Friday, 31 January 2014

EVALUATION QUESTION 1

IN WHAT WAY DOES THE MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?




















At the beginning of our project, we researched what the main concepts were that were included in music videos that belong to the Indie/Folk genre. We discovered that they mainly use Narrative based videos, which portray a story usually linking the to the lyrics of the song. For example, we have chosen to link the lyrics to our music video by showing the two characters in several different locations (hense 'Come and Go').
A lot of the time, indie/folk songs are about loving someone or the artist's relationship with someone - which usually means the music video involves a boy and a girl as the main characters.

GOODWIN THEORY
We applied Goodwin's theory to our media work as when the lyrics 'Come and Go' are sung, the female character is shown travelling through locations in London, implying that she is going somewhere and leaving the male character. At the end of the video, a montage of the female is shown, implying that the entire song was about her and a specific ending is not given. Showing the male character in the studio singing the song, also showing him writing the song which implies that he has made the video/wrote the song to declare his love for the female character.

BARTHES THEORY
Having studied Barthes' theories on myths, we decided that we could apply it to our music video. The representation of sexuality is shown through the music video as it is clear the two characters involved were/are in a relationship. Our video would be an open narrative as the ending is left so that the audience can decide themselves what they think happens to the pair. They are in control of whether they think the couple have broken up or are just in a very rocky relationship.

POSTMODERNISM
The theory of postmodernism is included on the CD cover(s). We chose to use the aspects of the Gorillaz - Demon Days album by making the covers seem like mugshots. However we chose to challenge the album by instead of having all four images on the same page, we allocated one image per page so the picture would be more intimate.We developed the idea by having the colour scheme in black and white, which linked to the colour scheme of our video.

Another example of using/challenging/developing we used was from Lorde's video to 'Royals'. In the video the picture changes alongside the beat of the music, which is what we did in our music video every 1.2 seconds (roughly). Lorde's video, like ours, is both performance and narrative based - showing her singing against a blank wall. We chose to challenge this by showing our male character performing in the studio whilst recording the song. We developed the idea of the video by again, using a black and white theme throughout to create a sense of nostalgia.



 In our video we have used the artist as the male character and an actress posing as his lover, the female character. Throughout the video, stages of their relationships are shown when they are together and when they aren't. In a lot of music videos that portray a love story, the couple in focus are shown arguing at some points in the video - so we chose to include this in our project to enable the audience to understand that the two characters in focus are a couple rather than just two random people.

The main scenery associated with indie/folk music videos is greenery and nature so we included establishing shots of trees, Hyde Park, Bristol Harbourside and shots from around London. By using a well known British landmark we hoped to engage the audience a lot more as we discovered from one our audience feedback interviews that an audience like it when  they recognise places in music videos/films etc. Also, a lot of music videos are filmed in and around London so we chose to use that aspect of a real video.









We filmed the artist  in a recording studio, this challenges the forms of real videos as we chose to make it performance based as well as narrative based - this enables the audience to gain a connection with the artist and see the emotion on his face when he is performing the song. When a music video is both narrative and performance based, usually the artist is seen performing infront of a crowd, or just singing into a microphone/to the camera rather than actually being filmed in a recording studio with all the recording equipment.

At the end of the video, there's a montage of the girl played along to the lyrics that are sung at the start - this develops the idea that the girl is what the artist wants and is a group of clips bunched together from throughout the video, thus suggesting that the entire song is about her and that the artist is completely in love with her.


How does the video work well with the song? We did our best to ensure that editing was done so that some
of the clips (mainly the establishing shots) were in time to the beat of the music. For example, the first instrumental of the song involves several establishing shots of trees, sunlight, a boat etc. and each are shown on every fifth guitar strum.



We linked the lyrics of the song to the video by implying that the two characters are in a relationship and are very temperamental - we show the two characters separately at the beginning of the video and then towards the middle, show them arguing to make it clear that they're in a very 'rocky' relationship. We didn't include a clear ending, so the audience can make their own minds up about what happens to the pair- ending it on a montage of the girl implies that the atrist is still in love with her and can't get her out of his head. This goes against the conventions slightly as in most indie/folk music videos there is a clear ending.

Wednesday, 22 January 2014

INITIAL PITCH

Aims for music video:
- Relating the video to the lyrics, for example - 'Come and Go', filming the characters in both Bristol and London.
- Having two characters (male and female) suggesting that they are/have been in a relationship
- The two characters having issues in their relationship, scenes of arguing/walking away from each other?
- Show process of the relationship; the two characters shown laughing together and then arguing
- At the end of the video show a torn up photograph which has been shown earlier in the video (but as a whole...) OR have an ending where the audience can make up their own mind whether the couple stay together or not
- Film the artist in a music studio, recording and writing his lyrics - adds in performance as well as narrative
- Scenes in London just of the female character, portraying that she is the one coming and going suggesting that the male character is heartbroken
- Film the artist with his guitar, clearly stating that he is the artist
- Both characters to be filmed on bikes in different locations, this being a link to the lyrics
- Film some of the artist at one of his gigs (taking inspiration from music videos that have performance in them)

Filming in Bristol and editing

Pretty much have all of our footage done however we do have to re-film Fergal in the music studios as the shots weren't as clear as we'd hoped. Issues with the lip syncing as it's quite hard to get it in time with the song. The lighting's also a minor issue however we can always edit this on iMovie.
Filming done in Bristol
Establishing shots of the harbourside and Queen Square, both locations have beautiful scenery and we plan to include them in the instrumental parts of the music video.
Used a living room for the scenes where the two characters are arguing, shows that they're in a homely environment - suggests living together...
Filmed Tilly walking along the train tracks by M Shed, linking to the lyrics (train being transport, coming and going etc.) also it is very beautiful scenery.







C.A ARTIST


"Charlie Green and Adam Heaton, musical duo consisting of 2 acoustic guitars and an egg shaker. Currently working on new material" - Soundcloud

C.A are a musical duo from Bristol, posting their sounds on music sharing site 'soundcloud' is how our group came across them. They have two of their own songs posted on their page, one being a cover of Bon Iver's 'Holocene' and the other, their original material 'Come and Go'.

Both being quite young and still in education, they have told us that it's harder for them to produce new material than other artists as they don't have a lot of time to do it, however when they do get the time they play together and try their best to come up with some new stuff.







C.A aren't signed to a label, however if they were they would probably be signed to a small independent label that produces indie/folk records, examples: Jagjaguwar or Bella Union. 

I'm saying these two as they are both labels that similar artists are on (Bon Iver and Fleet Foxes). The duo have sounds very similar to Bon Iver and they have told us that they like to compare themselves to them aswell as James Morrison, however James Morrison is on a much bigger label and has had lot of publicity.

MID POINT REVIEW AUDIENCE FEEDBACK



Monday, 6 January 2014

VIDEO ANALYSIS 2

BON IVER - HOLOCENE
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWcyIpul8OE
 FEATURES TO LOOK FOR
 GENERAL EXAMPLES
 DETAILED EXAMPLES
 Genre Characteristics
 Filmed in Iceland, showing the beautiful and weird nature e.g. glaciers and greenery in the same place.
 Young boy, displays innocence and sweetness of the music
 Relationship between lyrics and visuals?
  2:03-2:06 "I can see for miles, miles, miles"
2:21-2:25 "where we learned to celebrate" boy throwing rocks into the air as if to celebrate
 Relationship between music and visuals?
 During the instrumental, the boy is shown walking around
 3:12 - the stick splashes in the water when the pitch changes
 Are there close-ups of the artist/star motifs?
 No close ups of artist, however there is closeups of the young boy in the video
3:16-3:18 - the camera pans around the boy and it is a close up
3:56 - close up of boy smiling
 Reference to the notion of looking?
 0.54-0.59 - Boy looking out of the window at something
 3:40-3:44 - the boy is shown looking out into the distance
 Intertextual references
 ----
 ----
 Performance based/Concept based/Narrative based - how much of each?
 Narrative based
 telling the story of the boy enjoying life, thought to be the artist when he was younger and is now realising he is not as free as he once was

VIDEO ANALYSIS 3: The Script - Man Who Can't Be Moved

 FEATURES TO LOOK FOR
 GENERAL EXAMPLE
 DETAILED EXAMPLE
 Genre Characteristics
 Band are shown performing with a microphone, guitar and drum set (typical indie band)
 Artist in narrative part of video is shown wearing a hoodie and jeans, stereotypical outfit of an indie/rock singer to wear
 Relationships between lyrics and visuals?
The band are seen performing in what looks like an empty car park and are singing along with the lyrics (throughout video)
 2:40-2:52 - shows the artist singing along however visuals present as if he is on a news channel being interviewed
 Relationships between music and visuals?
 During guitar at the very beginning of song the artist's footsteps are in time to the music
 Towards the end of the song when the chorus begins for the third/fourth time, the editing is sped up showing that time is passing
 Close ups of the artist/star motifs?
 When band members are performing there are a few close ups of them (throughout the video)
 2:00-2:04 shows the emotion on the artist's face
3:18-3:20 - close up of artist in the rain showing he is upset 
 Reference to the notion of looking?
 0.14-0.16 - Danny looks right into camera
 2:00-2:04, camera pans and the artist follows it. This is also linked to the above as it's a close up shot to show emotion
 Intertextual references

 Used when the artist is "featured on the news" - there is a news reporter and the screen says "BREAKING NEWS" implying that the artist is actually being interviewed on the news
 Performance/Narrative/Concept based - how much of each?
 Narrative and Performance
Just about equal; the video is both performance and narrative. The band are shown a lot whilst performing in the empty car park as well as the lead singer being shown acting in the narrative.