Message to Moderator

Thank you for taking the time to read my individual and group blogs. You will find my finished video, album cover and website at the top of the blog, as well as on our group blog.

My sidebar offers links to relevant blogs and a label list.

I hope you enjoy my blog,

Eva Calland-Waller 3116

This Blog is Closed!

After a long yet extremely enjoyable and satisfying project we are finished!

I have enjoyed every moment, maybe excluding the running, and come away from this with 2 firm friends and a lot more experience.

Eva Calland-Waller

Question 4: How did you use new media technologies in the construction, research and planning and evaluation stages?

Equipment - Canon 550D

Obviously, without a camera a music video is impossible. Luckily for us, Eoin had a Canon 550D and was able to borrow another one so we were able to use high quality cameras to film all our footage. An added benefit of the canons was that all our footage was saved onto memory cards so unlike last year, we were able to copy and paste large amounts of files without capturing. This meant that the time taken importing our footage was reduced massively, which we needed as we filmed over 150G worth of footage!

Lights - Strobe; 650 Watt Redhead lights; Neon Bulbs

Artificial lighting was only necessary for our performance. Natural, outdoor lighting proved to be excellent for the narrative filming, especially under the lens' of the canons. 
For the performance, however, we had to use a set of 3 650 watt Readhead lights and one work light. In total we had 3 performance shoots, and although our first shoot was over-exposed, it proved to be a learning curve and the second and during the second and third shoots the equipment proved invaluable. 
For the second section of our performance, we decided to use neon paint which meant that the lighting needed to change. We used 2 neon bulbs, one above the performance and another at the side. Without those bulbs the neon element would not have been possible and there would have been no progression to our performance. 

Web 2.0 - Youtube; Twitter; Facebook; Blogger; Google Maps; Wix

To advertise our product and to build a band identity, we utilised web 2.0, focusing on social networking sites as a huge percentage of our target audience of 15-25 year old males are frequent users of them. 
We created a Facebook page and a Twitter account, enabling fans to follow/subscribe to our updates, finding out information about upcoming gigs etc. We found it was a great promotional tool, for the creation of our product, but also the advertisement of our screening of all the music videos produced in our media class. We were able to create an event on facebook and invite our entire year. Over 100 people turned up, showing the power of social networking. 
We also used Youtube to upload the first edit of our music video, which meant that getting audience feedback was simple as the video was easy to access from any computer. Youtube was also where we uploaded our final music video:
OUR VIDEO ON YOUTUBE

My other main use of web 2.0 has been Blogger. As you can see this blog has made it incredibly easy to present ideas, thoughts, updates, photos and videos. It has been indispensable and saved a lot of time. Managing the blog and the presentation of the entire project has been simple, and last year's use of it meant that I had experience with it already so was able to use it much more fluidly and confidently. 

During location scouting, I used Google Maps to quickly find alleyways via the birds eye view then see whether the location and appearance was suitable for the video. Again, this saved us a lot of time and energy as our only other option would have been to physically go out looking which would have wasted time better spent on set dressing etc. 
Our website was created on Wix, a Flash website-building site. We were able to create a professional and dynamic website, catering to all our needs, in a reasonably short amount of time. However, we did come across some issues; see here for a post on Wix-gone-wrong.

Editing Software - Adobe CS5: Photoshop, Premiere Pro; Colour

Our group have used a number of Adobe CS5 softwares throughout the project.

Photoshop

We used Photoshop to edit all of our pictures for the website and album cover as well as the logo. 

A large amount of photos were needed for the website, and once I got used to using the software and learnt the shortcuts and tools I found that I was able to effectively transform a large amount of photos to look professional and to adhere to our intended image in a short amount of time.

As you can see here, the album cover photographs were completely re-worked on Photoshop to suit our intended appearance. We were able to colour-correct the photos as the lighting was different in each picture to create a sleek and consistent image.

Premiere Pro

Premiere Pro was the primary editing software for our video. We were able to initially cut down the original track by Pendulum to suit the brief and then add the visuals using the track and tools to edit the footage. We also used this software to start our colour-correction, but then moved onto a more advanced colour-correction software; Colour.

 

Question 3: What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

After we completed our first edit, we were eager to get it up and get some initial feedback from people.
The main issues raised were:

• That it needed more performance- in particular, focus on the lead singer
• There should be more UV at the end
• The narrative doesn't get resolved in a clear enough fashion

After getting this feedback, we made sure to do each suggested comment. We resolved the ending by having a quick flashback montage, intertwined with the final kiss. This, we felt, tied the narrative up in a more understandable way, and also eradicated the problem we were having with space after the final drop as the jump cuts between crucial moments were brief yet held a lot of information. The space that then appeared because of this briefer ending was then filled with more UV. In the middle section of the video, the narrative isn't as important, so we decided that this was a good place to add more performance so wherever possible we included close ups of each band member, especially our lead singer, Eoin.
As well as getting individuals to watch our video, we also had a department screening of all the videos, which meant that a multitude of people watched our video from both our primary audience and secondary, etc. We advertised this via posters, Facebook posts and a Facebook page, and a promo video:



After the screening we filmed this feedback:


The responses were pretty much what we expected, and we found that our primary audience generally enjoyed the video most. Special mention was made to the close-ups of Eoin and the UV, and the narrative progression. We felt that these were our strongest parts, so it was good to know that this was reflected in the response. If we had more time then we would have made sure that the middle section was stronger tied to the story and that the narrative ended in an even clearer fashion. This proved to be one of the hardest parts of the editing, as there wasn't much time after the drop to fit in all that we wanted to. We would have to think carefully of an inventive way to explain it, or reorder the shots.

Question 2: How effective is the combination of your main product and your ancillary tasks?

Throughout the design of our album cover and website, we made sure to relate the themes and visual motifs from our music video, creating a brand image. During our planning stage of the music video, we created a pitch of our ideas to present to an audience to get feedback. Here is a mood board of some of the ideas we discussed, and as you can see there is a recurring theme of symbolism, paganism, enigma and an underground feel to both our music and image.

We developed a logo that was then used in our music video as the background to our performance and in the UV on our lead singer's chest, on the website multiple times and the front of the album cover. The consistent use of the logo provides a visual motif recognised as a representation of our band.

Half way through post-production, we decided to collaborate with 'Influx', another group's artist creation of a similar genre. We produced this poster.

Promoting both our bands simultaneously, we felt that this symbiotic relationship was mutually beneficial and was a great example of a marketing plan used in the real music industry to further an artist's career and build an artist identity.

We developed a colour scheme of acid blue, white and black that ran consistently through our website and album cover. We also managed to incorporate it into our video during colour grading of the narrative where we added a blue tint to highlight the supernatural elements of the video but more relevantly to provide a consistency throughout our marketing and image development.
Our website is the heart of our entire project. We have both our album cover spread and music video on it, enabling our fans to access everything they need in one easy to use, efficient place.

Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The media product I have created is an underground, drum and bass, electro-rock band called The Storm including their debut video, album cover and website. To be able to construct a successful and consistent brand image we had to be aware of the conventions of our chosen genre in order to chose whether or not we would use, challenge or develop upon them.

Utilising Conventions of Real Media Products:

Developing and Challenging Conventions of Real Media Products:

Using Barthes Enigma Code

The main enigma throughout the video is present in the narrative. The whole narrative story is open to a certain amount of interpretation; we never specify the exact reason that the girl is stalking the boy, nor the reality of her character. As you can see, audience feedback gave mixed responses, but all adhered to our original idea of a boy battling with his past demons and then coming to grips with them and finding peace, symbolised by the switch in power then the kiss and fading of the girl at the end.

Album Cover

I feel that our album cover conforms to the conventions of drum and bass. As you can see by these examples, our logo is similar to many existing drum and bass logos, using an already established and identifiable modernistic style of font to appeal to fans of the genre, allowing them to recognise our band's genre without having to listen to the music. Hopefully this would create an interest for them, inciting them to check out the music. Our inside sleeves have pictures of each band member, with our lead singer taking up a whole cover. It is common to find the lead singer presented as a front man for the band, so we adhered to this convention, giving Eoin's picture more space. The track listing contains songs that we felt were reflective of our band's image. Natural, intense and enigmatic is exactly what we were trying to present.

Other conventions of album covers that we followed are:

The inclusion of a barcode, institutional information: record label logo/reference, copyright.

We decided to create our own record label, owned by Warner Bros, and named ourselves 'Pulse Records'. The logo was simple to make and looks professional. 

The Website

When designing our website, we aimed to focus strongly on the news updates of upcoming gigs. As drum and bass is a social genre of music, we felt it was important to present the opportunity to enjoy the music live as much as possible. This also adheres to our target market's needs and gratifications; a regular gig-goer, social, enjoys a good night out. As you can see from Nero's website, they have followed the same idea, strongly focusing on tour dates and upcoming gigs. Following conventions as we did for our video, we stuck to the presentation of live dates on our home page, just as Nero has done. As you can see, we also used the blue and black colour scheme shown in our other ancillary task, the album cover.

Our Website:

Screening of Final Video

Today we screened all of the department's music videos, and over 100 people turned up! I couldn't stop shaking and loads of people came up to our group afterwards to give amazingly positive feedback! Extremely exciting, and also suggestive of the success of our video.

The Facebook event to our screening

Performance Filming

This weekend we filmed the performance side to our video at Robbie's house. As I was the chief camera operator, I had to make sure that camera 1, filming the master shots, was correctly framed before filming simultaneously the handheld shots on camera 2. On day one I had help with filming, but on the second day I was filming alone. Unfortunately for me, during day 2 we filmed the strobe and smoke. This meant that at points I was having to operate the manual smoke machine, handheld strobe, a camera and was manually zooming. This has proved to be the hardest thing I have had to do yet, but hopefully we got some great footage.

We have planned to film the final performance footage on Wednesday. This will include all of the UV. Unfortunately I will not be able to be there as I have prior, important arrangements, however the boys seem certain that with a few runners, they will be able to get all the footage successfully.

Set Design

Our performance set has been completely finished and I am extremely excited about filming in it!
The set designing was a progressive mini project within our main one, and took a number of days.
Here are some pictures of us making the background:

Thank goodness we had our mate Olivia, an art student, to help us. She gave us the idea for making a stencil and directed and helped us make sure that we followed a successful method leaving enough time for paint to dry etc. so that not smudging occurred.

Chase Scene in Walthamstow

Yesterday we filmed the chase scene in Walthamstow. I would have to say that it was the most strenuous and tiring day of my entire year! My muscles are seriously aching and I ran even less than Robbie. It was easy getting to the location as it is 3 streets away from my house. When we got there though, we found a man DIYing his wall, right in the way of where we wanted to film. Obviously this freaked us out but was a good lesson; we now know to plan ahead more and plan for disruptions such as this. As it turned out, we were able to film the opening to our chase scene and then once we needed the area the man was in he had moved on so it didn't impact on our filming. The main issue we found in the end was that as the day wore on Robbie and me got increasingly tired and this impacted upon our acting/running. I'm not sure that some of the last shots will be usable as we were so shattered it was more of a stagger than a sprint.
Of course afterwards we all went to my house and had a well deserved cuppa!

Location Scouting

Today we location scouted and I realised how useful Google Maps street view was. While the boys were working on other parts of our project I spent about an hour on Google Maps and found about 7 different locations. As would be expected all of us had a couple of initial location ideas from around our area so we were able to quickly get up the location and evaluate the appropriateness of it. We decided upon a couple of places in Walthamstow near my house for the chase and Fox Lane near Robbie's house for the fight scene. Because the locations are so close to our houses it will be easy to move equipment and reduces the risk of being robbed as we don't have to walk around for ages.
Another focus of today was trying out the contacts and as this was the first time I'd ever used contacts I found it difficult and uncomfortable putting them in. However I wore them in for a bit and gradually got used to them.

Filming at Broomfield Park

Today we filmed our opening section in Broomfield Park.
A personal issue I found was trying to work out whether or not my hair satisfactorily covered my face so that the camera couldn't see my eyes without making it obvious that that was what I was trying to do. Watching recorded footage helped me judge this and meant that we were able to capture as realistic a shot as possible. We now need to decide where we are going to film the next section, so location scouting is top of our list of things to do at our next meeting.

Storyboarding

At the moment our group is focusing on storyboarding appropriate sections. Today we planned the first section of our music video, focusing only on narrative. We finished storyboarding the section we will film tomorrow and have planned the shooting schedule as well. We decided that the chase scene and performance sections of the video should not be filmed as it would be too hard to figure out the relevant shots so are going to film as much as possible from all angles when the time comes. We understand that this will mean that errors are probable and that we may have to re-film but we are ahead of schedule and are using Eoin's 2 cameras so booking equipment is not a problem for us.

Gender Representation

Through discussion as a group, it was established that gender representation is an important aspect of music videos, with the presentation of a particular singer or character influenced by their gender.

Women seem to be either presented as empowered, slightly feminist beings or contrastingly, objectified and used in videos. The objectification occurs in both female and male artist's videos. 

Men don't seem to face as much derogatory objectification, but are often presented as empowered or 'sexy'. This is often when they are the desired object of a woman or when the artist(s) are male. The only time men are usually presented in a negative light is when the video has some feminist/ empowered woman theme.

In Rihanna's music video, Take A Bow, she takes on the persona of an empowered woman who has just dumped her boyfriend after he has cheated on her. She is shown as strong and independent, and as having a moral high ground in comparison to the man. Throughout the video there are shots of Rihanna where she points at the camera is accusation, showing her authority over the man. She acts feisty when she moves, and stays upright and strong whilst the man is seen leaning against her front door and running behind her in her car. She doesn't objectify herself in the video but makes herself look attractive and desirable. She seems to have achieved a good balance in this respect.  

In Jason Derulo's video, Riding Solo, he plays a strong, independent male. He, like in Rihanna's video, has just become single though the reason why is never told. He conforms to the stereotypical alpha male, and throughout the video he sues cars and girls to highlight his masculinity and make him look "cool" and desirable. This video seems to be a lot more shallow than Rihanna's which has deeper meanings of feminist power and deals with the post-break up situation.

Group Blog Transition

Now that we have a final idea and are in the planning stage of our project, our group has decided to mainly move away from our individual blogs onto the group blog to enable us to update and collaborate together in a smoother, more accessible fashion. I will still post updates and personal assessments of our progress but the majority of my work will be on the group blog. We will move back onto our individual blogs for our evaluations in December.

Intertextual References in Music Videos: Eminem

Eminem: Just Lose It

This video is a great example of intertextual referencing in music videos. As one of Eminem's spoof songs, it parodies many different musicians, films and TV shows and characters including Michael Jackson, MC Hammer Pee-wee Herman and Madonna. Controversial at the time, it mocks the issues and image of the artists he refers to.
In the video, Eminem dresses up as a number of people. He strongly parodies Michael Jackson and plays on the controversy surrounding him at the time the video was made involving child molestation and his court cases. Dancing in the style of MJ whilst dressed in a costume including a white glove on his right hand, the audience are able to immediately realise who he is parodying, enabling them to enjoy the video and song with more understanding. However, Michael Jackson was not happy with the representation of him and openly said that he was "very angry at Eminem's depiction of [him] in his video".

His reference to Pee-wee Herman is an older one, and this would appeal more to an older audience who perhaps watched or are aware of who Pee-wee Herman is. He strongly references him in the video, including his signature shout in the chorus. Already known as a comical figure, the exploitation of Herman’s humour was successful and would have been nostalgic for older audiences.  

The combination of comical celebrities and references mixed with more serious performers such as Madonna meant that the video received mixed reviews, and took a lot of criticism from fans of some of the artists and by other celebrities. Banned on MTV, this was an excellent marketing scheme that meant hype was generated around the video and more people were inclined to watch it to see what the fuss was about. Eminem has used this tactic before on such videos and songs as Ass Like That and Without You where he parodies a large number of celebrities and has guest stars appear within it and the image that he portrays them as is insulting or scandalous.

The audience for the One Show within the video is of a much older age range which highlights the older intertextual references within the video such as Pee-wee Herman and MC Hammer. Although not very old, the references could have been lost on Eminem’s younger, primary audience of late teenagers. This meant that he was appealing to a wider audience thus increasing the interest in his music. Another musician he parodies is Madonna. The reaction of the audience within the video to his parody of her is of shock and distaste as he plays on her own sexualisation of herself on a more grotesque level. There is more of a shock at parodying her due to the lack of humour in her own work in comparison to other celebrities such as Pee-wee, and his already jokey persona. The sexualisation is also different to Pee-wee’s obvious naivety and childish behaviour, so he accepts through the showing of the audience’s response that what he is rapping about can be taken negatively but that he is happy to do it anyway.

There is also a reference to Eminem’s own film, 8 Mile and another one of his music videos, Lose Yourself. At 2:26 there is a scene at an underground rap battle. This is a strong link to Eminem’s rise and start of his career whist also advertising his own film. We are able to see into his life as a rapper and how it started which connects the audience to him and satisfied the needs and gratifications of the audience by connecting them to him on a more personal level. He refers to a number of his other music videos within the music video and lyrics, “Shady’s back” is an exert from the lyrics of Without Me and “Girl you know you’re my world” is from Superman. For fans that know his music well, these links add another layer to his work and making them connect more with him as it gives a sense of knowing a joke that only his “true fans” can appreciate.

Other references/guest stars:

There is a reference to the film, Bad Santa throughout the video, and guest stars one of the actual cast from the film, Tony Cox, as the elf that he played in it.

Paris Hilton, Dr. Dre, Katie Cassidy and Alyson Stoner all make guest appearances.

Music Video Director: Sophie Muller

Sophie Muller has been directing music videos since 1982 and has worked with such artists as The Kings of Leon, Coldplay, Eurythmics, No Doubt and Blur.

Examples:
The Cure: The 13th
Blur: Beetlebum
Coldplay: Trouble
Sugababes: Freak Like Me
Dido: Life For Rent
The Killers: Mr Brightside

Visual Motifs:
Muller often works with the concept of a singer or band in a dark and isolated room

Blur: Beetlebum


As you can see in this video, the majority of the video is set in one room with focus on the band using close ups in a performance based style. There is not much diversion from the band, and there isn't much of a concept other than this. The simplicity works in giving the band complete focus and playing on the attractiveness of the lead singer. In the comments on youtube, this point is made a number of times.

Analysis of Website: One Direction

Interactive Opportunities

Go behind the scenes with One Direction at Lakeside video

Follow on Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Rss

Change language/ Country of site

View releases

Sign up for newsletter

View events they have been to and upcoming events

View pictures of band as a group, individually, fan art and press gallery

View tour dates and their locations

Opportunity to comment on different pages of site

Link to SYCO Sony website

News feed updating progress within charts

Behind the scenes video

Updated countdown to video release – each day a different band member made a short video

Competitions:

Win a copy of Dare to Dream

Link to another site to play a game to win VIP tickets + a customised handset with exclusive One Direction features

Air miles- Bring One Direction to me – chance for fans to get One Direction to go to their country by taking One Direction themed photos and posting them for a vote – Link to Tumblr

Purchasing Opportunities

Personalised Gift Prints

Can buy One Direction hoodies, posters, pendants, accessories,, calendars, t-shirts, mugs – different designs of t-shirt and hoodies

Pre-order One Direction handsets

Also opportunity to change the currency to buy products

Music and Me

Childhood: Jonathan Richman and The Modern Lovers - Abominable Snowman in the Market

I chose this song because as a child it used to be one of my favourite tracks that my dad used to play in the car on his cassette player. I remember dancing and singing along to it with him and the enjoyment of listening to a song that we both loved. At this point in my life I had not yet developed any music taste of my own, so the way I consumed and learnt about music was through my parents.

Pre-teens: Atomic Kitten - Whole Again

I chose this next song as it was reflective of my first music taste: 90s pop music. I was into girl bands such as Destiny’s Child, The Spice Girls and Atomic Kitten. Atomic Kitten’s first album was the first CD I owned and so this seems to be a stepping stone in the development of my interaction with music. At this point I was also developing an interest in more than just the music; I loved the image the girls had and aspired to be like the lead singer, Natasha. I collected the Spice Girls book abut their lives and had a favourite singer in the Spice Girls too: Baby Spice. At this point I wasn't aware of music videos however, so finding this video to the song was the first time I had been aware of it; exciting!

Teenage years- Present

Nowadays I feel much more confident in my music taste and consume over multiple platforms and have a much wider knowledge on genres and branches of my taste. I chose this song as it is one that I have been listening to a lot recently and includes one of my favourite artists at the moment: Eminem. The development from poppy music to rap is quite an extreme one but Eminem’s music really resonates with me. I think that he appeals to the teenage market through his rap about life angst and issues he has. Regardless of what mood I’m in, I can always listen to his work and know all the lyrics to my favourite songs. I consume much more than just the music from artists I like now through research into their past music, their early careers and through the spreading of music via friends interested in similar music to me. Music has become much more defining to me, influencing how I dress and who I hang around with in part.

Song Research

Song Ideas

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcMAM9B7yAA&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sz3AL5w1Rfs&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RaLEVmuM4o&feature=relmfu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWrMGXwhFLk&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Un5w_Lt2EV8&feature=relmfu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeV2cExvnMI&feature=relmfu

Inspiration

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XC2mqcMMGQ&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OsTUnkqSi4&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xat1GVnl8-k&feature=relmfu

http://youtube/QJ8TzuqpSQs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3lWbPEOJp0&feature=related

Analysis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6FWtRfdnN4&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziR2EaQOSjU&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTh9IuSTOY0&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_uDoTmokUM&feature=relmfu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJ8TzuqpSQs&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

Album Cover Research

The album cover I chose was Bloodhound Gang's, Hefty Fine

There is only one image used, and it's of a fat naked man in a box. The image fills the whole cover and therefore the image is much more alarming and grabs the attention of the viewer. The colour theme of it is a white skin tone to correlate with the man and box he is in.

The back cover has the same colour themes of the front, and made to look like the side of a wooden crate, but there are no other images. The track list is made to look as though it is a packing information sticker so that the complete album cover looks as though it is a wooden box with a man inside it. The

text used correlates with the packaging theme, making the cover much more realistic to the theme.

The simplistic design of the cover is effective through the consistency of the theme over the front and back and it's humour. It appeals to the market of the band and their image as they use lots of gross and sexual imagery within their music. They are not a serious band and their fans would appreciate the

humour of the album cover. Without listening to the music, someone that sees the album cover will recognise the content of the music, and I think that this is an effective decision of behalf of the designers as it means that people won't buy the album unaware of the content and get offended by the lyrics.

The front of the album draws in a potential audience of people interested in humorous, rude music, whilst the back further reiterates the type of music it is through the titles of the tracks. Songs with names such as "Farting With A Walkman On" indicate the humour of the album and again will stop people from

buying the music unaware of the content. The album is upfront and direct which I think is important with the tracks that are on it to avoid offence.

 

The Prelim Evaluation

1. Did you enjoy the workshop day? What were your best bits and why?

I did enjoy the workshop. I found that the day was catered to be as close to a normal shoot as possible so it meant that I was able to imagine and experience a real shoot properly with all the hitches, issues and time constraints that they usually would have. I found that time was the biggest issue on the day; not just for me waking up at 5:45 in the morning, but through following the shoot schedule and trying to get everything filmed in time regardless of shots and props going wrong. My favourite part of the day was probably near the end when there were just a few more individual shots to be done. Everyone was aware that we were nearly finished so the final spurt of enthusiasm and excitement ended the day really nicely even though it had been a strenuous and self-consuming 12 hour shoot.

2. What did you learn from participating in the workshop?

I learnt that to have a successful day and to end in good spirits everyone involved has to be completely enthused with the shoot and be eager to participate in any way that they can. When the extras arrived and one of them was unmotivated and quite negative about the effort needed, I saw the contrast between us and how different the day would have been had we all not thrown ourselves into the action.

3. Are you pleased with the footage and your edit? Is it how you expected it to look?

I am extremely pleased with the footage and the edit. It was surprising how many shots were given to us to edit, and how varied each one was. Finding the right shots to match the feel of the video was a large consumer of our time and this process was a learning curve regarding the editing profession. The colour grading was the most frustrating part of the edit and editing each individual shot became quite monotonous and boring. I found that this is something that I should probably get some more experience in as the colour grading controls confused me. By the end I was extremely happy with the final footage and it was the best final product that I could have expected.

4. How do you think your workshop experiences will impact on your approach to next term's music video coursework?

I think next term I will come to the music video topic with a lot more confidence and enthusiasm to experiment with my ideas, and work out how I want to develop my ideas through collaborating with other people on the course. However, with the confidence I have gained through this workshop, I am also more aware of the time constraints present and the practicalities around location, equipment and the final footage. Through the workshop though, I learnt about improvising on original ideas to get something similar but easier to produce, and I think that this will be beneficial when producing my final video.

The Re-Edit

For the re-edit we were required to take the raw footage from the original 5ive video and put it back together to re-make the final product they used. I worked on my own for this task, but got help and tips from Eoin when I struggled with finding shots and in getting the footage completely synched to the original. Through working on my own most of the time I came to understand the time consummation that editing takes up and the support that working in a team gives you.

During the re-edit I found that the hardest part to be getting the frames exactly to the original video. I found that the best way round this was to start from the end of the sequence and work my way back. However, this isn’t something that I can do when we have only the rough footage so I’m glad that for half of the re-edit I worked from the beginning and tried to challenge myself through doing it the way I found hardest that was closest to the real way of editing.

The Lip-Synch

I would like to be the girl in black because I feel that this corresponds with my usual dress so I will feel most comfortable with this role.

Meeting The Director: Jake Wynne

On Friday 24th June Jake Wynne, a British Director, visited our Media class to talk about getting into the music industry and his own experience of that while also advising us on our music videos next year. As the director of our practice music video, 5ive's 'Everybody Get Up', it was also important to meet him and for him to introduce us to the way he directs and what he was to expect of us.

Throughout his talk, Jake gave an incredibly insightful look into the industry, in particular the direction and work surrounding music videos. He told us about the need for a particular amount of beauty shots within a music video and we were able to understand the science behind the shot. He explained the uses of a music video, not only used as a visual aid to an artist's song, but also as a promotion of both the artist's music and image.

Analyse a Music Video

Top 10


1 - Instant impact!
Close up of her face, when the vocals start her eyes flick up to face the viewer.

Striking costume – red hair with gold headband and blue dress.

Her hair contrasts to her dancers – 2 have dark hair 2 have blonde – her in middle with bright red hair

2 - Non-linear editing

Cuts between her on floor in black dress head close to camera arms outstretched – very striking setup, her focal point - her in group in blue robe/dress dancing with other dancers as a group, same costumes used twice – one with her dancing/singing on her own then in a group. Quick fast paced editing between the shots 

Different costumes in each scenario

3 - Repetitions
 only a few setups used throughout the video and many close ups of her face in individual scenarios whereas as a group there tends to be wider shots used zooming in and out ... repeated use of costumes in different setups.

Repetitive use of same shots and setups but another setup in a passage is introduced in the middle where Florence gets quite a few close-ups/ beauty shots/ individual screen time before it goes back to using more group-dancing again.
4 - Strong sense of artist identity
introduces her musical sound and the title highlights her style

Her hair is used as a definitive feature of her image and is complimented and accentuated throughout the video

The dance style coheres with her music and the feel of the video gives a taste of her music

No separate narrative that draws attention away from her and her performance throughout the piece – solely focused on her

5 - A Performance

there is a lot of dancing within the video, with her on her own and then her with other dancers. There isn’t a particular narrative within the video, it follows her singing in different locations to the camera while dancing, so the whole video is a performance by her to the viewer which is much more intimate and draws them into her more personally than a separate narrative would have done.
her movements throughout also highlighted worship – hands held in prayer – dancing as a group – pagan influence shown

6 - Visual Pleasures

 Colour of outfits and presentation of them very bold and quite pagan/ spiritual

The space used was an empty church I believe, and the space was taken advantage of with the wide open rooms and archways shown, highlighting the beautiful architecture

Very spiritual feel to video created through the visuals

7 - Wow Factor!

The outfits and space used were very important in giving the video its wow factor as it relied heavily on the performance and space as they only used one building and different parts of it so had to make each setup look individual and interesting in its own right

Her presentation of herself as a sort of priestess was visually exciting and beautiful, and the serene sort of connotations of prayer were juxtaposed with the heaver use of drums in the music that increasingly made the video more ritualistic and animalistic in its nature which keeps the viewer interested as there is a hint of a lack of control that manifests itself through the music and visuals collaborated together  

8 - Provoke a reaction

The video provokes a reaction in the sense that her music and her other videos are all heavily influenced by paganism and ritual, and this seems to be quite uncommonly used in many artist’s videos, so makes hers unique. The stereotypes and connotations around these kind of ideas would also help develop her image as an artist and person, and people’s attitudes to her would be influenced by the video in a way that the music on its own may not have done.

9 - Works on different levels

The video works on different levels by giving the viewer an opportunity to distance themselves from their everyday lives and be transported into this quite surreal world created in this otherwise empty cathedral-like building.

10 - Pop Culture

I think the religious symbolism is common imagery within many modern mediums, and is being utilised by many artists. For example Lady Gaga is also branching into religious iconography and lyrical content and an expression of faith is becoming increasingly popular at the moment.