Institutional resarch

The first record label we researched was the company Island Records UK and it was founded in 1959 and is still lasting 57 years. We considered this to be one of our record labels because of the artists that they have signed artists such as Ben Howard and the band Catfish and the Bottlemen. They have signed US artists such as Ariana Grande and rapper Nicki Minaji. We thought this company would be good because all have been successful in their work, with Ariana and Nicki winning award shows and have platinum albums. While Ben Howard and Catfish have been successful here in the UK and people enjoy the alternative style of music.

Aftermath Entertainment is a record label which was founded in 1996 and we won't be considering this because the record's main focus is R&B artists and in our genre of music is indie. Artists include Kendrick Lamar, Eminem and 50 Cent, we noticed that there wasn't many current girls signed to this company so that is another factor in why we wont be choosing Aftermath Entertainment because our artists will be a girl.

The record company we have chosen for our record label is XL Recordings and it is an independent English company which was founded in 1989. The artists which have been a part of the record company is Adele. However, she has now joined the record label company Colombia. Adele is a worldwide star and is known by everyone and for Adele to start her platform with XL because it shows they can produce good stars that become global. The record label has also signed artists like M.I.A and she has been charted for her songs on the Billboard Hot Dance Singles in the US.

Test shots of possible artist

 Here is some test shots of Ella she is one of our potential actors for our music video we took some basic photos. Ella fits the image we are want to achieve for our video, her fashion sense fits well with how want our actor to dress she is very fashionable so we will be able to use her outfits for our music videos. She also enjoys hair and makeup so therefore she know what works for her skin colour and type this will be very handy when we are filming as it means she will be able to do her own hair and makeup on the days of filming.  Ella is very photogenic and is very comfortable around the camera this will make filming easy as we will be able to film natural and set up shots. Ella is or final choice of actor she has all the different   features we are looking for and            our schedules work well together so we will be able to film on a regular basis and get all of our filming done quickly.  

 

Mikah is our next potential actor here are her test shots . Her imagine fits the type of actress we are looking or as she is very photogenic and is very confident in front of the camera; she also has a good fashion sense which would make dressing her for our video very easy, her long black hair would be a key feature to her look and we would be able to use this in our video as a trademark. The reason we will not be choosing Mikah is because her work commitment clashes with mine meaning that filming would become very hard to fit in.

Andrew Goodwin's theory

Andrew  Goodwin  came up with a theory that everyone expects to see 5 different elements in a music video these 5 things are;- 1. Thought beats- seeing the sound 2. relationship between narrative and the performance 3.Stars trade marks   4. multiple close ups of the main star 5. Technical aspects; these 5 elements are all very common in music videos. 

    The first element is thought beats this is when the shots changes on everyone few beats on one specific beat each time this is effective to making the video flow more. an example where this has been used effectively in an music video is 'into you' by Ariana Grande this video is slow starting and uses thought beats in the beginning part so that the audience starts to picture the different shots, this helps to add to the beat and make the beat more noticeable to the audience. 

The next feature of a music video is the relationship between narrative and performance this is when the this helps to add to the make the video flow through the different scenes because it allows the two different elements seem similar and work together better a video where this is effectively shown in Beyoncé best thing I never had, this shows the difference between performance and narrative as she swaps between the two and still makes the video flow well.

 

  The third element is the star trade mark this is where the artist themselves have one thing which they are known for and everyone is able to identify them from this trade mark one very key example of this is Sia she hides her identity to make sure that people listen to her for her music rather than her image; she is either seen in a wig which covers her face fully, she also has a young girl who dances and wears a similar wig so that the trademark is carried on this is shown in the music video is chandelier the young girl as the actor with the statement wig on.

   The next element is the close up of the main star this allows the audience to feel like they know the artist more as they get more up close and personal shots of the artist this is something to make the audience feel more engaged in the video; this is used very well in the music video send my love by adele this is a very simple video with only a black background with adele being the main focus they zoom into her face very regularly to make the video feel more intimate.

   The last element which should be present in a music video is the technical aspects this will allows the video to look more professional and often makes the video work/flow better as a whole. one video which is a very good example of this is Justin Bieber -what do you mean this uses the editing to make the video more interesting and engaging some elements they had added was the shot changes theses were very quick making the video fast pace another element is the different effects added on this allows the video to be more interesting as it gives the audience more to look at.

Initial ideas

Here is a video where you can hear us discussing our first initial ideas and what each of us was thinking about possible ideas we found that all 3 of our ideas were very similar and the concepts of the tree ideas linked well together so we will use all 3 concepts and combine them into one so our final idea is to have a female on a date with a mystery man as the male character will not feature in the video throughout the day she will seem low and seem to be making all the effect and continuously wanting more from there relationship so is always wanting to make more of there date. We considered all of the different ideas and have thought about the particularity of the three ideas and found that we wanted to film in London with the female actor being on the date this is easy to assess; as well as a day in London we will film around Rainham to give the effect that there is more than one date and as if the problems have been happening for a while, we will then end it with the female alone with the sun setting behind her to give a slow and calm ending to show her ending the relationship as well as the song.  

  We also considered the different ideas that we researched and found out from Andrew Goodwin's theory this allowed us to decide different features and things we want to include form doing this research one of the main things we decided while discussing our initial ideas was the trademark we wanted our character to have this was her to have backpack in a lot of this video and would go on to have this backpack in further videos; this would add to her fashion and the outlook we want her to give. something else we discussed was how was going to be the narrative and performance will go together we decided that we would have our actor wearing different outfits but in similar settings for the two different features this would allow the two scene to seem to fit together and flow better. We also have decided we want to add a lot of close up shots so that the audience get to know our actress and feel more of a connection to her.

Analyse of student video

I have watched and researched some other student’s a2 music videos so that I can get ideas and can form some opinions if other people work to be able to improve my own video when I come to making and editing my video. One music video which I felt was a very good example of music video I was; this video has demonstrated very key features to a music video and I fund many positives during this music video which I felt could help me for my video.

    The first key feature which is noticed straight away while watching this video was the camera angles these was a good variety of shots from the beginning of the video this made the video interesting and stand out from the start. One of the main shots which I noticed and thought was very effective in the beginning of the video was a long shot which showed a time lap of the sun rise I thought the mix of the editing and shot used was very effective as it set the scene of the video and also allowed the video to have a slow start which fitted with the pace of the song very well.  Another shot which I thought was very effective and added to the video was a close up shot of a male character wrapping his hands in some sort of cloth this gave the impression of danger with the shot being so close up it added to this effect of danger; another element in this shot which helped to add to the idea of danger was the face the cloth was red this colour is often associated with blood, fear and tension so by using this colour it adds and causes more fear upon the audience.  An angle which was very effective in making the audience feel and understand the emotions which the male character is showing was a mid-shot this was used while the male character was performing and seemed to be showing much emotions such as anger, upset and disbelief this is very evident and the use of a mid-shot helps the audience gain this opinion as they can see the full movement of his upper body which is moving very a lot and at a fast pace.

  The editing of one of the main feature which stood out to me while watching this video it was very well put together and keep the audience interested through making the video very fast pace with a lot of chopping between different shots with still having the feel of it flowing throughout this which mostly achieved with the editing. The first editing I noticed was the time laps I mentioned in my first point this was very well fitted into the scene through integrating it between the sunset and introducing the characters through cutting between the two shots this was very effective and was very well placed in the beginning of the video as it helped set the scene and make the slower paced piece of music more interesting and make sure that it didn’t seem boring or too slow.  Another key editing feature used effectively was the fast cuts between different scenes this helps to keep the audience engaged and means that the video seems shorter to the audience as there is more for them to view; this was very effectively used as all of the scene fitted together and didn’t jump to much or too fast between different scenes. I also noticed the darkness of the music video during the scene where the characters were lip syncing to the song this seemed to be edited in and gave the music video more of an edgy feel it also made the danger more apparent to the audience this is something which was adding in throughout the video from different elements and made gave the video an extra element to it.

   The final feature which I felt was very key to making the music video very effective was the mise en scene used throughout; the settings used were very successful with adding to the theme of the video is helped to add suspension and danger element to the video one of the main ways in the video was in the fight scene where two male character are seen jumping a stranger this scene used a lot of cross cutting this was very key to adding suspension to the scene it also made the scene come across hectic. Another very key element of editing was the lighting which was added in to the lip syncing scenes these made the characters appear to have shadows and different lighting on them to add to the idea of danger and the unknowing because the audience is never fully shown what is happening in the background of the scene this is very effective to adding danger.

Analyse of students work

After analysing a very positive a2 music video I decide to watch and research some lower grade a2 videos so that I can understand went wrong with different videos and how they could have improved the video so that I can learn from this. One video I felt I could learn from was; . This video demonstrates some negative feature which I would want to avoid during my video and this blog is going to explain the negatives I have noticed.  

 The first features I noticed was the mise en scene the first impression of this was that there hadn’t been much attention paid to it this as because it seemed to be very basic. During the opening scene of the music video the lighting was very dim and didn’t seem to have been considered during the making with only natural lighting being used meaning that the characters were not clear this could have been fixed by adding additional lighting to the room. As well as the lighting the costume the character were wearing didn’t add to the video and seemed to not have been considered this could have been so that the character seemed natural to the environment they are in however  feel they could have added to their characters by giving them a fashion which stands out. The settings used also were very basic and seemed very amateur they used a bedroom and what seemed to be old pub these setting are available to everyone and did not add to the video.
   The editing used was very amateur and didn’t seem to have much time spent on it they used very simple movements and changes between shots this could have been more effective if the camera work was more professional looking the camera work looks very hand held and this alongside the basic editing made the video seem very amateur. The cutting between the shots were very sharp and quick this made the video feel very bitty as there was a lot of changes without a constant flow between the different shots in the video. Another editing feature which I felt wasn’t very effective was the fade between the shots this made the two scenes flow better however I feel that the use of a fade wasn’t very professional and made the video seem very basic as it is a very simple editing skill I feel they could have used something to make this look better while making the video flowing.
  The least feature which noticed was the camera angles and shots that were used I felt that this video didn’t use a wide range of shots and used a mid-shot very frequently this made the video quite boring and straightforward as there wasn’t that variation between shots which is seen in most music professional music videos. Another shot used was a close up of a wound on the male characters face this was quite effect as it showed danger which was a key theme throughout the video however I would say a extreme close up would be better used in this video as it would have help to add extra into the video by making the danger element more extreme.  The last shot which I noticed was the low angle shot used during the fight scene this would have been more effective if the shot wasn’t so unsteady and flipped between two different hots to show a variation to add to the rush that is happening during the fight between the two male characters and to show some more complex angles of the fight so that the audience feels more involved with the video and can see different elements of the fight.

Biography of artist