To begin my research and planning, I will begin by analysing the different music tribes and in doing this will identify how the music is portrayed due to music videos and their stereotypes.
Performance Videos
Narrative Videos
Mixture Videos
Music Video Task
Our group had a task of analysing a full music video, we had a choice of videos to choose from and we chose Lady Gaga-Bad Romance. We researched the video and looked at the making of it to help us with our presentation. We each had a certain area to look at-I was focusing on costume, lighting and colour. The other codes and conventions were featured too, such as the camera and editing, sound and props. Once we had all of our information, we put it all on one powerpoint, and included images and links to the video. We also had to include two activities that were based on the music video. The first one was putting the images in order that they happen in the video and the other was a quiz which we called Ladies vs the GuyGuys, and the questions were all about the information we have given throughout the presentation. Once the powerpoint was completed, we wrote out note cards and discussed who would say which part, then presented it to the rest of our class and was filmed, which will be uploaded soon.
Music Institutions
Lady Gaga-Bad Romance Presentation
What is a Music Video?
Music videos are generally 3-4 minutes long that is accompanied by a entire song performed by the artist who wants to sell this song. They can be performance music videos as well as animated and narrative to make the video even more interesting to suit the song.
Update
Recently, my group and I have chosen a song after lots of consideration and research to accompany our music video. The song is called L.O.V.E sung by Nat King Cole, however as this is an old fashioned song, we have decided to change the lyrics and rhythm to modernise it. So far, we have completed the lyrics and are now on planning the storyboards as we have discussed what the narrative will be in the music video. We have decided to create a narrative and performance music video as well as including a little amount of animation. To carry out this song, we have wrote our letter to EMI Records for permission to use the song.
We have decided to have a back up song, just in case we do not receive permission for the our first choice song. Our back up song is called More than words sung by Extreme. Once again, we have already changed the lyrics to make a storyline that would be similar to L.O.V.E.
We have all been assigned roles to do within our group such as carrying out the diary of events, schedule, props and fashion etc..
There will be the permission letter uploaded shortly as well as our ideas and plans and our storyboards.
Plastic Pop
Permission Letters
To carry out our ideas for the music video, we need to get permission from the artist's music label as, otherwise we could get sued for copyright. Therefore, we have sent two permission letters-one for the L.O.V.E song and the other back up song, 'More than words'.
EMI Headquarters,
Wrights Lane,
London,
W8
Holy Trinity Catholic Media Arts College
Oakley Road,
Small Heath,
Birmingham,
B10 0AX
Dear Sir or Madame,
Thank you for taking the time to read this letter as we know you must be very busy.
We are a group of four early entry A level media students, from Holy Trinity Catholic Media Arts College, in Birmingham, England. We are writing to ask you for permission to use the song L.O.V.E. sung by Nat King Cole for the completion of our A2 music video.
We have already began putting ideas together for our music video, and would be much obliged if you would allow us to use it. We may change lyrics and perhaps rhythm to the song but require your permission to do so in order to gain our full qualification.
If you allow us to use your song, our music video will be destroyed after the examination process and will not be uploaded on to any social networking sites, such as Facebook or Youtube. If you do not reply to this letter within two weeks we shall assume that we have the permission to carry out this task with your song.
Thank you so much for your time.
Yours Sincerely,
Sophie, Natalie, Emma and Anisa
Universal Music Publishing Ltd.
20 Fulham Broadway,
London,
SW6 1AH,
United Kingdom
Holy Trinity Catholic Media Arts College
Oakley Road,
Small Heath,
Birmingham,
B10 0AX
Dear Sir or Madame,
Thank you for taking the time to read this letter as we know you must be very busy.
We are a group of four early entry A level media students, from Holy Trinity Catholic Media Arts College, in Birmingham, England. We are writing to ask you for permission to use the song, More than words sung by Extreme for the completion of our A2 music video.
We have already began putting ideas together for our music video, and would be much obliged if you would allow us to use it. We may change lyrics and perhaps rhythm to the song but require your permission to do so in order to gain our full qualification.
If you allow us to use your song, our music video will be destroyed after the examination process and will not be uploaded on to any social networking sites, such as Facebook or Youtube. If you do not reply to this letter we shall assume that we have the permission to carry out this task with your song.
Thank you so much for your time.
Yours Sincerely
Sophie, Natalie, Emma and Anisa
EMI Headquarters,
Wrights Lane,
London,
W8
Holy Trinity Catholic Media Arts College
Oakley Road,
Small Heath,
Birmingham,
B10 0AX
Dear Sir or Madame,
Thank you for taking the time to read this letter as we know you must be very busy.
We are a group of four early entry A level media students, from Holy Trinity Catholic Media Arts College, in Birmingham, England. We are writing to ask you for permission to use the song L.O.V.E. sung by Nat King Cole for the completion of our A2 music video.
We have already began putting ideas together for our music video, and would be much obliged if you would allow us to use it. We may change lyrics and perhaps rhythm to the song but require your permission to do so in order to gain our full qualification.
If you allow us to use your song, our music video will be destroyed after the examination process and will not be uploaded on to any social networking sites, such as Facebook or Youtube. If you do not reply to this letter within two weeks we shall assume that we have the permission to carry out this task with your song.
Thank you so much for your time.
Yours Sincerely,
Sophie, Natalie, Emma and Anisa
Universal Music Publishing Ltd.
20 Fulham Broadway,
London,
SW6 1AH,
United Kingdom
Holy Trinity Catholic Media Arts College
Oakley Road,
Small Heath,
Birmingham,
B10 0AX
Dear Sir or Madame,
Thank you for taking the time to read this letter as we know you must be very busy.
We are a group of four early entry A level media students, from Holy Trinity Catholic Media Arts College, in Birmingham, England. We are writing to ask you for permission to use the song, More than words sung by Extreme for the completion of our A2 music video.
We have already began putting ideas together for our music video, and would be much obliged if you would allow us to use it. We may change lyrics and perhaps rhythm to the song but require your permission to do so in order to gain our full qualification.
If you allow us to use your song, our music video will be destroyed after the examination process and will not be uploaded on to any social networking sites, such as Facebook or Youtube. If you do not reply to this letter we shall assume that we have the permission to carry out this task with your song.
Thank you so much for your time.
Yours Sincerely
Sophie, Natalie, Emma and Anisa
Refusal Letter
During the process of sending the confirmation letters to use the songs, we received a letter back from Universal Music Group, stating that we can not use the song, More Than Words unless we fill in a very comprehensive form about what we will be doing with the song. Therefore, as there was no reply back from the song, L.O.V.E, we decided to use that song instead as that was our first choice and had more ideas and a better storyline for this song. Here is the letter from Universal:
Lyric Changes
L.O.V.E. Lyrics
L is for the way you look at me
O is for the only one I see
V is very, very extraordinary
E is even more than anyone that you adore and
Love is all that I can give to you
Love is more than just a game for two
Two in love can make it
Take my heart and please don't break it
Love was made for me and you
(trumpet instrumental)
L is for the way you look at me
O is for the only one I see
V is very, very extraordinary
E is even more than anyone that you adore
Love is all that I can give to you
Love is more than just a game for two
Two in love can make it
Take my heart and please don't break it
Love was made for me and you
Love was made for me and you
Love was made for me and you
Above is the original lyrics to our chosen song. As you can tell, the story behind the song is about someone who is completely in love with someone and therefore, we wanted to change the story to modernise it. These are the lyrics that we have created in the style of the original structure:
L.O.V.E.
L: The way you used to look at me,
O:if only your love was a guarantee,
V: It was very, very, extraordinary,
E:It was even more until you went for the girl next door.
Love, I wanted to give just to you,
You played your games and now we’re through,
If two in love can make it,
Why’d you take my heart and break it,
Love was never made for me and you.¬
(Interlude)
L: like you ever cared for me,
O: over from your cold heart now I’m free,
V: your voice has gone from me head
E: no second chances
Love not made for me and you
I thought it was the end when you were gone,
So now I know that I have to move on,
I know two in love can make it,
Need someone honest not to fake it,
And I’ll be stuck to him like glue,
‘Cause, love was never made for me and...
Love was never made for me and...
Love was never made for me and you.
The original Song
The is the original song that we chose to use for our music video. Here is the Nat king Cole version of L.O.V.E, you can notice how old fashioned and jazzy it is, whereas the song for our version is more of the pop genre and more modern. Also, the lyrics are very different for both songs so we could change the story to make the music video have an interesting storyline.
First Draft Of Storyboards
Before we started filming footage for our music video, we created storyboards so that we had a good idea of what will happen step by step. It helped us by having the knowledge of what scenes we needed to film at a certain time. As we ahve already started filming, certain elements in these storyboards have changed already due to the flow of the story and our ideas changing so we had to get rid of things and also add new scenes in or and rearrange certain bits. There will also be animation in our video for originality, which will suit the storyline such as we want to include moving hearts, moving texts and a heart breaking.
Scenes
Link To JapopSo far, we have filmed many of the needed scenes for the music video. We still need to film other scenes to complete the video. We have filmed these scenes:
Teardrop on the phone for symbolism but as we looked through the clips, we decided that we will reshoot this scene to make it look more effective and realistic.
Performance-as we have decided to use a live performance in our video, we have already recorded this and have selected the best clip to use. The music video will feature a few seconds of this at a time throughout the 2.16 minutes.
Flashback scenes-These feature clips from when the main character is remembering the happy times that she had with her ex boyfriend. These will be transformed into black and white to portray that they are memories. There is a scene outside where the main character is waiting for her ex but he turns up late and this shows a slight hitch in their relationship. The other one is where they are both having a fun time just messing around play fighting.
Depressed scenes- this is after the text message has been sent at the start to show the relationship is over. The clothing used was dark to symbolise the sadness that she is going through. The facial expressions show her emotion and the pain that she is going through.
Photograph-There is a scene in her bedroom where she comes into the scene, shuts the door and just stares towards the photographs of her and her ex boyfriend. The camera focuses on the photographs and then she goes and sits on her bed with the photo in her hand to represent how she felt for him.
Stair scene-As soon as the main character gets the text message saying it’s over, she immediately gets up from sitting down and runs down the stairs to show something bad and cold has happened.
Outside scenes-We have filmed most of the outside scenes that we need, such as the other girl and the main character’s ex boyfriend getting to know each other and to show how he has moved on from his previous relationship.
New girl-The new girl is introduced with her boyfriend and we have filmed scenes where they are having a really good time compared to the main character who is still heartbroken.
Moving on-The main character eventually moves on and starts a new relationship with her new boyfriend and these scenes show her getting to know someone else and how she becomes happier. There will be one scene where her ex boyfriend sees her getting along with her new boyfriend and this will make him think about the past and how he is jealous now because she seems really happy.
Behind the scenes-As we filmed the scenes, we decided to make videos of how the clips would be created and how rehearsals and filming went as we got new ideas.
Bloopers-When we were filming the scenes, there were many bloopers and mistakes that happened and so, we decided to keep these all together and put them together to show the progress that will happen for the final product.
Throughout the process of the music video, our group wanted to carry a theme in certain areas of Japop-the genre we created when we were completed AS media. Japop is a genre with pop and jazz codes and conventions. Hence, some parts of our A2 media work has elements of this in it, such as in the performance scene, the artist has a Japop image as she fits the pop stereotype as well as having jazz elements. Also, the magazine which is being created has many Japop features on it such as the colours, theme and type of images and sub headings. The characters int he music video can be classed as Japop because the main character is more of a pop style but the new girl seems more mature and hence, can be viewed as more of a Japop character.
Update
My group and I have begun editing the clips by setting up a table recording, the name of the file, the seconds that we want to use from it and how it will fit in with the music video. This has helped a lot as when we edit the clips, it is simple to cut the files to the size we want. However, we have realised that it is a very long process. To make the music video look fluent and more interesting, we are going to add video transitions and effects. We are going to finish filming soon so we have all of the clips we need. During the filming process, as there were many bloopers and out takes, we have decided to create a blooper reel to show the progression from the bloopers to the actual finished production.
Beginning the editing process
We are using a technical programme called Final Cut which is found on the Apple Mac Laptops we are using. At first, we had no idea where to start as it did not look familiar at all. We asked the teacher to tell us the basics, then found out that is was actually quite simple to use. We were glad that we produced an editing list so we knew where certain scenes had to go and how many seconds we needed from each of the chosen clips. We have realised that editing is a very long process, mainly due to the rendering that is needed after you change something on the programme.
Effects And Transitions In Our Music Video
To make our music video more interesting and creative, we decided to put animations and transitions into it. Therefore for the animation process, we used Adobe Flash and as we have not had any experience with this, we needed to know the basics and once we knew them, it was quite easy to use but a long process. We were originally going to create two animations but have decided just to use one as we did not have enough room in the music video as its duration and approximately two and a half minutes and we need to fit in all the needed clips and scenes to explain what is happening in the music video. We created an animation of a heart that would be placed at the end to show a happy end with the new couple. We did not make a perfect heart with perfect lines because we wanted to symbolise how nothing is perfect especially a relationship which is shown between the girl and the boy who breaks up with her. Whilst creating this animation, the instructions to do so was to draw the heart out using and mouse on the laptop which was very difficult then we had to use keyframes to rub a bit of the heart out in each keyframe. It was time consuming but worth it when we saw the finished animation. Another issue with the animation was to place it on Final Cut and in the correct place of our music video. It had to be in the perfect poisition so the clip was able to be shown clear and none of the heads were cut off so this also took a lot of time to get it right.
The transitions were easier to do as they were made on Final Cut and so were placed in the correct place easily and quickly. We needed to use transitions as certain clips did not look fluent which made the music video look unprofessional. Fortunately, there were a wide range of transitions to choose so we looked through many of them and chose which one looked the best.
Update
After lots and lots of time, the editing of the clips is finished with all of the transitions and effects. It looks realistic and the story is clearly shown. The only problem that we have with the music video is that when we filmed the performance clips, where the artist would be shown singing to the song, it was on a white background and hence, there is no effect or background that can be added to make it look more effective. Therefore we are currently thinking of ideas of what to do about this issue as we do not want these bits to look bland and boring.
We are pleased with how the music video looks so far but are focusing on any changes that would make the video look better, we are very pleased that we created an editing list, otherwise it would have took twice as long to complete the music video. It was difficult to position about twenty three scenes into a two and a half minutes.
Filming And Meeting Schedules
It was important to record when my group and I would meet up to film, edit and for meetings to discuss ideas for the music video. As we were working in a larger group of four, it was more difficult to find times and days when everyone was able to meet up. Here is the filming and meeting schedule:
Storyboards
These are the storyboards that we used mostly so we could film the scenes and to know what was needed in the scenes. Whilst filming we had to make changes to these as certain elements did not fit or did not look effective, therefore we needed new ideas or needed to remove bits because they did not look very good. The storyboards were very useful, especially in the researching process as once we had our storyline, we made many ideas and could put them into the storyboards.
Editing List
This is the editing list we used which was very useful especially in the editing process as well as filming as we could tell which scenes was needed in which part of the song. We made a clear and neat editing list so no information was unclear and difficult to understand as the editing needed to be in the correct place at the correct time. On the editing list, as you can see, we wrote the file name so we could get to the file easily, then wrote what seconds we needed from the clip and then recorded the overall time-this is so we could tell where we was in the song and how many seconds were left for the rest of the clips.
Changing the background on our music video
After many discussions and ideas for the performance background, we have decided to reshoot the scenes where the music artist is needed. However, this means we will have to incorporate lip synching into the music video which will be a challenge as this will have to match up exactly to the lyrics. We are going to use scenes as the background which are included in the music video to show how Jane Wesley is singing the song for the main girl. The familiar backgrounds will make the music video look more interesting as we can use many different camera angle and also have an idea for the ending. We though of getting a big book and writing, 'The End' at the back of it so Jane Wesley can close it and this will be placed after the kiss to show a fairy tale ending to the story. This will show how the music video was not very happy at the beginning but eventually there is a very positive ending.
Update
We have now completed the music video and the new backgrounds work effectively. We have chosen familiar backgrounds to use and you see these in specific scenes in the music video so it makes it more familiar and recognisable. Now my group and I have accomplished all of the required tasks, I will be uploading the evaluation for the music video and both the DVD cover as well as the magazine cover. Also, we have made videos of deleted scenes and how we changed the character of the girl next door into the music artist, Jane Wesley.
