Album cover analysis

This album by James Blunt is his latest realise. I first wanted to look at his album covers because his style of music related to the same style as my music video genre. when looking through his album cover realises I found that this cover, Some king of trouble, best fit to what I wanted. I also intended to make a quite controversial picture. this picture from James Blunt is controversial because of its image, the idea of throwing a baby up in the air is slightly out of the norm way of living. the picture focuses on this point and could hint at a intertextuality of the style of James Blunt music, being controversial or testing the norm. this is the perfect album cover to base my cover on, with the image and the artist being similar to what i want to achieve I think I could use this as a template to creating my own album cover.

Research into Anxillary Task

This album from Take That, includes there usual font type there title. there is also a bright wide range of bright colours within the props amongst the picture. the images include the toys men of the band and the context of every prop in the image. the intertextuality of the image is the resemblance to the beatles album, Sergent Pepper. i think the cover does wok because it is a different take on a classic image in musical albums, this brave decision pays off as it is recognize by most of the public.

This album X and Y, is from coldplay. there is no font on the album cover and this is done because the image and colours link together to create the stylized drawing of the letter X and Y. also there could be a hint with the X and Y relating to the male and female chromosomes. i think that the cover could have used some sort of writing to enhance the effect as the image at first is hard to

grasp with out been told.

This album cover from pink floyd is the album The dark side of the moon. there is also no font or words on this album cover. the colours are those of the rainbow, also hinting at the music style of colourful, also the spectrum hinting at a wide range of a spectrum of music. i think that is a really good album cover, with the popularity of pink floyd at the time it was perfect for them to change the norm with this cover.

Audience Feedback

10 people gave me my feedback after watching my video, here are the results.

All shots are steady: Strongly agree- 50% Agree- 50%

All shots are well framed; including and excluding elements as appropriate: Strongly agree- 50% Agree- 40% Disagree- 10%

There is a wide variety of shot distances: Strongly agree- 30% Agree- 60% Disagree- 10%

The lighting is appropriate: Strongly agree- 60% Agree- 40%

The colours throughout are appropriate: Strongly agree- 50% Agree- 50%

The settings throughout are appropriate: Strongly agree- 70% Agree- 30%

The characters throughout are appropriate: Strongly agree- 60% Agree- 40%

The editing is effective in all places: Strongly agree- 40% Agree- 60%

The editing allows the audience to understand the video: Strongly agree- 40% Agree- 60%

There is a wide variety of effects which are effective: Strongly agree- 40% Agree- 50% Disagree- 10%

There is a wide variety of transitions which are effective: Agree- 90% Disagree- 10%

The lip Syncing is excellent throughout: Strongly agree- 20% Agree- 80%

I found through my feedback that my editing was the smallest ratio. Therefore I will now have to address this and try and make the editing as quick and as snappy as possible. by getting this feedback I realised where my weaker points were and I wound now have to concentrate on getting all my feedbacks into the strongly agree category.

Using Advanced Skills

A new feature that i used was creating a moving image from a stagnant image. firstly i used an information book to create a moving image of a shooting star. this was the first time that i had attempting a task like this in my media years. therefore the task was a tough one, and i had to use all my skills i have learnt to create this motion. i started by getting a shooting star image and correcting its speed and opacity to the levels i required. then i put the play head into the clip and swapped to image and wide-frame, this allows me to change the shape and direction of an image in a clip. there i shrunk the clip and gave it a given path across the scene.

after finish the process i know i had created something that has not been used in previous videos like mine. although with such a demand on this task there were problems. after taking the image from a cd i released that without the cd attached to the hard drive the image could not locate its position resulting in the media going offline. i never realized this at first and only thought i had a error within my work. by thinking quickly i re connected the cd to the computer and put the selected image into my Hard drive therefore giving a location for the computer, in turn giving me the clip.

Audience Feedback: Questionnaire

I created a questionnaire and handed it out to 25 people these were my results.

15 were male:

10 were female:

male answers:

What is your favourite type of music video?: Spectacle- 3 Performance- 1 Narrative- 4

Image- 7

What is your favourite type of music?: Acoustic- 1 Rock- 4 R&b/ Rap- 7 Indie- 3

Metal- 0

How often do you listen to music?: Every day- 13 Every other day-2 Weekly-0

Never-0

How often do you watch music video's?: Every day-6 Every other day-8

Weekly- 1 Never- 0

Is a music video vital to you?: Yes- 12 No- 3

When receiving these results from the males I found that the majority of them enjoyed a image based genre. this could possible be down to the society where most music video's in today's market are based around the personal image of a female artist, exploiting the body and using there looks to sell the video creating a positive attitude on the male audience. I found that only one member preferred acoustic music, with acoustic being my chosen song I will then have to rely on the video to widen my target audience. 13 out of the 15 boys said that they listen to music everyday and 6 of those also watch music videos everyday. therefore with such a grip on the public, music and music video audience are vast so I intend to offer a video to a large scale audience.

Female answers:

What is your favourite type of music video?: Spectacle- 1 Performance- 2

Narrative- 5 Image- 2

What is your favourite type of music?: Acoustic- 3 Rock-0 R&b/Rap-6 Indie-1

Metal-0

How often do you listen to music?: Every day- 9 Every other day-1 Weekly-0

Never-0

How often do you watch music video's?: Every day-6 Every other day-2

Weekly-1 Never-0

Is a music video vital to you?: Yes- 8 No- 2

There is a significant difference between the male and female answers. as the majority of the males preferred a image genre, half of the females preferred the narrative genre. This contrasting again with female exposer in music video's being greater than males, therefore females will always prefer for example a love story narrative. The results hint at stereotypes of what we expect male and females to like from what they watch. 9 of the 10 females said that they listen to music every day, that's 90% which is around the same as the males, but there is a bigger percentage of females that watch music videos everyday. after sourcing this results I can now see what I should be aiming for. I think that going for a narrative genre with acoustic song that is aimed at the female genre would be where I could create my biggest target audience.

Problem Solving

I came across a number of problems when designing and filming my music video. I then had to think fast and find a way to continue by solving the problems I had. in my design stage after creating my storyboard I realised that when I created my animatic I was short of shots and frames by around 20 seconds. I had to create new frames and add them in, also I re used some shots again that were possible to use again and make sense. By adapting to the problem I had, I was now able to create the right length of of frames to fit my animatic story board.

When I started to film my video I realised that there were some shots that I thought of that might not work. For example when I tried to film the shot of a table being inside to panning upwards towards the sky and falling back down to the table being outside, I found that there was no way for me to do this as the shot would have to take precise movement of the camera when panning upwards, this collided with the fact that I would also have to be acting, therefore this shot was unable to be used and I had to re-adapt the story but still keep the meaning of this scene.

There was also a problem with my actress Jessica Norris, as she is part of her own group designing her music video, I had to create a schedule around her work. As her priority's lied with her group I worked out a solution to my problem, I filmed as much as I could without her and left the parts to be done with her until she was comfortable and available with my given times.

Pictures Of :

props:

Locations:

Actors/Acting:

Lists

Lists of props:

- Bracelet- given to me by girlfriend in which I then through away.

- Pictures- of boyfriend and girlfriend then burnt at the end of the narrative.

- Incinerator- for the burning of the pictures scene.

- Stop Motion Equipment- the house and stick people cut outs, pencils and camera.

- Office Equipment- for the scene when the man is working.

- Matches- for the setting of the fire

- Box- for me to lie on the the floating effect scene.

List of actors:

- Jessica Norris- playing the part of the girlfriend

- Leo Sene- playing the part of the boyfriend

- Tom Bates - these actors appear in the sped up scene of the living room.

- Amy Dean

- Rory Kemp

- Charlie Smith

List of Locations:

- My garden- with the two branch tree, the area where the burning of the pictures happen

- Sixth form Common Room- where the working living room action happens

- Classroom- the working scene, and the love scene flashbacks of the two lovers.

- Farmers Field- There action of the walking and bracelet throwing.

Media Music Video Pitch

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

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Stop Motion

A key aspect of my video is the stop motion sequences. Stop Motion the term used for live action picture movement. It consists of talking a picture moving the object taking another picture and continuing this until you can then run the pictures in order of preference to create moving clip. Stop motion is a great technique because there are no limits to what can be achieved, whatever you can draw is possible to be made into stop motion clips. although it is a good technique to use because of the detail it is time consuming and i will have to plan my times to achieve it carefully.

I will be using stop motion to tell the story of the house sequences. From the time a new couple enter there new home in love, to when she leaves and the house goes up for sale. Therefore the stop motion image explain the main narrative when the rest of the video being live action will show the aftermath of the break down of love. here are some images I have taken and I will be using in my video.

Animatic Video

Starting on my animatic

Before i started to film i had to make an animatic, this being a film of my running story board in time to the music in a designed clip. after designing and drawing my storyboard, i used the camera taking pictures of each frame until I had my narrative in a running clip. so i used final cut HD and uploaded my pictures of the frames onto the video track then I added the Shooting Stars music file to the audio track and rendered them together. I now therefore had a basic line of my music video in pictures. I then became more precise with the timings of when to change the picture framing, depending on when I wanted certain clips to be in time with a certain point in the music.

After I placed all this together i realised that i was short of around 5 frames, which was around 20 seconds long, at this I took more pictures of new frames and re used some others to fill the spaces. I have to be quick thinking in my problem solving when this mishap happened. after this I realised that my animatic clips were still quiet long so i will have make the action more apparent when filming the real music video.

Youth Sub-cultures

-Hoodies

-Goth

-Prep

-Skater

-Chav

-Emo

-Pikey

-Indie

My music videos sub-culture,

-Clothing: middle class clothing, jumper jeans.

-Hangouts: working environment, parties, middle class with lake as background.

-Attitude society: ideas of fire therefore hinting into youth rebellion.

-Attitude to self: with context of narrative, pain from love effects the actions of self. hinting at depression and self hurt.

-Music: slow acoustic style, contemporary and stylised.

Email to artist

Leo Grant Sene September 24 at 8:39pm

hello my name is leo, i am a A2 media studies student at my sixth form. for my coursework i have to make a music video, by only using an unsigned song. i write to ask, as a great admirer of your music, if i could possibly use your song Shooting Stars. thank you.

Olly Hite September 25 at 8:06am

Hi Leo, Thanks for the shout. I'm going to have to run it past my manager, but it would be really good to know what sort of ideas u have regarding shooting stars as a music video?

and thank you for your kind words.
Best
Olly

Leo Grant Sene September 25 at 12:30pm

That's is brilliant thank you.
It is still early day's but if i was to be granted your permission to continue, i was thinking of going with a love story narrative, using stop motion image's, also using projection onto my body, like shooting stars and a heart beat. also shooting stars, being a spilt second thing and the slow peaceful pace of your song contrast nicely against each other. so I would definitely try to enhance that in the video. if i get your permission i can keep you posted throughout my process.
thank you.

Image Changing Stars

Plan B

Plan B, is a successful solo artist who has burst onto the music scene in the past year with his debut album, The Defamation of Strickland banks. His change was dramatic and is new lease of life was a shock to original fans. As he left

behind the gangster lifestyle to move on into the more popular styles of music today. Plan B, known to his family as Ben drew, is a good example of artists that change there images, with Plan B his goal is to change his image and style every album. So far the change between from his original street grime style to more popular style of soul.

Who need’s actions, when you got words

This title of his first album, his style was based around street life, with hints at crime and gang style life. The most significant change is in his clothing. He wore hoddies, and tracksuits, with the style that we see today as antisocial (look right). His style of music has dramatically changed also. This song called who needs action was the lead title of his first album.

The defamation of Strickland banks.

This being his more successful album, his first 3 realised singles all reached the top 3 in the charts. His style change for this album came as quiet a shock to follows of plan b where he dressed in old fashioned 3 piece suits wherever he went. (look left). But it was the change of music style that put plan b on the map. His catching, soul, pop and rap mixed led him to become one of the most successful male solo artists of the year.

Plan B’s change in style comes down to the his personal style of the albums storyline. From London gangster, to a suit wearing fellow. His style of music changed because, the type of music he was using was slowly going out of fashion, with a re-do of his image and style, it almost gave him a new fresh start in the industry. By following the new fazes of music he became able to appeal to a wide market. In his case he is both style and substance, by changing his image plan b was able to relate to what the audience wanted because of our current musical climate. His image may change again in his next album, but with this in mind the changing of style and image is key to having a continuers career in the ever changing musical business.

These tow songs show the contrast difference between his first album style, to his newly realised second.

The first song ,Who needs action is the lead title of his first album. The second song is She said his leading song from his second album.

Band Analysis

James Blunt

Blunts music style is similar to one of my chosen song. his slow tempo songs with simply great lyrics and voice is what creates his image. his video's are usually simple and often being performance and spectacle genre. his video's have influenced my video because of his style, there is a similarity between his genre and style of music. I have used his image as an inspiration for my music video. he has the same target audience as what i intend aim at, his wide range for target audience, from teenage to adults is what I also want to achieve from my music video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oofSnsGkops

Coldplay

Coldplay are one of the biggest bands in there genre, so I have taken inspiration from them. there video's usually sell the songs for them. there video's break the barriers and create new ideas for other bands to follow. i think by using there originality as my inspiration I want to create a new piece that is new and has not be tried before, by mixing different aspects and forms. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAME8GDRTfI&ob=av2e

Daniel powter

Not such a well known artist, but his song "Bad Day" did reach highly, his video are specific narrative genre driven. his love songs almost create a clear image of what the story is. i am using his style as inspiration also to create my narrative driven plot. with his ideas of a simple love there narrative becomes easy and genuine, although my narrative will be the opposite of falling in love rather falling out of love, i can use his inspiration as a starting block for my ideas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gH476CxJxfg&ob=av2n

Goodwin Six Rules

1. Music video demonstrate genre characteristics.

2. There is relationship between lyrics and visuals.

3. There is a relationship between music and visuals.

4. The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close-ups of the artist and the artist may develop motif which recur across their work (a visual style).

5. There is frequently reference to notion of looking and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body.

6. There is often intertextuality reference.

In my music video i will be using numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4. number 1 is filming in a way that shows genre characteristics. in my narrative and performance video, you will able to see a clear narrative through the story line of broken love that runs throughout the sequence. number 2 is the link between lyrics and visuals. therefore I will use this in parts for example when the line, "look into the sky". I will have a motif of the framing being the shot of the sky getting darker until we have the night sky following into the line "got shooting stars". number 3 is similar to number 2, it is based on the relationship between the music and the visuals, therefore with the music having a slow tempo, my video will have to match that tempo, therefore the scenes will have a slow pace and the action in the frames will not be fast and pacey. Number 4 will be used in the motif of the recusance of the shooting stars and looking into the sky. This essential to dreamy likeness of the song and its lyrics.

My Chosen Song

i have chosen a song written and composed by a unsigned artist called Olly Hite. he is a solo artist and he specializes in acoustic style of music. his slow passed style is the type of song that intended's to touch the viewer in some form. here are his lyrics for the song.....

Shooting Stars:

Love made me high

love made me low

love made me scared

love made me grow

love made me grow

Love made me right

love made me wrong

love took me there

love wrote this song

love wrote this song

Look into the sky

got shooting stars

finding out just who are

before we go and share are hearts

soon we will move to Mars

got shooting stars

speechless not lost for words

Love took me there

love brought me back

so unaware

yeah that's a fact

yeah that's a fact

Love made me high

love made low

love me scared

love made me glow

love made me glow

Look into the sky

got shooting stars

finding out just who we are

before we go and share are hearts

soon we will move to Mars

got shooting stars

speechless not lost for words

New Year, New Product

This year in media studies A2, i will be creating a music video, along with a magazine article, and a dvd cover. the main project will be the music video. i will have to design and create a home made music video, using a unsigned song i will have to shoot, star and compose the video. using inspirations from other similar artist and there music video i will create my chosen genre, being a narrative spectacle. i will be doing this project by myself, i will have to take charge of everything and use all my skills to create a respectable and innovative music video.