Conventions of a Music Video

Todorov Theory

Location Analysis

This is an image of the staircase taken in the house where our artist performs. We believe that the staircase was the best place for our artist to show her performative side as it is a common location in a lot of media for an artist/actor to perform for instance in the 1986's movie Ferris Beuller's Day Off, Ferris performs amateurish on his stairs and house. Therefore since it is a popular media convention it goes well with our video



This is the location of our artists bedroom. We chose this location as part of our establishing shot because it denotes that this is the beginning of the music video because it is a comfortable setting and now the audience will automatically associate our artist as a reserved artist because of the simplicity of the opening location



This image is taken from the TV studio. This is the place where the concert takes place because of the equipment the TV studio has it is effective in creating realistic lighting that you would see in a small concert/gig.

Training with Final Cut Pro

On this day we had a tutorial on how to use Final Cut Pro which is a software for editing material such as music video available on Apple Computers.

We learnt the basics first:
Alt+X allowed you to get rid of the 'in' and 'out' buttons when you're selecting footage

Apple+Z allowed us to undo

Apple+shift+z allowed us to redo

By pressing the space button on the time line while our music track was playing green marks would appear. This helped us for when we were creating cuts to the beat of the song so we were able to achieve on beat editing.

We learnt about Effects, video transitions, colour corrections, and filtering

Other Ideas and Inspirations

Hannah montana

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Representation of women

Since our music video predominatley is focused on a female we can apply Laura Mulvey's theory of the male gaze to our video. She states that women are reduced to inanimate objects in film. She also says in film cameras will focus on the curves of a woman this is usually through the perspective of males. However I think because we are targeting a specific target audience of about 11-18 year old girls we are empowering young girs by our artist. In our camera work we did not focus on things like the curves of a woman because we wanted to stay away from the accepted ideology of portray women in a sexual way. However we portray Debbie in a fun jokingly matter so it can appeal to our target audience

Sixth Shooting

This was the last shooting in the tv studio of the drummer and singer though again due to lighting difficulties we will probably reshoot because the quality was not that great

Locations and Prop list

After brainstorming our ideas we had a better idea as to where we were going to shoot our music video.

Locations
A regular house
TV studio which would represent a concert setting

Props
Mirror
Comb
Lipstick
Radio
Grapes
Drums
Microphone

Costume
Black dress
Pink High Heels
Bright pyjamas
Glittery Jewellery
Reading glasses
Hair piece
Bangles

Fifth Shooting

In this scene we were re-shooting the beginning of our music video because of the bad quality we had produced. These scenes were when our singer was just getting up from bed and when she puts the radio on.

Fourth Shooting

Today we were shooting in the TV studio so this meant we had to set up our lighting. We were also shooting with the gel lights. Overall we had minimal difficulties conveying what we wanted

Questionnaire towards our Target Audience

Because our target audience is young we aren't able to post any visual photos of their responses to our questions.

Here are the list of questions I asked my target audience

Crystal, 10

How old are you? 10

Do you like music? Sometimes

When you watch music videos, what are the things you like to see? Well I don't really like watching music videos but I like dancing and I usually like singers but the girl singers.

What is your favourite type of music? music like Katy Perry sings

(when we described the concept of our music video towards our interviewee we asked for her opinion) - It sounds like fun music video, and I like the song Valerie and your video kinda reminds me of Hannah Montana because the singer sounds like her.

What are your favourite movies? I have a lot like Twitches, Karate Kid

From this interview I was able to get an idea of the type of area we would aim our video towards such as Disney because Hannah Montana, Twitches, are all part of the pop culture of young children that they like.






Towards our older spectrum of our target audience I conducted a video interview and asked the same questions towards our interviewee. From her answers it helped us define what exactly we wanted our music video to include.

Third shooting

Today we shot the scene where our artist spins around and her outfit changes. This required a lot of precision because our artist had to stay in the same spot while we swopped outfits so we would achieve continuinity

Meeting 2

In this meeting we finally finished storyboarding our storyboard.

Scene 1 - In the establishing shot we thought we would have fast cuts of the drums because it fitted the on beat editing of the drums in the start of the song.


Scene 2 - The second scene we would show her waking up to turn on the radio on.



Scene 3 - The concept of the video starts coming through as in this scene we would feature our singer walking down the stairs in her pyjamas and it'd cut to her walking down in her performative dress. Here we could see the 2 lives she lives. This would be a long shot.



Scene 4 - When she reaches the bottom of the stairs we would show her in the last line singing 'in my head I paint a picture' so we could show her lip synching.


Scene 5 - In this scene we'd show her in her home and her pyjamas enjoying herself and singing to the mirror. Instead of her seeing her reflection in the mirror we'd show her reflection in the concert singing as her reflection.



Scene 6 - In this shot we would film her using a P.O.V shot just filming her singing, dancing, laughing, around the house. We would use a variety of angles for this scene.


Scene 7 - This is the birds eye view shot where we would see her spinning around in her pyjamas and it would turn into her spinning in her dress however it would be a continuous shot.


Scene 8 - The next scene would be a close up of her hands turning the knob on the door, and the door will lead to the concert


Scene 9 - This would be a close up. The camera tracks her walking in her own socks

Scene 10 - This is a continuation shot from scene 9 of her walking in her high heels.

Scene 11 - In this scene we would pan the camera from the bottom of our singer's outfit to the top to reveal the dressy outfit. This shot would probably be a medium close up.


Scene 12 - This is the last scene in the concert. We'd have a variety of shots; long shots, mid closeups, low angle shots, and high angle shots of the band and our singer

Second Shooting

We were shooting the jump cut scenes of our artist on the stairs this day, we also shot scenes of our artist lip synching and the mirror image. So far it has been quite difficult because we were aiming to get very good lighting however without the light box the lighting wouldn't have been good.

Mood Board with words

Target Audience for our video

TaRGET Profile

Profile

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Psychographics for our younger target audience
This audience is young tween girls. The things they like to do is watch movies with their friends, birthday parties, watching TV shows particularly on Disney Channel and playing sports. When it comes to music they are not caught up with the "politicalness" of which music artist they should enjoy. Most of them would enjoy the music of today rather than old-school music because they are more familiar with this sound. They enojoy musicians like Selena Gomez and Miley Cyrus because of their image as their image is usually cut clean when they watch their TV programmes so they enjoy them when they watch their music videos. They also like the images of these stars because they are young and they are easy to relate to. They are quite easy going group of people as since they are young they have not experienced any hardships to life. This reflects what they do in their leisure time.

Psychographics for older target audience
These are a diverse range of girls however we have an indication of what type of girl would enjoy our video and that is mostly the "girly" teenage girls but as we've mentioned earlier this is not the only people who would like our song. However our audience are the girls who enjoy shopping. They enjoy Vintage and thrift Shops which is popular for our soul lovers. Though they do shop in mainstream shops such as H&M and River Island. They also like to maintain a sense of individuality so they like to shop online. They enjoy concerts, resteraunts, house parties, and occasional drinking Musicians they enjoy vary, most of them pay close attention to the meaning of the lyrics and like artists with talent like Jazmin Sullivan. They would then enjoy our artist because she is very talented. There future aspirations are to succeed in any thing they start; school, jobs, or university

Analysis of 'Love Game' by Lady Gaga

Lady Gaga's 'Love Game' music video is the fourth solo music video to be released by this artist. The type of music video is mainly narrative as it is centrally focused on Lady Gaga, however since it is her fourth video it also focuses on the dancers giving it performative aspects.

Since Lady Gaga's essence as an artist is to draw attention to herself there are a lot of close ups of Lady Gaga's face focusing on her unusual make up. Also there are a lot of extreme close ups of her lips
as she looks as if she is 'luring' the camera. This suggests the sex appeal that she is trying to get across. There are also medium shots of her to show the audience the provocative clothing she's wearing this suggests she is an artist that wants people to be constantly talking about the things she does. The trunk shot of her, elongates her features making her look superior. The long shots of her are also usually shown when she is wearing exposing outfits or in close contact with another person, hence to show the body language. When the camera zooms in and out of the scene where Lady Gaga is kissing the police officer it does this to focus on the fact that the police officer she is kissing switches from a man
to a woman so the camera zooms in on them from different angles.


The lighting in the video is mostly low key lighting which connotes the foul play and danger that Lady Gaga and her dancers are getting up to.

However, there are filler lights that brighten up the scene especially as the filler lights are high key lighting are mainly put on Lady Gaga to show her in a glowing and powerful light. The bright flashing lights seen in some scenes give the music video a 'stage' feel that shows the glamour of the video and the glamour of Lady Gaga because the lights are usually focused on her.

The video is filled with fast cuts and minimal long takes of Gaga, this is usually to show the varied choreography and to show Lady Gaga in different scenes.There is a cut where that features Gaga in one scene at mid shot and jumps to her to the same scene but to a long shot to again focus on her centrally as the outfit she wears is revealing. The fast cuts usually focus on Gaga's hair, body, clothes for a split second which all adds to the uniqueness , confidence of Gaga as lots of artists are risque with their music but not as unconventional as Gaga. To never get bored of the music video Gaga does a match on action where she jumps up in the air in a white outfit

and falls back down in black leather.

She is trying to keep the audience in shock again this adds to the strange reputation that she's built for herself.

Lighting Tutorials

In this lesson we got taught on the effects of Filler Lights, Back Lights and Key lights. We learnt the term '3 point lighting' using all 3 of these lights. I also got the chance to have practical experience with these lights in the TV studio.



Fill light

Fill light-This is used to fill the shadows created by the key. It is usually softer and less bright than the key. We thought that this type of lighting may be suitable for scenes when we are at the home


Backlight

Back Light-This is placed behind the subject. We may also use this particular lighting because it gives a mysterious feel because we won't be able to see the person. We are going to do this when our singer first appears in the concert.

Key Light

This is placed on one side of the person.We may consider using key lights because it gives the effect of shadows and this gives a good effect in our scene where we are going to be the at the concert.

Video of Lip Synching Practice

To practise for our the lip synching that would occur in our music video we got our singer to practise singing the song 'Valerie' we made sure she knew the lyrics and could actually sing the song out loud rather than mouthing the words so that she could make it believable to the audience.

First shooting

This meeting was the first day of shooting. We started off shooting the scene of our singer waking up in her room. Difficulties occurred because we did not use the appropriate camera. We plan to re-shoot this scene again.

Genre

Our genre is R&B pop rock. It is a mixture of different genres but these are all the things associated with it

Music Video Research

Now that we determined our target audience, to know what aspects they enjoyed the most in music videos I designed a survey through Survey monkey to find out what our target audience liked in music videos. Then I sent it to my friends to get their honest feedback

Reply 1:

Reply 2:

Reply 3:

As you can see the replies from each person are in some ways very similar and very different. For example, reply 1 states their favourite artist is Tyrese who is an older male R&B singer whereas reply 2 states their favourite artist is Lady Gaga who is a younger innovative "querky" pop singer, this reflects the differences within our target group. Though the feedback shows that everyone enojoys R&B music this means they will like our artist because she has R&B elements to her music.

Everyone had different things that they liked best from videos this gives us more creative freedom as every person is different so this means we do not have to "pigeon hole" our artist.

We now have to incorporate the likes from our older target audience to our younger target audience although we have already started to achieve this because the R&B genre our artist produces is liked by this audience

Meeting 1

This was our very first meeting where we brainstormed ideas as to the order we want to shoot.We included the camera angles and movement we wanted to convey such as the match on action shot, tracking, ambi editing and the type of editing we wanted to display.

Early Planning stages

Lyrics Synopsis

Before the song starts, with the intro of the drums playing we plan to show a band, but focused on the drummer, beating the drums.

0:10Well Sometimes I Go Out, By Myself, And I Look Across The Water. <----- We plan to have our actor wake up from bed at this point, she's going to reach from her bed to turn the radio on

0:20And I Think Of All The Things, Of What You're Doing, And in my head I Paint A Picture.<----- This is possibly where she starts lip synching to the music, she gets up from the bed and into the bathroom where a mirror will show her reflection singing back at her but from another scene (the ''stagey'' scene)

0:30Since I've Come Home, Well My Body's Been A Mess, And I Miss Your ginger Hair, And The Way You Like To Dress.<----- We would have fast cuts to the things mentioned like the 'hair' and the 'dress'

0:39Oh Wont You Come On Over, Stop Making A Fool Out Of Me, Why Dont You Come On Over, Valerie.<----------- Here she can be pretending to be singing on a comb

Valerie
Valerie<---- We can use a match on action of our actor opening a door to her room, whilst the door changes to the door of her dressing room on stage
Valerie

1:05Did You Have To Go To Jail, Put Your House Out Up For Sale, Did You Get A Good Lawyer. <----- At this part we could do our flashbacks of her performing on stage to her 'performing' in her house

1:15I Hope You Didnt Catch A Tan, I Hope You Find The Right Man, Who'll Fix It For You.

1:24Are You Shopping Anywhere, Change The Color Of Your Hair, And Are You Busy.

1:33Did You Have To Pay That Fine, That You Were Dodging All The Time, Are You Still Dizzy.

1:42Well Since I Come Home, Well My Body's Been A Mess, And I Miss Your Tender Hair, And The Way You Like To Dress.

1:53Oh Wont You Come On Over, Stop Making A Fool Out Of Me, Oh Why Dont You Come On Over, Valerie.

2:04Valerie
Valerie
Valerie

2:19Well Sometimes I Go Out, By Myself, And I Look Across The Water.<--------Here we wanted to replicate the Jay Z commercial by having water coming from her hands
2:27And I Think Of All The Things, What You're Doing, And In My Head I Paint A Picture.

2:37Since I've Come Home, Well My Body's Been A Mess, And I Miss Your Tender Hair, And The Way You Like To Dress.Oh Why Don't You Come On Over Valerie

2:59Valerie
Valerie
Valerie <------- she could lip synch this part at the concert
Valerie
Valerie
Valerie
Valerie
3:33Valerie

Rejected Ideas

After discussing with our Media Technician at school we discovered that the technical CGI in this video were very difficult to replicate. It involved close to £1,000,000 idea with a computer tracking the movements on Jay Z's hands to make the objects appear. We thought it was best to remove that idea because of its difficulty.

Get Shaky - The Ian Carey Project
We initially were deciding to choose this songs as our music video. Though Get Shaky is the Techno genre therefore we would need a lot of dancers which we didn't have.

Rihanna's Rehab came very close to the song we chose though the song did not have a lot of instrumentals and we knew we could score higher marks for showing instruments and ambi editing so we chose Valerie as it had all of these components

Project Proposal

This is our initial and basic ideas of our concept for the music video

Music video presentation

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