Snow scene problem

Unfortunately due to Yorkshire not having a freezing cold winter as predicted, the degree in temperature has not been cold enough for it to snow. This leaves us in an awkward position as one of the scenes in our music video was to be filmed in the snow. Nearly every year it snows in Yorkshire in the winter, however due to our luck of predicting a snow scene it has not snowed. Faye and I will have to re-think this scene perhaps doing a raining scene with umbrellas instead.

We still hold out for snow in January.

Podcast 5 - uploading new footage and extra filming

Pointer Sisters original vid

The Pointer Sisters were the original girl band in 1983 to create the song Jump (for my love). The song was released prior to the 1984 Summer Olympics games, the song's video featured footage of athletes competing in track and field events. The song was the second of four Billboard Hot 100 top 10 singles in a row for the sisters in 1984; it peaked at #3 in July. It also appeared on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart and reached the Top 10 in the UK, peaking at number six. The song also netted the group a Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal in 1985.

The song sang by the Pointer Sisters is the original and the music video was seen as quite visually impressive for the 80s. However I believe Girls Aloud gave the song a more modern factor which works better with the music video I wish to create and the vocals match the age of the group members a lot better.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jump_(for_My_Love)

Pop group reunions

Recently past pop group S Club 7 have been rumoured to be back for a reunion in 2012, and the pop group Steps have already formed a reunion and are touring the UK. The group steps have recently announced that they are continuing to embark on their tour in 2012. All seven members of S Club 7 are hoping to reform after seeing how successful Steps reunion has been. Their representatives are trying to agree a deal with Simon Fuller, who still owns the S Club brand.

Seeing these former pop groups reunite and the success of the Spice Girls reunite in 2007, other former groups are hoping to come back together in the present day. It is already rumoured that the girl band Girls Aloud have decided to plan a reunion tour in the back end of 2012. This will be a great chance for the girl band to promote there already produced albums and to earn even more cash with advertisements and promotions etc.

Treatment

Treatment - Faye

Podcast 4 - planning to re-film and upload

Lighting of pop music videos

The pop music video is notorious for the glamouress full beam bright lights which make the artists look flawless. My music video three out of five scenes are inside. I hope to borrow two set lights from my schools art department so I can get the bright light effect in the scenes. These lights will hopefully brighten the group member’s faces and also brighten the set. The lights being shone on the girls faces during medium close ups will make their skin pale and flawless, other pop artists us this lights such as Britney Spears or Katy Perry.

I also hope to lighten the scenes in editing to make them even brighter and as similar to pop music videos as I can.

Podcast 3 - ideas for sample scene

Preperation for music video

Recently I have purchased 200 white feathers, 100 10 inch white balloons and 100 pink balloons, and one balloon pump :S. These props were bought from where most of my internet purchases are from… the amazing eBay! eBay the online market stall is a great place for finding random items you may need for cheap prices. The 100 pillow feathers cost merely £4.50, and the 200 balloons £12.99. Not bad seeing as they sell a pack of ten at Tesco for £1. The feathers will be used in the sleepover scene, some being put in pillows and slow motioned downed during the pillow fight scene. I also think a close up of feathers falling from the ceiling would also be a nice shot to include. Other shots included would be group shots of the girl members playing will the many fathers in the bedroom.

The 200 balloons will be inflated on the day and placed on top of each other in a small room. I wanted to hopefully borrow large studio lights to light the room. I will film each member of the band playing in the room full of balloons. As the balloons will be in a small room they will be piled on top of each other hopefully up to the artists wastes. I will also have one member of the band bursting a balloon full of glitter which will be put into slow motion.

I have acquired three large bottles of glitter two of blue and one of red. I think having a member of the band blowing the glitter into the camera would look visually very interesting. I think a close up of the falling glitter would also look great and be appropriate to the pop vibe of the music video.

Both. Other Girls Aloud music videos

Girls Aloud, as one of the top and well known girl bands ever have over 200 songs! There are many to choose from but the one that stood out to me was the song Jump - this is the track we are using in our project although I am taking a cheeky little look at other music videos they have produced and why we did not choose the track to them...

Whole lotta history

This song is very slow, we did not want this slow, romantic gesture as it is not that well known and we wanted to make a fun exciting music video! The original video to this is very 'lovey dovey' which is good as it suits the lyrics, as each girl, unlike the other videos have worked on are more upbeat and fun video. This video shows the girls of the band looking miserable, obviously to go with the lyrics but it is not a denotation we need to be inspired by.

Sound of the underground

This song was released in 2003. The chorus ‘sound of the underground’ is the main aspect to the music video, as the band members all sing in a grotty underground train station. The metal cage the band members are singing in throughout the music video also portrays the dull, dark and neglected area the underground train station is. ‘waters running in the wrong direction’ lyric is portrayed in the music video through water dripping off a dirty light bulb in reverse from the underground station.

The song starts with electric guitars and then the tempo and the beat increases, and becomes more sharp and edgy. The visuals to the music video match up to the sharp and fast beat of the song as the band members are collectively singing in what appears a dark and dreary cage in a underground tunnel. The drum beat slows down whilst the girls sing the verses around different parts of the underground and the beat then picks up again when they sing the chorus in their cage. 
  
This song is as upbeat as the song Jump, but Faye and I thought that Jump would have more relation to the band characters we wanted to use. We also thought the song would be more fun to remake as there were more ideas we could use for this song compared to Sound of the Underground.

Podcast 2 - editing sample footage

Sean Kingston music video ideas

The Sean Kingston music video has interesting editing and light effects that I wanted to use as aspects to my video. The first idea was that of the balloon filled with glitter popping, and edited with slow motion. Faye and I have tried this idea twice, one with a large amount of glitter, and the other with no so much. The results can been seen on our sample footage behind the scenes
http://hattiesmusicvideo.blogspot.com/2011/11/sample-footage-no1.html

 

The video also includes a thin blue light edited across the clips on medium close ups of Sean. In the club scene I think an effect of a light edited on would give a really great effect as it would appear that the club had more lights and would create greater visuals that the club was more active.

 

To see my deconstruction of this music video visit my blog post

http://hattiesmusicvideo.blogspot.com/2011/10/sean-kingston-music-video.html

Hit the lights music video ideas

Hit the lights by Selena Gomez has a great music video that really inspired me for the production of my own music video. The large balloons bursting and Selena dancing in the room filled with pink balloons encouraged my desire to work with balloons in certain scenes of my music video. I have recently purchased 100 balloons which I intend to use on the sleepover scene of the music video. Slowing down footage of balloons floating and bursting really gives a good effect in music videos and along with the feathers I also intend to use the whole vibe to the music video will have a pop video look to it.

The song Jump that I am using for my video has some fast pace beats in the chorus and so I intend to use multiple jump cuts from different scenes such as the singers from my girl band dancing in a room of balloons and feathers. The music video for hit the lights, does this very well. I think that changing the colouring of the different shots in editing would also have a great effect.

I am also going to use multiple layering over some of the balloon scenes to give the scenes an artistic vibe. I was hoping to use either glitter, shots of feathers falling or popping balloons.

1st ideas - costumes

1st Costume Ideas

Sample scene vodcast

Podcast 1 - ideas for sample footage

Charity shop scene

For one specific scene in our music video we are hoping to film in a charity shop, where the five different girls try on unusual outfits and costumes. I want this scene to be similar to one in the film Wild Child released in 2008 directed by Nick Moore. The scene consists of five girls looking for and trying on different clothes to buy for a party they are attending. There are a variety of transitions and shot types that make this scene look interesting. I wish to do my own rendition of the scene whilst trying out similar transitions that may work with my own music video.

These pictures show some of the camera angles and edited transitions that I wish to try and replicate.

Sample footage - behind the scenes

Genre and Directors lesson

Genre and Directors powerpoint

Sample footage no.1

FH The Band Members

Kimberly Walsh

Kimberly was born in Bradford in 1981. She is a singer-songwriter, model, television presenter and actress. Most well-known for being in the girl band Girls Aloud, Kimberly also fronts the 2009 Autumn/Winter collection for the fashion chain New Look. In July 2010 she also became a presenter on music talk-show, Suck My Pop. She has also had her fair share of acting including appearing in TV shows such as This Is Personal: The Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper as Gillian Oldfield and starred in a BBC Educational Schools programme called Focus. She has also appeared in films such as St. Trinian's with her fellow band mates and Horrid Henry: The Movie.

Nicola Roberts

Nicola Roberts, a young feisty ginger was born in Lincolnshire, raised in Cheshire. Roberts always felt 'ugly' in the band and felt different to the other band members because she was so pale skinned. In 2008 she started to accept herself and became more confident, and ditched the fake tan for good. After accepting her paleness she went on to create a make-up brand targeting women with paler complexions. She then went on to making a documentary - The truth about tanning. In this she explored with BBC3 how dangerous sunbeds can be. She also did campaigns for skin cancer showing the dangers young women can do to themselves due to sunbeds. Nicola also released her first single ‘Dance to the beat of my drum’ in June of 2011. It debuted at number 27 on the UK Singles Chart.

  Sarah Harding

Sarah as a young child was brought up in more than one place - Berkshire, Surrey and Manchester. She is best known for being one in Girls Aloud, but is also recognised all over the world for different business deals she has accepted, such as advertising campaigns. In May 2009 she was reported to have created a fortune of £29 million sue to record sales and ad campaigns. She is well known in the fashion industry for her ‘funky bob’ hairstyle which has inspired many short, cropped hairstyles.                    She has made her fortune through signing onto deals. Some of these include appearing the St. Trinians film in 2007, in this she played a band member to a famous touring group.

Sarah has also modelled lingerie and signed a contract to advertise the Wii console and Coca-Cola Zero. She was used as a model to advertise Coca-Cola Zero as the drink contains limited amounts of sugar. The idea behind using Sarah is that if you drink this product, you will be as thin as her.

Nadine Coyle

Nadine is a young Irish singer, song writer and model from Derry, Northern Ireland. She had already had her experience of a band – Six, that was the Irish equivalent of Popstars: The Rivals. The band became a hit but then the directors realised the Nadine had only been 16 and that she had lied about her age at the first audition. This forced the organisers of the TV show to stop the band. A few years later she found herself back on TV in the UK version of Popstars: The Rivals this time she was old enough. This time she found herself in another band,
 Girls Aloud. Since the band split Coyle has tried to go solo like her former band members Cheryl and Nicola, but did not have much success. She now owns a small pub in Los Angeles. However she is still spoken about in tabloids with information about her private life, such as who she is currently dating.

Cheryl Cole

One of the most successful girls of the group came from humble begins in a council estate in Newcastle. She got her big break when auditioning for Popstars: The Rivals where the judges were very fond her due to her classicabeauty.                                                                                          The young singer, dancer, and songwriter went on to marry the famous footballer Ashley Cole in 2006, where she changed her name from Cheryl Tweedy to Cheryl Cole. After following the success of Girls Aloud Cheryl decided to go solo, as well as still being in the girl band. She released two albums three words & messy little raindrops, which both reached to number one in the UK.  
Cheryl was also a judge on X factor from 2008 up until the last series of 2010, which she had lef the UK series to go and do America's X factor, this however did not exactly work out. The Americans did not keep her on the panel for long because they could not understand her Geordie accent

10 things I have learnt

10 things that I learnt to date in media:

To use Final Cut Express

To use a broader range of media language

To use a broader range of codes and conventions

To use different gadgets and elements of the blog

Different camera lenses such as fish eye lens

To take a lot of coverage which includes more shots

The different types of music genres

Whether a video is performance, narrative or concept based.

How to intensely analyse a music video

The large amount of planning and organisation you need to do before creating the music video

3 things I would like to learn:

To use effective special effects on Final Cut Express

To create an impressive music video
To create a digipak 

Promotions of other musicians - HH

Britney Spears has a large successful range of perfumes which sell herself as a personality rather than her as a singer. By having a perfumes that Britney has selected herself and apparently wears herself fans will want to buy the perfume to smell like Britney.

She has in total 10 perfumes sold in selected retailers her perfume Curious (light blue bottle) sold as the number one perfume of 2004, it was also honoured as Best Woman’s Fragrance in 2005.

Each perfume has a selected tagline, which gives more of a personality to the product.

All of the ad campaigns feature a much airbrushed Britney Spears wearing provocative clothing which display her figure as much as possible, and all include a ‘come hither’ expression from Miss Spears which is very provocative. Her perfumes are meant to be sold to women as a women’s perfume line, however the ad campaigns appear to be targeted at the male audience.

Her target audience for her perfumes will be similar to the audience for her music. This is tweenager and teenagers ages 15-24. For a tweenager (10-12 yrs) will look at this picture of their possible role model and will want to look like her, which to some extent is impossible due to the heavy airbrush and crop tool obviously used in the ads themselves. The ads encourage young women to flaunt themselves by wearing provocative clothing which they believe makes them look like their role model, and therefore beautiful.

1.   Curious

2.    Fantasy

3.   Curious in Control

4.   Midnight Fantasy

5.   Believe

6.   Curious Heart

7.   Hidden Fantasy

8.   Circus Fantasy

Introduction to Final Cut Express - HH

Final Cut Express (FCE) is the software I have used this year and will be using for editing my music video. This particular software is designed for advanced editing and so gives a professional finish to a finished product when used correctly.


There are many different aspects to final cut that make it much more advance than iMovie. iMovie was the editing software I used for my AS production. FCE is considered a step above iMovie in terms of it capabilities. FCE allows the user to do a range of effects such as layering clips and special effects which are beyond what iMovie is capable of.
FCE is a better system but is harder to get the hang of, and requires a greater understanding of the technology used. iMovie is easier to work with but does not have the best effects, but is better for beginner editors such as at AS.

The layering tool in FCE is particularly effective as it can place one clip layered over another. By changing the opacity of the clips both clips can be played together over one another. During the editing of our rendition of Threw It On The Ground I included repeat looping in the editing. This is when a section of a clip (usually around a second long) is repeated four or five times to create an effect of a clip being more in time to the beat of the song. For the song we remade this worked really well, as the repeat clip was mtahced well to the electronic beat to the song.

Exporting your finished video on FCE is also much more difficult than in iMovie. The video must be exported with specific adjustments and if not followed absolutely precisely than the video cannot be exported properly. This has been a problem so far this year, but I hope to improve this by learning to export more as the year progresses.

Girls Aloud promotions and advertisments - HH

Girls Aloud Promotions

Nintendo DS – In 2008 Nintendo signed Girls Aloud to front a series of TV ad campaigns. The ad includes the five singers playing games on the handheld Nintendo DS in the studio and as they relax at home.

'We all love our Nintendo DS’s…there’s always something to keep us laughing and entertained - the different DS colours mean we never get them mixed up too!” say the band.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1079083/At-home-Girls-Aloud-group-launch-Nintendo-games-console.html#ixzz1bo5alCVv


KitKat – in 2008 all five of the girl band members stared in an advertising campaign for KitKat, KitKat’s biggest product launch in nearly ten years. The ad includes the five members of the girl band walking down the red carpet being snapped by paparazzi and cheered by their fans. The girl band reportedly signed a million pound contract with Nestle to advertise the new KitKat Senses chocolate bar. The advert was made by JWT with media planning and buying handled by Mindshare. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/apr/07/advertising

The KitKat advert

Girls Aloud have also have their own line of cosmetics such as false eyelashes sold in selected retail outlets.
The eyelashes are styled to be as similar to each individual band member as possible. This way the consumer is buying the product under the impression that they can look like that particular singer if they buy their fake eyelashes. This is a great selling technique as young fans will buy the product wanting to look like their role models.

Other promotions include calendars, Barbie dolls, and their very own make-up range.

It is clear from the promotions and campaigns that the girl band is focusing mainly on the younger female audience. With the main idea being used that if you buy this product you will look that these women.

The very good and the very very bad - HH

Good Music Video: Bad Romance – Lady Gaga
I believe this video is one of the best videos ever created. It includes almost every aspect that makes a music video great. Examples include great shot variety, all three of Goodwin’s three types, Mise-en-scene, editing and much more.

Bad Romance was released in October of 2009 and reportedly had a million dollar budget.

The video contains controversy, strange ideas and a symbolic plot, which has been complimented by critics. These include Gaga being drugged by supermodels and sold as a sex slave to the Russian mafia. To read more about the ideas behind the music video please visit my blog post deconstructing this video. http://hattiesmusicvideo.blogspot.com/2011/08/bad-romance-lady-gaga.html

The song has sold 9.7 million copies worldwide in 2010. Gaga also received a Grammy award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. The music video was nominated for 10 awards at MTVs 2010 music video awards of which the video won seven, including Music video of the year.

The video received positive responses for its artistic treatment and visual imagery. It is obvious from the eccentric Mise-en-scene that a lot of the videos budget went on costume and props.

Gaga confirmed that the directed of the video was Francis Lawrence. Gaga said that she was impressed with the final version and that she could never have put her ideas together as well as he could. She quoted:

I wanted somebody with a tremendous understanding of how to make a pop video, because my biggest challenge working with directors is that I am the director and I write the treatments and I get the fashion and I decide what it's about and it's very hard to find directors that will relinquish any sort of input from the artist. [...] But Francis and I worked together. [...] It was collaborative. He's a really pop video director and a filmmaker. He did I Am Legend and I'm a huge Will Smith fan, so I knew he could execute the video in a way that I could give him all my weirdest, most psychotic ideas, [...] But it would come across to and be relevant to the public. Source - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Romance#Music_video

Bad Romance music video

Bad music video: Friday – Rebecca Black

Friday by Rebecca Black was released in March of 2011. The ‘music video’ was produced and directed by Clarence Jey and Patrice Wilson. The budget has not been confirmed, but is obviously very low and has a similar look as the recent cheap Disney music videos made to date.

The song became a viral hit due to the criticism of the song’s lyrics, the use of Auto-tune on the singer’s vocals and the content of the video. On June the 16^th the video was removed from YouTube due to copyright claims from Black. The video received more than 167 million views, and had over 3.1 million "dislikes" (87% of total ratings) from YouTube users. The comments on the video, which were mostly negative, were disabled in May 2011.

The music video content is very poor and includes a minimal array of shot types, mise-en scene and props. The video also includes very lazy editing such as poor special effects and a lot of continuous editing with very little cuts.

Friday ‘music video’

Production Company

Production Company 1^st idea:

Haye Fattie Productions

A Faye and Hattie production

Our first idea was to take the first letter from each of our names and switch them around and voila! It’s a Haye Fattie production.

This idea was thought up in a Eureka kind of moment. There are such bazaar production company names out there that really have no relevance, but our name does have some meaning and is does involve both the people in our groups name.

Faye + Hattie

Switch around the F and the H

= Haye Fattie productions!

Girl band music video directors

Girl band directors:

Jump – Girls Aloud: Richard Curtis directed the music video and included clips from his recent film at the time, Love Actually. Richard Curtis is a well-known Rom-com director, producing popular films such as Bridget Jones Diary, Notting Hill and Four Weddings and a Funeral. Curtis requested to direct the video as the publicity of the song would help promote his new film. The song Jump by Girls Aloud was also featured in the film.

Notorious - The Saturdays: This music video was directed by Syndrome productions. Syndrome work with MTV and their movie and music video awards. They also work with artists such as Eminem, Alicia Keys and Ke$ha. The company said they were delighted with the results of the super-glam and super-clean video.

Push the button – Sugababes: The music video was directed by American director Matthew Rolston and produced by Lindsay Turnham for Exposure Films. It was filmed in various locations throughout Shepherds Bush, London in July 2005 and first aired in the United Kingdom in the week of 12 September 2005. The video primarily focuses around the three members of the band dancing in an elevator for a CGI-animated skyscraper.

When I grow up – Pussycat Dolls: This music video was directed by Joseph Khan. Khan is a very famous director and has worked on music videos with artists such as Eminem, Janet Jackson, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga and many more. Khan also is a newly director of films, with his first ever film Torque. He also directs Television Advertisements such as for Vodaphone, Windows and Citroen.



Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Push_the_Button_(Sugababes_song)#Music_video


http://www.promonews.tv/2011/06/06/the-saturdays-notorious-by-syndrome/


http://www.josephkahn.com/tv/index.xml

A2 Brief and Markscheme

The brief:

A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with two of the following options:

1.   A cover for its release as a digipak (CD/DVD package);

2.   A magazine advertisement for the digipak (CD/DVD package).

Assessment Criteria:

Research and planning – 20%                                                           Production – 60%


             Music video – 40%

                 Digipak – 10%


            Digipak mag ad – 10%




Evaluation – 20%

Sean Kingston music video

Sean Kingston – Sleep all day and party all night.

The song was officially released on the 21^st December 2010 in the US. The music video to the song was released on the 5^th December 2010 on to YouTube.

After watching this video in class, we all discussed the good and bad points to this music video.

The bad points are that the music video lacks shot types as it includes either close ups or medium shots. If this music video were to be marked at A2 level it would probably get a basic or even minimal as the shot types do not have a variation.

The reason for the medium shot only being used on the artist is because this is the most flattering shot type when focused on the body. By only including Sean’s head and chest the viewer cannot focus on his body. This is done because Sean is overweight and compared with other stick thin artists and celebrity’s he does not fit in.

The editing in this video is quite lazy and does not appear to be well thought out. This is because the shots seem to follow each other repeatedly and gets quite boring to watch after a while as there is no variety.

The good points to this video are the tracking of the house party shot. This gives a supposed 360 degree rotation of the house. This looks impressive and has creativity. The bubble writing edited onto the video are also quite impressive especially the animation of them moving across the screen. In some of the shots there is a bright blue light which has been edited with lighter opacity so it can blend in well with the actual video. This technique is called layering when two shots are played at once. We can achieve this on Final Cut Express by placing on clip on top of another.

Another good point about this video is the slow motion used in certain points. During the house party scene a girl bursts a balloon and glitter sprinkles out of it. It really like this idea and it is very effective in slow motion. I would want to incorporate this idea into my own music video.

Shot types used in girl bands

There is a range of different shot types used in girl band Music videos. Here are some of the different shot types used in almost every girl band music video.

Group shots

 

 

Close ups

Extreme close ups

Medium shots