Influences

The first  image I extracted are from The A Team - Ed Sheeran. The chosen narrative in this music video is that a young woman has become a prostitute as she is relent on drugs. I'd look to use some ideas from this such as the story of a person on drugs and why they might take them. My chosen idea for my storyline is about a young middle class girl who takes drugs to get away from family problems. I'd like to show my audience that drugs today are a big issue and that any person regardless of there social status can become an addict.

This image was extracted from I am the walrus by The Beatles. I think this music video will be useful research for my project as it's very drug influenced. Many scenes in the music don't seem to make ideological sense unless the audience understand that the performers are acting like they've taken some sort of a hallucinogenic drug. I believe this idea of the performers being detached from reality makes the video very interesting to watch and let the audience see how drugs can effect the mind and body within different people. In my music video I'd like to also show the audience of how drugs can effect the mind with the positive aspects such as feeling happy and negatives such as being paranoid or getting upset. I think my basic idea of my storyline will fit will with the fast paced song with fast paced shots.

These images are taken from 'Rooftops' performed by Lost Prophets. The idea I'd like to use from this video is the mid shots and close ups of  one/two adults trying to influence there daughter to be how they are which is middle class and successful. In result of trying to control there daughter they are very stressed and pushy.

 From my own expierence I now believe that teeangers are more likely to rebel if they're pushed to be who there parents want them to be. I want to show this issue in my music video by the teeange girl turning to drugs to get away from her troubles.

Makeup and clothing ideas

I like the style of the over sized jumper as it's slightly casual but very fashionable at the moment as it looks vintage

I love this make up style  of red lipstick and dark eyes which celebrity Taylor Momsen is modeling in this image. It is been proved by a social psychology expert that mean see women in red as more outgoing, willing, and that this is a sexual receptiveness which makes the person more attractive, disable and eye catching.Many of the young generation wear red lipstick although some people feel it's 'trashy' while others see it as glamorous. I believe the connotation of red lipstick depends on the social class. The darkness of the eye make up although quite common is very expressive of a persons personality as this type of makeup draws people to the face. Dark eyes are also very popular within fashion and alternative music also. 

The over-sized jumper idea again with a vintage twist to it. The ripped tights I might also use as my idea includes a girl in trouble and not caring about her appearance after being intoxicated. 







I'm possibly using dark eyes to represent the personality of the girl and her tastes. 

I like the alternative look that's not mainstream clothing such as this example. Tattoos and piercings are a way of showing someones individuality. Sailors. Prisoners. Bikers. Tattoos in the Western world were once the mark of the outcast, of the rocker and the rebel - of a certain kind of macho culture but in 2012 they are now far more popular as celebrities are now being "tramp stamped" although they are still not the norm in society.

Piercings can be seen as rebelious so I think i'd like my middle class girl in my music video to have some facial piercings to show that she doesn't conform to her parents norms and values and that she is unique. Piercings also relate to rock/indie/metal and alternative music lovers.

My Audience

The audience of my music video are young, careless and take some pride in appearance and a sense of individuality. He/she likes to spend time socializing and listening to music.   
This person is also more likely to drink on a regular basis or may smoke within there peer group and are experimental with new things. Preferred music genres include rock/indie rock and alternative music. In there spare time when not studying at college is to go to gigs and festivals on a regular basis.Music is very important to him/her and they have a high understanding of the artists they listen too. 

From the polls I created on my blogger I have found that narrative is the most popular form of music video closely followed by performance, because of this I believe If I combined both these forms my video will be very successful with my chosen audience.  
The people of certain social classes that voted on my poll showed the audience is mainly unemployed/students, these is the social class I want to target as it is of the younger generation and alternative rock is very popular with this age group.

Hull came out as the most popular place when it came to where students live. As Hull is a city and very industrial it has a very certain culture as music is more ambitious. Genres of music including alternative rock and also genres like RnB create more of an upbeat theme compared to country music. I believe this trend happens as most cities have a live music scene and more ideas are shared as there is more socializing and beliefs. 


Lastly the gender of my target audience is combined as male and female likes/dislikes have become far more similar in today's society and that it is the age of these people which is more important to target such as the younger generation as they are very media saturated. 

Practice music video

Evaluation of reconstruction video

 Whilst doing our reconstruction of Lana Del Rey 'Summertime Sadness' our group faced a lot of challenges that we had to overcome to make the reconstruction successful. Looking through the groups storyboards Summertime sadness was the most possible to reconstruct as although the places would possibly be hard to find it was the most feasible. Most of the locations in the second thirty seconds of the music video where around trees and very abstract so we realised that these shots could be easily replicated my areas situated around the college. Although this was our final idea before picking this Lana Del Rey song we did consider reconstructing to song Skyscraper by Demi Lovato although we concluded this wouldn't be possible as the location was on a beach and a fair few people couldn't make it to Hessle Forshore at  the following weekend due to work commitments and it was very rear that we where going to get a bright sunny day like the one in this video. Summertime sadness would also be able to have more time spent on it actually filiming as the group didn't have to travel far to find a good location.

The first location the group chose to act out the first two shots was by the Wilson building which had a few trees and a pond. Although this had the main criterea we needed for these shots after shooting for a lesson we felt the trees weren't similar enough to be convincing as they weren't tall enough. Another problem was that it was became very difficult for me doing the camera work to try and avoid buildings in the background which was cruical as then it wouldn't be a good reconstruction as the first two shots of the real music video look like there the countryside with no surrounding buildings.Therefore this footage wasn't suitable to use for our project.


For the second location that myself and actress of our project Iona Gladwin went to was a nearby park from our college which was about a 15 minute walk away. Myself and Iona where very determind to get the first shot of a long shot of her stepping out the trees then a close up of her singing in the same place as the first shot with hopefully taller trees and avoiding buildings. Although not an exact match I believe that my first two shots do in many ways look similar too the real video.

 

 




 





This is the first shot. Similarities include a tilted shot of the tall trees, Iona in a white dress standing by a tall trees and the look of summer by the colours included. The only thing I am dissapointed with in this shot is after editing the image to make it look more vintage and blury the colours which where changed aren't similar enough to the vidoes as it looks to sepia as it should of been more colour drained.

In the second shot although I felt the main criteria was met such as a medium close of the singer surrounding by trees and singing I feel like colour of the footage let it down. As there where gaps in the leaves sunlight shined through onto Ionas face and after editing to make it look darker as in the real video her face seemed to react a different way to the rest of her which made it flicker pink. To resolve this I now believe that more footage had to be created to find the perfect take.

Another challenge me and Iona faced was the 3rd shot of Lana Del Ray free falling odd a high platform. I tried many shot techniques to make the hill in a park look higher then it actually was, I did this by using a low camera angle and cutting out Ionas feet. Although we did try many times of making it look as if Iona was falling without damaging herself became very difficult. In the end our group decided that the performer would be in brace position and then it'd cut to the next shot to get rid of the risk factor. This is my favourite shot as the trees we chosoe for this shot where perfect, the only problem I feel went wrong with this was that in the background a goal post is visable and no matter how I angled the camera I couldn't hide it out of the view of the camea.

The last challenge that our group faced was that we had an to find an elegant old style gate for Iona to stand infront of for one of the last shots in the video, however our group couldn't find any gate nearby that reflected these characteristis and had to opt for the gate that we could find which was a college fence. I feel this made the video a disaster as it broke the mise-en-scene of the music video and even had the college side in the background. From this mistake I now know that more research of locations needs to be done and that the mise-en-scene performs a massive role in making a music video successful and realistic. Lastly after filiming and editing I realised that the cinematography was also wrong as instead of zooming in on the artists when singing the camera zoomed in after and then Iona walked forward, this shows that we should have paid more attention to the shots before editing.

In conclusion I now know that although being in a group can have it's benifits I'd rather just rely on myself as we was faced with members of my group  often missing and certain members which hadthings that we needed to make the video. Time was  also often spent getting the song on our phones and therefore time was wasted. Also time was wasted looking back at the original footage instead of using a storyboard which I realised was a vital part of post-production. I do believe I have gained a lot of expierence from this so I can make sure that my music video will be good in terms of mise-en-scence, editing and cinematography.

Codes And Conventions Of My Chosen Genre Essay

Every genre within the music industry have very different codes and conventions, these are used so that the audience of the music video can easily see if it's to there taste by what category it gets put into for example pop. Music videos can also be categorized in terms of style, these are:

-Performance
-Narrative
-Mixture-both performance + narrative
-Animation 

My chosen genre for my music video is alternative rock/indie rock and music  videos of this genre I have viewed on YouTube for example have many similarities in form of cinematography, editing, sound and mise-en-scene which make them easy to identify what type of people these artists are targeting.

Cinematography
Alternative rock music videos frequently use high angle shots, although this is usually used to show venerability it also can have another meaning.  In most music videos, the high angle shot is used for effect, to make the overall music video look more stylish and artistic, which is also what I like about this shot. An example of a music video that uses high angled shot for effect is Drumming Song by Florence and the Machine. This shot rarely also can be used to establish the setting of a video. 

Close ups are used to show bad members faces in more detail. I believe it is used to portray more attention to a person or object with higher importance or composition. This shot is also used to show a persons emotion so the audience are more likely to connect and feel like they're part of the 'band'. 

As many bands in the alternative rock genre are known for being very confident and different hence the word 'alternative' low angle shots can portray this by showing the dominance of the person in a shot. This person usually will be the main singer.

Lastly medium long shots and long shots are usually used in music videos with a performance to show body language of band members. The use of these shots can show the audience how poor or good they are at performing live and if they are entertaining, in result this could start a chain reaction of the audience buying tickets. 

 Example of medium long shot - Foo Fighters- The Pretender (Narrative and Performance)

Editing

Fast paced shots with cuts are commonly used in this genre to connect with the pace of the song, this is used to create an interesting and eye catching to make the music video match the beat.

Another technique I have identified from Radio head-street spirit is how tempo can effect the audiences mood. The slowed down movement of the video and the slow tempo of the music seems quiet transe like and gloomy. Another reason I belive this type of genre uses this editing technique is because it's very artistic ( photography like ) and because this music isn't main stream it can be unconventional is it targets are smaller audience.

Lighting

Some music videos are black and white which can help emphasise a particular mood and some videos have artificial lighting which but the artist/s in an enhanced look.

Sound

Sound is mainly just the vocals or it can be inserted in post-production to make the music video into a short film.

Mise-en-scene Props include instruments on a regular basis in the rock/indie genre as performance based music videos are very popular as well as narrative. Instruments usually include guitars and drum kits which are used in the creation of the song. I believe that performance is used a lot as it gives the audience a glimpse of how they are in live performance and may persuade them to buy tickets and go. Costumes of this genre usually include casual clothing such as shirts, cardigans and leather jackets to show a sense of individuality as indie/rock music isn’t commonly mainstream. Common sets include the streets, gigs with an audience, pubs/clubs and basements.