Calendar

Calendar

September 8th

Generating ideas for a music video and choosing our specific genre and song. We all knew our initial ideas would be so important in the making of our music video.

September 10th

Analysing other music videos within the same genre as our song. Looking at the conventions of our genre.

September 15th

Refining the ideas we have generated. Relating them to our target audience and thinking about ways to reach out to a specific age after research.

September 16th

Deciding on our final idea for our music video this had to be completely perfect.

September 21th

Analysing album covers and digipaks and creating our own practice album covers to think of ideas for our music video.

September 22nd

Creating a shot list and deciding characters and there roles.

September 27th

Location research, costume and props. Presentation planning and getting everything organised.

September 28th

Presenting our presentation of the music video to the class

October 2nd

Made a blog based on the feedback we received on our presentation from the teacher and class.

Then began to film our music video.

9 Shot Analysis: Sub Focus - Out of The Blue

This shot is an extreme close up and shows the emotion in his eyes and what he is looking at. The eyes are the point in the face where emotion can be shown the most, this is why they have shown this clip.

He now jumps into the pool of water and this shot is a medium shot as you can see most of his body. It is also a wide shot to show the whole background. It shows the detail in the splash when the character hits the water.

This is a shot under the water. It is a long shot as it shows the whole of the body. The lyrics say 'and it takes two' and suddenly a girl appears in the pool of water and the lyrics are all talking about love and how it happens. 

This is a close up of potion in the pool. The lyrics are 'love is a potion' 'mixed up by careless fools'. It talks about how love is a potion and its hard to make love happen. The lighting is shown well in this shot. One side of the potion is lit up and the other is darkened. 

This is a medium shot as he is swimming in the pool. Underneath him there is a green smoke. This shows the potion mixing into the water as the 'love' and the two characters swimming are mixing it up as lyrics say 'mixed up by careless fools'. It shows the male character is careless as he jumps into the pool without caring. This is why these lyrics are repeated time after time. 

This is a close up of the woman character swimming. Once again she is swimming in the pool of water with potion around her. She has loving and warm colours around her as the potion but the male character has mild colours. The close up is used as this shows the emotion in the woman's face towards the man.

This shot is the woman upside down in the water showing she is confident and in power. The potion is again in the pool of water showing 'love is a potion'. Shows that they are both mixing up the potion and the love in the pool.

This shot is a medium shot as it shows the torso and nothing else. He is in the water again and is coming out to come out of the water. This is near the end of the video.  The lighting is show from the top of him and it shines through the water to show the outline of his torso. 

This is the end of the video. The male character walks out of the pool and this is a close up and moves into an extreme close up. The lighting is behind him and it lights the left hand side of his face. You can see the emotion on his face. Everything is focused on him and the background is dark.

The meaning of this music video shows that love is hard and is always interfered with.

9 Shot Analysis Chase and Status ft Plan B End Credits

Shot 1 - Extreme close up on the artist Plan B's face to show the emotion and the pain the that he is feeling. The artist has just got beaten up by another man, so this shot portrays the facial expressions and emotion he feels as he hits the floor in pain.

Shot 2 - Close up on the artist and a girl character. Gripped against the wall showing emotion and thoughts. The man is showing love and affection for the girl. This is a two shot, fitting the two characters and setting in it. it portrays an urban vibe, this fits to the genre of the music and fits the atmosphere of the overall video.

Shot 3 - This is a long shot of three youths beating up another youth. They are wearing hoodies which is a stereotypical type of clothing for youths. This is a long shot showing the tragic event that is happening, this is adding to the vibe of the music video. This fits the emotion and tone of the actual track.

Shot 4 - Is a shot of the artist Plan B wearing a hoodie and in the background there is a picture of a man. This is set in a tunnel which is a fundamental place in the film which portrays a urban, stereotypical youthful place. This therefore also adds to the atmospherical feel of the video.

Shot 5 - This is a shot of a building on fire, fire flames are coming through smashed broken glass windows. This emphasises the excitement and the intensity of the music video.

Shot 6 - The shot is then followed by one of police officers getting ready with riot shields to see what is going on in the burning building. This much like the previous shot emphasises the excitement and intensity of the video. However this shot shows police advancing in numbers portraying a riot, which shows a rebel. This adds to the youthful stereotypical emphasis in the video.

Shot 7 - This is a longshot with a crowd of people that is relevant to the music video and is also an intertextual reference. There is a gang of youths wearing hoodies this shows the audience that there is going to be violence.

Shot 8 - The next shot is also an intertextual reference taking from the film, it shows the main character who has been shot. The weapon has been dropped by him, and there is a significant blood patch on his chest as a clear shocking indication he has been killed. I feel this particular shot represents the video perfectly.

Shot 9 - This shot portrays a close up of the artist performing. This close up shot shows emotion and emphasises the overall tone of the music video. It portrays the artist himself, this is a narrative and performance element.

This music video is intertextual reference used from the movie Harry Brown. I feel that both Narrative and Performance based videos have an equal ability to portray the story of the song across to the audience. Performance based videos allow the audience to see the artist performing the song, and the narrative based video provide a narrative of the story behind the song. Using both narrative and perfomance in this video end credits gave us ideas for our music video and we decided to use both narrative and performance.

Shooting Schedule

Scene	Date/Time	Location	People	Equipment	Props	Notes
Girl and Boy	Early Morning 1/10/12	Henry’s House	Elle, Reece	Pillow	Hoodie Trackies Trainers Pregnancy Test	Argument starts
Walk towards Skatepark as Boy leaves	Early Morning 1/10/12	Clarence Road/Vanistart Road	Reece		Hoodie  Trackies Trainers Mobile Cigarette	Aggressive walking
Girl Worried	Early Morning 14/10/12	Henry’s House	Elle	Pillow	T Shirt  Shorts	Crying into a pillow thinking whats happened
Boy meets mugger	Early Morning 1/10/12	Skatepark	Reece Calvin		Hoodie Trackies Trainers	Mugger grabs Boy
Chase Scene	Early Morning 1/10/12 5/10/12	Skatepark/Ward Royal	Reece Calvin		Hoodie Trackies Trainers	Boy gets away from the grab and chase scene starts
Boys gets away	Early Morning 5/10/12	Ward Royal	Reece Calvin		Hoodie Trackies Trainers	Looses Mugger
Boys meets Girl	Early Morning 5/10/12	Ward Royal	Calvin Elle		Hoodie Trackies Trainers	All works out

Risk Assessment

Location	Potential Risks/Hazards	Level of risk        (L/M/H)	Actions needed to minimize risk
Skatepark	Slippery floor	Low	Wear suitable shoes to run in.
Skatepark	Catching foot on railing when jumping it.	Medium	Try to be careful when jumping over it.
River	Slipping into the river.	High	Stay away from the edge of the river.
Applies everywhere	Camera equipment out of the way to avoid tripping.	Medium	Leave camera equipment away from where we are filming.
Applies everywhere	Wet floor/fences/gates automatically increases all risks.	Medium	Take caution when running/jumping.
Ward Royal	Tripping over on the stairs	Medium	Not much can be done to minimise the risk of this, except to be alert of this when running up the stairs.
Applies everywhere	Running into someone	Low	Make sure we are sure the space we are going to be running around is clear before we start.

There are plenty of risks that could occur in our video, this is because of part of our video involves a chase scene. The chase scene involves jumping over objects and running up flights of stairs. Reece and Calvin, the two characters involved in the chase scene were both aware of the risks before we started filming, this is to reduce the chance of the risks happening.

Types Of Music Video's.

There is three different types of music videos. They can be characterised by three broad typologies.

• Performance.
• Narrative.
• Conceptual.

Performance Video's:

• The most common type feature the star or group singing in concert to wildly enthusiastic fans. The goal is to convey a sense of the in-concert experience.
• The music video's defines itself chiefly by images of artists singing and playing songs.

Narrative video's:

• Narrative video's present a sequence of events. A video may tell any kind of story in linear, cause-effect sequencing. 
• Love stories, however, are the most common narrative mode in a music video.

Conceptual video's:

• Conceptual videos contain the possibility for multiple meanings as the metaphor is interpreted by the viewer.

Research into the artist and song "Too Close"

Research On Our Artist

Alexander George "Alex" Clare (born 14 September 1985) is a British singer-songwriter. His debut album, The Lateness of the Hour, was released in the UK on 11 July 2011 on Island Records and was produced by Mike Spencer and Major Lazer.

Clare adopted his current stage name, Alex Clare, in 2010, replacing Alexander G. Muertos, a pseudonym he first used whilst still at school.

Our final song  "Too Close" is a song by British singer-songwriter Alex Clare. The track was first released in the United Kingdom on 15 April 2011 as the second single from Clare's debut studio album, The Lateness of the Hour (2011) The track was written by Alex Clare and Jim Duguid and produced by Diplo & Switch and Mike Spencer. On July 9, 2012 it was certified gold by the RIAA.

Musically, 'Too Close' is song with dubstep and soul influences. Lyrically, the song describes the protagonist who is not ready for a committed relationship and he must end things with his love interest in good terms. In March 2012, "Too Close" was selected as the soundtrack to Microsoft's advertisement for Internet Explorer 9, released the following month. The feature saw the track achieve international success. By September 9, 2012, the song had reached number 8 on the U.S.  It had previously peaked at number four on the UK Singles Chart and at number 1 in Germany. In our target audience research we became aware that this song was a big hit Internationally and will fit our music video narrative perfectly. The link between the visuals and lyrics will create a distinct image for our audience which after research is 15 - 25 year olds.

Contacting Company for Permission

We have tweeted Alex Clare on his verified twitter account and asked to use his track 'too close' in our media film. We have had to ask for permission as we might not of been allowed to use as that could be called as copy right.

Location Research.

We have many shots of feet and running for our chase scene, so we have a shot of the underpass we ran through with a picture of one of the characters feet.

This is the shot from the top of the underpass that played an important part in our music video.

This is an example of what the characters in the underpass will look like. it portrays a certain 'eeriness' and emptiness which would make it the perfect setting for a mugging to take place.

This is the surrounding area of the underpass. This is the setting we will be working in, which portrays an urban type of vibe.

The inside of the underpass which shows the graffiti which also portrays that certain 'urban', youth and 'rough' sort of vibe. This is the location where the mugger grabs the boyfriend character. This location is a typical place where a youth would try to mug someone. We have tried to rein-act this by making our piece more life like.

This is where we are first introduced to our 'mugger' character. He runs from this alleyway and vaults over a fence, which we were standing on when this picture was taken. We chose this as, the gating and alley way portray that 'rough', stereotypical area that a mugger would come from.

This is the setting where our 'boyfriend' character comes from before the chase scene becomes. Passing the bollards portrays moving from thinking and loneliness to tension and excitement.

This is also the long road in which our 'boyfriend' character will be walking down. This road is used because it gives the character time to think. As it is empty, it could portray a lonely sort of feel.

Costume, Props & Cast.

This is a picture portraying the logo of the clothing we wore. This shows that we have minimum logo advertisment as we didn't want to promote a certain brand in our music video.

This is the picture of our mugger. The stereotypical clothing of dark clothing with his hood up. The tracksuit bottoms also portray a 'youth' and is stereotypical for most mugging scenes. This is a good casting role as this character 'calvin' who is in our group is a good actor and knows how to act in different situations.

This is a picture of our 'boyfriend' character who is dressed in tracksuits and a hoodie, to portray a relaxed, apathetic feel. The clothes he is wearing is a sort of 'lounge' clothing, to portray a homely feel for the shots in the house with his girlfriend.














This is the minimum backing up my point of minimum branding on our clothing.

This shows the mostly black clothing, including the shoes which we couldn't see clearly in the previous photo.

These are the shoes the 'boyfriend' character wears in the video, we chose these shoes because they stand out, and because both of the characters in the chase scene are similarly dressed, the shoes will help the audience to distinguish which character is which, to avoid confusion.

Textual Analysis (Akon)

In this short essay I will be analysing the hip-hop/R&B song ‘Sorry, blame it on me’ by the artist Akon. The music video for this song is a Narrative with some performance shots in there as well.

The lyrics in the song talk about three different stories, the story of a son getting arrested and put in jail while his mother watches, the story of an underage girl going into a club and a man getting charged and the story of a man who ignores his wifes calls and forgets his sons birthday because he was out partying. These stories are shown in the visuals and portrayed through the lyrics. This music video is directed at any type of audience too watch.

In the performance parts of the music video they are predominantly close up shots which promote the artist by showing the audience who is singing the song and getting people to recognise the face, while in the story parts of the music video there is a variety of different shots to catch the action which is going on, for example the close ups on the wife’s face which shows the emotion she is portraying when she leaves a message on the husbands voicemail. There is also panning shots, long shots, establishing shots showing what is happening when the son is running from the police etc. The video is shot in a very cinematic style, with fast cuts and short shot durations showing a high action scene in the music video, which shows the genre as it is in a suburban area with a black male stealing a car, which wouldn’t commonly be found in any other genre of music except hip-hop. There is many slow motion close ups on some of the actors faces to show emotion and portraying their image, all of these editing and camera techniques appeal to the audience as there is always something going on so it doesn’t get boring for the audience to watch as it isn’t the same thing happening at all times.

In the performance side of the music video, there clothing and setting are very stereotypical of the hip-hop genre as when the artist is shown, he is wearing expensive brand clothing and a big chain representing his wealth and success in the music business, he is also set in a big penthouse apartment with a scenic view overlooking the whole city. The lighting in the video during the performance parts are very dark which is also stereotypical to the hip-hop genre and also emphasises the artist himself as he is in the light with darkness all around him. In the narrative side of the video the three stories are set in two also stereotypical settings for the hip-hop genre: A club and a suburban run-down area with poorly built cheap houses. This represents the genre in a stereotypical way as these types of setting and clothing are commonly found in hip-hop.

The mise-en-scene in the video illustrates the genre (Hip-Hop) by putting in stereotypical settings, props, clothing etc. For example there are club scenes throughout the video which is stereotypical, also there is stereotypical traits for example big cars, expensive watches, expensive bracelets all showing wealth in the person which is stereotypical to the hip-hop genre.

There is a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals as the lyrics tell a story and the visuals portray that story for example ‘I’m sorry your son was a car thief’ and the visuals are showing the son stealing a car and the police chasing him.

There is also a relationship between the music and the visuals as the scenes cut in time to the beat. There is also a lot of close ups of the artist himself in the performance side of the music video which fits into the demands of the record label. There is no intertextual reference at all in this music video but there is some type of notion of looking where there music video is of a tv screen showing the artist being talked about on the news.

This music video would appeal to its target audience of mainly teenagers and early adults, because its got everything that appeals to a younger generation for example the cars, women in clubs, expensive clothing and necklaces etc. This genre is predominantly listened to by teenagers therefore the video would be aimed more towards that age range.

In conclusion it is evident that the relationship between the lyrics and the visuals play the biggest part in the music video as it is a predominantly narrative music video, the camera shots for example the close up shots, tracking, panning, establishing shots etc. also play a massive part as it shows the story clearly and shows what is going on without losing the interest in the audience. This music video clearly shows the genre of the music and also promotes the artist with the few performance shots but promotes him in a good way by showing the emotion in his face with the close ups.

Henry Kidman.

Textual Analysis. (30 Seconds To Mars)

What is the purpose and function of the video in representing the artist:

30 Seconds To Mars – This is war.

30 Seconds to Mars is an American rock band from Los Angeles, formed in 1998. Since 2007, the band has consisted of actor Jared Leto (lead vocals, rhythm guitar, songwriter), Shannon Leto (drums, percussion) and Tomo Miličević (lead guitar, keyboards). Following the departure of Matt Wachter (now of Angels & Airwaves) in 2007, Tim Kelleher became the bassist for the group, performing live only with both Jared and Miličević recording bass for studio recordings, while Braxton Olita (keyboards) was added to the touring lineup in 2009. Previously, the group also featured guitarists Solon Bixler (now of Great Northern) and Kevin Drake (now of Polaroid Kiss).

I will be analysing the video ‘This Is War’. This specific video is a narrative based video mixed in with performance as the band is used as the actors. The video is all about world peace and how wars should stop, this video shows the actors at war but then weird, mysterious things start to happen to the vehicles. This shows that all the army vehicles are transforming and flying away as if it is disappearing. This portrays that war and terror should be vanishing and going away forever. This portrays the band as a group who wants world peace and believes in the right cause, this will reach out to the audience that this is what they want and all the people that want the same thing will start listening to their music.

There is also many clips and pictures showing world events for example when the lyrics ‘’there are the liars’’ it shows an image of an American president. This portrays to the audience that they are knowledgeable and have an understanding of what is going on in the world at the moment. This will reach out to a wider audience as people will think they can find out what is happening from their music.

The images cut to the beat as well, so it is very fast paced showing that war is a very fast paced atmosphere and also when the vehicles finally come to a stop and all form into a triangle, the lyrics talk about a brave new world which could be related to the illuminati conspiracy about the all seeing eye and new world order. People are very interested in this conspiracy as it is quite popular on the internet so this would make people watch the video and question the artist to see if he is part of this conspiracy which will increase the views and popularity of the video.

There is a lot of close ups of the main character/Lead singer looking straight into the camera which promotes the artists image so people are familiar with who he is and what he can do, there is also a lot of long shots showing the whole band together, portraying them as a band and as actors.

The mise-en-scene of this video is relative to the video, which is army uniform, guns, glasses etc. This shows that they are in character and can be something other than a typical rock band from America.

The special effects in the video show that the video is modern and possibly futuristic as there is tanks, jeeps, boats etc flying around. This shows that they are up to date while it is also entertaining for the audience to watch so they don’t get bored.

This music video is designed to have suspension and keep the audience watching as in the video the jeep they are all in stops and the main character says ‘stop the vehicle, did you see that?’ while he saw it but we didn’t as an audience so we are kept wanting to know what the thing he saw was, this thing then becomes apparent later on in the video, this keeps the viewer in suspense and carrying on watching which is what the artist wants.

This type of music video is typical of the rock genre as war is seen in a few other rock music videos for example ‘Avenged Sevenfold – Gunslinger’, war is seen as more of a cool thing to do, while many rappers aren’t known to have many war associated videos.

In conclusion, this video portrays the band very well, as it shows the artists close up portraying them individually as well as a band. The band being the actors also promotes them as hard working people who are more than just musicians, this will make people watch as people would want to see their favorite musicians acting as well. This video promotes the artist portraying the message that they want world peace which promotes them as an artist who are fighting/singing for a cause, spreading that message through their music, which would promote them as people would start listening to their music, to listen for that message.

Henry Kidman.