Location, Location, Location

When we were thinking of where to film our music video we decided to go to somewhere with good scenery and lots of woods to film in.

Below are some photos of Ashton court of where we've already filmed around half of our footage at.

We really liked the simplistic beauty of this area and and the views over bristol it offered. 

These are some pictures of what Ashton Court looks like when you are by the mansion house, it's quite high up on land and allows a really lovely view over part of Bristol. It also was really great in giving us a really great light to work with as the evening progressed, as well as the day being super sunny and bright. 





Some location idea's were...

- Ashton court
- Brandon Hill
- Someones house

Trying out a time-lapse

Over the summer I borrowed my cousins Go Pro to film some of our holiday that we went on, I found that there was a time-lapse setting on the go pro. Me and Anna looked up what some types of video you can get with the time-lapse, we thought that it would be a really nice intro and outro to have in our music video.

I tested it out one afternoon to see what our of outcome would come out.

Unfortunately, I had it on the wrong setting and for 1 hour it only produced 3 seconds worth of footage, also it missed the whole point of capturing the sunset.

I had it on the setting got take one frame every 30 seconds, which in total didn't give music of a time lapse feel.

Next time we are going to try it out with the setting for every 5 seconds to take a frame, to give us more footage to work with as well as capturing more of the sunset.

Even though it was on the wrong setting we both still liked how the clip moved, with the clouds and the sun going down. Luckily by my house there is a hill where you can see quite far out, me and Anna began to consider whether it would be better to use this setting for the go pro shot. 

Mind mapping some first idea's

Here are some first idea's we had when listened to our song and discussed possible ideas that we could do in our video.



We then printed the lyrics and tried to annotate them to see what shots would look good in certain places, also synchronising the lyrics and the visuals on screen. 


(insert lyrics)


What type of music video do we want our to be?

I think at the moment we are edging toward a more conceptual music video, we want our to be really quite abstract with clips that DO make correlation together but not in a story narrative feel. We still 

Want a link to the song and its lyrics so it'll also be a mix of an amplification music video. 

Audience Research : Before production, forming idea's

From our Questionnaire we had 10 replies, so we created pie charts and graphs of some of the certain questions! 

We hope that the results help us plan more for our video and give us a good idea of what the audience want. 

This was a really good result, as we think that our video is going to be quite jumbled (on purpose) and sketchy, as we believe it goes with the strange, fun and different lyrics!

This is useful to know as we can assess from the 10 people who answered (and were aged between 14-18) that they majority watch pop music videos, with indie being the second most watched. 

A down fall is that we didn't get any older views which could inhibit how much our music video appeals to a larger population

This answer is again useful as it gives us a view of how many people would be interested in watching music videos and the music video we created. 

Audience Research : Questionaire

I decided to write out a questionnaire to be able to find out more about the audience that we may be targeting in our music video as well as some other age groups. A list of 10 questions were requested to be filled out so we could get some more information on the audience and what others opinions are of music videos in general.

These were the questions

Music Video Questionaire 

1. Which age bracket do you fall into? (circle)

10-15                16-20                21-30               31-40              41-50

2. What is your favourite genre of music?

3. Who is your current favourite music artist? 

4. Why?

5. Do you ever watch music videos?

6. What aspects of a music video do you like? And WHY do you like these aspects? 

e.g. shots, transitions, location, pace, meaning, purpose etc.

7. What was the last music video you watched?

8. What do you think is typical to see in a music video?

9. Do you think having a story based music video with sketchy and random shots is interesting to see in a music video?

10. What is your favourite music video?

*************************************************************

Analysing a music video #3 Nick Cave & Kylie Mingue - Where The Wild Roses Grow

In the video for "where the wild roses grow"  we see that the shots all have a vintage dark sort of feel, possibly foreshadowing the sort of death in the video.

The colours really add a vintage feel to the whole video and make it seem older. There is also a link toward the lyrics and the visuals as almost the whole songs lyrics are shown on screen, the song speaks of a murder type situation by the river and speak often of nature aspects being roses. A motif used throughout is the roses- they're a sign of love and the song does have a love aspect to it.

There are lots of close ups shots of the artist Kylie, which is stated to be a feature of music videos by Andrew Goodwin to draw in audiences as they want to see the artist.

Here Kylie is given a mid close up shot this is also stated to be a feature of the notion of looking and a voyeuristic treatment of the female body by Andrew Goodwin. She is viewed in a dreamy floaty way, showing off her beauty with the contrast of her striking hair colour and the pinks of her lips and flowers. The paleness of her almost draws attention to her lips as they're very prominent.

There are lots of establishing shots showing the scenery and an almost hidden effect making the audience feeling like they're spying on the people in the video. As Steve Neale stated the audience can tell what genre this music video is by the slow tempo, pale colure, and dream like features.

A leo like the UGT theory states the video provides an escape for the audience as it feel like they're watching and possibly interrupting on a deep love story. There is a narrative story throughout which the audience can watch and understand as well through the lyrics, this is stated to be a key feature by Carol Vernallis.

Lyrics

"Where The Wild Roses Grow"
(feat. Kylie Minogue)

They call me The Wild Rose
But my name was Elisa Day
Why they call me it I do not know
For my name was Elisa Day 
From the first day I saw her I knew she was the one
She stared in my eyes and smiled
For her lips were the colour of the roses
That grew down the river, all bloody and wild 
When he knocked on my door and entered the room
My trembling subsided in his sure embrace
He would be my first man, and with a careful hand
He wiped at the tears that ran down my face 
[Chorus]
On the second day I brought her a flower
She was more beautiful than any woman I'd seen
I said, "Do you know where the wild roses grow
So sweet and scarlet and free?" 
On the second day he came with a single red rose
Said: "Will you give me your loss and your sorrow"
I nodded my head, as I lay on the bed
He said, "If I show you the roses, will you follow?" 
[Chorus]
On the third day he took me to the river
He showed me the roses and we kissed
And the last thing I heard was a muttered word
As he knelt (stood smiling) above me with a rock in his fist 
On the last day I took her where the wild roses grow
And she lay on the bank, the wind light as a thief
And I kissed her goodbye, said, "All beauty must die"
And lent down and planted a rose between her teeth 
[Chorus]

Analysing a music video #2 Vance Joy - Riptide

Also after watching Vance Joys, 'Riptide', I noticed that it was very emphasising on the relationship between the lyrics and the visual that were being shown. 

This video is very based off of Andrew Goodwin's music principles of lyrics to visuals.

For example 'You're the magician's assistant in their dream' showed a card and some type of trick being made. 

Again another lyric was 'Lady, running down to the riptide' and showed a lady running then switched to a clip of an actual riptide in the water.

There is a firm correlation between both the lyrics and what we are seeing on screen, this is something that me and Anna want to do with our music video but only in certain lines in our song.

It's very effective in keeping the audience wanting to see what type of shot they've used for the particular lyric!

Analysing a Music Video #1 Lana Del Rey - Summertime sadness

I decided to do an analysis on Lana Del Rey one of my favourite music artists, I'm a huge fan of her music and already know a lot of background info about there and have listened to all her songs (I'm a tad super fan)!

Summertime Sadness is the song I'm picking apart and analysing for inspiration for our own music video.

Lana's known often for a vintage olden style to her videos, I think for this video she used a film camera or a super 8 camera to create the old sketchy look, she likes her videos to be really artistic and show who she is as a person. Having close ups is a really big part of music videos as this is what the audience want to see - Andrew Goodwin.

There are quite a few establishing shots of where they filmed and natural aspects, the whole video is very artistic with the shots. 

The video has very quite slow shots that can be quite dramatic, like this shot where she just falls off the end of the cliff. As Carol stated the shots can be quite extreme flicking from on thing to another. 

The colours seem to be generic throughout the video with their being lots of yellows and reds with lots of light glares throughout.The song is called 'summertime sadness' so it does have a sort of nostalgic and sad feel to it with a lot of looking back shots.

The video does show a type of narrative storyline to it, with two characters and a sort of plot with both of them in. There seems to be something quite sad between them now with the other girl looking , the video would fall into an illustrative video as it seems to be about love, friendship or loss but is unclear. It seems as though it is a nostalgic video/song remembering someone they met in their summer of someone the loved and loved in a certain summer of a year.

Close ups of the artist are very popular with the audience as they want to see them stated by Andrew Goodwin. Lana has a very vintage 1950's/60's style which the audience enjoy to see, with her eye makeup and big beehive hair being a statement among her early work. Lana also tends to make eye contact with the camera creating this connection between her and the audience. 

Other Music videos - To give inspiration

These are some music videos I found and enjoyed watching so I thought it would be good to document them as they may be useful in mapping our ideas and drawing thoughts from them.

Alt-J - Breezeblocks

Vance Joy - Riptide

Jaden Smith - Scarface

Sea Oleena -  Milk (this was her official music video for this song)

Bon Iver -  Holocene

Sia - Chandelier 

Florence and the Machine - Rabbit heart

Lana Del Rey - Freak 

This was only a starting point for us when we first listened to Sea Oleena's song, we spoke about other music videos we enjoyed a liked, mapping them on this blog post. I also put a few of my own favourites in here, one being Lana del rey's artistic visuals.

The Song chosen and a bit about her music

These are the lyrics of the song we are making a music video on below, the song is called 'Untitled' and is sung by Sea Oleena...

There's a shadow in the door-frame 

With a hunger for the highway 

The poison from the bee sting 

The mirrors on the ceiling 

The thunder and the lightning 

The hibernating heart sings out 

And I shake the hand of the seamstress 

Pinning up the clouds like patches 

A little bit blue around the edges 

Hanging all the quilts from the ceilings 

Another room, another day, another season 

Another feeling 

Another reason to call me a liar 

Standing in the park beside the fire 

Stepping over lines that I had drawn there 

There's a quiet conversation 

A discarded invitation 

A statue on the fountain 

A molehill on the mountain 

A river through the kitchen 

We're swimming in basement now 

And I met the ghost in the mirror 

Gave me quite a fright but I came nearer 

Told me all his secrets in a whisper 

And I had my palm read by the psychic weather reporter 

Said he was a wicked fortune-teller 

Gazing at the glowing teleprompter

Her music is a mix of rich textures and soft piano to create an almost dream like affect to the listener, ambient pop and experimental post-folk Sea Oleena expresses hints of guitar and natural elements throughout her music.

Types of music videos

I took this slide off of slide share as I found it to say what I wanted to say about the types of music videos out there...

Finding Copyright free music

Me and my partner Anna, went on a quest to find music to use in our music video for our A Level Media. 

We managed to find some music via the sound cloud site, where people with a passion for music post their own music and content for others to listen to etc.

Link to Unititled: https://soundcloud.com/flashlight-tag-blog/sea-oleena-untitled

We managed to find a really great singer on sound cloud who goes by the name Sea Oleena, we ended up emailing her to ask about the copyright permission on her work.

She ended up responding to our email and said that it would be okay for us to use her music in a video for school purposes. 

Media theory: More on Steve Neale, Rick Altman & Carol Vernallis

Steve Neale states that repetition wouldn't attract the audience and that genre can be referred to music videos, therefore being classified.  Personally I'm not a big fan of his theory and I don't think it'll go with what we are thinking already.

Rick Altman states the audience will have certain expectations of what they want to see in the video and the artist, also genres such as rock have characteristics features which are known to the audiences and make them want to watch it.



Carols theory is mostly about creating a world inside of the video, being able to relate things in the video with visual aspects and repeating them as a motif throughout!

Showing off the star is really important with close ups, performances and a story of what is happening inside this world that the audience are transported into for 4 minutes.




POSTMODERNISM


One I also forgot to write about was post-modernism, this is '

1. "a late 20th-century style and concept in the arts, architecture, and criticism, which represents a departure from modernism and is characterized by the self-conscious use of earlier styles and conventions, a mixing of different artistic styles and media, and a general distrust of theories." (taken from google definitions)

   
   

   There was  a lot of evidence of this in Lady Gaga's music video for Telephone

    with Beyonce, this slide on slide share shows how Lady Gaga uses hyperreality.

   
   

   She has a lot of intertextual references to films like pulp fiction and kill  bill

   
   

   She also used a parody of a prison in an unrealistic way of prsioners doing what they want as well as really crazy fashion which wouldn't be permitted. 

   
   

   
   

   

   
   

Bricolage: Bricolage is a collection or collage of different media text which forms one text. 

Parody: Parody is a media text that mimics or imitates another media text in order ridicule or sarcasm.

Pastiche: Pastiche is a work of art, literature, music, movie etc, that imitates the work of the previous media text but embracing the text in a positive way.

Media Theory: Mindmap

A mind map of some media theory of music videos and conventions by UGT, Steve Neale and Rick Altman...






Sorry its not easy to read!

Media Theory: Andrew Goodwin's

Music Video's which demonstrate this...

1. Vance Joy's - Riptide

The lyrics said match what we see on the screen

2. John legend - All of me

Some of the song is john at the piano, as the song is piano instrument based and the romantic music is reflected in the visuals of him and his wife

3. AC/DC - Thunderstruck

They performed a stage set of one of their songs

4. David Bowie - Life on Mars

constant close ups are shown of bowie and especially his face make up

5. Justin Timberlake - Mirrors

It has the notion of reflecting -  what his grandparents had in their 60+ years of marriage to be his future with his wife Jessica, the mirrors also represent this in a bit of a more obvious way

6. Lady Gaga - Telephone

There's a lot of intertextual reference to prisons, bizarre fashion, cartoons of killing someone etc.