Editing, Shot Types and MES Ideas

I thought this video was really interesting as it showed the process of creation of the video including all the people sketching around the artist, and the drawings that would be later used in the music video. I thought the transitions were also really interesting and flowed nicely with the music.

I loved the use of polaroids in this music video and I thought that we could use it in our video in some of the quick tempo sections so we can cut to the beat to make our video look more professional. I think that it would also be effective to use this technique at only a few points in the video so we can show other styles of editing.

Editing, shot types and miss-en-scene Ideas

What we like about this vidoe is idea of the series of photos put together. The idea is say to recreate which is why we may use this technique in out video.


Also I like here how there are two sequences happening at the same time. I like how both sequences are sometimes linked, for example when the two people are walking and their feet are linked. This is a good idea for our video.





Here I like the concept with the face paint.

Here I like the layering of the different videos. I would like to use this for out music video.

Music Change

After discussing within our group members and other people, we have decided to use this remix of our song. We did this as this song gives us more opportunity for more interesting editing and enables us to use the theme of concept and spectacle (which we couldn't produce with the original because it had more of a narrative feel). Our group wanted to create more of a spectacle video and using a remix of the original song, we could have a larger effect from it.

Annotated Still Frames (genre & semiotics)

 In our lesson we annotated these still images using different theorists. We focused on the props costume and set as they were still images and worked out the genre of the song and band effectively.

Preliminary Task (Locations, Shot Types & Audiences)

In this video we have collated the clips together, which consists of the locations, shot types and audience. We have explained what we want to do in our music video and explain our pitch including our outfits and what mise-en-scene we are going to be using.

Todorov & Binary Opposites Theory

In this video I have spoken about what we as a group thought worked well using Todorov's theory and the Binary Opposites. I have also talked about how we could've done better and which theory was a better fit for our music video that we are going to create. In the bottom right hand corner I have placed the different clips to show what I am talking about.

Pop Genre in the Charts

Music Video Strategies

1. Interviews
Hearing interviews from the band or artist is a great way to promote the music videos as fans can feel a personal connection to them, especially if they are speaking about a hidden meaning for the song or the reason behind it.

2. Mini-Documentary 
You could make a very short mini-documentary  that is almost like a narrative genre. This is interesting for those people who weren't able to go watch them live when their favourite band/singer was in a city near the band.

3. Behind the Scenes 
Getting a glimpse into the creative process is always interesting for the fans. These can be very short and very informal.  This can also be very helpful to those interested in what equipment they use and how they film their favourite artist.

4. Covers of the Songs
Encouraging fans to do covers of the artists songs can help promote the song and make it more popular.

1. The Music Video
A music video can make the song more personal for the viewers as they may have not understood the song well enough.

Music Video Vloggers

In this video, the artist is promoting a very popular song that is in the charts, Hello by Adele. The video shows a first hand live reaction of the vloggers opinions rather than just the review which I found more interesting as you can see how the video personally affects the viewer.

I think the positives of people making these videos is that most of the time they are successful in promoting the video positively as it may inspire its viewers to go and watch the video themselves, making the video more popular. However when I was researching a vlogger, I found that many could not play the audio or even visuals due to copyright issues therefore the videos were not as interesting as it was just the person in front of the camera.

For our music video we could try to film reaction videos of our target audience to get a live reaction of our video, giving us real feedback. Adele's song Hello is still in the same pop genre as war paint, however I believe the song is slightly more hard hitting due to its slower pace and powerful vocals, unlike war paint that has a more upbeat and exciting feel to it.

Iconic Directors

Jonas Akerlund

Jonas Akerlund is a Swedish director and drummer. He is best known for directing music videos. He has worked with Madonna countless times and for her song "Ray of Light" he won a Grammy Award for Best Music Video, Short Form and a record seven awards at 1998 MTV Video Music Awards, including Video of the Year.

He first found fame when he was the main video director for Roxette, as Swedish duo band. Since this he has worked with many famous artists such as Metallica, Christina Aguilera, U2, Blink-182, P!nk, Rammestein, Britney Spears and Lady Gaga. Most recently in 2016 he has worked with Taylor Swift and Beyoncé. I think his main video genre is image linked with performance too.

He uses a lot of close ups of the characters if there is a narrative. In "I Miss You" by Blink-182 there are a lot of fading transitions and close ups of the band.

In this music video there are a lot of close ups of Beyoncé's face and body with a lot of panning too. This suggests the genre of music video is image.

Again another close up of Madonna is seen, linking to the music video genre being image.

Here there has just been a fading image into another clip. This is a close up of the singer in band U2, again linking to the genre being image, however there is performance in this music video.

Music Video Promotion

2 VLOGS of Music Videos

I picked specific youtubers who are fans of the artists.
Firstly this way of exchange is promoting the music videos because its a ways for creating hype. These youtubers are able to connect with other fans virally and share their enthusiasm online.
The type of music that's usually popular with youtubers is the pop genre, mostly because its the most common genre out. This can be an advantage to out music video as the genre is pop. We can use this new way of advertising for our video.
These type of music videos tend to either be image based (Nikki Minag) or conceptual (Lady Gaga), which are two genres which can create the most hype. Meaning we will have to make our video image base as it's a convention.
Although it's a good way of promoting music videos, there will be some fans and anti-fans with negative views. This can influence the viewers opinion of the music video.

The DIY Musician’s Complete Guide to YouTube.
5 strategies that a band in our genre has used to promote their music video.

Live concert footage – Just like it sounds: a video of you playing a single song live, or one that splices together multiple performances from a concert or tour. It could be shot on film like The Last Waltz or captured with your new iPhone.

This music video is filmed with a performance theme with a live audience. The idea of it makes the band seem exciting and loved by the fans. This can be good to publicise our artist, as it's simple and easy to do. We don't require a large audience attending or budget, and it can be set anywhere.

Behind the scenes – We all love to get a glimpse inside the creative process. Keep your fans invested by showing them behind-the-scenes snippets of you writing, recording, putting up posters, fixing your gear, eating at your favourite taco cart, or practicing. These can be very short and very informal. Frequency can be more important than slickness with this approach.

At the end of this music video there's a shot section of behind the scenes. This gives the image that the artist is relatable.
It's also easy to do. It doesn't cost much or anything. We could easy make a behind the scenes clip.

Mini-documentary – Document the story of your band. Not much of a story to tell yet? Then make it a very short mini-documentary. People don’t have the attention span for much more these days anyway.


This is a short documentary of the artist, for the fans to see this makes them feel like they know her personally and not just a star and fan relationship.
This is a little harder to do, it could take time and effort. But it depends on the level of quality someone is expecting, the video above would have been expensive and time consuming.

Encourage fans to record covers of your songs – Why not? It worked for Steve Winwood! Maybe the next Justin Bieber will perform your song in his living room for millions of tweens.


The most catchy songs are covered by fans and by doing this it means more publicity of the song.
This is a good and easy way of advertising the artist. And with social media, if she gets popular, she may become famous overnight (although chances may be unlikely.)

For our music video we may put in some behind the scenes or have a live concert footage.

Charts 2016
Top 5 songs on Radio 1:

1) Say You Won't Let Go by James Arthur

2) Starboy (feat. Daft Punk) by The Weekend

3) Closer (feat. Halsey) by The Chainsmokers

4) My Way by Calvin Harris

5) Side To Side (feat. Nicki Minaj) by Ariana Grande

 

Most of these songs are of the Pop genre and also the songs coloured in purple I highlighted because they have similar themes with our artists and song.

What this tells us about our artists is that her song is the type that is popular around society and it wouldn't be hard to get many good reviews. This makes it easier for us to promote as most of our target audience is easy to find and target online.

                                                                             

Music Video Bloggers

There are millions of videos that "react" to different music videos that get millions of views, especially if they're famous channels. This promotes the singer's song to lots of people who watch the person's reaction videos. This is definitely a main pro! Another pro is that the song is played along with the person reacting to it, so if the viewer liked the song, then therefore they can search it up on YouTube and listen to it for themselves, or even buy the song, making sure the sales for the song rises. A con of this process is that some people generally don't like watching "reaction" videos so they may not watch it. I think that this means for our music video it has to fit with the "trend" of music videos or be something original to make people want to watch it.


5 Top Strategies that a band in our genre has used to promote their music.

1. Interviews – Fans love to hear about the inspiration for songs, the meaning behind lyrics, the band chemistry, the drama, the highs. Get someone you know to interview you, or interview yourself. This is a good strategy because fans like to know interesting things about their favourite band/singer and these interviews are a good way to find these facts about them and their music.


2. Mini-documentary – Document the story of your band. Not much of a story to tell yet? Then make it a very short mini-documentary. This is interesting for those people who weren't able to go watch them live when their favourite band/singer was in a city near them. This way they can see what they performed live and what they did before and while they were in their city.


3. Behind the scenes – We all love to get a glimpse inside the creative process. Keep your fans invested by showing them behind-the-scenes snippets of you writing, recording, putting up posters, fixing your gear, eating at your favourite taco cart, or practicing. These can be very short and very informal. Frequency can be more important than slickness with this approach. This can be very helpful to those interested in what equipment they use and how they film their favourite artist.


4. Encourage fans to record covers of your songs – Why not? It worked for Steve Winwood! Maybe the next Justin Bieber will perform your song in his living room for millions of tweens.


5. The standard music video – Ya know, like Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” This would be anything staged, with props, costumes, scripts, extras, and synced to the studio recording of the track.



If we were going to promote our music video, I think making a documentary, having interviews and get people to cover the song are all great ideas. I think this way more people will find out about it as there would be more videos covering the song. As our genre is pop, it will be more successful because most people like pop music as it is more popular and so they will find out about it easily.

RADIO 1 CHARTS
1. Say You Won't Go - James Arthur
2. Starboy - The Weeknd ft Daft Punk (RnB/Soul)
3. Closer - The Chainsmokers ft Halsey (Electronic Dance)
4. My Way - Calvin Harris (Dance)
5. Side To Side - Ariana Grande

I have researched each 5 of these songs to see what genre they are and the two highlighted in yellow are the pop songs. The others are listed beside the songs. The most popular genres are pop and dance genres. This means that our genre of music would still be popular but dance music is still also popular.


These has a connection with our chosen song because sometimes they look at smaller songs that could be upcoming and famous in the future, so therefore they could promote the song and the products.

Iconic Directors

Mark Romanek (born September 18, 1959) is an American filmmaker whose directing work includes feature films, television, music videos and commercials.
His most notable music videos include:
Hurt- Johnny Cash
Closer- Nine Inch Nails
Bedtime story- Madonna
Scream- Michael and Janet Jackson
Romanek's music videos have won 20 MTV Video Music Awards, including Best Direction  for JZ's 99 problems and he has won three Grammy Awards for Best short Film Music Video - more than any other director.
His most iconic works had a lot of close ups featuring either the artists performing their song,
and having a montage of images relating to the lyrics but there are also some random images one wouldn't necessarily link with the song. His style, I believe has elements of concept and spectacle within it.
For example Johnny Cash's Hurt and Fiona Apple Hurt...

 


Medium shot of the artist.

Part of the Video Hurt with random shots of pillows







He also uses a range of shots, like this Arial view of the artist Fiona Apple.

Also his Music Video Closer by Nine Inch Nails.
Here I like the way he edited to have more than one screen and also how he changed each screen independently.
The video still has elements of his other works like close ups of the artist and also conceptual images.

Romanek also directed the music video for Taylor Swats lead single Shake it Off, which premiered on August 18, 2014. This Video I think is the most relevant or links closely to the genre our group is thinking of.



The artists has kept some of his original styles for example, close ups of the artists and also some conceptual images like this group of people in the room standing.

Iconic Directors

War Paint - Narrative Explanation

In this video I have explained what we have chosen to do in the video that is located on the screen as I am speaking about it. I have given ourselves critiques and what we thought was successful and what we could have done better.

War Paint Lyric Analysis

War paint lyrics analysis from amy_tse

Final Record Label

This is the record label that we have create for out music video.

We named it Aspire to represent the artists who aspire for fame, and used different colours of arrows to symbolize the ongoing journey for these artists. Furthermore, we used a star to symbolize stardom.

Our record label are dedicated to artists who are starting out but have great potential for the future.    

Wordle Lyrics



There are many key words that have been picked out by Wordle, such as the main title "War Paint". I think that it is picking out the words that have been most used in the song, the bigger they are, the more used they are in the song. I think that the bigger words are also telling us that the audience would probably remember them more, "whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh" is a more melodic part of the song and is easy to get stuck in the head to remember it. 

Lip-syncing practice

The sections that went well is the beginning of the video. This was a close up shot of the face of the artist, here it worked well because you can see her face clearly and see her mouthing the words precisely. The areas that didn't sync as well are the land shots because its harder to see the artist face and lips as she sings, this made it harder for to find the right time intervals. But because she is far away the audience won't be able to tell as well as close ups. 

I think for the real thing we will mostly use the lyrics from the chorus as it's the most important part of song, but we may also choose certain lyrics from the verses to lip-sync. 

War Paint Lip Sync

The best lip syncing part was at the end with the main chorus where is says "watch me put my war paint on," as this is easier to learn and know and is annunciated better. It is easy to understand and see what the singer is saying.

The part of the lip syncing that didn't go too well is the bit where it says "red on the ground..." it is harder to see what she is singing, because I think the words may haven't been pronounced or annunciated properly as it is a bit out of time.

We have learnt from this that we definitely need to have learnt the words properly and that the singer has to really annunciated every word, this is so it is easier to edit the song against so it looks as if she is really the person who is singing it. I think in our music, we are definitely going to have to record the chorus being sung, so therefore we definitely need to practice on how well the lip syncing is done and that we really know the words well enough so we can pronounce and annunciate them properly.

War Paint Lip Sync

To prepare for the filming of our music video, we filmed a short section of the chorus. I think that this section of the lip syncing went well as the words are clear and simple to understand. I also found it helped when I tried to sing some of the song when it was playing to get the full pronunciation. 

I think that when I was spinning in this video the lip syncing was slightly off and I was not always facing the camera therefore in the real performance I will try to face the camera as much as possible to keep the lip syncing perfect.

I really enjoyed performing this section as it is very upbeat and is easy to move around to the music in a variety of locations so we will definitely use this in our music video. Also I think these lyrics are the most catchy and meaningful and so by having the lip syncing in the video might engage with the audience a bit more.  

Active Audience Theory

Blumler and Katz
Uses and gratification (why do people consume media?)

Information
- The news, factual and informative sites, news applications.
Personal Identity 
- Social media, Instagram, Facebook. Twitter, expressing who you are.
Entertainment 
- Youtube, radio, TV, Netflix.
Integration and Social Interaction
- Live stream, social media, expressing a point.

If our audience were going to consume our product for entertainment then we would use a spectacle or concept genre that would includes special effects, with a fast pace that leaves the viewers wanting to watch more, with a rush of adrenaline and excitement. Also an interesting storyline could be used to intrigue the audience and make them sympathise with the video.

If our audience were going to consume our product for escapism then the video would make the video very visual with bright colours that are pleasing.

If our audience were going to consume our product for information seeking then we would try and link the lyrics of the song to the visuals for example, 'put my war paint on' could symbolise girl power and self confidence in young women.

If our audience were going to consume our product for personal identity then an audience could use our video as an inspiration for themselves in achieving confidence, influence in style and role model figures.

Preliminary Pitch

In this video we are talking about our pitch and we share our ideas for our music video. This is mainly focussing on the mise-en-scene, location and cinematography. We have gone to explain and explore our ideas further to ensure what we are planning to do for our music video.

War Paint - Props

We were given the task to use some props that we could use in our music video that we are going to create. As the song is called 'War Paint' we thought as a group we could use paint, however I think we could splatter it about, rather than just holding the bottle; but for the purpose of making this video, it was easier to do this. As of this video, we are still working with the song and learning the lyrics to practice lip syncing which is primarily shown at the end as the group of us. This isn't anything final that we are using in the real video as we are still thinking of ideas and this was made on the spot.