Last Stretch of Editing

We are now near the end of our editing. The team have worked for hours to meet our deadline, coming back to the editing suite and discussing what would be the best for the video. We have finally got all of our editing done and have now completed our video. The video will be posted soon as we now go on christmas break.

Final Audience Research

We are able to use a programme called Wordle. This allows us to make our work look fun and presentable. I have used Wordle to share some of our audience research into what the audience wanted to see in the video and what they thought would look effective. This is what they came up with;

All of these things show us the thoughts of the people who took our survey, it shows that they want the video to be fast edited, comical, entertaining, simple and most of all fun. They wanted to see a video that wasn't serious it was just fully entertaining. We are aiming to give the audience as much of what they want as possible by making a comical music video with some good band scenes that really set the video off.

Permission for the Use of Instruments

We wanted to make the band scene as realistic as possible so we wanted to borrow some instruments. We had an idea plan of two guitars and a drum set or a guitar, drum set and a triangle for the comical purposes. We were unfortunately unable to use the drum set or triangles. This is when we had the idea to have  a xylophone and two guitars and we have borrowed two microphones for the main singer and the backing singer.

Gaining Permission to Film in Drama Room

We wanted to film the band scene in the drama room at school. This is as it has a black back drop and lights to make it look like we are at a concert. We had to ask the drama department for a time and date when we could use the room and they then gave us permission to use the room and film inside it whilst using the lights.

Audience Theory

A model of the media
Text - Audience - Institution

Three questions that relate to the audience theory are
1) Why do audiences choose to consume certain texts?
2) How do we consume texts?
3) WHat happens when we consume a text?

There are three theories of audience that we can apply to help us come to a better understanding of the relationship between text and audiences.
1) The Effects Model or Hypodermic Model
2) The Uses and Gratifications Model
3) Reception Theory

The Effects Model

This theory is the idea that the consumptions of media texts has a massive influence on the Audience. Usually this influence is considered as a fairly negative influence. The audience are said to be passive and powerless to prevent the influence of this type of media text and the power in these texts lie within the message of the text. 


An example of this model being used would be in most newspapers and adverts. When regarding newspapers, they have the power to show any event interpreted in there own way and so they can have control on its influence. If they are global newspapers they have the power to sway peoples views to one way even if it is one that they would never cross their minds.

This theory model can also be known as the Hypodermic.
It focuses on the point that as consumers of media text we are all but powerless to stop the influence if the text. The messages of media text are somewhat 'injected' into the audience's mind by the powerful media which suggests the name Hypodermic.

Us as the audience can become in a sense drugged and hooked on certain media texts because just like drugs they are addictive and can sway the audience to their way of thinking.

Our Digipak Ideas

This is our ideas board and the following are our digipak plans.

Animatic For Our Video

This is our animatic of how the video should look when it is finished. Sorry for the poor drawing :).

Our Call Sheet

Justification of Ideas in Relation to Genre and Artist

We have many ideas of things for our video. We believe alot of them are in the same genre as the song which is indie pop. This is usually fun, bubbly and sometimes a little bit wacky. One way that we kept to the genre  is by using fast editing and bright colours which reflect the mood of the genre, it relates to not only this video but a lot of indie pop music videos.

We are using lots of lip-syncing which is common in a lot of music videos and are using many scenes including our props to tell a story which the genre mostly does. Most indie pop videos have a band scene in them so we have stuck to the genre and also to the Midnight Beast's videos. We have many comical moments, just as the artist does so this is the justification of using comedy.

Production of a Music Video

Directors are sent the song to listen to and come up with ideas of the video then they must send back their video ideas. The management then will choose the best one and give that director a budget to work with. The director chosen then takes control of the video and chooses settings, ideas of what happens and props. Some directors end up sending out many videos before they get their big break on making an actual video.

Audience Responses - Survey Monkey

This shows us that the gender and age of our target audience is going to be for females of the age of around 16-20 year olds. 

This shows the type of genre that the target audience listen to which is mostly indie and R'n'B. Our song is like an Indie Pop song so this will suit our audience. It also shows that they like the conventional music elements of dancing and telling a story to add to the song.

The audience research has shown us that they expect the lyrics to match the video and be fun and energetic and playful just the music is - this seems to be what gets not only the best but the most responses for videos.

There were more people that would be interested in watching our video than not. This means the song must be quite catchy and interesting.

Planning Filming

At the moment we are working out times that we need to film and seeing when everyone is free. We are currently discussing where to film the backing if we use the green screen in the drama room so we can use the instruments on site. We have decided to take a trip down to a fancy dress store to see if we can rent some of their wigs so we can get the filming underway. This will take place this week. Then as soon as the wigs have been purchased filming will commence, this being Friday.

Possibilities of Using Other Equipment

Charlie has recently been speaking to and ICT teacher, and he has found out that we have the possibility of using green screen technology. This means that we can make it look like we are in places that we aren't. We could do some filming up London around and about then film the guys in front of the green screen and it will look as if they are playing the song up in London. They would do this by pinning up green paper in the drama room with the boys playing. Then edit it together with the filming on location. This is what green screen shoots look like;

Audience Research - Survey Monkey

This is what we have from survey monkey so far. Only 4 people have done our survey and so we are reposting it and when more people have taken the survey we will then post our findings as we do not have enough to go on.

Settings

We have been thinking of having 3/4 main settings in our music video. They are as follows;

1. Boys bedroom, where the three boys are having their sleepover and getting phone calls from the three girls.

2. Girls bedroom, where the three girls will be ringing the boys.

3. In a garage, this is where the band scenes will be set, this is as we wanted to give the impression of a home set up band with a 'garage band' feel to it.

4. In a remote woodland area, this is to give the song a playful meaning as that is the background of the song.

There may be other small parts of the video set in other places like outside a house, but these are the 3/4 main settings

Unsigned.com and Newgrounds.com

Me and my group had a look at these two sites when we were trying to look for songs that we could use for our music video. These are people who are not yet signed. We searched the two sites for a couple of lessons and decided there was nothing on there that we thought we could make good use of so my collegues and i decided to look somewhere else. We found a group called The Midnight Beast on youtube, and thought this is the song for us. The group are signed so we had to ask for permission to use the song but the group gave their concent.

Photographs of Possible Locations and Props

We have here a collection of photographs that are of possible location for the Boys Bedroom. This is where the scenes of the boys all together will take place. These being the parts where they are not playing their instruments.

This is some of the props we have found of ebay that we would like to use for parts in the video such as Pipe bubbles blowers, wigs and cowboy hats.

The photos below are a collection of the possible location for the Girls Bedroom, this is where you will see the girls that the boys are talking about.

Our ideas

We have been getting all of our ideas together for the past couple of weeks. We have been thinking about props that we may need to buy from ebay and things that we already have. So far we have come up with this for props:

• Guitar
• Triangle
• Twister
• Car
• Pj's
• Phones
• Wigs
• Dressing gown
• PS3
• Brownies
• Pizza
• BOOTY cards
• Pom Pom's
• Cluedo
• Bubbles
• Tape Measure
• Cowboy Hats
• Smoking Pipes

We have a lot of this stuff so only some of it we will need to buy.

Internet Issues

The internet at the school has been down recently which has made it difficult to get posts on to my blog so hopefully I will be able to post some posts tonight.

Setback

We had a slight set back recently being that due to the room being double booked with an exam that we could not use the drama room on the day that we wanted, we have to move it to another day.

Planning of our music video ideas

Over the last two days me and my group have been putting together a brainstorm of ideas, props and a storyboard. We are doing this to prepare for our video instead of just trying to film without knowing how the video should look. These are the ideas we have.

Our Focus Group

We interviewed a couple of people to see what their view were on our groups choice of song to see what they would expect to see and what the video would look like.
We asked the following questions and we managed to get the same osrt of replies.

What are your first impressions of the song?
It is a very upbeat song and will be a fun type of video.

What genre do you think the song best fits into?
Pop.

How does this song make you feel?
It makes me feel quite happy and in the mood for partying.

These results influenced our video very much, we can see what we want our video to look like and the lighting is going to be colourful and the acting will be very upbeat, the whole video will be fun and have a great party feel to it. The whole video when watched should have a cheerful effect on people, they should feel happy when they hear the music and watch the video. This is our aim.

Nickelback-Dark Horse Digipak Analysed

Front Cover of MIKA - Life In Cartoon Motion (Annotated)

Mood Board

This my mood board;

There are references to three films that I have put pictures of and the theme is fun and three friends being at a sleepover and three girls keep on ringing them trying to talk to them.

Videos 76 - 38

76 - Beatles/Strawberry Fields/1967
75 - Duran Duran/Rio/1982
Powerful video that shows wealth in a poor era of time. Alough people said it could have been a more interesting video.
73 - Basement Jaxx/Where's your head at?/2001
72 - Robert Palmer/Addicted to Love/1988
Very exploitive of women, all the women looked the same black dresses hair up and red lipstick, some people felt it was the first sexy video.
69 - Frankie Goes To Hollywood/Two Tribes/1984
Was only shown late at night as there were rude gestures in the video, it was in the era of the cold war. There were loads of different 12" made of the song.
68 - Madonna/Ray of Light/1998
67 - The Beastie Boys/Sabotage/1994
Post modernism video, based around 1970 cop shows.
65 - The Aphex Twin/Windowlicker/1999
Making a joke out of R'n'B videos, pretty girls with the face of The Aphex Twin - basically a teenage boys worst nightmare!
64 - Bjork/Human Behaviour/ 1993
63 - George Micheal/Outside/1998
Very controverisal song as it was about his wrong doing's in a public toilet which celebrated his sexuality. First song where he 'came out'. Everyone was having sex a very turbulent video.
62 - Blur/ Park Life/1994
61 - Prodigy/Smack My Bitch Up/1997
Lots of MP's tried to get this video banned!
60 - Eurythmics/Sweet Dreams/1983
About the power of women and how they are taking charge, showing beauty but masculinity.
57 - Meat Loaf/Anything for Love (but i wont do that)/1993
A beauty and the beast type video, a massive scale video with the most dry ice ever used in a music video. MOst of the shoot was spent in make-up transforming meat loaf.
55 - Fatboy Slim/Praise You /!999
54 - Daft Punk/Around the World/1997
53 - Wham/Club Tropicana/1983
Absolutely openly gay in this video but at the time no one could see it. Very budget cideo but was effective!
52 - Massive Attack/Teardrop/1998
51 - Run DMC & Aerosmith/Walk This Way/1986
49 - Jamiroquai/Virtual Insanity/1996
48 - Johnny Cash/ Hurt/ 2003
Near the end of his life, was very ill when video was made. A very emotional song and video, the song was about the drugs and how he had hurt the people in his life and the pain he had caused others. A reflection on his life.
46 - Adam and the Ants/ Prince Charming/1981
44 - Kylie Minogue/Can't Get You Out Of My Head/2001
Gave her a provocative and sexy image. First song she really showed that side of her.
43 - Dire Straits/Money for Nothing/1983
42 - Bjork/Its Oh So Quiet/
40 - Missy Elliot/Get you Freak On/2001
39 - Pulp/ Common People/ 1995
About a real encounter with a lady, all about slumming it with a northener.
38 - Fatboy Slim/Weopon Of Choice/2001
Christopher Walken is dancing about, very funny video in fact halarious. Everyone is used to seeing him shooting heads off and being a villain and now he is tap dancing.

Other Controversial Song Videos

There are some videos that we have not looked at that have been said to be controversial. I have looked for some that we haven't yet looked at and will list them and explain why they were seen as controversial.

Madonna - Like A Prayer
Madonna wanted to make a song that would cater for her adult audiences. The main theme of this song was of a young girl who is in love with God, and he is the only male figure in her life. The song was most memeorable for its music video which stirred up things within the Vatican, family and religious groups. This was due to the fact that the video portrays Catholic symbols such as stigmata and burning crosses, and a dream about making love to a saint. The video was condemmed by the Vatican, family and religious groups were protesting the broadcast of the video.

Lady Gaga - Judas
Lady Gaga has always been in the public eye due to the fact she is so out of the ordinary and controversial. In a way she took a leaf out of Madonna's book but has taken it to an all new level. The president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights took big offence to this video and has made it clear he never wants to see the pop singers face again. Videos that include views of religion are always going to be seen as controversial. He has said that she is talentless, boring and her "head has turned around".

Rihanna - Man Down
This video has been seen as controversial but this may be not one of the biggest that she has done. The whole song is about how an event happened and why it happened. In particular it was that Rihanna had been sexually assaulted by a man and she ends up shooting him in the head as a consequence of that. Many felt that the scene where Rihanna shoots the man in the head out of retaliation for sexual assault ended up as glamorised violence. This is why it was seen as controversial.

Preliminary Preparation

We were given a preliminary task to do, this was to create a quick music video for the song "Don't go breaking my heart" by Elton John and Kiki Dee. It had to be about 1 minute long and we had to sing the actual song with the track to make the lip syncing seem more realistic.

To start we had to bluetooth the song from one of the computers to a phone, we then used the phone to play the music as the boys sang along to the music. We also printed off the song lyrics so that they boys knew the lyrics they were going to sing.

We then found a room which was not as difficult as last year, we also found that the sound of people talking didn't matter like last year because the sound is taken out and replaced by the track.We then set up the camera where we needed it and played the song and got on with the filming of the shots we needed which were, one shot of them both, and two shots of them separately. We then uploaded what we had captured onto the computer ready to edit.

We used final cut express on the imac to do our editing. It was quite easy to get the syncing in time from the lips and the song. Once we got the timing of the first shot all the rest followed as it followed the song which made it simple. We went with the beat of the song and managed to think of some split screens that made the video really interesting. We then played around with the sound and fades to bring the different shots we had captured together.

100 Greatest Music Videos 37-1

1.Michael Jackson: Thriller

2.Peter Gabriel: Sledgehammer

3.A-ha: Take on Me

4.Queen: Bohemian Rhapsody

5.Madonna: Like a Prayer

7.Michael Jackson: Billie Jean

8.The Verve: Bittersweet Symphony

9.Madonna: Vogue

10.Nirvana: Smells Like Teen Spirit

11.Coldplay: The Scientist

12.Michael & Janet Jackson: Scream

13.Pink Floyd: Another Brick in the Wall

14.Christina Aguilera: Dirrty

15.REM: Everybody Hurts

16.OutKast: Hey Ya

19.Madonna: Material Girl

20.Gorillaz: Clint Eastwood

21.Queen: I Want to Break Free

22.Justin Timberlake: Cry Me a River

23.Britney Spears: ...Baby One More Time

25.Madness: Baggy Trousers

27.David Bowie: Ashes to Ashes

28.Foo Fighters: Learn to Fly

29.Electric Six: Gay Bar

31.Eminem: Stan

32.Chris Isaak: Wicked Game

33.U2: The Sweetest Thing

35.Sinead O'Connor: Nothing Compares 2U

36.Red Hot Chili Peppers: Give It Away

37.Guns N Roses: November Rain

Background Info - The Midnight Beast

The Midnight Beast are a comedy music group from London.  They became most famous for their parody video of Ke$ha Tik-Tok in 2009. The group has three members (the founders) Stefan Abingdon, Dru Wakely and Ashley Horne. The group changed the songs lyrics and made their own video to the song.


Stefan and Dru had both been in a couple bands together before The Midnight Beast, but it is not known weather Ashley had played an instrument before joining TMB (The Midnight Beast). Stefan studied at The BRIT School for Performing Arts & Technology and in 2010 recorded Drunk Girls for the film 4.3.2.1. Dru played in a couple of bands with Stefan. Ashley had more of an acting carer before TMB, he was in some TV shows such as Eastenders and Doctor Who and was in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang as a child.


They have done three tours so far, and made lots of parody's from Rebecca Black to Katy Perry. They have made 10 singles, three of which have been placed in the charts, their highest being placed at 48.

The Lyrics to Booty Call

I have put the lyrics on to the blog as it is essential that we have a copy of the lyrics saved and so that we learn them so its seems more natural.


I'm with my friends having a sleepover at mine,
Mum said lights off, but they're still on at half nine,
There's nothing gay 'bout doing nails and doing hair,
Nor nothing gay 'bout three boys playing truth or dare,
That's when my brush vibrated right between my legs,
T-t-to my surprise it was my phone instead,
Dru makes and interception,
Grabs my phone out my hand,
'Hello you've reached The Midnight Beast, you're ruining our plans! '

B-double-o-t-y
It's three over average girls calling three under average guys
"We're fucked up and we're ready to play
We wanna do things we'll regret the next day"
HEY!
NO!
I wanna play cluedo with my bros
NO!
I wanna paint rainbows on my toes
NO!
I don't wanna hoe, I want a comforting look
When Noah kisses Allie in the notebook
(booty booty) It's just a booty call
(booty booty)even if your boo-tiful
(booty booty)It's just a booty call

Now my phones on silent, they still call on private number
I can't believe this desperation to disturb my slumber party
I'm in my dressing gowny while Ashley's making brownies
Dru is in the back room playing twister on his own,
HELL YEAH!
We're wearing our jim-jams
HELL YEAH!
We're playing the flute
HELL YEAH!
We're showing our sizes, the fucking surprise is
that yours hasn't grown

And then I hear my!
B-double-o-t-y
It's three over average girls calling three under average guys
We're fucked up and we're ready to play
We wanna do things we'll regret the next day
B-double-o-t-y
Three overconfident, stereotypical, cheerleader types,
we're fucked up and
We wanna have fun
You can be the boys we'll regret when we're done
NO!
I wanna play Sleeping Lions
NO!
I'm busy defending Zion
NO!
There's no point in calling coz I'll never respond,
The boys and me are getting tits from Legally Blonde,
(booty booty)It's just a booty call
(booty booty)Even if your boo-tiful
(booty booty)It's just a booty call

I'm not a booty call, I'm just a normal boy
I want to stay at home and play with all my toys
We are three boys not looking for three girls,
My Ring-tone's like a missile bringing war to my world
Cheese-strings, Party Rings are my favourite things,
Marshmellows with hot choclate, bitch we're living like kings!
NO!
I wanna have cheese pepperoni
NO!
I wanna play My little Pony!
NO!
I don't wanna hoe, I want a chocolate fountain
Whilst we snuggle up to watch broke back mountain
(booty booty)It's just a booty call
(booty booty)Even if your boo-tiful
It's just a booty call
(booty booty)It's just a booty call
(booty booty)Even if your boo-tiful
It's just a booty call
right------

The Midnight Beast - Booty Call (Our Song Choice)

100 Greatest Music Videos - 89 - 77

89 - Smashing Pumpkins/Tonight Tonight/1996
Shows the post modernism stage and was based on the film from 1902, A trip to the moon by George Melies.


88 - Elton John/I Want Love/2001
Elton started to get fed up of appearing in his own videos so after about 30 years he decided to paid actors and people to lip sync to his songs. He used Robert Downey Jr. as he was famous for struggling with a drug addiction just as elton had before. Other videos had stared from Justin Timberlake to Liz Taylor.


87 - Talking Heads/Once In A Lifetime/1981
Very abstract video and seen as a massive breakthrough in music videos. David Byrne improvised a lot in front of the camera and came up with moves that he liked the look of. He looks like a puppet at times and is compleatly out of control which suites as the song is all about your life being out of control. He visited UCLA to view footage of people in trances and used this as inspiration for his moves. The New York Museum of Art exibited the video as an art form.


86 - The Streets/Fit But You Know It/2004
The video was about the fun in the summer time and it showed in the video as postcards with photos of them on it filmed in Gran Canaria. Lead singer Mike Skinner was enjoying himself so much that he managed to hurt his back creating the footage of having fun jumping into a swimming pool.


85 - Sid Vicious/My Way/1979
Sid Vicious was part of the Sex Pistols and aparently he didnt do a lot he just looked the part in the band. Some would say that he was not always a very nice man, not very kind. He was accused of killing his girlfriend and by the age of twenty one not even a year after the makingof this music video he was dead due to a drugs overdose. He was a 'Live fast, die young' icon. The director of this video Temple had to pursuade him to even make the video, a very tough artist to work with.


84 - The Boomtown Rats/I Don't Like Mondays/1979
This was a song about a girl from California called Brenda Spencer. She came to school and decided to shot a few people at school, when she was later questioned about it her reply was i dont liek mondays which inspired this song. It was directed by David Mallet and was a narrative type of story.


83 - Shakespears Sister/Stay/1992
It was a very good video due to the emotion being expressed through the video matching the song. It was based on a spaceship, where the main singer is taking care of an injured man singing to him. Siobhan confussed to actually being drunk when filming as she had been waiting all day to film. There was a very rocky relationship between the two girls shown in the video. It spent 8 weeks at number one in the charts. French and Saunders made a comedy spoof of the video.


80 - Radiohead/Just/1995
A much talked about video as the director and the band have vowed never to tell of what the man lying on the floor says to make the other people lie on the street with him.


79 - New Order/True Faith/1987
A very abstract video, the video shows not much of a link to the song. A french coreographer did the visuals but it was then brought to attention that it wouldn't be shown on MTV if New Order wern't show in it aswell. The video divides opinion.


78 - Godley and Creme/Cry/1985
Very clever witht he editing, they had loads of faces morphing into eachother, they came up with this concept themselves. The pair also made about 50 promo video's with eachother.

Preliminary Task

For our Preliminary task we have been asked to perform a section of Elton John's ' Don't go Breaking my Heart'. We are in a group of 4 being myself, Charlie Land, Jake Williams and Rory Kennedy. We have shot the footage that we need and are in the process of editing it at the moment. Rory and Charlie sang the parts of Elton John and Kiki D. After we have edited the footage in Final Cut Express the final product will be placed below.

Choice Of Song Concerning Copyright Laws

Due to copyright laws which are that you need to have permission from the original artist to use the work. In this case we had to ask The Midnight Beast if we could use their song to make our video to and they were more than happy.

Me and my group have sat down and thought about what sort of song we would like to have to make our music video for and we found The Midnight Beast. The song is called ''Booty Call'' and although the band are already signed we have sent them an email asking for permission to use their song for our video to avoid breaching laws. We got an email back from the lead singers mum saying that it would be fine.

We liked this song because its something different and just from listening to the song we already had ideas pop into our heads about what sorts of things we could include into the video and different shots we could use. Its very comical just like our personalities are so the ideas would suit the song.

100 Greatist Music Videos - 100 to 90

Throughout this blog i am going to post the 100 greatest music videos according to channel 4. I believe this will help as it may give us more inspiration and ideas towards making our music video. They will give show us examples of some of the best videos made to give us something to aim towards.

100 - Musical Youth/Pass the Dutchie/1982
Was very big as they were the first british black group to make it onto MTV. They had to change the original song of pass the cutchie to dutchie as the meaning of the cutchie is pot.


98 - Bronksi Beats/Smalltown Boy/1984
Stand out video as it is about a gay man coming out into the open about his homosexuality. The video is inseperable from the song as together they tell the story, a story of the isolation and abuse faced when being a homosexual.


96 - So Solid Crew/21 Seconds/2001
20 South London rappers, everyone was getting involved. Controversal in the UK and because of this their UK tour was cancelled.


95 - The Cardigans/My Favourite Game/1998
All about a failing love affair as the cars were crashing that was the failing of their affair. 6 of the 12 cameras used didnt make it through filming.


93 - Rolling Stones/We Love You/1967
Captured the moment of the drug bust on Mike Jagger and Keith Richards. The band were falling apart. Very smart in the subbtle suggestions used, apparently girlfriend was found naked underneath a fur rug so a fur rug was shown.


92 - Herbie Hancock/Rockit/1983
Video couldn't show him in it alot because it was MTV, a time when black people wern't show on these channels in the US.


91 - The Specials/Ghost Town/1981
Was at a time of civil unrest in the UK and the song was about how the unrest had made it like a ghost town.


90 - The Pet Shop Boys/Go West/1993

A cover of the Village People single "Go West", which reached number 2 in the UK charts, which like a couple of their songs previous was a computer-generated music video, but this time inspired by the Soviet Union. This song was also adopted by the Arsenal Football Team as a football chant.