Diary Entry 9 - Uploading the footage from Brighton

Today we uploaded the footage we filmed in Brighton and started to edit sections of our music video. Myself and Tyra were pleasently surprised at what we had filmed, plus we are on schedule! We now await to film the performance sections tomorrow, and we are both very excited to see the outcome.

Diary Entry 8 - Filming in Brighton

Today was the day in which my partner and I travelled down to Brighton in order to film the main part of our narrative for our music video. Despite having planned this trip out to the enth degree in advance, we still found problems cropping up in our path. The unpredictable weather for a start, meant we had to film the performance section in the rain! This was very difficult for me as the camera woman and had to make sure an umbrella was above the camera so it wouldnt get wet, as well as film the footage at the same time using a dolly. The next problem was our car breaking down, which was disappointing as it wasted 2 hours of our valuable filming time after having travelled for over an hour, bearing in mind the sun sets at 4 so gets dark very quickly. After our car had been fixed and sorted, we arrived on Brighton beach with gail force winds that was blowing the camera around, depsite being on a tripod and myself holding it down to the ground. In spite of this, I believe that we did extremily well with the footage I filmed and the efforts put in by Tyra! Now we await to upload the footage tomorrow to see what we have produced.

Diary Entry 7 - Start of the filming progress!!

Yesterday, my partner and I filmed the first few seconds of our music video! Myself as the camerawoman and Tyra as the character worked well together in filming what I believe to be a successful shoot! Today in our lesson we started to upload the footage onto iMovie, and downloaded the song 'Lost' that is going along with the footage. It finally feels like we're getting somewhere!

Research on a artist similar to ours

Lana Del Ray

Elizabeth Grant - Lana Del Ray

Elizabeth Grant, born 21 June 1986, better known as Lana Del Rey, is a singer-songwriter from Lake Placid, New York, United States. Del Rey is known for embellishing her songs and music videos with an ‘eerily nostalgic’ vibe heavy on Americana themes, including images of surfing, Frank Sinatra, and Marilyn Monroe. I think that Lana Del Ray is fairly similar to our chosen artist in terms of these themes. Grant released her first professionally produced body of work in 2010, an EP entitled 'Kill Kill', as Elizabeth Grant via Five Points Records with producer David Kahne. It was available for purchase on iTunes for a brief period before being withdrawn for unknown reasons. Soon after, Del Rey released a self-titled collection of songs, Lana Del Ray, for electronic download. In June 2011, Del Rey was signed with Stranger Records and issued the 'Video Games' single, and in October 2011 she signed with Interscope Records.

Sarah Howells - Paper Aeroplanes

History of Paper Aeroplanes

Paper Aeroplanes are an alternative pop band from West Wales who properly formed around 2009, although both members have been playing together since 2003. Richard Llewellyn from Ceredigion and Sarah Howells from Pembrokeshire were both formerly part of the Cardiff-based band ‘Halflight’. The BBC described them as ‘a west coast, easy-riding, folk-ish indie with pop sensibility’. Richard was also formerly a member of ‘Cartoon’, while Sarah was part of a rock/riot girl band called ‘Jylt’.

At the end of 2008, they joined forces with the Autonomy Music Group, where in January 2009 they worked with John Reynolds on two singles that were taken from the album ‘The Day We Ran Into The Sea’, which was released in 2010. Since its release they have made the Radio 2 playlist and supported acts as varied as Ron Sexsmith, Ed Sheeran, Marina and the Diamonds and Chris Wood, as well as securing a live session with the legendary Bob Harris.



Key features of music videos

Music videos generally work around the music, iconography and the lyrics, which are designed to provide pleasure in order to keep the viewers watching and to encourage repeat viewings. Music videos generally fit into 3 categories; performance based, narrative based and concept based. The relationship between the lyrics and visuals can illustrate, amplify or contradict with the music. Andrew Goodwin identified the following features of music videos:

1)      Music videos tend to have genre characteristics shown within the video, for example, heavy metal bands have their music video based as a performance on a stage.

2)      A relationship shown between visuals and lyrics – which can illustrate, amplify or contradict the music.

3)      A relationship between music and visuals – which can illustrate, amplify or contradict the song.

4)      The music video will include a lot of close-ups of the artist or band members, and the artist may develop a visual style across their work.

5)      Music videos will uses the notion of looking through screens-on-screens, telescopes etc. and uses voyeurism (flaunting of the female body)

6)      There will be intertextuality references, for example, to films, television programmes and other music videos.

Research on costumes/make-up and shot types

Costumes and the make-up used within music videos are essential in portraying a certain image or message. From doing some music video research, I found that certain genres of music had a specific style of clothing and use of make-up. For example, rock bands dress in black ‘emo’ style clothes, with thick black eye make-up, whereas heavy metal bands tend to have long hair and a hippy dress sense about them. It therefore made me realise that the way artists dress can also hint to the audience about what genre of music they play.

For example, in Rihanna’s song ‘California King Bed’, which has connotations of a romantic love life, she is dressed in small shorts and a bandeau which is revealing and links in with the meanings behind the lyrics. He red hair represents lust and love, and her subtle but sexy make-up links in with the fact that she’s ‘in bed’ so doesn’t need make up. The bright colours used within this video make the audience aware that she is happy, and the fact that her bed is situated in the clouds suggests that shes in a dream world.

In terms of camera types and shots, it is essential to use a variety of different camera angles and shots, however the use of close-ups and extreme close-ups are essential in order for the audience to be able to identify with the artist, which is common in most music videos. Therefore, my partner and I are making sure that we use a lot of close-up shots in our own official music video in order to make the video appear as realistic as possible.

Star Image - The 3 theorists

Andrew Goodwin:

Andrew Goodwin suggested that in order for the audience to identify with the artist, the ‘stars’ identity has to be created, especially when lyrics lack depth. The construction of stars is central to the economics of the music industry as only the star themselves guarantee a long career. Andrew Goodwin also believes that star loyalty is a key ingredient as fans are loyal to the star, so the star had to be loyal to the fans. He also suggests that many record companies rely on a few big stars or maybe even just one, in order to be stable, therefore record companies is very dependent on ‘stars’ and the image they portray.

Richard Dyer:

The existence of musical ‘stars’ has led to a related phenomenon which are the fans and how they are the result of our modern culture of consumerism. He suggested that there are 4 types of relationships that fans have with their star:

1)      Emotional Affinity- This is the most common, and is when the audience feels a loose attachment to the artist.

2)      Self Identification- When a member of the audience places themselves in the same situation and persona of the star.

3)      Imitation- This is mostly common among the young, when the star is seen as a role model.

4)      Projection- This is the next level of imitation when it becomes extreme. This is when the fans behaviour, clothes, hairstyles etc are mimicking the star.

Richard Griffith:

Richard suggests that stardom is food for dreams and has escapist qualities. He believes that it is all about consumption and the way the wealthy show off the fact that they have money. Stars are considered as both ordinary and special, especially when their behaviours are modelled and their lifestyles desired. He believes that ‘stars’ sell a lifestyle we think is ordinary and achievable, however it is not.

Overall, star image is created out of promotion, publicity, body of work and criticism/comments. The biographer of the star can be individual, multiple, where many authors can be seen in one piece of work, collective, the author is the sum of a team's work, or corporate, where the author is actually the company/business/institutional structure.

Analysis of previous student work

The beginning of the music video starts off with a close up of an electric guitar which instantly makes it apparent to the audience that this is a band. The effects used on the guitar are entertaining and unique and is not often seen in music videos, making this one stand out. However, some parts of the music video I do find tacky, such as the cartoon effect on the footage. Despite this being a creative idea, I think there is far too many effects on the video, making it seem over the top. I also noticed that when the artist starts to sing near the beginning part of the video, her lips are not in sink with the actual song, instantly making this less effective for the audience and therefore unrealistic. At this point, it would be hard for the audience to identify with the artist. I also find the narrative of the music video slightly confusing, and the relationship between the two girls being filmed is not made clear. I do however, like the costume and make up ideas used for the artist, as it represents the rock genre of the song. I think the use of different locations also make the video effective as it keeps the audience watching on. This is because the images are constantly changing through the use jump cuts, so the audience do not get bored of watching the same clips again and again.

Another weakness of this video is the fact that they filmed in a school and in a park. This is common in music videos, therefore reducing the unique feel to the song. I do however think that they picked the right person to be the artist, as she does at some points make the video look realistic and she is giving the performance to the best of her ability. Some parts of the video are also filmed in poorly lit settings, meaning the picture quality isn’t that good, and at one point it is hard to work out what they are filming.

This video also uses a lot of different camera and angle shots. Close-up shots are frequently used, which is a common convention of a music video and low angle shots make the audience look up to the artist, which I believe is a clever idea. As well as this, the camera always seems to be moving which I think keeps the audiences eyes fixed on the video, rather than still camera shots that could be boring. The use of frequent jump cuts as well, keeps the audience entertained throughout.

I believe that this group thought very carefully about the common conventions of rock videos, especially when they used the effect where the artists face goes close up into the camera. I believe that overall they created a successful music video with a selection of good ideas and following the generic conventions of rock music videos, however, some parts made it seem less realistic, such as the cartoon effects that the fact that the artists lips didn’t sink in time with the music. Analysing this video has been a great help for my understanding of constructing a music video, and has shown me what works as well as what doesn’t work. Therefore, I hope to learn from previous students work to try and make our music video as successful as possible.

Our casting choices

Costume ideas

Our mind map of ideas

Diary Entry 6 - Planning ideas

Myself and Tyra have picked the song 'Lost' by Paper Aeroplanes, and are starting to plan our ideas as to what to include within the footage of our music video. We have looked through music videos on YouTube that we believe are similar in terms of the music style to see what ideas we can get from these. We have made progress on our storyboard and have created a prop list of objects we want to include. Can't wait to get filming!

A music video that influenced our work

After Tyra and I spent the lesson looking through current music videos for ideas, we came across this certain music video which really influenced us in our ideas for the production of our own music video. We found that even though the song/artist were of different musical genres, the main narrative of the music video followed the lyrics to our chosen song. We found that the depressing narrative had a major impact on the audience and came across as very poignant and emotional, and thought this would follow the narrative of our music video. We want our music video to have the same impact on our target audience. As our chosen song does not follow mainstream music genres, we thought that by basing our music video on a narrative would be the best way in getting the audiences attention.

How we came to the decision for choosing our artist

Despite the trouble we have gone through with our group and the fact that we have now split into 2 separate groups, myself and Tyra got down to buisness and chose the song 'Lost' by Paper Aeroplanes. We came to this decision by drawing out a minf map of all the potential ideas of songs and artists we could use, and this helped both of us to cut down our choices from the five and to pick just one of the songs to use in our official music video

Firstly, despite originally picking Snow Patrol’s ‘Set fire to the third bar’, we came to a joint decision that this band is far too famous and popular, meaning our individualistic and unique ideas for our music video would be overshadowed and restricted as we would be far too influenced by the band and their original video. We were then, therefore left with four songs to choose from. Our next discussion was on the song ‘Tik Tok’ by Kesha. Again, we felt that this singer/song writer was vastly renowned for the music she produces as well as it being a difficult task to get her permission in order for us to use one of her songs. Regardless of us both liking the song ‘Better Together’ by Jack Johnson, we both agreed that we are more influenced by female artists and can relate to them more, therefore we removed him from our list of options in order to make our music video of a higher standard.

We were then left with just Kina Grannis’ song ‘Valentine’ and the song by Paper Aeroplanes, ‘Lost’. After listening to both songs repeatedly and after a lengthy deliberation, we both agreed that we can create more distinctive ideas and could visualise the formation of our music video by using the song ‘Lost’. .

Lyrics - Lost

Lost like the sun in a summer
Lost like my words to your ears
Lost like the notion of now and forever and like my comfortable years
Took a little long way round to find this out
And it seems you had so much to say and I drowned you out
Shame that we didn’t quite make it
Shame ’cause you know me so well
Shame that we’ll wash out with sensory pleasure when I’m under another spell
‘Cause it’s a long way round to find this out
And it seems you had so much to say and I drowned you out
Love like you’ve never loved before
Love like you’ll never again
Love like you’re lost in some old fashioned movie and it all works out right in the end
‘Cause it’s a long way round to find this out
And it seems you had so much to say and I drowned you out
Took the long way round to find this out
And it seems you had so much to say and I drowned you out
And it seems you sang the sweetest songs and I’m lost without