Editing Update 3

Editing Update 3:

This particular scene shows me playing the guitar for a few sections of the song, this shot was previously Alanta, a member of our media project but we had to change the shot as the guitar playing did not look realistic enough to fit the music. And because of this we would of got marked down otherwise so we changed the shot to me playing the guitar because it looks a lot more accurate and therefore better without damaging the continuity editing of the video too much.

Blog 13 - Sexism in Pop Videos

There have been many many pop videos that have recently been released that have somewhat "Sparked" controversy within the media and more specifically sexuality and sexism within the media and how certain people are portrayed in new days pop videos. Some of these include, for example, "Blurred Lines" by Robin Thicke and "Wrecking Ball" by Miley Cyrus. 

This video in particular is incredibly sexist as the nature of the video as well as its synopsis consists of the main character in this somewhat "Story" is seen as a huge misogynist, who is portrayed in this video as someone who uses women and thinks himself higher than they are. All of the women in this video are wearing next to nothing and some of them are even wearing nothing!! while he walks about in a suit and sunglasses looking like the source of their power. 

In short, these women are reflected as mere sexual objects made for nothing but his desire. In terms of Goodwins characteristics of pop videos, this is heavily correlating with that of the women being the point of erotic desire, as that is practically all the women are used for in this video. 

If we were to consider this as the base of all pop videos then yes pop videos are extremely sexist, however this is not the case because however the case may be that yes most pop videos are similar to this one and because of this, sexist. There are still some that fight that image.

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This pop video in particular cause a massive outrage in controversy for many different reasons but with all the same issue. The main reason that most people had an issue with this video is because before this video was released the only thing Miley Cyrus was known for was being the lovable pop star Hannah Montana and then sh randomly cuts off all of her hair and goes from being the little goody two shoes pop star that little girls idolize to this rampaging harlot on construction equipment. Miley Cyrus apparently made this video to showcase the fact that she apparently was "Not a girl anymore" she wanted to tell her audience that she is all grown up and is now a woman. 

This video does not get any close to the idea of the Male Gaze. however their is one main difference betwen this video and that of Robin Thickes video, being that Miley is choosing to exploit herself in this video, it was her choice to make the video and the idea behind as well as what she wanted to do with it. She chose to take on this new image and therefore she is not being exploited but instead she is choosing to exploit herself. 

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Most people think this is a video from a "Feminists" point of view, however i would like to start off by saying that i disagree with this statement. Although the main point of the video may be to "Mock" the new age pop videos hat objectify women, the video still does so itself, it has countless scenes of women showing their posterior to the camera as well as the lyrics being very crude. This video contains some of Goodwins famous characteristics, for example, the girl group with a dance routine , Goodwins 1st characteristic of pop videos is used frequently throughout this video as very revealing dance moves are amplified over and over again throughout the video o help express the videos main point. Because of this Allen original objective of exposing the new style of pop video and all the nastiness that comes with it has not worked out and it instead looks like she herself is being a bit of a hypocrite by defeating her own objective. 

Laura Mulveys Male Gaze:

Laura Mulveys theory of the male gaze suggests that the male gaze through media consumption, i.e music videos or films etc, disallow women to have anything close to a human identity, they are only objects through this gaze. The theory also suggests that more often than not, women can only watch a film from a secondary perspective as the male gaze is what is used as the "Visual" in which we see the film. 

A female character in a film is more often

than not seen as a "sidekick" to the main male protagonist and because of this they have n real importance within the film other than to be seen as eye candy by the main character and the audience who are watching the text through the "Male Gaze".

Laura mulvey states that women in media texts will ONLY have one of two functions or in some cases both: 

1. As an erotic object for the characters within the narrative to view.
2. As an erotic object for the spectators within the cinemas to view. 

The term scopophilia means "Love of watching" and was frequently used throughout Laura Mulveys explanations of gender roles within films and general media text.

Female objectification is related and very similar to that of the male gaze, as the person who is being gazed at, is known as objectified as they are simply being treated as an object and nothing more. Just like Laura Mulveys previous views, objectified characters have their identity and humanity removed from them. 

Laura mulveys representation of how she thinks women are seen through movies and media texts looks something like this abomination *Pre warning.....it isn't pretty*

Filming and Editing Status

Today we went out to London to film the remaining sections of our music video and fill in the gaps that we were missing from the clips that we already had. The only thing we have left to do is edit all of these clips together and make sure that there are no errors in terms of the clips continuity throughout the music video. I believe we have achieved a good portion of the remainder of our music video today, and the entire of the filming progress is complete because of this.

Editing Update 2

Editing Update 2:

This image shows probably the best editing we have ever done throughout this video as this is an incredibly fast paced edited section of the video that follows the musics tempo in the bridge. Each clip starts directly on the beat and because of how fast the music is the clips are no more than half a second long each. This took a long time to achieve and an even longer time to render and watch through properly.

Blog 12 - Case Study 3 - Alex Southam

Blog 12 - Case Study 3 - Alex Southam

General Notes on Alex Southam:

He has previously worked for Agile films, who are quite a major film company that hired him as their all round video producer and director. They described him as an "Exciting new talent". Alex Southam has worked with many big name artists such as Walkmen, Alt+J, and Lianne La Havas. 

When Southam began making music videos and producing them as he liked he was the one that organised and carried out every task at hand, he had no help, he did everything from the Camera, Lighting, and editing all by himself. Although now that he is seen as a more recognized and famous music video producer he has some help with him. Southam enjoys creating music videos as he says he like the format that they have because it allows you to "Try new techniques and have real artistic freedom" Because of the same format he is less keen of media products such as commercials as these do not have as much from for freedom as they have to be filled with commercialism and other factors such as product placement. Southam uses a program known as Vimeo to showcase his videos and media texts that he producers and/or directs himself as he describes it as having a "Higher status" than that of youtube. His first major breakthrough onto the music video scene was with that of Alt+J's music video for Tesselate, that he produced himself. It was shot in one day and had a budget of only £10,000. This particular video uses a lt of "Aftereffects" in order to make the video look more interesting and more appealing to certain viewers that prefer this style of music video. 

His Work:

This is quite an unusual music video and it is definitely something that we have never really seen before in terms of music video production and all the general characteristics that come with it. It is a very disjunctive music video as the music video itself does not follow the genre or the relationship to the lyrics in anyway whatsoever, in fact in many ways it just goes off and does its own thing and it only relates to certain lines of the lyrics and only at rare certain points during the video for example the line "You're a shark and i'm swimming". As well as this, this particular music video does not follow any of Goodwin's characteristics of music videos like almost every other music video does, this shows just how much this is pushing the limits of a questionable way to film a music video. 

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As for his other music videos that he produced, he did a very iconic music video for that Chase & Status's song - "Lost and Not Found". This particular music video was filmed with a £50,000 budget and was filmed in only 3 different shots from start to end with the use of a Steadicam It was originally filmed at 36 frames per second and was no longer than a minute and a half but it was all slowed down to give the full effect of what was happening at every point during the music video. 

Just like Southams other music video that we looked at earlier on in this post there are again little to no characteristics that we stated by Goodwin throughout this music video, in fact the only characteristic that we can say even slightly relates to this music video is that of the notion of looking which is used a lot throughout this music video when TV screens and news headlines are shown as the only thing on the screen, It is even shown straight from the beginning of he music video when we see the boy on the bikes eyes directed at the "missing" poster. The way this is filmed being in only 3 whole shots throughout the entirety of the music video is a very risky technique t take on and not only that it is barely ever used by video producers because of this factor. If something to do with the video is messed up right at the end of the last take you will have to do the entirety of the video (or at least that very very long shot) again. 

Unlike the other video by Alt+j this video does follow the relationship of the lyrics and more specifically the story line that the lyrics play out through the song. In many ways this music video instead amplifies set images that are used frequently throughout the course of this musivc video for example the repetitive

use of the "missing" poster with the girl that we see either through TV screens or street posters throughout the video.

Audience Research Survey

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Audience Research

Audience Research

There are many different types of audience that we can carry out in order to get a decent amount of important and note worthy feedback on our music video or on our music video as it is at the moment so that we know how to make it better in the future. 

These include: Interviews, Focus Groups, Online Surveys, Vox Pops etc. 

We must include audience research throughout the process of creating our music video in order to get feedback from not only our target audience but also our other audiences that maybe are not too impressed with the genre of music we have gone for. There are many questions that we must ask our target audience in order to get a goof response in terms of what we need to improve. These would include:

• What types of music videos do you watch?
• What kind of music do you enjoy listening too?
• Do you watch music videos in your spare time and if yes how many a day?
• What age are you?
• How do you listen to your music, through what device or programme?
• How do you watch music videos?
• Whats your opinion on the track we have chosen for our music video?

From asking these questions not only can we get a good idea of what we are required to do to improve some aspects of our music video or song choice and improve them in any way we would like. But also we now have a very good idea of who our target audience are, and with this information we will know who we are appealing too and what we must do to please them.

Blog 11 - Case Study 2: Emil Nava

Blog 11 - Case Study 2: Emil Nava

Career:

Emil Nava began his career as a runner for film production companies, and more specifically Blink Productions. He now has advanced so much in his field that he is a freelance music video producer and director for OB Management. 

While he was working as a runner he graduated to assistant director to the film companies that he was previously a runner for, this way he would get to manage the video shoots and express some of his creative ideas to the audience and the director. He signed himself up to Academy who are known as the biggest music video production company in his area and a major step up for him and his career. 

He now works mainly for Pulse.

His Music Videos:

Emil's first production of a music video was for that of Kid British's song Our House,
it had a measly budget of £20,000 and was filmed in Manchester with a cast of mainly local audiences and performers. This was filmed all in one day, with the editing done over the course of the next 2 or 3 days.

Emil has become on of the most respected and well known music video producers and directors of this century and because of this he has remained frequently and consistently busy throughout his production career. His busiest year has been when he produced 24 music videos in one year!

sometimes he would have a budget as low as £5000 - £10,000! but on the other hand he has also had some unbelievable budgets to work with that would soar as high as £160,000!

He has produced with many very well known names throughout his career, from the likes of Ed Sheeran to Jessie J to Emili Sande. For example he was the one who created the idea behind Ed Sheerans "Lego House" video. 

He has also produced some other Ed Sheeran songs such as the very well known hit by him called "You Need Me". Emil Nava has some famous characteristics that he uses frequently in a lot of his videos and in fact almost every video he has produced contains these characteristics at last once and most of the time more that than throughout the course of the video. One of these characteristics are his repetitive use of extreme close ups. Emil also advice's that you do not shoot a hole video or even a large portion of the video in a mid or long shot range. An example of this is Tom Odell's "Another Love" 

Another video produced by Mr. Emil Nava was that of Jessie J's "Price Tag" this video practically created Jessie J's bubbly attitude and unique style about her, this includes her hair style, dress sense, colour scheme and everything else that makes Jessie J appeal to her audience with her branding, this video was her first video she ever made and produced, it created and nurtured her image in an amazing and clear way. This displays just how good Emil Nava is and why he is treasured in what he does and used by the most high end musicians to produce their video. 

Editing Update No.1

Editing Update 1:

Today we began the editing process of our video after filming a good portion of the performance scenes for our music video. We got about 30 seconds into the editing along with the main portion of the intro to the music video being the closeup of the main line of the verse, this shot goes on for roughly 5 seconds and is easily the longest shot in our music video without being too long as it still fits the tempo of the music as the video has only just started at this point.

Blog 10 - Case Study 1

Jamie Thraves - Director

Jamie Thraves is a music video director and has directed many very popular as well as memorable music video's in his time as a music video director and producer. for example "Just" - Radiohead, "Scientist" - coldplay etc. 

Jamie Thraves made short films in university and was so good at these short films that he won an award for one of them and he used this award winning short film as his calling card for getting into the music video production business. He is trying to use his career as a music video director and producer as his gateway into his real dream job of being a film maker. 

However being in the music video production industry is not a very stable job as you will only get paid if you get work from musicians and there is no guarantee that you will always be getting work or that musicians will even like your work.

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This was Jamie Thraves first major music video production and it had a budget of £100,000. If we refer this to the work of Roland Barthes we can see that many of the music video characteristics that we distinguished by Roland Barthes are used throughout this video. For example the music video is an "open text" this is because the music videos context and narrative has no ending, and the ending it provides is incredibly vague leaving us(he audience)questioning what actually happened or in this case, what the man on the floor actually said. This video also contained disjuncture throughout its narrative, because the music itself had near to nothing to do with the actual video that is playing at the same time. Lastly "amplification" is used throughout the video as the phrase "Why are you lying here??" is constantly being repeated. 

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The next major production that Jamie Thraves directed, was that of "Scientist" by Coldplay. This production had a budget of £200,000 and was shot in under 3 days. This is a very interesting video in terms of how it was recorded because the entire video is in reverse but with the main singer stil mouthing the lyrics of the song, to do this the singer would have to mouth the words backwards in the recording process of the music video, this is a very unique idea that no one had used before this. much like the Radio head video and he oldtimey, foreign style subtitles and interesting ending or rather the lack of one. 

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Jamie's tips:

Jamie himself said that there is a set way that people should go about analysing his videos and these are.

• Listen to the lyrics of the song and compare them to what is happening in the video but do not be too literal in analyzing every single lyrics that you hear. 
• Most importantly try to feel the emotion that is being put across by both the music and the videos narrative that is being put across by Jamie Thraves. 

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Lastly he directed this very famous new song by Tom Odell called "Another Love" this much like jammie thraves other music videos have a very bold uniquenes about them, the entire of this video is just the singer Tom Odell sitting in a chair singing the song while numerous events happen around him that cease to affect him or his zone that he is in. This is not used in other videos as it is not seen as very "pretty" or nice to look at but in this case it works as the song it self is very sad and emotional so the dark tinted camera theme as well as the narrative of this video correlate extremely well with the song. This song also contains a few of Goodwins characteristics of pop songs with the most easily recognizable being the use of a close up at the very beginning of the video. Make it very clear who this song is written by. 

Music Video Animatic

Today we finished the animatic for our music video, where we composed all of the shots from our storyboard into a pattern that we believe would be close to what we would end up with in the final
outcome of the music video.

 

Storyboard

 This is the storyboard that we used to plan and construct the scenes and shots that we were going to use in our music video. This made the actual filming day that we went out a lot smoother, because of this all being planned out in advance.

Blog 9: Katy Perry - How Her Pop Videos Appeal to Her Target Audience and Her Private Life

Blog 9: Katy Perry - How Her Pop Videos Appeal to Her Target Audience and Her Private Life

Katy Perry's target audience is that of young girls from the age of roughly six to their late teens. In order to appeal to these specific target audiences Katy has to display her image in a certain way. She has to not only portray herself as that of an older sister to her audiences, someone they can turn to in a time of need but also as a friend to her audience. She portrays herself in this way by displaying some of the social and everyday anxiety's that young teenage girls have throughout life within her pop videos. Therefore causing her audience to appeal and relate to her more. She also portrays herself as a figure that young girls can look up to, she achieves this by have a unique mise-en-scene that makes her appear sexy and good looking in a none threatening way. 

Almost all of Katy Perry's music videos have at least one and most likely more of Goodwins stereotypical characteristics of music videos. For example:

This video of Katy Perry's "I Kissed A Girl" involves quite a few of Goodwins characteristic 

Laura Mulveys idea ofthe male gaze for example is used massively throughout the course of this video by the mise-en-scene, as well as the lyrics and general body language within the video by Katy herself and the other characters. This video also involves Goodwins 2nd characteristic of the lyrics relating to the narrative of the media product, this is shown by the very suggestive lyrics sung in her version of a Sexy voice and this is portrayed by all the sex appeal going on throughout the scenes. 

The last obvious Goodwin characteristic that we can pick up on is that of the very eemphasizednotion of looking by which the cameras are always focusing on areas of the female body in order to attract more attention to the video. Whilst correlating with all these typical characteristics of music videos Katy still achieves to remain her image as an older sister and friend as the video is about being unsure of your sexuality at this age and not hiding it but instead being comfortable with yourself.

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Another example of one of Katy Perry's media products that contain extracts of Goodwins characteristics is that of her video for "California Girls" 

This video for "California Girls" was filmed shortly after she had got engaged to Russel Brand, we believe that because of his sexual influence this video has much more sex appeal than the rest of Katy's empowering videos as this one leans more to the side of harlotry. This video is very heavy on Laura Mulveys male gaze theory, such as "I Kissed A Girl" however more so in this video. Godwins characteristic of meeting the record labels demands are also present within this video as there are frequent close ups and shots that appeal to the record labels male audience and therefore increasing the amount of male views that the video will achieve. Continuing on with this point there are many alluring shots of women and the female body which is another one of Goodwins characteristics being the notion of looking. This is not like her image that she had previously worked so hard to set up. 

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The next example is that of "Wide Awake", this video is after Katy and Russel's divorce and during this video she is acting as if this is an apology for her previous "California Girls" video as it was not her nor who she wants to be.

The narrative for this video is her disregarding her previous "California Girls" video and essentially apologizing for it, this is her trying to return to her roots. This video contains many inter-textual references to her other videos such as "Fireworks" and "California Girls" this is one of Godwins characteristics, there is also a reference to her  ex husband Russel Brand as there is a scene of her punching his representation in the face. This is an empowering scene for women everywhere and it shows her "Getting over" Russel and her marriage to him, therefore encouraging young girls everywhere to be true to themselves and thus gaining more attention for this video. There is also a relationship between the lyrics and the video being that the lyrics portray her waking up from her slumber as someone who isn't who she wants to be and the video displays this very with lots of very powerful scenes of her braking away from closing walls and the strawberry symbolizing Adam and eve and their wrong doings compared to hers.

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The last video from Katy Perry's contribution to media that i will be talking about is tat of her newer release "Roar"

This video again is returning to Katy Perry's roots that she hoped to portray through this video and her earlier ones. Its is a very empowering video to women and young teenage girls everywhere as it shows her being the "Dominant Character" within the music video as she survives in the jungle on her own with no help from the man in the video. In contrast to Goodwin notion of looking, there is not many voyeuristic scenes within this video and any scenes that could be considered so are not so much disrespectful but instead a statement of her saying "I'm not wearing this because men want me to, i'm wearing this because i want to. There is also close relation between the lyrics and how the video sets up its narrative. This is shown by that of the lyrics containing lines that reflect her being the powerful member in her life and ruling of her own actions and the video also displays this as such by her fighting off dangerous animals such as the tiger that she has been representing throughout this video. 

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In conclusion Katy Perry has released many different types of music videos in the past and throughout her career as a singer and songwriter but she has always tried to stay true to her brand image and appeal to her always faithful teenage girl fans instead of the male audience that are appealed to during "California Girls".

Location Sheet

Location Visit Sheet Programme Title: Friends With Benefits Writer: Alex and Alanta Producer: Carl Director: Freddie Date: 12th November 2014

Rough Sketch/Explanation of location and key points to note For our music video, we will be using the band room in Robert Clack School as the room is mostly white which we feel will look best in our video. Also, there are lots of instruments in that room, which we can use in the performance scenes in our video. Access to location via: Robert Clack School Name and number of location contact: Robert Clack School - 020 8270 4222

Health and Safety Issues to note: ●      When carrying the instruments, we must make sure that we don’t drop them or damage them. We also have to make sure that we don’t suffer any injuries when carrying them and taking care of them.

Potential Filming Problems: ●      As we will be filming inside school, during school times, one of our problems may be that we get interrupted by students or staff ●      As we plan to have a lot of extras in our video, one of our problems may be finding a time when everyone is available at the same time to be able to film our video.

Additional Notes:  (map of area/weather forecast etc.) When deciding the day that we are going to film, it is important that we check that the band room is not being used on the particular day by anyone. If it is being used, it is likely that we won’t be able to use it.

Shot List

  

Shot List
Scene	Shot Number	Description
Close up of lead singer Very high angle (establishing shot) Dolly shot  Lying down shot Under the cymbal shot Shot from behind drummer Normal high angle shot  Spinning around shot Shot from headstock of guitar Shot from headstock of bass guitar Sparkler scene Skatepark shots Ending shot	1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13	A very close shot to Alex's face so that you can see al of the emphasis on the first few sentences.   A very high angle shot of the performance seen that will be running in whole takes.  A whole take of the band playing whilst someone is constantly moving the camera about on a mobile dolly. Making for very cinematic like shots.  A shot of Alex (Lead singer) lying on the floor whilst singing a few lines of the song, single takes.  A shot from underneath one of the drum cymbals, this is very close up so that you can see everything that is going on during the performance scene and it works very well with the music.  A shot filmed with the camera shot from behind the drummer, this is so that the drummer is the main focus for a selection of the song.  A regular high angle shot that will be running the entire way through the take.  A shot of Alex holding the camera on a monopod and spinning around with it (Part of our montage of fun shot list) A shot that resembles that of a GoPro shot, fits in with the alternative feel of the song very well.  A shot that is exactly the same as the previous shot but on the bass player instead of the guitar player.  An outside shot of everyone having fun with sparklers (part of fun montage)  A few shots of us just having fun in a skatepark with a few friends and a mix of the music videos narrative also.  Two main narrative characters sitting on a bench together, girl leans on him before the fade out to the credits.