, I noticed a lot of extreme close ups were used to show and emphasise the fear of the protagonist, I also liked the feature used in a lot of horror films where the camera is hand held, to create a home movie feel and make the film feel more realistic, so I used this in my trailer. I noticed the editing was fast and the shots were quick, which created tension. I didn’t use any speech and used ‘dark’ music to create an atmosphere.

I had never previously used any of the equipment, such as cameras, Photoshop or the Adobe Elements which I used to edit my trailer, so I initially struggled. So to practice using the equipment and to become comfortable with it, I made a short film with little planning just to learn how to use the camera, when doing this I realised what I could do to make the filming better, I tried lots of shots with the tripod but soon realised that handheld shots would be better for my genre. I also had a brief go at editing the film; this allowed me to learn my way around Adobe Elements.

On my posters I used a lot of black and red, as they have a lot of connotations which fit the horror genre. Red is associated with danger and black is associated with death and evil also with the unknown...very fitting for my genre. I edited one of my posters so that it was black and white and just red eyes glaring out, which I felt gave it a spooky, horror feel and really stood out. Photoshop allowed me to do this. I edited the look of the model used with many tools, I used the spot removal tool to clear the face of blemishes along with a merge tool, I made my models face flawless, however I edited the picture to make her eyes red, to signify the horror genre.

When filming my trailer, I used lots of extreme close ups to show the fear of my characters, I also used long shots as I wanted to show my characters running away as it makes the order wonder what they’re running from. I didn’t use any dialect in my trailer, just scary music and screaming, typical of a horror genre. I feel the lack of dialect created mystery and wondering in the trailer, leaving enough unanswered questions to encourage people to go see the film however I feel I included enough narrative to make the film look appealing. I used a lot of fast editing and short clips to create tension, my trailer was non linear and didn’t give away the story line, it just hinted at it.

I tried to make my trailer seem realistic by using certain techniques to create a home video feel, similar to that in paranormal activity, I also looked at settings used frequently in horror genre’s such as castles and old houses however I didn’t think these would be very easy to gain access to so decided to use a wood as it would be easy to find one appropriate and if I needed to re-film shots I could when I pleased. A lot of my shots were of the floor while running and shots of characters running from behind, also hearing creepy noises and lots of heavy breathing, I found these to be regularly used in horror films. The editing was reasonably easy I did lots of cutting scenes, so it was quite jumpy.

I used audience feedback to help me improve and adjust what I had created to make it even better. I decided after a few people commented on it to make my trailer start off slightly slower paced and speed up. I also was told that ending with something jumping out or scaring the audience would be a good idea so I took this into consideration and tried to create the desired effect to the best of my ability. I was assured my trailer fitted the genre entirely and the conventions were all covered.

I feel the skills and knowledge I developed in my first year of media studies can be used this year in my music video. The skills I acquired I believe can be improved to make this year’s course work better, doing a video last year I believe has given me an advantage this year as I will have the confidence to create a more challenging video than I maybe would have if I did not have previous experience. I feel the skills I acquired on Photoshop although hard were very beneficial.

The Brief

A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with two of the following three options:

- a website homepage for the band
- a cover for its release as part of a digipack (cd/dvd package)
- a magazine advert for the digipak (cd/dvd package)