Back with Oscar

Sorry for the angle the youtube uploading feature on windows movie maker changed it. In this video Oscar analyses my music video. What I have learnt is that the message in the video was clearly represented and people understood why the effects were used. However, on the bad side he said the lighting was bad in parts and the overall quality of the video could have been better but he understood why it wasn't because of my budget.

Finished Music Video

Here is my final production enjoy and click like if you enjoyed it.

Evaluation Question: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research and planning and evaluation stages?

Research and Planning


Firstly, I had to find an artist since I didn't know anyone who was in a band or who produced music.  To do this I used the internet and found a website called Unsigned.com which has loads of artists on it looking to be signed up and to expand their fan base. It was here that I found Arty's profile page with a link to his Facebook page and website.  After listening to some of his tracks I quickly fell in love with the song Heat and contacted him through Facebook about using the song for a fan made video. He said I could use the song but wouldn't be able to take a big part in the planning and construction stages since he was busy producing music in New York. Even though not having Arty's input would be a setback I was confident that I could put some imagery together to go with this great song. It was from here I used the worldwide video site youtube to browse music videos of electropop artists like David Guetta and Nero to get some inspiration of what features made a great music video of that genre.

Although I was lucky to find an artist who was willing to cooperate it took me a lot of time to do this sending lots of emails to different people and at the same time making sure that their music was something I thought I could make a music video out of. In addition since Arty lives in the USA I couldn't feature him in the video or do a interview with him which is also a downside.

I also used Microsoft Word to type out the questionnaire for my audience research. This was important because if I didn't know what the audience wanted in the video it would be destined to fail. Another product I used was my Samsung Galaxy S2 mobile phone to take still shots of things like my storyboard (no I didn't get given it I have a part-time job). I also used my mobile phone to text my friends James and Karima. It was important to keep in contact with them so I could plan ahead dates to film, tell them what to wear and I even texted their lines to them for the start of the movie!

I also used Facebook in order to message James and Karima about filming dates and times etc.. I also used it to connect with Arty through his Facebook page and listen to his music to see if it fitted with my ideas for the video.

I also used youtube and Google throughout all three processes but mostly in the research where I watched video's to find more about electropop and I watched videos about software like Photoshop in order grasp how the program works.  I used Google to found out more about artists like David Guetta. For instance, I would research where they got there inspiration from and what things they consider to be associated with their music.

Construction


To shoot the film I used two camera's. My Samsung Galaxy S2 which shoots in HD1080P and my Flip Ultra HD camera which is great because it fits nicely into your pocket. Even though I have some old digital cameras at home I chose to use the flip Camera since it comes with it's own computer software Flipshare which is great for cutting down clips ready to be edited. I also chose this camera because it has great image stabilization and comes with optical zoom which means I didn't have to move in closer or further away that much. The ultra HD also shoots at 50 fps (frames per second) which means that there is virtually no lag on the camera even when objects are fast moving. After you film a shot is comes pre loaded into the computer in H.264 format which is a very high resolution video format. However, the best thing about this camera is it's connection capability which means that can work with any program like Imovie, Powerdirector and Adobe Premier Pro. It also doesn't use a connection wire and instead has a USB connector in the camera which plugs straight into the camera. This meant I didn't have to worry about loosing any connector leads.

Some bad points about this camera however are that it is very hard to keep still especially with a tripod. Therefore, this meant I had to edit out a lot more jumps in the music video. Even though video in the night is bad on most camera's I found it especially bad on the Flip Ultra HD - a lot of the video was fuzzy or even unavailable in the dark. In addition the still shots it takes aren't very good which is why I used my Samsung to do these.

To edit my film I used Powerdirector 10 Ultra 64 Bit edition. I chose this software over Imovie which I used last year because the interface is much more clearer and I find that there are more options to play around with. For instance, Powerdirector has over 50 transitioning effects and has it's own audio editor included.
The tool I found most useful on there was the power tools option which lets you determine the speed of the video. It also comes with over 300 video tools including dual core video rendering. You can also free hand draw over video clips to add information in. I used this to add the writing at the start of my music video which I found very effective. One of the best things about Powerdirector though is it's ability smart fix videos. It can use its true theatre technology to fix impurities like noise, lightning and it can even up scale SD video in HD quality which is something Imovie can't do. One other tool that I played around with when editing my video was the WaveEditor tool which allows you to edit the music so that certain parts of the video have louder audio than others it also allows you to speed up parts of the audio as well. I implemented a speed up effect at the start of the video in order to match the visuals with the music. Finally the last tool I will point out that makes it stand out above Imovie is it's export to devices tool. This meant that I was able to export the video to my Samsung Galaxy S2 to show people the video instead of having to carry around my Laptop or USB.

A couple of bad points about Powerdirector though is that you have to download most of the effects and tools to use on the software from their website. This is time consuming which meant making the video took a lot more effort. In addition because it uses such a user friendly interface the software unintentionally hides more advanced tools that can make the video much better and to get to these I had to do some research into the software.

Another piece of tech I used was Adobe Photoshop CS5.1 Extended Edition. I used this to produce my print work which included the CD cover and magazine advert. I found this software very helpful since it let me erase bits of the picture I didn't want using the crop and magic wand tools.  It was also very easy to adjust the size of the image so that it would fit into a CD case. Another thing I like about Photoshop is it's layer functionality which was very useful when creating my front album cover. This meant I could drag the cropped picture of James over onto my pre-made background without worrying about him turning a different colour or looking more transparent. Another tool I used throughout my print work was the distortion tool particularly on text. I found the concept of distortion to be a very important aspect of electropop since it goes with the whole funky idea of pop music. In my print work I used this tool to distort the writing on the front page on my booklet and on the back cover to make Arty's name stand out above everything else.

Although Photoshop is the most advanced tool in it's market I found that for me personally it takes a lot of time to get used to all the tools and effects that can be produced with it. When I first used Photoshop I was overwhelmed by all the buttons that appeared on screen and I had to spent several hours watching tutorial videos on youtube to get the gist of it.

Evaluation


The main piece of technology I used here was Blogger which I have been using throughout this project. I think I was able to get the most out of Blogger this year since I had used it last year as well for my AS project. I found out how to import youtube videos in and how to upload pictures from your hard-drive or phone onto Blogger.  I again also used my phone to take a shot of the post-product questionnaire and my computer to take screen shots of my work where necessary.

Even though Blogger is a nice piece of software for recording your work I find that it can sometimes be very slow. For example, when I was trying to upload my print work onto Blogger it took a very long time and wouldn't let me put pictures close together.  Also compared to slideshare.net  I found Blogger wasn't as interactive and the layout generally looks more dull.

Evaluation Question : What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Now having finished my music video I decided it was time to find out what other people thought about it. So I asked my friends to each complete a questionnaire tell me what they thought about the video.

On a whole people gave my video 8/10 which I am very pleased considering I am a amateur and I am working on my own. People said that they enjoyed a narrative that fitted with the lyrics of the song and that me changing the pace of the video to match the speed of the song was a very smart thing to do. They also enjoyed the fact I made Karima stalk James from behind on a slope since the below-eye camera angle made her look more superior than James.

Relating to the Discourse theory some of my audience didn't respond in the way I expected them to. For instance, when I asked them if they liked the locations I filmed in lots of people were happy that I didn't film in a club because it would look to unoriginal. Yet these music videos have millions of views on the web and in the previous questionnaire many people said they preferred unoriginal ideas. In addition, people asked for more shots of James whereas Eletropop videos have typically been focused on the male gaze showing lots of camera time on the female.

Looking directly at the comments nearly all the people were passive spectators. This means they acepted the idea of the boy/girl love story and didn't question what I was trying to portray in the video. I was a bit upset from this because I would have prefered if people had been more critical about the narrative of the film and tryed to challange the plot.

The bad. People said that sometimes the camera was a bit shaky and that more close-ups of James could have been used. One person suggested we could have filmed in a club but then later agreed this would be problematic with getting permission from the owners. Another person said "you should of had James perform a funky dance". Unfortunately James doesn't like to dance on camera and I also felt that going too over the top with comical moments would ruin the mood of the song.

Reflecting on the audience research I did before I made the video I can see that people's views on what they wanted had changed once they actually watched my video. People who originally thought that the narrative wasn't too important changed their minds and said that if I hadn't added props like the thermostat and speech bubbles they may have not got what the music video was about. Comparing the two questionnaire results side by side then I can see that people's views on what makes a good music video do not only change according to the genre but also the lyrics and pace of the video.  For instance, a comment I got from my friend Jaypal was that "A Kid Cudi or Dizzie Rascal style video probably wouldn't have worked here since the pace of Arty's music sometimes slows down for long periods of time while theirs stays the same so the fast paced scenes they use in their videos may not have worked here". I think this is an important point to recognize that every piece of music which although may fit into genre's of other pieces of music is unique in itself and so to make a good music video you must adapt to that uniqueness.

The verdict. On a whole I am pleased with the feedback from my friends since even though it wasn't perfect the video didn't come out as a complete shambles.

Evaluation Question: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

The combination of the main product and ancillary texts has been very effective by using the power of imagery.

I have chosen to use the same image on my album cover as the magazine advert. This is so that viewers can recognize my artists iconic image so that they don't have to spend hours browsing for Arty's album in a store but instead can instantly spot him by the way he looks. The image I have decided to is very iconic it uses a lot of elements that you would expect to see in an Electropop genre. For example I have decided to use dark glasses , clothes for clubbing and a unusual pose which represents funky yet classy style. This continuity all adds to the effect of a image motif for my artist. In the video I allowed people to concentrate on the unique style of James in the video by splitting the video into four sections so you could get a full view of the type of clothing he wears.

Another way in which my product and ancillary texts combine together is in the way that the information is linked. For instance, on my magazine advert I displayed the date Arty's album is released and why you should buy it. On the album cover work I provided a mini biography so people can find out more about Arty and the pictures used on the album tells the audience what kind of person he is. Finally, the main product shows that Arty is a comical yet human person through the way which things are done in the music video like getting water chucked over him. When combined together they all advertise a certain aspect about the artist which combines to give an overall fan base effect because you feel like you are getting to know someone you can admire.

On all the pages of my album work, music video and the magazine advert Arty's name is mentioned. This helps the viewers to remember the artists name and think about him and his work. I have chosen to use a close-up on the last page on my booklet so that viewers can get a better look at the artist in order to recognize him more easily. The photo on this page is fairly simple in black and white to show that he is a normal person just like everyone else. This combines well with the writing on the page which is in a funky font because it reminds the viewers what type of genre Arty's music is and it shows he wants the fans to recognize that he knows this.

Looking at the back cover. I have chosen to incorporate a barcode in order to show the product is genuine and not a fake. I have also added legal and label information at the bottom to warn of copyright infringement  and the rights the record label holds. The record label is clearly displayed in order to promote the company that is responsible for Arty. There is also a link to Arty's personal website so that if the viewer wants to find out more they are not restricted and can go directly to the page. The information on this page is very colourful which combines and links to the front cover which shows lots of coloured lights being displayed on the background behind Arty. This helps the audience to understand that Arty's music is all about having fun and letting go of the things that trouble you which Arty's iconic image also promotes.

Talking about the main image image of my product now I think that the main product and ancillary texts help to build a cohesiveness of what the album is about so that when you listen to Arty's music you know what he is talking about. I showed this on my ancillary text my making James surrounded in flames with the word heat coming out of the flames. I made this cohesive with the music video when a beating effect comes into place in the video when James wakes up to show the audience that James is being heavily influenced by the heat of the room. This helps the audience to understand the song is about Arty burning up inside and not just merely heat itself. 

A good example of cohesiveness in real media texts is the band Gorillaz, in particular their album 'Demon Days'. This shows the four members of the band all portrayed as demons. This is not only cohesive with their album name 'Demon Days' but also their music videos for the album which show the band as cartoon demons who want to be free and different. 

Evaluation Question: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

My music video uses many conventions of real media products. One of the conventions it uses is the idea of a traditional boy and girl relationship in order to relate to the audience and create an emotional and funny narrative. In my music video I decided to cast James and Karima because my audience research told me that having a boy and girl narrative would make the music video seem more realistic and exciting. This relates to the David Guetta video 'Love is Gone' where at the start of the video we are shown a beginning scenario where the woman is breaking up with her boyfriend. I have chosen to do the same thing in my video but with the camera seeing things from James perspective unlike in the David Guetta video where it is focused on the woman.

This links into post-moderinism which says that everything cannot be explained and that nothing is set in stone. My video incorporated this idea by showing James as a mentally unstable character (through his disturbing dreams) whereas in the past men have been shown as strong and unbreakable. We also challenged typical environments used in Electropop. For instance, in most pop music video it features at least one scene in a club with people dancing or doing crazy things. For example in the music video 'I got a feeling' by the Black Eyed Peas it shows the group painting themselves in illumanitive paint which lights up in the dark. In my video I challenged this stereotype of pop music videos featuring scenes in clubs or with people dancing and instead chose to do something simple yet effective.

Linking back to my original research on Electropop videos. I still decided to incorporate the idea of Electropop videos being a bit mysterious. For instance, In the analysis of the Nero video it showed that the woman was going against her superiors by not taking her medicine making her stand out from everyone else. In my video I used the idea of Karima disappearing as something that couldn't be explained and going against the laws of science.

In my music video and ancillary texts I also developed conventions of real media products. One of the conventions I developed is the idea of dreams. For example in the famous music video 'Bring me to life'  by Evanescence. It shows the lead singer Amy Lee asleep dreaming that she is on the outside of a building. The music video only shows a couple times at the beginning that she is dreaming and mainly concentrates on the narrative involving her and her boyfriend. I have developed this concept so that the video is constantly feeding back to James when he is asleep to remind people that it is a dream. This helps people to focus on the story line and therefore understand the song better since my video is highly diegetic and synchronised.  I have also added blur and worm hole effects when transitioning to the dream. I chose to do this because unlike in the Evanescence video the scenery changes a lot and things happen much faster to keep up with the pace of the video so the viewer may get lost about what the video is about. By feeding clips of James asleep on his bed into the video I am reminding viewers about what the music video is about through the power of repetition.

My music video also challenges the texts of real media products. One example of this is the convention of the man being shown as the alpha-male while the woman is shown as a femme fatale. You see this done a lot of time in films. One recent example of this is in the film Thor where the man is shown as the muscular person who saves his girlfriend from his evil brother. Even when it looks like all hope is lost he is still shown as the fearless warrior. My video challenges this stereotype by showing James as the mentally weaker person who is struggling to deal with the stress of his girlfriend breaking up with him. I chose to do the music video like this because it brings to the surface the fact that the male is not always the stronger person.

Print work before and after

Print Work

After successfully finishing the music video it was time to move onto the second half of the coursework which is making a magazine advert and a 6 page CD cover. To prepare for the print work I made James do a funky type pose with glasses on. This would become the iconic image that viewers would recognize Arty by and would be featured on the front cover of the album and the magazine advert.  To turn this image into a magazine advert and front cover I first created a background which would match the style of the image. To do this I used Adobe Photoshop CS5. I had mixed feelings about this software since I had never used it to produce print work before and all the buttons around the screen looked complicated at first. On the other hand, I was also confident since I remembered from my AS studies that Adobe software had been used to create the $2.7 billion box office hit Avatar which was visually incredible.


To create the background I used different brush sizes of different colours and then blended them into to each other using a tool called Gaussian Blur. This allowed me to create an effect which looked like a patchwork of different colours with different shapes. I did this on a black background so that the colours would stand out more.  Next I cropped the original picture with James taking a pose in order to remove the boring background. I then carefully brushed around James with the eraser tool to make sure anything unwanted wasn't attached to him. After that I moved  the Picture of James onto the background positioning him so that he was in the center.  I then added writing making sure that the artists name was bigger than the album titles name. This was important so that the audience would recognize the artist rather than the song since by promoting the artist I am promoting all of his work not just one song. 

Before and after pictures. 

Editing

Now I have sucessfully completed my filming it is time to begin the editing process. To this I will be using PowerDirector 64 Bit Ultra. I am choosing this software because it is easy to use and it offers a wide range of effects that can be incorperated into videos. So far, I have 6 minuites of footage with the music track only lasting 4 minuites so I will have to do a lot of cutting down. I am choosing to edit the tracks in chronological order to make it easier for me to put together the peices once i'm finished.

Firstly, I started editing the break-up scene between James and Karima. Since this was the only part where talking is involved I had to be carefully not to cut out any of the important speech when editing. I then inserted the music track into powerdirector and started editing the scenes with Karima stalking James. This was the most difficult part of the editing process since there were a lot of irrelevent takes of a certain scene and some scenes were too long or short which meant the audience wouldn't be able to understand what was happening. I solved this problem by deleting all the the irrelevent scenes and then cutting down the scenes I did this with Powerdirectors multi-trim tool which allows you to put markers on a clip to show the bits you want in the scene or cut out.  I then added slow motion effects where James was turning around so the audience could see the surprised expression on his face. To finish of I added the clips with James walking with nobody behind him and then inserted the clips with Karima after that so it made look like she magically appeared.

Next, I started editing the scene with James going over to Karima's house to try and convince her to get back together with him. Like that will happen. Anyhow I timed the clip with the music track so that when the music slowed down it shows James walking up to Karima's door and when he started arguing with her the music would speed up. I did this because when the music fits in with what you are seeing it enchances the visual effect of what you see because it feels more realistic.

Thirdly, I edited the bits with James asleep and feeded them in between scenes of the video. I then added a worm whole effect when the  scenes with James asleep  appeared. I did this to make it clear to the audience that James was no longer in the dream world but that instead, we were watching him sleeping. I then added a blur effect at the end of  these scenes which made up a cool fade out transitioning effect when exiting the real world scenes. After I used Powerdirectors powertools to speed up the scenes in the real world so it matched the pace of the music.

Finally, I added in the scene with James entering in his room and going to sleep after a bad day and the scene with him walking up, running down stairs, and turning the thermestat down. I had to edit out all the bits with my shadow in here to create an effect of realism. I then inserted a slow-motion effect when James woke up so we all see that bemused expression on his face.  In all it took me about 5 hours to edit on my own but I am quite happy with the end result and I hope you will be too.

Filming Day 5

Today I filmed the carry on scene from day 4 which involved Karima jumping out of the bushes at night scaring James while he is living his nightmare. I filmed this by having James walk towards the camera while as Karima was emerging out of the bushes to scare James I turned the camera towards Karima to get them both in the picture as James jumped back with surprise.

I edited this on Powerdirector the day after by inserting a slow motion effect as Karima jumped out to scare James. I did this to make James's afraid expression clear to the audience and because it also added enjoyed effect to see James getting scared by a little girl. Whereas if I did this in normal video speed, it wouldn't look as dramatic because we wouldn't get to see the expressions James and Karima were doing which would make the overall experience less enjoyable.

Introduction to Editing

I talk about the software I'm using to edit, why I'm using it over other programs and some examples of effects I can do with the software. Enjoy!

Filming Day 4

We thought we would give Karima a rest this week since she has done so much hardwork.......
Anyhow this week I filmed the scene from my storyboard which shows James coming home and going to sleep where he enters the dream world where all the crazy stuff happens. Taking advice from James experience in his photography degree classes we chose to film in short straight cuts instead of having the camera following him. We chose to do it this way in order to avoid the camera shaking and to give us acess to more angles. We started the scene with James opening the door and turning up the themometer. We did a zoom in effect here of him turning up the themometer so the audience could clearly see what was happening. 

After this I filmed James walked up the stairs from behind then half way through I switched to the top of the stairs to show up walking up the stairs and going into my room from in front. This created great continuity because he never went out of range of the camera as if he would have if I filmed it all from behind him.

Next I filmed him going to sleep tossing and turning. I chose rotate the camera left and right here in order to create effect that would distingish between the real and dream world. I also did a quick pan around the room so the audience could easily recognize that this was his bedroom but also created a nice transition into the scenes where he is dreaming. This pan shot latest a little bit too long for my liking and would need to be cut down with Power Director the edititing software I am using.

Filming Day 3

On Thursday, me Karima and James went to Castle Park to film some night time shots. I used my dual LED flash on my Samsung Galaxy S2 as a back light to make things brighter on the Flip Ultra HD camera I have been filming with so far. This didn't achieve much success though since there was still a lot of noise being created in the video. So instead I decided on filming just one short scene in the night and to keep the rest of the shots in the day time for better quality.

The scene I shot this week showed James coming from one side of a path looking over to his right to see Karima walking with a mystery man (who was played by me). This scene was different from the rest since instead of having Karima coming from behind him she was on his right which would bring a good opportunity for a split screen effect.

Looking back to the David Guetta Video I analysed I chose to feature my self in the video in order to raise the viewers awareness of the producer behind the video. I felt this was an important feature in an Electropop video since most of the time the person who makes the music , lyrics and sings are all the same so it is important that the viewers recognize this.

Filming day 2

Today I went back to Ashton Court with James and Karima to do some more filming. The first scene we shot was James walking back down from Ashton court to is house wear he would suddenly see Karima sitting their in front of the sun. I portrayed this by first filming a scene with James walking down a hill squinting as he can't believe what he is seeing. Then I filmed a scene with Karima sitting there while I tried to perform a pan shot around her to make her sitting their look more effective.

The next scene was similar but this time I filmed Karima walking behind James on a hill rather than just sitting there. I did this from a low angle to make Karima look more superior since she was higher up on the hill than James which made her stand out more. This is important because the audience can therefore recognize that this is a nightmare rather than a happy dream where she is in control and not him.

The last scene we shot today was in a graveyard next to Karima's house. I chose to shoot here because I wanted to symbolise the lyrics "on my mind" which come into play throughout the songs chorus. I showed this by first doing a establishing shot of the area for the audience to recognize the change of place. Then I filmed two separate scenes one with James sitting on the bench crying over his ex then another one with Karima doing the some thing. I did this with the idea that I would be able to put them together and create a split screen with two scenes either side each other. I am choosing to do this to help the audience understand that this was a movie with comedy and sadness about a guy having a bad day. This relates to the Nero video where at the start the girl says " you must stop this" but the other girl refuses to take the medicine. This relates to the Nero video because it is about going against what is expected of you. For example old idea's of marriage that people are meant to be together

for the rest of their lives.

The final piece of filming that I filmed today was at Karima's house. I this clip we filmed James trying to make up with Karima which would end badly for him with him getting water poured over him. As explained above I did this to show that that not everything can be explained. I chose to shoot this from an over-the-shoulder angle and go into a close up of the James after he had the water chucked over him. I felt this was the best way to show this because it let us not only get a good look of Karima's unforgiving face but of James's surprise face after he got drenched.

Magazine Advert Analysis Part 2

The next magazine advert I am going to look at is by Dizzee Rascal. Dizzee Rascal has been producing electro/house music for a long time and has recently owned the charts with singles like holiday and bonkers.  His album Tongue n' Cheek was certified platinum after it reached over 300,000 sales.

I chose this advert because it clearly addresses the funky style of electropop music. The magazine cover uses bubbly writing to address the funky style of pop music. The way it is all squashed together using different colours shows that pop music is a really informal type of music.

Filming Day 1

Today me and my two actors James and Karima started filming in Ashton Court. James would play the troubled man who is having dreams of his ex and Karima would play the ex girlfriend. We started with filming the break up scene which would act as an intro to the video before the music starts. One problem I had here was finding the right location since it was a very windy day which was creating a lot of noise in the camera's audio. This was particularly a problem here because this was one of the few scenes where audio was needed to understand what the music video is about. However, we managed to find a spot near a couple trees where there was less wind.

The next scene I started shooting on Ashton Court was where James thought Karima was following him back home but had not yet realised that he was in a dream. I tried to portray this by filming a scene where it was him walking down a hill then adding another clip with James and Karima walking down the hill with her following him from behind. I then put these clips together to make it look like she suddenly appeared out of nowhere.  This was moderatly sucessful but I did experience some glitches in between scenes and lighting was a problem. Thankfully though due to James's photography skills which is he now studying at university we were able to reduce the light by turning the brightness down on the camera and by pointing the camera slightly downwards in order to block out some of the background light. 

Magazine Advert Analysis Part 1

In order to get a better idea of how to display an advert for my artist I have decided to analyse some popular magazine adverts and look at what they do in order to get public attention. The first magazine advert I am going to analyse is by David Guetta. The advert features Guetta smack in the middle showing a thumbs up to the readers. The magazine company could have possibly chosen to do this to get public awareness of the artist since a lot of the time Guetta is not featured in the music videos produced by him and his record company. 

 Looking at the what he is wearing it is the kind of funky style clothing that a lot of people are wearing in his videos epically when they are in the clubs. This shows readers that his music is electropop which you would expect to be played in the clubs. On the right in the big letters it has "David Guetta takes over" and under it in smaller letters it says "How a French music star changed the sound of the top 40". This is particularly important because it expresses what a big sensation he is. In some genres a statement like this may be considered a bit bold or over confident but I think pop music is an expection because lots of people look for what's hot and new rather than classics or what they personally like. For instance rock artists like Led Zepplin and Queen are still worshipped even though they have long since disbanded. However pop artists like Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake have declined in reputation even though their music is less than a decade old.

Storyboard

After lots of primary and secondary research I have finally put together a storyboard which I will refer to when shooting and evaluating my music video. The main synopsis of the music video will focus on a guy who has just broke up from his girlfriend. He goes home after a very bad day and doesn't realise that his thernistad is turned up high (hint the song heat). He then goes to sleep where he starts having weird dreams of his ex-girlfriend who seems to be everywhere he goes. This all basically ends with him waking up and rushing down stairs to turn the thermistad down. In the storyboard I decided to stick with the idea of a boy/girl love narrative because the feedback from my questionaire told me that the audience prefered this in Electropop music videos. I also decided to have someone miming the lyrics during the chorus like in the Nero song because I feel the lyrics are important and need to be understood to fully understand the music video.
With regard to speical effects I have decided to use fade outs when switching from the artist singing the lyrics to the scene where the man is dreaming because I feel it shows a clear cutting point so the audience know what is happening. I am also going to try and incorperate a split screen when the man is being stalked by his ex at certain points so on one side we will see him walking with no one behind him and on the other side we will.

Basshunter Now You're Gone – The Album

The third album I'm going to anyalse is Basshunter 'Now Your're Gone'.  Basshunter or his real name Jonas Erik Altberg is a Sweedish Singer-Songwriter, record music producer and DJ. His single Now Your're Gone was the UK number 1 for 5 weeks in 2007. Basshunter also takes full advantage of the internet to market himself by running his own website which features unreleased songs and the latest Basshunter news.

Like in the previous album cover the singer is the main focus on the cover. However, on this album cover there is more of a direct focus on him rarther than the background which in the last 2 albums covers I analysed explained what the album was about. This could possibly be to attract women since Basshunter has a infamous reputation for using pornstars in his music videos or it could be to make the  For the third time white writing is used for the artists name and album cover. The green ray background could possibly simbalise the genre of the song because a lot of lighting effects are used in clubs and electropop music is played in clubs more than anywhere else. Looking on to what he's wearing it looks like a kind of leather techno jacket.                                                                                                                                                              

In for the kill - La Roux

The next CD cover I am going to analyse is 'In for the kill' by La Roux released on the 16th of March 2009.
La Roux are an English electropop duo made up of Eleanor Kate Jackson, and co-writer and co-producer Ben Langmaid. Eleanor Jackson says the song is about telling somebody how you feel about them regardless of what you get back. This could explain why Eleanor who is featured on the Cd cover is dressed like an assasin who are typically not afraid to do anything. The CD cover also links into the 1980s TV program Pole Position which the song is partially based on. Elements of this included in the CD cover include being dressed in a spy outfit and featuring a Toyota MR2 the main car used in the TV show. Like the David Guetta album the name of the artist is clearly displayed in white to make it stand out and the title of the album cover is displayed is smaller font which like said before in the David Guetta album could signal it of being less important than the artists name. The dark background with the city lights could be used to try and link into the name of the title which uses the word kill this background expresses the feeling tthat someone is going to get hurt which combindes to the fact most bad things happen in the night.

Music Companies Research

Today I decided to take a deeper look into the music industries behind successful artists and to find out what they contributed to make the artist a successful product.

The main company behind music is the record label which manages over the marketing, manufacturing, recording, legal rights and distribution of the music. Contrary to most peoples beliefs the record company isn't just responsible for getting the music heard by other people.

Nowadays record labels are nearly all owned by another company and can use their skills/expertise to promote a product or to borrow money for the initial big start-up cost of promoting an artist. There are 4 big record labels currently in the world Sony, EMI, Universal and Warner who are all sub-divisions of conglomerates and together make up around 70-80% of the world's music market. These sub-divisions are then split down into departments such as sales, artwork, publicity and management.

Applying this knowledge to my own work, I decided to look at how the record labels used media to promote their artist. On youtube I watched various videos by Jimmy Iovine the head of Interscope records. What I learnt was that sites like youtube and Facebook are becoming more popular ways of promoting music. Now even on printed work like magazine adverts and on album covers it is common to see Facebook links tempting you to like or share the artist's page with your friends. This has given me the idea that when I am producing my own print work I will include something similar so that people can connect with my artist and share their findings with their friends.

I would like to share some links with you to show you how powerful the internet has become in the music industry. The first is a link to an article about Justin Bieber who not matter what you think of him you cannot deny that as an artist he has been a big success. He was founded on youtube. 


http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Weekend/teen-pop-star-justin-bieber-discovered-youtube/story?id=9068403#.T4GbjPuPn4s

The second is a video by Jimmy Iovine who talks about advertising by moving popular culture in order to attract an audience for your artist:

CD Cover analysis David Guetta

The first CD cover I am going to analyse is 'Just a Little More Love' by David Guetta. The album was released on June 10th 2002 by Virgin Records France and features vocals by Chris Willis and Barbara Tucker. The album, as indicticated by the title, is about showing more love to the people around you.

Looking at the CD cover itself it shows a man listening to some music through headphones. I think David Guetta picked this picture to show the modern style of how music is played and to adress his target audience. The man looks very young in the 12-24 age group most of my audience research put the electropop genre into. By using a young person David Guetta adresses the young population so they feel like the album is for them.

The headphones could possibly symbolise the way that music is genrally listented to in the 21st century. In the past it was cassets, radio's or even those big chunky headphones which covered your whole ear.

Instead of any of these options David Guetta has chosen to use red in the ear headphones to symbolise the modern style of listening to music and which will therefore help him adress his target audience.

Looking at the background it is jet black so you can focus on the things in other colours. The background is also made to look like some kind of puzzle with little puzzle outlines in the background . What is important about this is that on the mans face there is a little white peice of the puzzle which because the man is silver makes it look like he is robotic. This links in with the title because robots sterotypically don't feel love so the white patch and the puzzle links into the whole idea that we need more love and the man needs to unlock his human side.

One final thing to notice is that the 'David Guetta' writing is in white which makes it standout above all the other things on the cover which are darker colours. This could be to raise artist awareness since this was his first album. The fact that the picture expresses what David Guetta is trying to portray very well could be the reason while the title of the album is in tiny writing.

Arslahn answers my questions about pop music

Even though I had asked people to fill out a questionnaire about what they wanted from a pop music video I felt it was important to get a proper one to one interview from someone who is genuinely interested in pop music. So I headed over to Arslahn's house who is a close friend of mine to see what he thought makes a good pop music video:

Mi Español Amigo

Today I am sharing with you a video about my research and planning in which Oscar, who did the course last year talks about what he did to prepare for the construction of his music video last year and he also answers my questions about planning and research to help me improve my plans for my video.

What I have learnt is that you should stick to your storyboard plan, be careful in what locations you film in and try to relate the genre of the music to your video.

Audience Research Q&A

Today I carried out some audience research on what people would expect to see in a music video and more importantly what people would like to see In a music video.

After reading the responses from friends and family I learnt that most people would like to see a narrative based electropop video and that people found props and positioning of characters the most usefull techniques for making an electropop music video. I was expecting these results since they are used in most modern electropop videos today. However what surprised me was the answer to question 7 which was given a near identical answer by both male and female genders. Q7: In the past few years most electropop videos have had a love story narrative particulary focused on an attractive woman. Do you think this makes the video better?  Give a reason.

The majority of the people said yes because that when they listen to electropop music they think of erotic images. The girls who answered the questionaire also said that they like a preety girl on the video because it makes them think wow thats the girl I want to be like. This explains why artists like Cheryl Cole and Katy Perry have been doing well recently because they are considered Idols by girls. I will keep in mind these results and use them to plan my storyboard.

Artist Choice: Arty the next David Guetta but with a voice

 

                                              http://www.myspace.com/artytime

Arty is a electropop artist who lives New York. He not only sings but produces and writes music as well.

Arty is an unsigned artist which means that he has no company to help him market his music and that he alone holds the rights to it. Understanding this is important to me to make sure I am getting permission to make the music video from the right person and therefore am not breaching any copyright infringement.

Arty describes himself as a insperational person who draws his thoughts from the people he has come to know and his experiences living in different parts of the world.While living in New York, ARTY gained exposure to new sounds and techniques of New York’s eclectic musical scene in comparison to living in Europe where he was greatly influenced by artists such as Martina Topley-Bird and Jens Lekman from Stockholm, who changed the way ARTY looks at his poetry. Although ARTY’s music is considered electropop music, he firmly believes in his music’s ability to alter and go beyond the typical framework of any one genre. 

I chose Arty because I feel he has real talent and that if more people get to know his music he could become a real contender in todays charts.  The Song I have Chosen of Arty's is Heat. I chose this song not only because it sounds good but because it describes the hot and energetic feeling people get from electropop music. 

Now I have the Song and the Artist it is time to conduct some audience research and to to begin planning my music video. 

Electropop analysis 3 Kid Cudi vs. Crookers - Day 'n' Night

My third and final analysis video is Day 'n' Night by Kid Cudi. I chose this video because it shows a more prerogative side of electropop music. It shows the fact that the main audience of electropop music 14-30 like something that is upbeat and that they can dance along to. We saw part of this displayed in the video where Nero talks about breaking free. Kid Cudi shows it too in his video by making a narrative where he looses himself in his dreams. The video features Cudi who is acting as a shop worker late at night falling asleep dreaming of his desires (which in particular include women).

Like the videos before it has a short intro explaining the narrative and then the beat/lyrics come in after. In addition, another similarity is that the video tries to be humorous like in the David Guetta video where the old people are dancing. Instead Cudi expresses this humor by having a magical pen that takes woman's clothes of when you press the top. However unlike in the other videos there is no love scene and the video is more focused on having a good time.

Electropop analysis 2 Nero - Promises

The second video I will be analyzing is Promises by Nero. I chose this video because it shows a lot of familiar techniques used in the electropop genre. In the first few seconds of the video for example there is a little intro to the the narrative in the video which is shown without music. This was the same case in the video I talked about previously by David Guetta and Chris Willis. This technique seems to be used a lot in the electropop genre to explain what the video and song is about since most of the video's are narrative based.

Contrasting the video to the lyrics, we can see they are very much connected. In the video Nero talks about breaking free this is shown in the video by the woman who is forced to take tablets to stop her from feeling stops taking them and essentially breaks free from the toxin that is stopping her from feeling. Once again like in the David Guetta video we can see the main focus of the video is on a woman adding the the idea of the male gaze.

However, unlike in the last video we saw Nero takes more of a role in the video. We see her a number of times in the video singing the lyrics. This was unlike the David Guetta video where the singer or Guetta weren't featured much at all and the characters were miming the lyrics. The funky style has although been kept the same with characters wearing big chunky glasses and doing robotic dance moves while in a army kind of building.

Electropop analysis 1 David Guetta - Love is Gone

The first video I have chose to analyse is Love is gone by David Guetta. I chose this video because it has the funky kind of style you expect from a electropop genre. What I mean by this is even though it sticks to some boy/girl love drama you see in most video's it try's to make it humorous by having people do weird things.  For instance, in the video people start dancing in cafe which you would expect to see. But in addition if you look at the types of people dancing it is not just the typically young but also the elderly as well. An example of this is when the old lady starts jumping up and down while playing the drums. The video challenges the modernist idea that everything can be explained by making people do unusual things. For example when the police officers are kissing in public with their hands all over each other. Whereas in real life we would expect police offers to be much more professional about their relationships.


 Another thing I noticed in the video was that the artist does not take a key role in the video. David Guetta is only featured once in the video for a brief second and Chris Willis is not featured at all. Instead the people in the video mime some of the lyrics to look like they are singing it. This is a key concept of most electropop videos and one I will look to include when I make my own video.

Contrasting the video to the lyrics we can see that they have a positive and relationship. What I mean by this is that when Chris Willis says "What are we supposed to do after all that we've been through?" the girl in the video has her hands on her head crying because she doesn't know what to do about the problems she has with her boyfriend. On the other hand though when the chorus "Love is gone" is being sang people are dancing and it shows the clip of the police offers kissing which contrasts the lyrics.

To conclude this video has added to the idea of the male gaze which is a concept created by Laura Mulvey which states that most things we watch are from a heterosexual male's perspective. This video's adds to the male gaze because the prime focus of the video is on a very pretty woman who has just fell out of love with her boyfriend.

Music Genre Choice Electropop

After a wonderful summer holiday in Canada it's back to media coursework.... fun fun. I have chosen to make a music video out of the electropop genre because I think that people who listen to electropop music tend to ignore music videos because they all look the same and therefore I think it would be interesting to create something different. In addition, I noticed that a lot of other yr13 groups who are making music videos have chose to do indie/alternative bands because it is easier since you can have the video performance based for 50% or more of the video. Whereas in a electropop video all the music is made is the studio which means that if you filmed the video performance based it wouldn't look as effective since music studios are rather plain and doesn't give the same experience as if you were performing to a big crowd. This means that I will be making the video narrative/concept based which is harder because I have to listen to the lyrics and make a story that will follow them for the whole video.

My next step will be to analyse some famous electropop artists and find out what makes their videos so effective that millions of people watch them on sites like youtube. Some artists I have in mind are David Guetta, Nero, Basshunter, DJ Tiesto and Kid Cudi.