An artist that really stood out to me was David Guetta, this is one of my favourite Dance artists, as I love his old and new music. I looked through his album's, and I knew as a fan that on his new album he had collaborated with lots of different new Pop artists, so I knew that a song off this album would be perfect for my music video. I analysed all of the songs, and listened to them multiple times to see which one I could think ideas for and which one would look good in a amateur video.
http://a2medialucylowthorpe.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/my-chosen-song.html - Here is where I have analysed the songs and you can see why I haven't chosen certain songs. The end result was David Guetta - Repeat (Feat. Jessie J) the reason for this was because I liked the lead female vocals, I thought they was strong and empowering, I also thought about the idea of having a female lead, so I thought this would have worked perfectly for my video. This song also didn't have a official released video, so I knew that nothing could influence me or make me add anything similar, it made me think of original ideas and also something new.
Once I had chosen the song and thought about some ideas in my head, I then started to analyse some music video's and researched and watched plenty on YouTube so start giving me ideas and let me know more about the conventions that are in music video's. I decided to analyse Dance music video's - http://a2medialucylowthorpe.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/anaylisis-of-music-videos.html and also music videos that my chosen artists, David Guetta and Jessie J have done - http://a2medialucylowthorpe.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/david-guetta-43-year-old-david-guetta.html. This was so I got a good knowledge of what goes into my chosen genre's music videos and I thought that by analysing them, they could influence me and what I put into my own music video, and that if I ever got stuck for ideas I could just look at them for some inspiration. Also during the research duration, I made sure that I kept on thinking about ideas, and one idea I loved the thought of was graphic design within videos, so I researched hard into this and looked at some videos I thought looked good with graphic design in them, it was soon easy to see that without no graphic design knowledge or experience that this would be a hard challenge for me to take on and soon decided to think of new ideas, I knew how long and hard real directors take to do these expensive kind of videos and thought that the challenge was too big for an amateur like me to take on.
So then after looking through videos and still thinking about ideas, it was then time to think about my target audience and who I wanted to put my video out to. I knew straight away that I wanted my target audience to be around the age of 16-19, the reason for this is because they are my age and I know what they like dislike, what they do in their spare time, I also know many people this age so asking for feedback shouldn't be a problem, and also this generation seem to be taking over and these are the ones who are always on the internet, watching and listening to music videos. I did a lot of research into what males and females of this target audience enjoy to do, what they like watching and also what they spend their money on, the reason I did this research was because then I could have put some of the things they like and enjoy in the music video and this would guarantee them to like and maybe enjoy the video, and it would target them and be appropriate for their age group, if you don't target the audience and put in things they like, then you will be aiming your product at different audiences.
After looking at the target audience and knowing who I was aiming my product at, it was then time to look at style and what certain artist's wear. Style is always going to be a big issue and is always talked about within the media, so its no different for music videos, style is always considered within music videos, and what they are wearing is for a purpose and a reason. I looked into the style of Rihanna, a pop artist, and how her style has evolved over her career. I looked at various fan websites, Wikipedia and just looked at every year of her career. It made me realize how important your look is within a music video and that with my artist I should style them according to the song and also how my target audience would dress and in a way that would maybe make them think about buying that outfit and it having an impact on them.
I then started to get idea's, so I made a story board after analysing the lyrics. I thought about making the music video quite literal, so I made a storyboard up of images that suited the lyrics, and to me, this worked well, I then did an anamatic to see what this would look like in a video form. The idea to my music video was mainly performance based and it would have had lots of graphics and flashing images, throughout the whole song it would have a club vibe and there would be extreme close up's of miming. I still thought it looked good and suited the target audience well, so I stuck to this idea. Once I got a good idea of how my music video was going to look it was again back to the research, I looked into make up and outfit ideas for my artist, which I chose, it was my friend Laura, who I thought was good for the role, her appearance suited it and she seemed pretty confident. I looked at different kinds of make up, bright colours, pastel colours, bold, natural and I also looked at outfits that stood out, and what would look like they would suit my video. The reason for me researching was because I didn't just want my artist to look boring and plain.
Location was the next big step and looking at where I could shoot my video, this again is important within a music video as this will be one of the main focus', I went to many different locations and took some test shots. I found that the locations I chose was okay, I chose a bedroom with a plain white background so that if I wanted to add in words or anything this would be easier to do, I also chose a busy street so that I could get shots of heels and dancing, then I thought that the car lights and flashing would work well in the background. After location I started building up my artist profile and made sure that she became a new artist. I called my friend Laura, 'Jessica JJ'. Then after all this research the filming started.
The first thing I did when filming was make sure that everything was safe, I made sure there was no wires to trip over and that me and my artist wasn't going to get hurt, this is what all professionals do when creating a music video, and it was important I did this. I also added some make up to the artist and made sure she was ready to shoot, once set up, the first scenes I shot was in the bedroom on a tripod, they was of the artist miming the lyrics to the whole song, I then shot some scenes where they was only a few seconds long, so they was like images, the reason for this was because I knew I wanted my music video to be very fast paced, so I thought these images would look good and work well. Once the whole of the song had been mimed I then started doing some filming of hair-flips, this was because I knew that these could be edited well and also look good on camera. Then I shot some dancing scenes, walking scenes and traffic outside. I thought at the end of the day that the scenes was going to be successful.
It then got to editing the video. I got a little stuck for ideas when it came to editing, as I didn't really have any experience in the editing suite. I also looked at my storyboard and realized that none of the images matched which I was dissapointed with really. The first thing I did was add in the music and sync the lips to the song, this I thought looked good, after this I started adding in all clips together, seeing what worked well, I slowed clips down, speeded clips up and also added in lots of video transitions. This I thought was starting to come along which I was glad with, as it meant me also gaining experience as time went along with the editing suite. Once I started to feel comfortable with showing people the music video, I asked my teachers for feedback, they thought that it was lacking something once I showed them the first edit, so they suggested something that I had already thought about doing, but it didn't work in the first place, so I went out again last minute and filmed some traffic scenes, which I knew I could speed up in the editing process, by doing this it helped me a lot and it gave me that something I was lacking, it also meant I could add these traffic scenes and dissolve them into most of my clips and create a new effect which I liked. I then started playing around and made lots of different effects on top. Here is my finished video:
The music video is meant to be about 'Jessica JJ' the artist, its mainly performance based and the narrative is about a girl who is broken hearted, she has just got out of a relationship and is feeling lonely, so all she wants to do is forget about it all, instead of it repeating in her mind and just go out and party instead, but she would rather do all of this alone. Its all quite literal, as for example within the part where it says 'You Bury Me In The Blur' (Figure 1) it shows the artist flipping her hair, creating a blur, this also shows her trying to shake the image of him out of her mind. I also made this scene mid shot, as I wanted her hair to be the main focus.
The video also is very fast paced, as so is the song and I wanted it to represent fun, but also at the same time a little bit of sadness and have meaning to it, because the song isnt all about fun, even though its from the Pop/Dance genre. The traffic is something within the video that also has a lot of meaning, this is meant to show the night life part to the song but also represent her moving on, like how the traffic is moving at a fast pace, its meant to mean that she is trying to get over him quickly by going out and having fun. The way I have used cinematography was also important. When filming her lips, I made sure I used a tripod and that she stayed in the same spot for the whole of the performance. This was an extreme close up, so that you didn't see her emotion in the eyes, this represented that she just wanted to talk and get her point across to the audience about the meaning of the song. Another part of cinematography I tried to include was tracking around her dancing, this was so you caught every single angle of her and got a lot of the Mise En Scene in the shot, the meaning of it was to show that she is in a spin and she is still thinking about her broken relationship. There is also scenes of her walking in which I filmed at a low angle, this represents how she is feeling and by walking away, she thinks it can solve her problems.
The Mise En Scene with my video was important to me, I made sure the location was busy, as the traffic scenes was important to me, the first time filming, I chose a quiet location, so this meant speeding up the clips a lot and I found this difficult and it didn't look realistic when it was done, this was why I went out and shot some more traffic scenes but this time in a different location. They looked much better and it meant that I could add these onto my background and dissolve behind the lips miming to the lyrics as these was looking boring, and lacked something, I also found that this could mean her trying to tell us the active audience how she is feeling, and this is that she wants to get over him quickly as she feels he keeps replaying in her mind.
(Figure 2) shows the traffic shot and how it looked on camera, this was something I found easy to shoot, and the camera shot was low angle as it was shot on the floor, this represented her feelings again, and the bright lights show the blur which is in the lyrics to the song. I also think that my video relates a little the Example video I researched on my blog to 'Natural Disaster' in the Mise En Scene, its all dark like that which again in that video it express' the characters emotions, because he is feeling down, it shows darkness, which I wanted to happen in my video, showing the the research I did, did help me when creating my own music video. In the costume, she is wearing a black leather jacket, black shows darkness, which again is expressed through how she is feeling, she is down due to the break up and the colour shows this. The top is a tie dye purple and white vest, purple is connotative to depression and white shows pureness, so I think these show that she is depressed but willing to get back on track and start again, it also works well with the jacket and looks modern for the video. I also think the outfit is something that females of my target audience age would wear, and maybe think "I like that outfit". Also looking at my target audience research, I found out that most females shop at places like Topshop and H&M, which is wear this items of clothing are from, so its good that I have made sure that these would be recognizable to the audience, as this is sometimes what artists do in their own videos. Even though I filmed the sound, I didn't want any other sound or dialogue, as I researched into this and found that people including my target audience found this to be boring, as most people just want to see performance and listen to the song, not watch a mini movie.
I decided to put my video up on the website YouTube, because I know how popular this website is, not only for music video's but any video in general, its easy to access and my target audience are always on this website as it can easily be streamed through popular social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. YouTube is also the home of some stars as they was created through this website, so I knew from the start I wanted to use this website to distribute the music. Looking at the audience feedback also, I have seen that YouTube is really popular for people looking for new music videos, so I needed to make sure my audience was happy where I uploaded the music video.
Not only did we have to make a music video but also an ancillary text of a magazine advertisement for the artist promoting the album that we had to create a digipack for also. I made sure that I took lots of time researching digipack's and magazine advertisements as this is something I wanted to get right. I always see album artwork on my iPod and iTunes, so I knew the importance of this standing out and making an image for my artist. I looked at recent album artwork's and really researched them, three that stood out to me was Justin Bieber, Alexandra Burke and M.I.A. These had a huge influence on my digipack, the Justin Bieber and Alexandra Burke artwork's made me love the way there was a border with the text, I thought this stood out and against a simple background, it makes you concentrate on the artist and nothing else. M.I.A - Maya cover also stood out as I liked the YouTube play buttons and the way they was laid out, so I put all of these designs together to create my digipack. These are also all from the Pop genre, so I knew by getting influences from these that I wasnt doing anything wrong as it had worked for these artists.
When taking the images for my front cover and the inside, I made sure the mise en scene and the styling was similar, I wanted an on going theme for my artist, as this is what all artists do. I wanted people to recognize the artist from the music video if they saw it. I did all of the effects in Jasc Paintshop Pro and all the images are my own accept the graphics. I didn't want just original ideas, as most artists take the post-modernism approach, by looking into older times, and creating something new with just some influences, and this is why I looked into digipack and made sure I knew what conventions was in them and what I should include, like the copyright, bar-code, parent advisory, which are all important when creating a CD, without these the audience wont know much about your artist and what if the CD is official or not.
I do think that if this was in stores or on iTunes that this would stand out and look realistic, I also think its appropriate to the target audience due to the outfit and also the modern approach it has to it, like the colours, and the speakers. On my blog and through my research it shows what this would look like on iTunes and it looks realistic, and when you look at other digipack's, it does have all the same conventions which I wanted it to have when creating it, so this I am proud of.
Once I had created the digipack it was then time for magazine advertisement, for me this was an easy process, because I didn't want there to be a big change from this to the digipack, I wanted them to match so that when the target audience go into HMV or look on iTunes its instantly recognizable to them. So I just added in the same images and created some graphics around it which I think worked really well. I added in all the right conventions, like the website details and telling the audience which of their favourite tracks are on the album.
Overall I am happy with my both my ancillary texts, even though they was challenging, as I did put a lot of research into making them, took a lot of time and always considered the target audience, I think they both look realistic and if they was to be in shops then they would stand out. If I was to do this again then I would maybe change the font and what the artist is wearing, but this is the only thing I would change so overall I am happy. As for my music video, I am happy but also dissapointed with the way it has turned out, I knew from the start that this process wouldn't be easy but I found editing hard to get used to, and I would also change a lot, starting with the mise-en-scene, it was took dark in the video and its hard in some shots to see what is happening, I would also change the outfit, maybe make it more brighter and vibrant, and also change the location and film with much more variety in location and outfit change/makeup/hair. I wish I took more time with it and started it much earlier, as I would have been able to edit it more, and maybe learn to have put them graphics that I wanted so badly in. I still think the video is done to a efficient level and they still have the right conventions and stylistics to what make a music video which I am really proud of, but now I know what I would do in the future.
Word Count: 3757
Once I had chosen the song and thought about some ideas in my head, I then started to analyse some music video's and researched and watched plenty on YouTube so start giving me ideas and let me know more about the conventions that are in music video's. I decided to analyse Dance music video's - http://a2medialucylowthorpe.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/anaylisis-of-music-videos.html and also music videos that my chosen artists, David Guetta and Jessie J have done - http://a2medialucylowthorpe.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/david-guetta-43-year-old-david-guetta.html. This was so I got a good knowledge of what goes into my chosen genre's music videos and I thought that by analysing them, they could influence me and what I put into my own music video, and that if I ever got stuck for ideas I could just look at them for some inspiration. Also during the research duration, I made sure that I kept on thinking about ideas, and one idea I loved the thought of was graphic design within videos, so I researched hard into this and looked at some videos I thought looked good with graphic design in them, it was soon easy to see that without no graphic design knowledge or experience that this would be a hard challenge for me to take on and soon decided to think of new ideas, I knew how long and hard real directors take to do these expensive kind of videos and thought that the challenge was too big for an amateur like me to take on.
So then after looking through videos and still thinking about ideas, it was then time to think about my target audience and who I wanted to put my video out to. I knew straight away that I wanted my target audience to be around the age of 16-19, the reason for this is because they are my age and I know what they like dislike, what they do in their spare time, I also know many people this age so asking for feedback shouldn't be a problem, and also this generation seem to be taking over and these are the ones who are always on the internet, watching and listening to music videos. I did a lot of research into what males and females of this target audience enjoy to do, what they like watching and also what they spend their money on, the reason I did this research was because then I could have put some of the things they like and enjoy in the music video and this would guarantee them to like and maybe enjoy the video, and it would target them and be appropriate for their age group, if you don't target the audience and put in things they like, then you will be aiming your product at different audiences.
After looking at the target audience and knowing who I was aiming my product at, it was then time to look at style and what certain artist's wear. Style is always going to be a big issue and is always talked about within the media, so its no different for music videos, style is always considered within music videos, and what they are wearing is for a purpose and a reason. I looked into the style of Rihanna, a pop artist, and how her style has evolved over her career. I looked at various fan websites, Wikipedia and just looked at every year of her career. It made me realize how important your look is within a music video and that with my artist I should style them according to the song and also how my target audience would dress and in a way that would maybe make them think about buying that outfit and it having an impact on them.
I then started to get idea's, so I made a story board after analysing the lyrics. I thought about making the music video quite literal, so I made a storyboard up of images that suited the lyrics, and to me, this worked well, I then did an anamatic to see what this would look like in a video form. The idea to my music video was mainly performance based and it would have had lots of graphics and flashing images, throughout the whole song it would have a club vibe and there would be extreme close up's of miming. I still thought it looked good and suited the target audience well, so I stuck to this idea. Once I got a good idea of how my music video was going to look it was again back to the research, I looked into make up and outfit ideas for my artist, which I chose, it was my friend Laura, who I thought was good for the role, her appearance suited it and she seemed pretty confident. I looked at different kinds of make up, bright colours, pastel colours, bold, natural and I also looked at outfits that stood out, and what would look like they would suit my video. The reason for me researching was because I didn't just want my artist to look boring and plain.
Location was the next big step and looking at where I could shoot my video, this again is important within a music video as this will be one of the main focus', I went to many different locations and took some test shots. I found that the locations I chose was okay, I chose a bedroom with a plain white background so that if I wanted to add in words or anything this would be easier to do, I also chose a busy street so that I could get shots of heels and dancing, then I thought that the car lights and flashing would work well in the background. After location I started building up my artist profile and made sure that she became a new artist. I called my friend Laura, 'Jessica JJ'. Then after all this research the filming started.
The first thing I did when filming was make sure that everything was safe, I made sure there was no wires to trip over and that me and my artist wasn't going to get hurt, this is what all professionals do when creating a music video, and it was important I did this. I also added some make up to the artist and made sure she was ready to shoot, once set up, the first scenes I shot was in the bedroom on a tripod, they was of the artist miming the lyrics to the whole song, I then shot some scenes where they was only a few seconds long, so they was like images, the reason for this was because I knew I wanted my music video to be very fast paced, so I thought these images would look good and work well. Once the whole of the song had been mimed I then started doing some filming of hair-flips, this was because I knew that these could be edited well and also look good on camera. Then I shot some dancing scenes, walking scenes and traffic outside. I thought at the end of the day that the scenes was going to be successful.
It then got to editing the video. I got a little stuck for ideas when it came to editing, as I didn't really have any experience in the editing suite. I also looked at my storyboard and realized that none of the images matched which I was dissapointed with really. The first thing I did was add in the music and sync the lips to the song, this I thought looked good, after this I started adding in all clips together, seeing what worked well, I slowed clips down, speeded clips up and also added in lots of video transitions. This I thought was starting to come along which I was glad with, as it meant me also gaining experience as time went along with the editing suite. Once I started to feel comfortable with showing people the music video, I asked my teachers for feedback, they thought that it was lacking something once I showed them the first edit, so they suggested something that I had already thought about doing, but it didn't work in the first place, so I went out again last minute and filmed some traffic scenes, which I knew I could speed up in the editing process, by doing this it helped me a lot and it gave me that something I was lacking, it also meant I could add these traffic scenes and dissolve them into most of my clips and create a new effect which I liked. I then started playing around and made lots of different effects on top. Here is my finished video:
The music video is meant to be about 'Jessica JJ' the artist, its mainly performance based and the narrative is about a girl who is broken hearted, she has just got out of a relationship and is feeling lonely, so all she wants to do is forget about it all, instead of it repeating in her mind and just go out and party instead, but she would rather do all of this alone. Its all quite literal, as for example within the part where it says 'You Bury Me In The Blur' (Figure 1) it shows the artist flipping her hair, creating a blur, this also shows her trying to shake the image of him out of her mind. I also made this scene mid shot, as I wanted her hair to be the main focus.
The Mise En Scene with my video was important to me, I made sure the location was busy, as the traffic scenes was important to me, the first time filming, I chose a quiet location, so this meant speeding up the clips a lot and I found this difficult and it didn't look realistic when it was done, this was why I went out and shot some more traffic scenes but this time in a different location. They looked much better and it meant that I could add these onto my background and dissolve behind the lips miming to the lyrics as these was looking boring, and lacked something, I also found that this could mean her trying to tell us the active audience how she is feeling, and this is that she wants to get over him quickly as she feels he keeps replaying in her mind.
I decided to put my video up on the website YouTube, because I know how popular this website is, not only for music video's but any video in general, its easy to access and my target audience are always on this website as it can easily be streamed through popular social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. YouTube is also the home of some stars as they was created through this website, so I knew from the start I wanted to use this website to distribute the music. Looking at the audience feedback also, I have seen that YouTube is really popular for people looking for new music videos, so I needed to make sure my audience was happy where I uploaded the music video.
Not only did we have to make a music video but also an ancillary text of a magazine advertisement for the artist promoting the album that we had to create a digipack for also. I made sure that I took lots of time researching digipack's and magazine advertisements as this is something I wanted to get right. I always see album artwork on my iPod and iTunes, so I knew the importance of this standing out and making an image for my artist. I looked at recent album artwork's and really researched them, three that stood out to me was Justin Bieber, Alexandra Burke and M.I.A. These had a huge influence on my digipack, the Justin Bieber and Alexandra Burke artwork's made me love the way there was a border with the text, I thought this stood out and against a simple background, it makes you concentrate on the artist and nothing else. M.I.A - Maya cover also stood out as I liked the YouTube play buttons and the way they was laid out, so I put all of these designs together to create my digipack. These are also all from the Pop genre, so I knew by getting influences from these that I wasnt doing anything wrong as it had worked for these artists.
When taking the images for my front cover and the inside, I made sure the mise en scene and the styling was similar, I wanted an on going theme for my artist, as this is what all artists do. I wanted people to recognize the artist from the music video if they saw it. I did all of the effects in Jasc Paintshop Pro and all the images are my own accept the graphics. I didn't want just original ideas, as most artists take the post-modernism approach, by looking into older times, and creating something new with just some influences, and this is why I looked into digipack and made sure I knew what conventions was in them and what I should include, like the copyright, bar-code, parent advisory, which are all important when creating a CD, without these the audience wont know much about your artist and what if the CD is official or not.
Once I had created the digipack it was then time for magazine advertisement, for me this was an easy process, because I didn't want there to be a big change from this to the digipack, I wanted them to match so that when the target audience go into HMV or look on iTunes its instantly recognizable to them. So I just added in the same images and created some graphics around it which I think worked really well. I added in all the right conventions, like the website details and telling the audience which of their favourite tracks are on the album.
Overall I am happy with my both my ancillary texts, even though they was challenging, as I did put a lot of research into making them, took a lot of time and always considered the target audience, I think they both look realistic and if they was to be in shops then they would stand out. If I was to do this again then I would maybe change the font and what the artist is wearing, but this is the only thing I would change so overall I am happy. As for my music video, I am happy but also dissapointed with the way it has turned out, I knew from the start that this process wouldn't be easy but I found editing hard to get used to, and I would also change a lot, starting with the mise-en-scene, it was took dark in the video and its hard in some shots to see what is happening, I would also change the outfit, maybe make it more brighter and vibrant, and also change the location and film with much more variety in location and outfit change/makeup/hair. I wish I took more time with it and started it much earlier, as I would have been able to edit it more, and maybe learn to have put them graphics that I wanted so badly in. I still think the video is done to a efficient level and they still have the right conventions and stylistics to what make a music video which I am really proud of, but now I know what I would do in the future.
Word Count: 3757
