Casting Discussion

During our group meeting, we were discussing what we want our actors to look like in order to make the music video realistic and original. As we already had an image of the main artist, we have chosen 3 things that we are looking for:

• clothing/style
• behaviour
• their age

We think that we don't have to look for the main actor for a long time, as the style that we want our artist to have, a lot of people share and their fit withing the boundaries of the music video. There are a lot of people around the school that have the same style, so when it comes to choosing the right actor we have a lot of options. We can choose the one that has better acting techniques.

When it comes to rest of the actors we did not have put any restrictions when it come to appearance in front of the came. We want to portray the girl in the music video as a medium class/party/sexy person, so the audience don't label her when they see her the first time, but actually make a opinion about her - good opinion! So in order to do we have use rich looking clothes.

The rest of the cast: The Kids are going to be ordinary kids from the neighbourhood. It doesn't make any difference how they are dressed because it is us who are going to give them the costumes, so it will completely change their look.

During discussion, we have also discussed the rest of the band casting options. We decided that the rest of the band will have similar look to our main artist, but they don't have to be ready to perform in front of the camera because we are going to see them only for about 3-8 seconds. So they don't need to be talented when it come to the "performance&acting". 

Specific Album Art Analysis #3

I decided to analyse a cover of ColdPlay's Album "Parachutes". I have chosen to analyse this band's album artwork as this falls into our main artist kind of music in some way. ColdPlay delivers alternative music and if we listen to both of the artist, we can realise some of the similarities. The album mainly uses two colour: black and orange/yellow. Those are warm Colo's which may signify that the music that we will find inside will be written and sung in the same mood. It may also signify a love songs that are put onto the CD even tho there is no red-ish colours on the front of the album which may relate to that. The picture of globe in the centre may be most likely linked to the title of the album which is : Parachutes. It may send us the message that during listening of the album we may feel like we are orbiting the earth using Parachute and that we are able to reach places we were never able before. The dark background may signify that there is still more places to be discovered and there are just under our reach.

Analysis of Music Video no. 4

In this post I am going to analyse One Republic's Music Video for one of the best known songs of 2008: Apologize. The are two Official music videos for this song, but I have chosen something that differs from the other analysis that I have done. This video purely represents symbolism of things related to the lyrics and it links well to the Godwin's theory of representation. Whatever the singer sings in the background we can it happening or there is a symbol appearing that makes us think and link everything into one piece.

We are being introduced to the music video by seeing a pen writing "Apologize" on the letter. This might be for the audience, to make them aware that the music is about to start or just simply to a person writing a letter to the one he/she loves. When the music comes in we see a variety of shots focusing on the woman reading the letter and crying. The tears are the black ink which drops onto the letter. This means that the person writing the letter at the beginning was a guy.

In the next shot we can see males hands hitting the piano to the beat of the music. Because the music video is so full of symbolism, I think that the hitting and the beat that we can hear in the background might represent the heart beat of the person to another person in the music video. 

After for about a minute we are being introduced to all the symbols that surround the lyrics. On the screen we can see a pen, ink dropping, feather which represents the old style pen, old style phone which also represents talking to another person, light which might represent change and evolution in something. The symbols are presented in the montage so the audience can take every one of them into account and come up with the idea and message the music video is trying to pass.

In the video we don't really see the main artist. The only that we can see him in is the one when he is singing to the hanging telephone. This was shot to represent him looking like his singing all the lyrics to the person on the other sing. And in the other bit, where we can see the same shot the song goes: "I'm holding on a rope" which may represent the link between him and the telephone handset. In the next shots we can see a variety of flowers that are all in different colour. They are all well grown and looking really nice and fresh which might represent the relationship between the two of the people before everything went wrong. There is also a shot of plastic hand which has a wedding ring on a finger (woman's hand).

When the lyrics of: "It's too late to apologize" are heard, we can see a shots of flowers opening and growing and juxtaposition of the woman crying and letting her tear drop on the letter that she got which is the letter from the right beginning of the music video. Her tears are from ink. The ink tears might represent that the words that have been written by the ink on the paper hurt her so much that her own ones turn into the same material.

 As we watch the music video further we can see that all the symbols that were before represented as rich/precious/fresh/gold are not starting to burn and are getting destroyed. So in my opinion the symbols that were represented in the video are making up their love together and we can see the letter and her crying that straight away put a message in our head that the love has disappeared. The same happens with the photo frame where we could see their own photo. It breaks and drops on the floor. The feather pen is burning as well which may imply that he will not be writing any more letter to her.

At the right end, we can see a shot on the letter burning with the only two words left on it which are: "...love you." This creates a confusion for the audience because we don't really know now who is the letter from. If the letter was sent to her from him, maybe she did not read the last few words and this creates an unanswered question. Overall, the music video is very original and contains a lot of symbolism and meanings. It is very open to interpretations.

Moodboard of My Ideas

Jamie T - Ike and Tina (Moodboard of ideas surrounding the music video)

Above you can see the Moodboard which includes all the ideas that we are planning to add to our music video. It includes ideas of the clothes that the artist is going to be wearing. The further information about the way our artist is going to be dressed can be found on our group blog: Click here!

Analysis of Previous Student Work #2

I have chosen to analyse another previous student work which is quiet different to the first one. This music video is in completely different music as well as editing style than our Jamie T's Ike and Tina, but when you watch it couple of times you can realise some of the elements that link very well with our preliminary task and the whole concept of placards. It contains very good shots including close up not only on the lead singer, but also the rest of the band which is quiet important in the music video. It is very easy to guess what is the name of the band. It's very visible in the background during the performance section. MAYBE MAYBE is written in red colour which most likely represents blood, love, romance and from the first second of the video we know that it is going to be a song about love, romance etc. Although the lipsing is not the best, the cut aways to different people and placards fulfil the gap and during watching of the music video you forget about all the mistakes. There is no overall story included in the video, but as the viewer you get to know it from the lyrics and the words that are written on the placard during the section of cut aways. As I said before this song is about love/romance, so you would expect this music video to be quiet slow which compare to our one is completely different. This is why I chose to analyse this one, to show that as a music director I am aware of all the things I need to work on, change, edit, analyse to improve my own work and be able to look at it objectively and see all the mistakes that I have made.

Music Website Analysis [band]

For music website analysis, I have chosen to do Arctic Monkey's website as I already analysed their album artwork. So I know their background information and I researched their music and their overall style. The link for their website is:  Arctic Monkey's Official Website - Click here!

The Arctic Monkey's Main Page of their website.

Above you can see the main page of the Arctic Monkey's website. The website is really organised and kept really simple for the fans. It is using only two colours: black and white, which might reflect the simplicity of the group and how organised everything is kept. At the very top, you can see the main page menu which is really easy for the viewer to navigate. It is divided into main section, so the viewer does not have to look for something for such a long time, but can be just click away from it.

On the right side of the website we see a column called: GIGS. This is very useful thing for the fans and people that want to see the band, because they just go on their website and see the nearest shows. Where they are, when, the status of the availability and you can also buy them straight away from the website. It is very visible and you notice it straight away when you enter the website.

The Gigs column seen on the right hand side of the band's website.

The website is very rich in material like: photos/videos/music videos etc. When you click on the section photos, the page comes up when you can see all of the photos including those private from the tour. You can choose between the years and the places where they were doing their gigs. For the fan of the band this is just perfect, because not seeing them live he/she can be just a click away from them and watch them on the videos as well. You also get access to the Fan's Forum and share everything with you fellow fans and the band.

The last section of the menu is STORE. When you click on it it re-directs you to Arctic Monkey's Official Store. On the new page, you can buy their newest album just sitting in your room. This is amazing and the website is full of this nice features. It is so packed with everything that you can become the fan of the band just by reading/watching or looking at some of the material that has been added on to it. This is the kind of website me and my group are planning to create for our artist and his band. 

The website where you can buy the band's newest album or just a separate songs. 

Investigation into Star Image from chosen artist

Below you can see a variety of very interesting images and photos of an artist that we are creating a music video for. Jamie T's style is different to the other artists who create the same style of music. His visual image and style is interesting because it is a creation of simplicity. His visual outlook shows a simple, on the line of style clothes that are not falling into any particular category at all. It is very successfully representing to us a image of a typical 21st century teenager who can be influenced by many other pop-culture ideas for example: rock, indie etc or subculture...

The artist image is a whole package. Starting from the visual style that our artist is showing and wearing(fashion)  up to live concerts, filming of music videos and even designing an album artwork. The initial style of Jamie T will help us in order to create an artist which will be our own, but will not stand out from the main idea of "simple and ordinary artist". This will make it easier for us to make the decisions on our own as there is no pressure to make our artist looking completely the same. 

Jamie T - Artist Image

Jamie T during one of his concerts showing his artist image.

Mindmap of My Ideas

Above you can see the mind map of my ideas about the music video and the band that I am going to set up!
Click on the image to enlarge it!

Video Diary [Day by Day]

Tuesday 20th December: Initial planning. Group meeting, where we finalised decisions about costumes and props, and bought/collected any that we would need over the next few weeks. We also filmed a few cutaway shots, but without our artist there was little we could do, and did not want to shoot too much that would then not be usable.-

Friday 30th December: Location research, discussion followed by a scouting adventure. See post for pictures.

Friday 6th January: Filmed the 'sex scene'. Experimented with lighting. Did some photos for artist image. Followed up by shooting the scene outside of the clinic, but due to tiredness/boredom/fatigue, the material we had wasn't as good as we hoped.

Saturday 7th January: Went to London with the camera and cast hoping to capture some of the atmosphere of more claustrophobic city areas (like Brick Lane and South Bank) to contrast the comparatively bland suburban scenes we planned to shoot. However, lack of light became a big issue which ultimately ended our excursion.

Friday 13th January: Due to unavailability of cast members, we were unable to continue shooting, instead deciding to review the material we had already shot to determine any pickup shots we would need to do and the quality and quantity of what we had already shot.

Tuesday 17th January: Re-shot the clinic scene, much better this time. Began shooting the main performance bed of the video, but unfortunately low camera battery cut our day short.

Friday 20th/Saturday 21st: Weather dictated that we couldn't continue filming the performance bed this weekend, so instead we worked on putting the blog together.

Tuesday 24th January: Began uploading the footage we had, and over viewed it to ascertain how our shooting techniques can be improved upon for the next chunk of performance bed filming.

Tuesday 31st January: Shot all the footage required for the party scene, using the school Drama Studio where we had full access to extraordinarily manipulable lighting equipment. We used readily available friends as extras, which took some time to organise (and we weren't able to get quite as large an enthusiastic group as we hoped) but after weeks of waiting for the Studio to become available, we took the best chance we could, and adapted our filming techniques to fill the frame as often as possible.

Thursday 2nd February:  Uploaded the footage from the party/club scene. Despite first thoughts after re watching the footage on the small camera screen immediately after shooting, upon full review we found the footage to be entirely suitable and that there would be no need for a re-shoot (with much relief, after how long it had taken to book the studio and organise a reliable 'cast').

Saturday 4th February: Begun the long process of filming the performance section for the music video in Roehampton.



UPDATE: Friday 24th February: Half term holidays, unavailable equipment and unreliable cast members are all attempting to draw the process out, but nevertheless we have been working on completing filming and slowly piecing together short individual sequences on the music video. Only one more section needs to be filmed, as well as one short pickup shoot.

UPDATE: Friday 23rd March: Filming was completed earlier this month, and now the editing process is finally drawing to a close. Meanwhile, we have been working on the ancillary products of album artwork with photoshop, and of course keeping blogs updated.

Tuesday 27th March: Music video and ancillary tasks have been completed!