Evaluation

Our task was to create a music video, a DVD cover for the video and a magazine advert to advertise the DVD. When we first started our coursework we agreed as members of our group are in a band, called circuit chase, we will use one of their songs to create the music video. They are an indie band and most of their songs use indie conventions, especially their song ‘I can’t live without you’.

When we were planning our video, we knew we had to include indie rock conventions. Most indie rock bands like muse, arctic monkeys and the killer all show a variety of narrative and performance and shows a balance of the two cutting between shots, like in the killers - human and kasabian- empire. In our video the narrative is a guy being followed by the band and only he can see them, until he meets a girl, who can also see them. There are shots with just the band or just the protagonist, but they both usually are in the same scene or location, this shows a balance between the two but the band are part of the narrative, so this is a little different towards a normal indie rock convention.

Also most indie bands are a band of four or five young guys wearing dark clothes. When planning our video the band thought wearing black shirts and dark jeans is the best style for an indie rock group, making it easy for the audience to realise the genre of the band.

When people think of rock bands, they usually have an image of them trashing a room or building. Different to an indie rock, but mainly rock. When planning this we were very persistent including a scene of our main protagonist trashing a room, which we did manage to include. He goes into his house and finds out the band have been there and gets angry and throws everything on floor and breaks plates and cups. We wanted to use this scene as well because it flows with the narrative, which makes it easy to understand. We have shown a stereotypical indie band, therefore using conventions of real media.

Indie videos as well as other genre usually use a range of shots, in particular close up of the lead singer to advertise the band. We did use a few close ups of Thom (the lead singer). However most of our shots were more long shots and mid-shots, so we didn’t use this convention and portraying it in our video. This has showed us that we should have organised ourselves better and re-filmed some shots with close ups of the band. Also the shots of the main protagonist were usually mid-shot and long shots, to allow the audience to be following the main protagonist, other than using point of view to make the audience part of the video.

Circuit chase are a group of three young guys and are all still part of youth culture. The video portrays a young guy of similar age, being followed by the band. By the end he finds a girl who also can see the band and which shows a theme of love. This shows our music video is representing youth culture because there are similar situations that young people encounter like love. However through the media, stereotypes of youth culture are not how we have established the band. People see young people being a problem in society, smoking, drinking, and drugs. Our video has none of these conventions, so it shows a different side to youth culture.

At the beginning of the video, you see two guys playing the Xbox. This is an example of youth culture because Xbox and other game consoles have developed further than ever before and most young people own or play an Xbox, showing a representation of youth culture. Also one of the location shots is set at the back of the school; this connotation also affects and represents youth culture.

Our main product has shown some good conventions of indie rock and youth culture. Whilst the ancillary text uses a lot of bright colours and an outline effect making it stand out, making it different convention as the video. However we have kept the same idea of youth culture connation to draw attention and keep the same target audience. Thom got the idea from shoot the runner – kasabian and used the stylistic approach for the colouring. He also used album covers from Paulo Nutini and iTunes to give him the idea. They convey a down to earth mood with the colours and a relaxed feels to it, which isn’t always used by indie rock bands, but popular with the young people. The combination has not been as effective as it could have been because they are quite distinctively different with the video more indie, showing dark colours and the ancillary text bright colours to portray a mood and grab attention. Therefore if an audience saw the ancillary text they will most likely be surprised to see the video as they are very different in the conventions but both work well and effective separately. This has helped me realise if completing this task again to keep the video and ancillary text a lot more similar helping the audience to understand the genre.

Most music videos are shown on music channels, but rock is becoming less popular with hip-hop, rap and pop becoming more popular with the public. Therefore there will be limited institutions that would distribute our media product. But some magazines that mostly would advertise the band are NME or Kerrang, as they are more popular with rock bands. These magazines are usually dark colours and very rock convention, so seeing our DVD advertisement in the magazine will make it very distinguished, which doesn’t create the same idea as we hoped. Music store’s with wide variety of music like HMV is most likely to sell the DVD, as they sell all genres. However most people, especially young people, such as students and teenagers download songs rather than buy them at the shop, so ITunes are also a good distributor. We could also consider using small independent distributors, which are likely to sell indie music like ‘Holier than thou records’ who promote new bands of rock, indie and alternative genre. I also need to consider most music videos now are uploaded on YouTube where hundreds and thousands of people can comment on, this is a good way to get feedback for our video in ways to improve.

There would be a range of audience who would listen to indie bands, as said before, pop and hip hop are more popular in the charts, but the same people are more likely to enjoy a range of different genre.I believe teenagers and students would have been the biggest audience for our media project. Indie music is more popular with young adults as the band members are usually young adults. For circuit chase as they are unsigned band and have been started by a group of friends, people who listen to them are their friends of same age and more young people notice new bands rather than adults. We have used connotation of youth culture with the setting and mise en scene like the clothes and products used, to relate to a young audience.

Denis McQuail theory of audience using the gratification model, that the audience is motivated and more likely to enjoy the media product if they can relate to it. I think this theory we have used because one of the ideas of the video is love and teenagers always can relate to this situation. I think the shots used show a good narrative, which helps the audience enjoy the video more as they understand what is happening. Teenagers would rather enjoy the music than to find the extra meaning in the video, therefore making it more enjoyable for them. Herbert blumer theory of mass audience is to involve the audience in the film or this case the music video. This keep the audience more involved and helps them to listen or watch the media product more carefully. We have done this sometimes by using a point of view shot of the main protagonist, to make the audience feel a part of the video but haven’t incorporate this as much as we could have, which is where we may make it difficult to attract the audience.

After completing our video, we asked our peers to watch are music video and got their opinion’s, of it, which they were impressed with the video. They thought the narrative and story was different to an indie rock band and worked well with the idea. There were a few problems like with one scene, could have been edited, but we didn’t get round to changing this. This was most likely because communication wasn’t that great with our group which let us down. This has helped me realise we should have shown the video to a range audience getting different opinions rather than our peers. This I because our peers are more likely to be positive about the video even if they don’t agree, we should have gathered audience feedback from people we didn’t know to get honest opinions. We uploaded the video onto YouTube and so far have had 200 hits and an average rating of 4* which is good but doesn’t help us with how to improve as we don’t know who commented. I realised we shouldn’t have been asking the audience throughout the project which I personally failed to do, as the video is for the audience so they need to enjoy it.

For our music video, we used a SD camera and tripod, to film all our video. This wasn’t too bad, as we made sure the camera was steady enough, but we spent a long time filming the same scene through different angles and shot types. This could have been improved with better organisation. The different programmes we used to edit our video was premiere pro and Photoshop. When using premiere pro it is always tempting to add extra effects and transitions. But indie band videos are simple with cross cuts and not using jump cuts. We did however at the end of our video speed up the shot to double the speed, making the shot look effective and fast paced to show how protagonist was feeling, which we wouldn’t have been able to do without Premiere pro.

Throughout the project we used the internet to gather our research of existing bands, which are similar to circuit chase. We also used blogger.com to upload everything we have been doing, allowing our peers and other members of the group to see each other’s work. This was helpful in showing the stages we were up to with our planning, but because of poor communication we could have used the blogger more to our advantage.

After completing this coursework I feel that planning and research is a major part in the coursework now as I didn’t do enough of planning last year. Even though the planning was adequate as a group showing the shot types I think we could have planned more. Some members of our group did do more work than others which shouldn’t have happened and after this I have learned to be more communicative, so we can share out the jobs needed. I have learned new skills with new programmes like premier pro become and familiar with Photoshop. After completing the music video I have learned that time efficient is needed and good time management is the key to getting everything complete and not rushing it on the deadline day.

anciliary text

Above is our complete anciliary text. The member of our group who completed this was Thom. He got his ideas and inspiraitons from kasabian - shoot the runner, Paulo Nutini and itunes as tips to help with our dvd cover. After researchig the differnt DVD cover, i think he went for a differnt aproach to an indie rock band as the DVDs would be more darker. He went brighter colours so it can stand out in an magazine and the audience is mainly youth, which this would be eye-catching towards a youth.

DVD cover measurements

DVD cover research

My first thought when researching different DVD covers was to find indie rock bands because circuit chase genre is indie rock. This will help the group and me to use the examples and see similarities between different bands and the connotations and what they are trying to portray for our own DVD cover. However most band don’t release DVD’s they release CD, so finding examples was harder than I thought. The DVD examples I did manage to find were more of live performance on stage and a concert rather than of singles.

I managed to find four bands that have released DVDs. However this DVDs are of the bands playing in concerts and gigs. They do not include the video of any singles. From the four above, they are all dark colours for rock bands e.g. black. This is to portray darkness within the band. Stereotypes of rock bands are usually dark colours. So this will help us with our own DVD cover for the video.

Complete video

Here is our final cut of our complete music video. We think it went very well, using a range of differnet shots and most of the editing, which keeps the continuity for the production and the narrativeis easy to understand. After gettting feedback we should have changed one of the scenes where a pillow is being shown and ruins the continuity and one of the cuts needs to be edited better. But we didnt get round to doing it unfortuantely, mainly because of time mangement.

The next job is the ancillary text of a DVD cover and advertisment for the band.

Editing

Over the last two weeks our group have been editing the footage we filmed, mostly lead by Thom and Mark. We managed to get nearly an hour worth of filming, so we realised that the editing will take some time. However as alot of the filming is of the same scene, but with different types of shots, we realised it shouldnt take too long. Whilst editing our job was to decide as a group on which shots where best to use, to keep the continuity of the music video and which shots are more effective in what we are to portray. For example one shot is of our main protagonist nathan with an over the sholder shot of him in the room when the band have trashed it. We wanted to show his anger which couldnt be accomplished in just a point of view shot, this helped to achieve the continuity.
We only have 10 seconds left to edit (i think),until we have the rough cut finished.
At the moment i think the video looking very good, showing a range of shots, continuity and the narrative.

Filming

We organised to do our filming last saturday, to meet at 8am at thom's house as the members in our group had other priorities later on in the day. I thought the day was very successful in what we set out to achieve this day. We managed to film nearly two and a half minutes of footage for the most of saturday and some footage the friday before during school. We decided to film most of the indoor shots first, as it was extremely cold that time in the morning. As we only had one camera and tripod, we spent about 5 hours filming the same footage at differnet angles, so this will make it easier to edit with more footage to choose from. we have tried to use a range of different camera shots from close ups to panning and low angle to establishing. At the moment will believe the video is going very well, one problem i think we may have a problem is keeping the continuity going. If we discover a problem then we will re film some of the shots.
Our group has decided after looking back at the footage, we are gonna re film some of the kitchen shots becuase nathan sometimes has his head cut off . Our plan is to have all of the filming done by tonight, which i think we will manage to do. Our next job is to start editing , which will take alot of time.

Location

We are in the process of discussing where we will be filming our shots. For the time being, the inside shots (interior shots) will be filmed at Thom's house but this isn't for definate yet. Also we know we are going to use a field or park, but need to find out which one, won't be as busy, so there will no distractions.
One of the shots shows nathan watching the band perform, i suggested location for this shot could be in Garth park, Bicester as it has a band stand which could be effective, but as a group we need to agree on the loaction and why we think this will be good.

We have been giving a deadline of 3 weeks to get our filming done. This will give us plenty of time to make sure we film the right shots and re film if we find a problem of the shot.

Storyboard to the shot types

I think this was very succesful of taking pictures of the shots we plan to use. We worked well as team in deciding how to take the shot. Nathan was the main protagonist and Thom and mark and Connor were the band members and I was the one who took the picture's most of the time. These are only a small amount of shots, as there are 69 shots altogether. We agreed on taking pictuers of just these shots as they are the most important and show the continuity of the video. When we do start filming the video, this will not be the locations but the shot type will be the same.

Shot types

Below is the shot list we will be usiung for our music video. It includes what shots we will be using for each scene and what is happening in each scene.

file://cse2k301/Birch.03/media%20Studies/Media_Shot_list_coloured.htm

Timeline of music video

Song timeline
Nathan’s actions
The band
0.00-0.33 Intro
(33 seconds)
Nathan is with his friends playing a game. Nathan goes to the kitchen gets a sandwich and closes the fridge door
They are walking to the house while playing the intro
0.33-0.59 Verse
(26 seconds)
Nathan sees the band try to show his mate but Nathan surprised his mate can’t see them
The Band are performing in the kitchen
1.20-1.43 chorus
(23 seconds)
Nathan goes to the park and sees the band playing
Band playing in the park
1.43-2.25 verse
(42 Seconds)
Nathan tries to leave and escape but the band are always following him
The band move from location to different locations
2.25-3.11 solo
(46 seconds)
Nathan trashes his room
Band playing on TV
3.11-3.22
(11 seconds)
Nathan stares at Thom then smashes the TV in rage
Band are playing still on TV
3.22-3.56 chorus
(23 seconds)
Nathan meets Katie who can also see the band
Playing in a different location
3.56-4.06
(10 seconds
Romantic of them two
Band playing in slow motion
4.06-4.11
(5 seconds
The two ignore the band
The band leave and Thom smashes guitar

The Lyrics to 'I can't Live without you'

My mind’s a labyrinth of confusion
filled with fear and dark delusion
and sometimes
I just let things get to my head

But my hearts a frozen fortress
and you’re the only one who can sort this
‘cos sometimes
I just want to feel loved instead

Sometimes I say things that I don’t mean
Use a thousand words when only one will do
you know it’s true
But one thing always stays the same
I can’t live without you

It’s true
I can’t live without you (ooh)
It’s true
I can’t live without you (ooh)

People don’t know what beauty is
People don’t know what beauty means
It’s beautiful that I’ve found you like this
And it’s beautiful living my dreams
Day after dayI don’t care what they say
I’ve finally found my place
And I’ll use as many clichés as it takes

It’s true
I can’t live without you (ooh)
It’s true
I can’t live without you (ooh)
To get through this
I can’t live without you (ooh)
It’s true
I can’t live without you (ooh)
It’s true
I can’t live without you (ooh)

Muse - Uprising analysis

Uprising a song by muse an alternative rock band was released as the lead single from the album on 7 September 2009. The song is written by vocalist and guitarist Matthew. It made it to number 9 in the UK Charts. The music video of the song first aired on MTV2 directed by Hydra. When I watched this video I realised from the music and the band that this genre is rock. Rock songs usually cut between the band and a narrative flow. The video has the band performing in a small city in a small truck. Throughout the video there is always a lit fuse following them wherever they are performing.

This video does integrate the lyrics and visuals unlike most videos. The song focuses on the band playing in different places throughout the video like a trailer, and the back of a small truck. From the title ‘uprising’ I think from the lyrics they are telling story of how the bears will become ‘victorious’ but there isn’t much evidence of uprising until the end of the video when the teddy bears rise up through the ground. The band is trying to battle against the teddy bears, like when Matt smashed the TV screen to show they can’t escape the teddy bears which links in with the chorus of being controlled and beating them with the words ‘victorious’ and ‘they will not control us’.

Throughout the video the beat stays the same to keep a steady beat. But when the fuse is shown in the beginning and throughout the video there is a use of a synthesise to link the music with the visuals. The song changes beat in the chorus to show the importance and the audience would mostly remember the chorus so this is done to help the audience remember. But also use the synthesis to link with the fuse and the importance in the continuity. This is quite common for most of muse’s songs when changing the beat of their songs in the chorus.

In most videos especially in rock songs, there are many close-ups of the artist. This video is not different. Throughout the video there is close ups of Matt Bellamy’s face and other close ups of some of the other members of the band instruments. When the band is shown Matt is the person usually in the centre during a midshot of the whole band and there are a lot more close ups of him than the rest of the band. All the shots are quite dark to represent the dark and mystery of the theme. There are many examples of being a rock band as most rock bands usually include smashing something and matt smashes a window in this video. The close ups are used to promote the video as the audience are looking to see the leading singer and solos from the guitarist or drummer are usually popular within the audience.

There is performance and narrative based, I think. The bands is more the performance- based and try to be in the shadows in the video, which is why they are never in big locations. The use of narrative and performance makes the audience aware of the genre and helps to sell the video and song.

Unfortunately i couldn't upload this video eithr, below is a link to the video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8KQmps-Sog

Kasabian- fire

This video was first released in 2009 and directed by by acclaimed British director W.I.Z. It is about a bank robber with a guitar and is under fire, becuase the robbery went wrong. It uses a lot of narrative, in partilcar when he goes into the bank, it shows the clock and how time is ticking and showed the countdown until the robbery was going to happen.

The audience realise it is an indie video because the clothes the lead singer wears are dark colours although set in a desert down, shows the contrast and the feeling that he cant run away, so he has to accept being fired at.

The lyrics convey a good meaning to the video as the title 'fire' is talking about how he is under fire from the poilce. This make it an effective video,

The song reached 3 in us charts and still very popular song for Kasabian.

Unfortunately, i couldnt upload the video, so below is a link to the video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4qk7fbN5NE

Research

After deciding the band and the song, we were given the task to start thinking about what bands and songs similiar to circuit chase.

Bands i thought of was muse- uprising, kasabien - fire and everybody changing - keane

circuit chase

When we was given a task striaght away a member of our group suggested using a song from their unsigned band. The band is called Circuit Chase and we have decided to use a Song from their band, they usually play mostly indie rock music.
When we was deciding what song to use, Mark and Thom suggested one of their popular songs in called 'Can't live without you' and after a discussion with me and Nathan we agreed on the song.
However as the band is unsigned band, they hadn't recorded the song, so the quality was quite poor and difficult to hear the words.
To Overcome this problem, Circuit Chase, went to a recording studio and recorded a few of their songs, inlcuding out chosen song 'Can't live without you'. After showing me and Nathan the recorded song, which was easier to hear the lyrics and Thoms's voice we were confident that this song was the right song to use for our music promo.
The band are keep undating their progression on their myspace page.
www.myspace.com/circuitchase

The song title gives me an idea about a guy has been dumped by his girlfriend and he's expressing his feelings that he can't live without her. The narrative flow will be following the guy and him trying to win the girl back and display and love story, basing the video of the theme love.

Or next step is to decide where we will be filming the video and decide what shots to film, to keep the conatation of the shot effective and to show the continiuty with the lyrics.

essay for music video

I have been studying the video fire burning, by Sean Kingston. The Video was premiered at MTV on June 15, 2009. Unlike many of his previous singles, which are all produced by J.R. Rotem, the song is produced by RedOne. The song was used for the opening number of the Miss Universe 2009 live at the Atlantis Paradise Island, Nassau, Bahamas. The song is sung by Sean Kingston and extras singers in the background. It was first released on MySpace to promote the song. When it became very popular it was also released to radio stations and for digital download April 24, 2009. To date the song has been played more than 13 million times on his MySpace page. The song has sold over 1 million downloads.

When watching the video is clear to say this video is pop dance. This is because pop videos usually have a narrative behind the video. The chorus repeats itself making people not forget the lyrics this also has the characteristics of a reggae influenced style too. But it has been mainly defined as pop dance due to upbeat song with a narrative. This video has Sean Kingston dancing around in a nightclub with lots of skinny women with not much clothes on. It starts with him getting out of a flash car in a suit. This is showing his proud of himself and making him the centre of attention. The video is set in a club at night with Sean dancing with all the women.
There is a clear concept that the video has a relationship between the visuals and lyrics. The music is called fire burning on the dance floor and this video relates to this through everyone dancing on the dance floor. When the lyrics are “pop it, lock it…” it shows the women walked into the dance floor with everyone staring at them, showing they become the new centre of attention. Also when it says “dancing on a dance floor” it shows people raving and break dancing in the middle of the dance floor. So the audience understand the narrative behind the words through what is being shown on the video.

Also there is an obvious relationship between the visuals and music. The music of this video is an up-tempo electro pop song with a modern up beat tempo. It is set at the common time with a beat of 120 beats per minute. Throughout the video it is fast paced of the dancers dancing. But the pace and tempo slows down when the women walk in again making them seem more important. The pace of the chorus speeds up to show them having a good time. Also when it says “Now take my red, black card and my jewellery” it shows some more dancers walking in with red hoodies on. This has been come effective because the audience realise that there is a change of mood when the music tempo and beat changes.

All Music videos have to show the star in it to sell them basically. So to do this there must be a number of close up of the star which this video clearly shows. When the women walk in there is a close of Sean Kingston reaction. There are many times when Sean Kingston has a close up of his face and close ups of some of the women in the video, with sometimes close ups of different body parts of the women. Music Videos usually always show women dancing in the video to promote the video usually. It doesn’t matter whatever the genre or video is, there is usually always women dancing with minimal clothes on. The women the men are dancing with seem to be high class in suits and with flash cars. Throughout the video you see lots of women with minimal clothes on in the background dancing to an upbeat song. There are scenes where the women are the centre of attention as the audience prefers this.

I have come to the conclusion that the video is more narrative based as the point of the video is too tell a story which has been show effectively in Sean Kingston’s , fire burning. There video also uses performance based as it shows lots of people dancing throughout the video.