A review on a student video (research)

Task- write up a review of your favourite video from the selection viewed in today’s class and post it on your blog.

The student video I liked was a funky house song by Meleka called Go which is remixed by Crazy cousins, it is about a girl not wanted to be with her boyfriend anymore as he messed it up. I felt this video was aimed at teenagers because of the genre, narrative and lyrics. The student music video had amplification to the lyrics as there was slight narrative shown through, I felt that it got better as the song went on as many more locations where introduced such as the girls house and a park. There was repetition in the scene from the chorus which happens in many music videos, it was a girl signing in a pink dress doing many hand movements and gestures.

                I feel that some of the angles shown in the videos don’t particularly work with the lyric at the time or the setting. Such as when threes a low angle shot of her sitting on the bench I feel this would work better as a simple mid shot. In terms of the mark scheme, framing is a thing that gets marked, all through out the framing is good as you can always see her without any spaces and when the boyfriend is introduced is the same for him. The pace and beat of the song is slow so the editing follows this Patten, which words extremely well especially in this genre. In the repetitive scene I feel the lighting is very bad and the lights could have bin used better to change the mood and the overall feel of the music video.

                Some representation is used in this video as it shows the typical conventions and stereotypes of a girl. As the singer which plays the narrator and is participant character in the song, is very girly and dressed up through out as threes make up and her hair is done nice in different scenes as she is dumping her boyfriend this goes against some of the typical conventions of a girl as it shows she can be independent and strong without a male. Lastly I feel that the party at the end once the boy get dumped shows strength for the girl.

                I gave this song 31/40 as I found it a very good song with many strengths and weakness, this would be a level four maybe a b grade. I feel that it could have improved the begging of the song as it can be boring to start of with but then the overall timeline and narrative gets better. Sometimes that makes it loose marks are that it’s a bit to repetitive throughout. I also like the mise en scene.

               

Reflection on lip synching tutorial experience, including photos(need to upload pictures from videodrive) and embedded video (planning)

Lip sychin tutorial

Brief

We got put into our a2 music video groups, was given a song, CD player and the lyrics. We had one hour to film and thirty minutes to edit. We had to sing our songs and film using a variety of different angles and shots in order to make a quick music video.

What new skills did you learn through this activity?

We learnt how to use the camera without a tripod and how to think and film a variety of different shots quickly. I learnt new features on final cut pro, such as editing the sound to link up our mouth movements and the actual song.

What did you find most challenging?

After filming the thriller trailer as part of as media, we though that this would be easy. We later on found out that a music video is very different as you need a lot of different shots. I think our group found the filming the hardest part as after watching it back we found very shaky parts in the video which makes the editing process hard. I personally found matching up the song and the mouth movements the hardest.

What new tools on final cut pro did you learn how to use?

I learnt how to layer video clips and sounds clips up to make the editing process quicker, this method helps because it helps you to organize your clips so you can have the right part of the song and song come up. Also how to use the razor cut tool efficiently.

What observations did you make about how editing differs in music video, compared to producing the opening to a thriller?

Editing a music video is hard and needs a lot of thought put into it as there needs to be some form of structure to follow the narrative of the song and a repetitive part for the chorus. I can imagine this would take a lot more time than a thriller as there is over a 100 shots in a music video.

Andrew goodwin (research) tasks 3&4

Andrew Goodwin

-Andrew Goodwin says that traditional narraitive anaylsis does not apply in pop videos. This is because they approach narrative different than a book or film. Some reasons that narrative is different are; pop videos are usually built around songs which don’t have traditional narrative, the singers are more than one character and has more than one purpose in the song and the singer looks directly at the camera.

- Pop videos rely on repetition and they often can be very repetitive with lyrics, images and rhythms. The reputition in songs means we get used to particular genres and then build expectations of that genre. Also the songs have to work on there own without a video so they can’t be to dependant on the video as they get played on both the TV and on radio. Some songs can have adverting in there video also

-Pop video’s are usually around three minutes long and need to have some form of closure and ending.

-Pop videos often have easily recognisable features. For example, the way women are represented in them, they are shown as objects to males that can be completed dependant and weak compared to them. Some female artists try to show independence away from men, such as Bayonne- single ladies.

-Pop videos try to appeal to a wide stream audience so they do a number of different things to try to appeal to it without taking away from the main purpose.

-There are three different types of relations between songs and videos: illustration, amplification, and disjuncture.

1) Illustration        

This is where the video directly links with the lyrics and the lyrics tell a story with is shown through out the video.

For example Cee-Lo Fuck you

This video is a pop video about a man being heartbroken and rejected all through the start of his life, then his luck changes and gets a girl. It has a very good and interesting narrative which directly links to the lyrics. The narrative is shown in three of his life stages which are labeled clearly by cartoony looking labels.

2) Amplification
occurs when the videos introduce a new meaning that do not contradict with the lyrics but adds a new layer of meaning.
For example, Lily Allen- smile.


Lily Allen’s song smile is a pop song; this is one of my options for my music video for a2.
It is about her being hurt by her boyfriend and her getting revenge in all different way. Lily is the narrator and plays a part in the song, so the song still has a clear narrative. Certain things are acted out which are not said in the lyrics but go with the song and adds new meaning and extra entertainment to the song.

3) Disjuncture
 This is where there is little connection between the lyric and video or where the video contradict the lyric.
For example,  Katy Perry-California girls.

California girls is another pop song which is disjuncture to the lyrics. The song generally has little narrative as its talking about California girls and the song is shoot in a ‘candy land’ of some sort which doesn’t tie in with the lyrics but still makes some kind of sense.

Anaylising a music video using the four concepts; narriative,genre,representation and lanuage (research)

Task
Choose any music video and analyse it in relation to the four concepts that we looked art today in class; natrarive, genre, representation and media language


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_-UiAwEgbQ&ob=av2e

The video I am analysing is Missing you by The Saturdays. They are a British girl band.

Narrative-

The story line to the pop song I am going be analysing is about these girls generally missing someone, usally there boyfriends and being hurt in a relationship. The video is disjuncture to the lyrics and has no particular time line so it non-linear. The music video is the four girls dress up, doing a dance routine on a nice beach place .The video is a very typical pop video of a girl band as  the song is negative the girls still look positive and  very happy, this could try to be showing independence as there is no males in the video. Personally I find the video boring as there isn’t any narrative to watch and it’s repetitive through out. The four girls in the video are the main singers and they don’t do any observing or narrating. The purpose of a simple video could be to emphasis on the lyrics and to gain extra meaning to the song.

Genre-
The genre of the music video is pop; you can tell this because of the setting, mise en scene and the singers. The main setting is on a beach with clear blue waters on a sunny day. In pop videos, there’s a general stereotype of girls which could be the ideology of a man’s view. As you can see through out the girls are wearing a very mini amount of clothing, with there hair done and make up complete. There clothes include crop tops, shorts and dresses, all a small amount of clothing. This can be to appeal to a mainstream audience, as the boys would be attracted to the girls and watch the video and the girls can watch the video and relate to the song. The overall body language and dance routine is very appealing to male audience and ties in with the genre as pop videos are for mainstream audience and needs to be appealing to all.
Lastly the video is filmed in day light on a sunny day, so even though it’s a sad almost depressing song the lighting shows there all positive and happy feel to it.

Media language-

The song is a slow/medium paced song which ties in with the editing as the edits are not particularly fast like most pop song but it follows with the pace and it has a lot of different variety of shots. This seems to add some general interest to the video as it has a lack of narrative, instead of loads of long boring shots which wouldn’t appeal to a lot of people. The lyrics makes it a depressing song, choose of shots and editing combined it makes it more upbeat and appealing to people. The editing definitely goes with the genre of pop as its filmed on a medium to high budget location of a nice sunny beach and its got a decent speed shots, they also have a lack of clothes which is highlighted through out.

Representation-
The females follow the stereo type of a “pretty” girl. This is shown in many ways which I’ve discussed before. The camera movements and shots make sure certain things are emphasised on such as close ups of there faces with all the make up and hair done correctly, and long shots to show what there wearing. The theme is about males and love; this could suggest they are trying to be indepedance as there are no males in the video.  As there are no males you can’t really guess or perceive there’s status and relationship to a male, but as they follow the typical female stereotype you can guess they are week and dependant on males.

Andrew Goodwin's theory (research)

Summary of Andrew Goodwin’s theory

Andrew Goodwin’s theory suggests that music videos do not follow traditional narrative structures. This is due to three things:

1. Music videos are built around songs.
2. The singer is usually a narrator and a character.
3. The singer often looks directly at the camera.

Music videos rely on repetition. Videos often repeat images in the same way songs repeat lyrics. The way different genres repeat images lets the audience associate different styles of videos with the genre they tend to appear alongside. For instance, most people would be able to tell that a video is for a rap song if there were lots of people in a club dancing promiscuously, just as most people would be able to tell that a video was for a rock song if there was a band playing in it.

Videos must have an ending, and the way the video ends is usually reflective of the song. If a song fades out at the end, then the video will most likely fade, or have an ending with no real sense of closure. If a song ends abruptly, then the video will usually come to a similar abrupt stop, with any narrative the video contains having an obvious ending.

Andrew Goodwin defined three different kinds of videos:

1. Illustration: when the video tells a story that reflects the lyrics.
2. Amplification: when the video gives a new meaning to the lyrics without contradicting them.
3. Disjuncture: when there is little to no connection between the video and the lyrics.

There are examples of all three kinds of video below.

Most videos have recognisable features other than the song or artist, which makes them stick in peoples’ minds after they’ve viewed them. A lot of the time, women are shown as objects of sexual desire for men, although there are videos that ignore this trope. Sometimes different instruments or parts of the song will be represented with different recurring images. If a song has been released alongside a film, then clips from the film will usually be in the video for that song.

Illustration

Muse - Hysteria

The lyrics of the song seem to be about suffering from hysteria (unmanageable emotional excess), and it’s clear that the man in the video has some strong emotions flowing through him.

Amplification

Rolo Tomassi - Party Wounds

The video takes place at some kind of party, which expands on the title, while some of the lyrics are related to parties.

Disjuncture

Radiohead - Just

The video has a clear narrative, but it’s in no way related to the lyrics of the song.

Analysis of a music video (research)

Bullet For My Valentine - Waking The Demon

The video I have chosen to analyse is Waking The Demon by Bullet For My Valentine.

Narrative

The narrative of the video is clear. It tells the story of a metalhead who is being bullied in school- most likely because of his style and taste in music- by a group of jocks who have a clear leader (who we later find out is named Todd). The majority of the video has clips of the main character being bullied in various ways played alongside clips of the band performing the song.

The disruption in the video comes when the main character manages to lure Todd into a forest, before suddenly transforming into a werewolf and killing him. The final part of the video shows him back at school a few days later, when a new person starts bullying him. As the new bully walks off with his girlfriend (who was seen earlier in the video with Todd), she turns around and smirks at the main character, implying that she may be working with him.

This is an example of illustration, where the video reflects the content of the lyrics. The chorus specifically seems to be reflected in the scene where the main character turns into a werewolf and kills Todd – “Waking the demon/Where’d you run to?/Waking the demon/Watch the blood flow”.

Genre

It is clear from the video that the genre of the song is metal. The very first shot of the video shows the main character wearing an Iron Maiden t-shirt, which along with the rest of his outfit (skinny jeans, Converse, long black hair) shows that he is almost definitely a metal fan. This is also apparent when the band is first seen, as they are all wearing dark outfits and have rather long hair. Another reason that the genre is obvious is the manner in which the band is playing. All of them are headbanging and playing very fast, two things commonly associated with metal.

Representation

In the video, the metalhead is shown as a typical metalhead (band t-shirts, long hair), while the jocks are typical jocks (plain t-shirts, short hair). The only girl in the video is Todd’s girlfriend. Throughout the video, she is only seen with Todd, and the only time she isn’t is when she goes out with some of her own friends. Up until the end she seems like a typical female character in a video, but the ending throws up a lot of doubt, turning her character’s role on its head.

Media Language

The editing is simple throughout the entire video, with the clips appearing to the beat of the music. There is a wide variety of shots (from extreme close-ups to wide shots), which helps to display the narrative in a simple way.

Analysing a student video (EXTENSION TASK)

 In today's lesson, we was looking at previous A2 videos. From watching them i like Wing's video the best. This is because there is a variety of shot angles and were also creative in the video layout. The genre was Indie, however this is not usually my type of music but the video made me want to carry on watching, due to the way it films the use of time manipulation and how it was structured on the screen. I thought they could of used more shot types to give them more of a variety. The audience can tell thee video is home made, however it fits with the the video because it matches the narrative of him thinking about when he had his girlfriend.

If you apply Andrew Goodwin's theory  it would apply to they video because:

• Pop videos appoach narrative from different views to novels and films.
• Pop videos are based around songs and often do not portrays traditional narrative structures.
  
• Artist are used as narrator and as a character
• Artist often looks directly into the camera. This is to interact with the audience. 

 Finally this video would fall under illustration because the video tells the story of a guy reminiscing of the good times with his girlfriend but they've broken up now which matches with the lyrics. 

lip sync

We was given a CD and a sheet of lyrics for the CD to practice and try lip sync through the whole song. Two members in our group volunteered to lip sync the song "The Greatest Dancer", We had to take pictures and video record the song from different angles to put it together as one piece at the end.


I've learnt how to edit lip sync properly for our main music video. I've also learnt that you need to take it from different angles to make it work properly - sticking to one shot might be boring.

I believe the most challenging thing for our group was to lip sync at the right time- because it was difficult as we know, people have different ways of singing, and the artist we had wasn't that easy. Overall I think we've put out a good piece of work at the end. Using Final Cut Pro to edit our piece of work was not that easy too, as we had to catch the words and pause at the right time in order to make the lip sync work successfully.

Taking a music video is more difficult than taking the opening to a thriller film, because music video has to have more shots - in most of the music videos nowadays we have a different shot within the 0.5 - 3 seconds. Everythings fast paced. However with a thriller opening its different as you need to waste a longer time on one scene and build tension with the help of music.

Lip synch tutorial (PLANNING)

Outline:-

My group was given a song, CD player and some lyrics for the task. In the space of an hour we had to learn the song (verse/chorus) and film it all the way through at least three times from start to finish without pausing and from different angles so that we can create a base track to edit from. My group had chosen the greatest dancer. After we had filmed, we had to put the video together on Final Cut Pro.

What new skills did you learn through this activity?

In this activity, I learnt how to get the person to mime at the correct time with the background music. When I first tried this I was very confused but as I had a few goes I became more confident with doing it. 

What did you find most challenging?

I thought my group found the filming most difficult. This was because we was not allowed to use a tripod, so the camera was very shakey when we watched the film back. Also, we found it hard to film in different angles as we had similar shots. 

What observations did you make about editing differs in music videos, compared to producing the opening to a thriller film?

I noticed that the thriller film and pop music video are very different. this is because i have noticed that you need to have many more frames in the music video than in the thriller. 

Andrew Goodwin Theory (RESEARCH)

The structure of Music Videos

Andrew Goodwin has said that traditional narrative analyses does not apply to pop videos because they approach narrative from a different angle to novels and films. The reason for this is:

• Pop videos are built around songs
• The video uses the singer for the narrator and character
• The singer often looks directly into the camera

 Pop videos rely on repetition, often repeating images in the way the song repeats choruses or lines. This means the repetition in songs, parts or rhythms of other songs mean the audience becomes familiar with genre and now have certain expectations. 

Pop songs and videos, do have a form of closure and ending. The 3 minute single that a video is based on must end and this is often reflected in the structure of the music.

Sometimes, videos are autonomous from the music they spring from. The visualisation of a song may go beyond the original meaning. The video could sometimes provide a visual pleasure that encourages the audience to watch the video again, which promotes the music. there are three types of relations between songs and videos:- Illustration, Amplification, and Disjuncture. 

Illustration:- This is where the video tells the story of the lyrics for example Katy B - Katy on a mission. Katy is narrates and participates in the video and she talks about nightlife, where she is in an arena which fits the video and lyrics. 

Amplification:- Occurs when the videos introduce a new meaning that do not contradict with the lyrics but add layers of meaning for example Keyshia Cole - Heaven sent. In this video, she is singing about the person she loves who is sent from heaven. The mise en scene is set on an island with waterfalls, tropical plants with a sunset, showing people could relate and create their own meaning to the video.

Disjuncture:- This is where there is little connection between the lyric and video or where the video contradicts the lyrics for example Man in the mirror - Michael Jackson. 

Pop videos usually have recognisable features for example, Michael Jackson, used to give a bit of a yelp and/or twirl in his videos. Also the way women have been presented as objects of male desire, which, is true in heavy metal and hip hop videos.

Videos try to appeal to as wide an audience as possible without alienating the core target. Videos featuring older bands are often shown in their younger days.

Also, videos that are from songs written for particular movies often incorporate images from that movie in the video - Celine Dion - My heart will go on. 

Analysing Lily Allen - Smile (RESEARCH)

Narrative:- The outline of this video is about Lily Allen getting dumped by her boyfriend. She is obviously heartbroken and wants him back because she is sitting down in her bedroom eating chocolate. She obviously wants him back so she thinks of a plan to get him back, which consists of him getting:

• Robbed when going to meet Lily
• When he is with her she puts Laxatives in his tea
• Whilst she is with him she has people trashing his flat
• He goes back to his flat to find it trashed but also starts to have stomach problems resulting in him needing to go the toilet all the time.
• He ends up back at her flat where she can comfort him and get him back with her.

Genre:-  The genre of this video is  pop. This can be shown in the clothes she is wearing which is a dress and trainers. Also the video is very colourful with smiles and generally Lily having a laugh getting revenge on her boyfriend for leaving her. 


Location:- The song is set around London, focusing in a cafe which is the British culture. Lily's British voice and accent is apparent to the video which gets exaggerated a lot through the use of close ups, where we can see her miming along to the song.

Here you can watch the Smile video :-

Lilly Allen - Smile
Uploaded by mW0ua. - Watch more music videos, in HD!

The Greatest Dancer Lip Syncing Exercise

Letter of Copyright Permission (PLANNING)

Dear Parlophone records,

R.E: Request for Copyright permission to use Smile by Lily Allen

I am a student of A-Level Media Studies and for my Advanced Portfolio i will be working as part of a group to produce a promotional package for the release of a new album track. i would like to request permission to use the above track for this project.

The finished project will not be made available publicly and will be used solely for coursework prurposes. The holder of the original copyright will be fully acknowledged in the finished project.

If you do not have the rights for this song i would be very grateful if yo could forward this request to the appropriate person, or return it to me with the contact details in order for me to approach the copyright holder directly

Yours faithfully

Charlotte Kingsley

Obtaining copyright clearance for a British artist/band.

This is my letter I sent off to Parlophone records to try get copy right clearance for lily allens song smile.

Dear Parlophone records,

Request for copyright permission to use the whole of: ( Smile or London by Lily Allen )

I am a student of A level media studies and for my advanced portfolio I will be working in a group to produce a promotional package for the release of a new album track. I would like to request the permission to use the above track for this project.

The finished project will not be made available publicly and will not be used solely for coursework purposes. The holder of the original copyright will be fully acknowledge in the finished project.

If you not hold the rights for this song I should be grateful if you could forward this request to the appropriate person, or return it to me with contact details in order that I might approach the copyright holder directly.

Yours faithfully,

Sammie Coventry .