Monday, 30 November 2015
Tuesday, 24 November 2015
Wednesday, 4 November 2015
Tuesday, 3 November 2015
Editing Update 5 - Widescreen Bars
To increase the atmosphere and professionalism of the product, I have added two bars to the top and bottom of the picture to give the product a widescreen effect. This was an easy process as I downloaded a widescreen filter image from the internet and applied it over the footage in Final Cut Pro. This lasts throughout the entire video and in my opinion improves the overall look of the video.
Editing Update 4 - Stabilisation
In the First Cut off my product, the camera shakes in many of the shots as I used mainly handheld shots in the First Cut which created a shaking motion. In the feedback I received many people said that in order for the cinematography to look better, I would need to either re-shoot everything with a tripod or to enable the stabilisation in editing which would automatically make the handheld shots look smoother. I chose Stabilisation as it was the easier option, and after about an hour the cinematography in my opinion looked much better.
Wednesday, 14 October 2015
Tuesday, 13 October 2015
Copyright Claim - Third Party Content
After uploading my first cut, my video received a Copyright Claim by UMG (Universal Music Group) and SME (Sony Music Entertainment) who claimed the rights to the song. The video can still be viewed however, the only penalty being that I cannot make money off of the video.
To combat this happening again, I have contacted these two groups via Twitter and have asked for their permission to upload further videos featuring this song and a awaiting replies.
Editing Update 2 - Colour Filter
To help the audience to distinguish when the story is taking place. As I am presenting a non-linear narrative; the audience could easily get confused and not know which part of the story they are watching. Therefore, I have kept the moments in the narrative that are taking place in the present in colour, and I have edited the past moments of the narrative to look black and white, as these colours are commonly used as the colour scheme for flashbacks in media.
Editing Update 1 - Re-timing
Whilst editing my product, I have been forced to retime about 70% of the shots as the times I gave them in the shooting script did not match up with the intended point in the song, this will likely mean that I will have to produce and up to date shooting script with the updated shot durations so that they correctly match up with the times in the video.
Wednesday, 7 October 2015
Sunday, 20 September 2015
Requesting Permission
The original UK rights to the song "Little Green Bag" were owned by the British record label "Penny Farthing Records". Unfortunately, Penny Farthing closed their doors in the late 1970s and it is currently unknown who owns the rights to the song. Because of this I am unable to request permission from a record label to use the song. This could be a very risky move as using the song could violate certain copyright laws, however hopefully the age of the song and the lack of a record label to contact will make the need to request permission slightly flexible for my product.
Tuesday, 14 July 2015
Friday, 3 July 2015
Lyrical Analysis
Tuesday, 30 June 2015
Final Choice
After pitching my potential ideas to the class I have decided to create a music video for George Baker's 'Little Green Bag'. This is mainly due to the feedback I received form my classmates. My original intention was to create a music video for George Ezra's 'Blame it on Me' as it was my favourite song of all. However, the feedback I received told me that my idea for the video would have been too similar to the original video which I agreed with and decided to cover the song that had no previous music video, making mine one of the most original. I also chose to cover this song as it has a very simple story and would be very easy for me to adapt and create my own narrative within the music video, whereas the other two songs had a much more ambiguous narrative. Sometimes the easier way, is the better way.
Pitch Feedback
The general consensus from my feedback was split as the people who viewed my presentation thought that I should either choose George Ezra's "Blame it On Me" or George Baker's "Little Green Bag". Sam Smith's "Money on My Mind" was not mentioned at all in the feedback, which I see as an implication that I should not choose that song. After analyzing the George Ezra video, many people thought that I should not pursue that idea as the narrative of the video almost matches the idea of a narrative I had. I admit that I may have been mislead by the video into thinking that I was coming up with my own idea. However, many people thought that I should choose the George Baker idea as the song has not had a music video as it was released in the 60s, so I would have a good opportunity to come up with a really original idea for a narrative.
Monday, 29 June 2015
Thursday, 25 June 2015
Music Video Analysis
Michael Jackson - Beat It
Michael Jackson's Beat It is a rock song from 1983. This music video definitely contains most of the genre characteristics of Rock such as gangs, violence and contains a cast mainly made up of men who Rock is aimed at. There is a subtle relationship between the visuals and the lyrics as the narrative of the song is that you should stay away from gangs, from my point of me the dreary visuals of the video is an attempt to say to the viewer "this is what will happen if you join a gang" making this video more of a gang deterrent which is to be expected seen as gangs were very popular in the 80s. The majority of the video features multiple close ups of Michael Jackson in an unspecified role who only interacts with the characters in a dance number at the climax of the video. There is not much much inappropriate treatment of the female body as female characters only feature at the start of the video as girlfriends of the gangsters who look mistreated by from my view is not the stereotypical representation of women in music videos.
Mark Ronson - Uptown Funk
Uptown Funk is a pop song from 2014 written by Mark Ronson and perfromed by Bruno Mars. This music video displays many of the pop genre characteristics by including vibrant colours, urban life and trendy clothing. There is no real narrative in the video as the song is simply about a man and his friends living in the American Suburbs and looking for women to flirt with. As there is no real narrative, the entire features Mars and a group of backup singers dancing in the street and perfroming random activities which in my opinion makes the video slightly boring. As the song is about flirt with women, it may be expected that the video would include erotic women; however surprisingly there is not a large presence of any erotic or voyeristic women in the video a t all. There are several intertextual references during the song which is not very surprising as the song is mainly about pop culture.
Sugar - Maroon 5
Sugar is a pop rock song from 2014 by Maroon 5. It contains many of the pop characteristics such as exotic locations and bright colours, however not many characteristics of the rock genre. This is acceptable as the footage for the video was from unscripted events, therefore there would have been no way for there to be any certain characteristics shoehorned into the video. There is a strong link between the visuals and the lyrics as the song is about love and romance, and the video was filmed at several weddings. Love and Wedding probably have one of the strongest links in the music and film industry, making this a somewhat unoriginal romantic song. There is not voyeristic treatment of the female body in this video as previously said: the footage for this video was unscripted and there are no intertextual references either in the lyrics or the video. This shows that this video meets a small amount of the Goodwin Theory criteria and is a more unique video.
Michael Jackson's Beat It is a rock song from 1983. This music video definitely contains most of the genre characteristics of Rock such as gangs, violence and contains a cast mainly made up of men who Rock is aimed at. There is a subtle relationship between the visuals and the lyrics as the narrative of the song is that you should stay away from gangs, from my point of me the dreary visuals of the video is an attempt to say to the viewer "this is what will happen if you join a gang" making this video more of a gang deterrent which is to be expected seen as gangs were very popular in the 80s. The majority of the video features multiple close ups of Michael Jackson in an unspecified role who only interacts with the characters in a dance number at the climax of the video. There is not much much inappropriate treatment of the female body as female characters only feature at the start of the video as girlfriends of the gangsters who look mistreated by from my view is not the stereotypical representation of women in music videos.
Mark Ronson - Uptown Funk
Uptown Funk is a pop song from 2014 written by Mark Ronson and perfromed by Bruno Mars. This music video displays many of the pop genre characteristics by including vibrant colours, urban life and trendy clothing. There is no real narrative in the video as the song is simply about a man and his friends living in the American Suburbs and looking for women to flirt with. As there is no real narrative, the entire features Mars and a group of backup singers dancing in the street and perfroming random activities which in my opinion makes the video slightly boring. As the song is about flirt with women, it may be expected that the video would include erotic women; however surprisingly there is not a large presence of any erotic or voyeristic women in the video a t all. There are several intertextual references during the song which is not very surprising as the song is mainly about pop culture.
Sugar - Maroon 5
Sugar is a pop rock song from 2014 by Maroon 5. It contains many of the pop characteristics such as exotic locations and bright colours, however not many characteristics of the rock genre. This is acceptable as the footage for the video was from unscripted events, therefore there would have been no way for there to be any certain characteristics shoehorned into the video. There is a strong link between the visuals and the lyrics as the song is about love and romance, and the video was filmed at several weddings. Love and Wedding probably have one of the strongest links in the music and film industry, making this a somewhat unoriginal romantic song. There is not voyeristic treatment of the female body in this video as previously said: the footage for this video was unscripted and there are no intertextual references either in the lyrics or the video. This shows that this video meets a small amount of the Goodwin Theory criteria and is a more unique video.
Andrew Goodwin's Theory
Andrew Goodwin's theory about music videos:
- Music Videos demonstrate their genre's characteristics
- There is a relationship between the visuals, and the lyrics and music.
- Lots of close ups of the artists.
- Voyeristic treatment of the female body.
- Intertextual reference (i.e. film, television, literature...)
This will give me an idea as to how I should direct my music video, and what themes and characteristics I should include in my video. I think I would prefer to ignore this theory to make my video more unconventional, however it will depend on what song I will cover.
Tuesday, 23 June 2015
Working Groups
In the A2 media project, I have decided to work alone and independently. This was only partly my decision as I previously wanted to work with my group, however all the people from my AS group wanted to work with different people in A2 and anyone else in the class wanted to work alone. At first, I felt very worried about working on my own as I do not have as much experience in media as many other of my classmates. But after a while I began to realise that I could prove a lot more by working alone and I will be able to develop my understanding of all areas of media including filming and editing. This will mean that I will hold all the responsibilities of planning, researching, filming and editing and will mean that I will need to spend much more time focusing on this project than I did in AS. Based on my experiences in AS, it is better for me to work alone as I often begin conflicting with others in my group and do not do as much work as I should.
Outline of A2 Work
This task requires me to do three main things:
- Create a Music Video to accompany my chosen song/track
- Produce a DigiPak Album Cover that will be placed into the box with the disc containing the song
- Making an advertisement that will market the song
I am looking forward to creating the music video as I never got the opportunity to really test my filming and editing abilities at AS, but I do not intend to make the same mistake again. I would like to push these abilities to the limit and I feel that this is the perfect opportunity to do so. I am also looking forward to filming the product as being able to direct my own film is something I've always been interested in and I feel that as I will be working on my own I will be able to film it how I would like it and have no-one to tell me otherwise.
I would like to work within the genre of pop. As I do not listen to a lot of music, I feel that this would be best suited for me to cover the most because it is arguably the most general and well known genre in the music industry. In terms of artists the first person that came to mind was George Ezra as he is one of my favourite artists and I feel that I could do a music video over his songs very easily. Other music that came to my mind were songs specifically created for films, however I felt that this would be too difficult to do without directly using footage from the film.
I would like to work within the genre of pop. As I do not listen to a lot of music, I feel that this would be best suited for me to cover the most because it is arguably the most general and well known genre in the music industry. In terms of artists the first person that came to mind was George Ezra as he is one of my favourite artists and I feel that I could do a music video over his songs very easily. Other music that came to my mind were songs specifically created for films, however I felt that this would be too difficult to do without directly using footage from the film.
Tuesday, 16 June 2015
Reflection on AS Work
I believe that my AS work had many strengths to it. I think that I expressed my presentational and imaginative skills well. As one of my key hobbies is the Film Industry, I consider myself to have a wide set of knowledge of the Thriller Genre and attempted to transfer that into our product. The biggest strength was our ability to give our product the correct tone in order to call it a Thriller product. This was shown through the dark colours and saturated background alone with the fast paced and erie soundtrack which enhanced the feel of the product.
One major thing that we could have improved was the amount of filming that we did. When filming, we were forced to have one lone group member film several shots without the rest of the group being there which takes away from the teamwork aspect of the process and puts too much weight on one person's shoulders. I think that I was myself at several points putting myself before the group and the project as I left halfway through filming to attend to personal matters meaning that my group suffered somewhat for this. We could have improved this by meeting up about twice as much as we did and filming all the footage for the film together. this would have increased the quality of the product much more and also our team work skills.
We did not use all equipment to its full potential. The elephant in the room is the fact that we attempted to use a boom microphone during filming to increase the quality of the sound, however we forgot to turn it on an ended up with no sound to accompany the footage. This was a massive format that could have made our product much better, but did not due to simple human error. However, I do think that we used the Adobe Premier Pro to its full potential as we used a wide variety of effects and formats to enhance our product's quality such as transitions, colour correction and ghosting. an example of this is how we used red colour correcting to create blood on a characters hand as the makeup we used for it did not have much effect. This helped massively as it increased the look and effect of the blood on the character's hand.
Finally, I enjoyed the blogging section to the coursework when I was on top of things and up to date on my work as I had little to nothing to worry about and had less work to do at one time. But when I was behind and had several posts to do I found it frustrating and stressful, however I managed to catch up after spending many hours on it. In my A2 I plan to avoid this issue through the entirety by completing all posts when they are set, but this may be an issue for the fist 2-4 weeks as my Personal Laptop is being repaired, so I will need to use college computers to complete blog posts in my spare time.
One major thing that we could have improved was the amount of filming that we did. When filming, we were forced to have one lone group member film several shots without the rest of the group being there which takes away from the teamwork aspect of the process and puts too much weight on one person's shoulders. I think that I was myself at several points putting myself before the group and the project as I left halfway through filming to attend to personal matters meaning that my group suffered somewhat for this. We could have improved this by meeting up about twice as much as we did and filming all the footage for the film together. this would have increased the quality of the product much more and also our team work skills.
We did not use all equipment to its full potential. The elephant in the room is the fact that we attempted to use a boom microphone during filming to increase the quality of the sound, however we forgot to turn it on an ended up with no sound to accompany the footage. This was a massive format that could have made our product much better, but did not due to simple human error. However, I do think that we used the Adobe Premier Pro to its full potential as we used a wide variety of effects and formats to enhance our product's quality such as transitions, colour correction and ghosting. an example of this is how we used red colour correcting to create blood on a characters hand as the makeup we used for it did not have much effect. This helped massively as it increased the look and effect of the blood on the character's hand.
Finally, I enjoyed the blogging section to the coursework when I was on top of things and up to date on my work as I had little to nothing to worry about and had less work to do at one time. But when I was behind and had several posts to do I found it frustrating and stressful, however I managed to catch up after spending many hours on it. In my A2 I plan to avoid this issue through the entirety by completing all posts when they are set, but this may be an issue for the fist 2-4 weeks as my Personal Laptop is being repaired, so I will need to use college computers to complete blog posts in my spare time.
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