Chris Brown - Beautiful People Draft

Draft Digipack

Draft Magazine Advert

Location Release Contract

This location contract states that I have been given permission from the owner of the property in order for me to use the location.

Actor Release Forms

This is the actor release form for my music video, this gives me the consent to use my actor's footage throughout parts of my music video.

Artist Permission

This is the print screen of the email I sent to the management team for Chris Brown. It is mandatory to ask permission from the artist in order for me to use one of their songs for the course.

Storyboard

Video Mood Board

video mood board from vanessa wanner on Vimeo.

Making A Mood Board

This week I created a mood board that would have all the images that relate to my video. However, with the fact that I have recently filmed all my footage during the summer holidays the mood board wasn’t hard to make as I merely looked at the videos that I’d filmed and searched up images on what I’d filmed already.

Realising that it would be better to make my mood board into a video, I transferred images from PowerPoint onto Adobe Premiere Pro.

Location Recce

Is My Video Post-Modern?

With the fact that I was writing essays on genre and narrative I looked at media theorists. Reading what the theorists had to say I noticed that merely everything that was noted by each theorist didn’t relate to my video in any way. I noted in my genre essay that “None of the theories apply to my music video. The video doesn’t follow the stereotypical aspect of videos which theorists such as Domailletalk about the fatal flaw, the indomitable hero or the dream comes true. Nor does the video follow points Todorov makes, such as the 5 stages of equilibrium, disequilibrium, recognition, action and restoration. Like stated before my video doesn’t have a story line, it’s merely following real life. Nothing is staged.”

Looking at theories made me question my entire music video. Would I be able to say anything about my video in the actual exam? I realised that instead of relating to theorists I could make points noting how unlike the theories my video was, I could argue with what the theorists stated and this would be how I’d form my essay. With more essay writing I will be able to write up a good discussion about my music video and in turn will make my essay interesting to read for the examiner.

Filming/Editing Schedule

Hyde Park Scenes:
Filming - 23/7/14 16:00-19:00
Editing - 15/11/14 - 7/12/14 depending on how long it would take to make the other footage fit in well. I would however edit the any suitable shots until I put my video together.

Plane and Zambia footage:
Filming – 7/8/14 – 21/8/14 I would be filming while on my holiday. I will shoot footage of my journey on the plane to going around Zambia filming people.
Editing: 15/11/14 - 7/12/14 I would able to edit most of my footage as all the footage would have been shot before I started school. This would in turn give me time to edit my footage and ensure everything would flow perfectly.

London eye performers/skateboard footage:
Filming - 29/8/14  14:30-17:00
Editing – 15/11/14

Performance (Drama Studio):
Filming - 13/11/14 15.00 - 17:30
Editing - 17/11/14 - 14/11/14 at this point I would have already edited the appropriate shots and would need to edit these shots into the right spaces left in the video for the footage.

Time Lapse (London):
Filming - 14/11/14 16:00-19:00
Editing - 17/11/14 (the time lapse should take merely two lessons to edit)


This is the filming and editing schedule I created before I made my music video. I created this schedule after I had an idea of what I wanted to film for my video and in turn made a schedule to plan out when I would be able to shoot the footage. The schedule will help me in terms of being organised and allowing me to note what footage I have filmed and need to film.

Explain how you used conventional and / or experimental narrative approaches in one of your production pieces.

“Media texts rely on cultural experiences in order for audiences to easily make sense of narratives”. Explain how you used conventional and / or experimental narrative approaches in one of your production pieces.

The music video I’m making isn’t based on any music video in particular. The video is a journey of my holiday, going from country to country showing beautiful people around the world. There isn’t a story of sorts but merely a voyage that allows audiences to realise, no matter where in the world and the goings on of what happens around us for example war and suffering everyone is beautiful. It doesn’t matter if you’re homeless, working class, rich or whatever race, the concept still applies. Together with the beautiful people I also capture beautiful destinations and scenes.

None of the theories apply to my music video. The video doesn’t follow the stereotypical aspect of videos which theorists such as Kate Domaille talk about the fatal flaw, the indomitable hero or the dream comes true. Nor does the video follow points Tzvetan Todorov such as the 5 stages of equilibrium, disequilibrium, recognition, action and restoration. Like stated before my video doesn’t have a story line, it’s merely following real life. Nothing is staged.

As the video is not one of performance it’s one that follows the lyrics of the son ‘Beautiful People’. The use of long shots allows the audience to see the scenery and the culture that beholds Zambia and London. People would be interested to see what a country in Africa is like. For those who live in hyper-reality and believe all they see in the media would assume there’s only poverty and wilderness, when a matter of fact it’s advanced. The video allows people to step out of the bubble of hyper-reality and see the bigger picture…it’s not all doom and gloom.

The video I’m making is linear; the video refers to a journey being told in an order of events, in addition to being omniscient narrative. The message is more or less what is seen on the screen. The meaning can be perceived in many different ways. The meaning is left open to the audience. What is provided in the music video is the simple meaning; everyone is beautiful, the lyrics to the video illustrate this alongside. The audience is left to perceive the video in anyway and mainly based on what they want to believe they are seeing. The video uses verisimilitude which is that the quality of appearing to be real or true and follows the rules of continuity. As Pam Cook argues that the Hollywood narrative structure includes: “linearity of cause and effect within an overall trajectory of enigma resolution” and “a high degree of narrative closure”. My video goes against this and allows the audience freedom to have their own understanding. Not following conventions of typical videos I’d like to think my video is postmodern. It’s not restricted. There are no rules. Laura Mulvey – argues that cinema positions the audience as male. The camera gazes at the female object on screen. It also frames the male character watching the female. Once again the video ignores this and doesn’t exploit women but instead shows men and women as equal.

Equipment Research

Typical British Weather

Regardless of my plan to go to Hyde Park last Saturday, once again the British weather managed to let me down. Considering that the camera I was planning to use was a school camera I wasn’t going to risk taking it out in the rain regardless of having an umbrella. In addition because of the terrible weather it came to my attention that no one in their right mind would have wanted to go to Hyde Park in the train to ride bikes and skateboard. As I had kept the school footage longer than I was meant to, I decided that id make the most of the last day id have it which was Sunday. I took the camera to a church called Hillsong which is not your typical run of the mill church. This church had teenagers jumping, bright lights and what looked like a mosh pit in front of the church stage which the band was playing. However I am not sure if I got near enough footage of that amazing scenery but I have to take in account that I have more than enough footage that I took prior to this Saturday.

Initial Planning Ideas

Audience research

Influences Of Music Style

Skateboarding

This week I plan on going to Hyde Park once more before it starts getting dark and raining. This is most likely going to be the last time I film any footage as I feel I have more than enough. Because I had to delete some footage from when I went to Hyde Park when I went to Zambia due to space issues I plan on filming things more interesting. Walking around London might be a good idea as I'd be able to capture more of London and not just one section (Hyde Park). I plan on filming someone putting on make-up at wh ich i will use as visual progression as it will go well with what i have in mind of representing beautiful people.

The History Of Music Videos

Research Into Existing Music Videos

Looking At Existing Music Videos

This week I had a look at existing music videos I had a look at Fall Out Boy’s new album I found it unique when I noticed that each song had a music video. All the music videos for each song on the album were interlinked together. After all the music videos were finished they were all put together to make a 45 minute music video/movie. Each song was a significant part of the storyline. Having such an inventive type of video in turn would have made the fans feel part of something special. No other artists that I know have created something so unique with their albums.

Theory

Research Into Genre

Pop music originated in its modern form in the 1950s, deriving from rock and roll. As a genre, pop music is very eclectic, often borrowing elements from other styles including urban, dance, rock, Latin and country. However there are core elements which define pop. Such include generally short-to-medium length songs, written in a basic format (often the verse-chorus structure), as well as the common employment of repeated choruses, melodic tunes, and catchy hooks.

 

Characteristics

Musicologists often identify the following characteristics as typical of the pop music genre:

• an aim of appealing to a general audience, rather than to a particular sub-culture or ideology
• an emphasis on craftsmanship rather than formal "artistic" qualities
• an emphasis on recording, production, and technology, over live performance
• a tendency to reflect existing trends rather than progressive developments
• much pop music is intended to encourage dancing, or it uses dance-oriented beats or rhythms

Definitions

David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop music as "a body of music which is distinguishable from popular, jazz, and folk musics".

Although pop music is often seen as oriented towards the singles charts it is not the sum of all chart music, which has always contained songs from a variety of sources, including classical, jazz, rock, and novelty songs, while pop music as a genre is usually seen as existing and developing separately.

Influences and development

The term "pop song" is first recorded as being used in 1926, in the sense of a piece of music "having popular appeal".

Hatch and Millward indicate that many events in the history of recording in the 1920s can be seen as the birth of the modern pop music industry, including in country, blues and hillbilly music.

Since the late 1950s, however, pop has had the special meaning of non-classical music, usually in the form of songs, performed by such artists as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, ABBA, etc".

In the early 1960s [the term] 'pop music' competed terminologically with Beat music [in England], while in the USA its coverage overlapped (as it still does) with that of 'rock and roll'".

From about 1967 the term was increasingly used in opposition to the term rock music, a division that gave generic significance to both terms.

Influences and development

Pop music has absorbed influences from most other genres of popular music. Early pop music drew on the sentimental ballad for its form, gained its use of vocal harmonies from gospel and soul music, instrumentation from jazz, country, and rock music, orchestration from classical music, tempo from dance music, backing from electronic music, rhythmic elements from hip-hop music, and has recently appropriated spoken passages from rap.

It has also made use of technological innovation. In the 1940s improved microphone design allowed a more intimate singing style.

Another technological change was the widespread availability of television in the 1950s; with televised performances, "pop stars had to have a visual presence". In the 1960s, the introduction of inexpensive, portable transistor radios meant that teenagers could listen to music outside of the home.

Pop music has been dominated by the American and (from the mid-1960s) British music industries, whose influence has made pop music something of an international monoculture, but most regions and countries have their own form of pop music, sometimes producing local versions of wider trends, and lending them local characteristics.

Some non-Western countries, such as Japan, have developed a thriving pop music industry, most of which is devoted to Western-style pop, has for several years has produced a greater quantity of music of everywhere except the USA.

Going To London

This week I made my way to London to film more for my music video. I was able to make space on the camera after filming in Africa. Going to the London eye on a Saturday insured me that there would entertainers on the streets that I could film to make my music video more interesting and cultural.

 

I went to film the sea of poppies which I’m intending on using in my video, making it more sentimental and cultural. I filmed by a skate park which was significant as it represents the youth of my target audience.

Research Into Similar Product Research

A Vida Doce - Short Film from Haydon Media on Vimeo.

Regardless of this being a short film it’s similar to how I plan my video to look like. My video is going to look at the beauty of people. My video focuses on family, people around the world and how every each one of them are perfect in their own way. My video is somewhat sentimental and embraces people in their natural habitat. Like the movie most things in my video aren’t staged, it looks at how people act in their everyday life and the happiness that surrounds them.

 

The video uses a lot of close-ups to show peoples expressions and allow them to stand out more than their surroundings, in my video I plan on using quite a few close-ups and long shots as I plan on basing my video on the beauty of people around the world. Having filmed in another country just like Johnny Fonseca did in his film I have incorporated both long shots and mid shots so people can see the surroundings and culture of Zambia.

 

Filming such things like fountains helped Johnny set the scene in his film which is similar to what I did. I was able to film such things like traditional African wooden sculptures that would set the scene and remind people that they’re watching something from a country on the other side of the world. This in turn allows people to pay more attention to the video as they would be interested in seeing how the other half live. 

Andrew Goodwin

Post-modernism

This week I looked at a postmodern music video and analysed it. Looking at the Lady Gaga Paparazzi music video various times I started to think about whether or not my music video would look postmodern. With the definition on my blog that ‘anything can be art, anything can deserve to reach an audience, and culture as there is no longer anything new to produce or distribute’. I thought about how Lady Gaga used representations to represent reality. In addition she used existing scenes from movies and made them look more modern in her video, creating several references to popular movies. In the rest of my definition I wrote that the distinction between media and reality has collapsed, and we now live in a ‘reality’ defined by images and representations’. Lady Gaga uses a stage name and is hardly referred to as Stefani, in conclusion her private life stays private and she’s able to pull of such controversial things such as wearing a dress made out of meat. Having an alter ego allows singers to be creative with their music videos and in turn they get less criticised than if it were themselves who wore a meat dress out in public for fashion but not to outrage people as you’ve got a well-known alter ego who essentially does outrageous activities.

What i did in the summer

This summer I had the delight to go to Africa and film part of my music video. Despite the fact that my initial plan was to go film family, people and things that were merely stereotypically African I wasn’t able to go film any wild animals. I was able to film people cooking traditional African food and film the surroundings of Lusaka Zambia. As I had filmed prior to me going to Zambia I had to delete some of the footage that I had filmed when I was in London, regardless I was able to film while I was on the 11 hour flight plane to South Africa and on the 2 hour flight plane to Zambia. I was able to capture people in their element; people with their families and having fun. I plan on going into London and Filming more before the weather takes the worst turn. In order to do this I will upload all the footage I have onto my account at school and have enough space for new footage. When I have all my footage I will think to make a story board in which I will incorporate the footage I took over the summer and blend it in with the song so my music video makes sense. If I have the opportunity to go to another country I would plan to film there too so I can incorporate different countries and cultures in one music video which in turn should make the video more interesting.

What I intend To Do During The Summer

During the summer I intend to film most of my music video as I’ve already planned what I want to do inn my music video and how I’d like it to look like. By the time we come back to school in summer I plan on starting to edit my video and make it into a smooth transition between the two parts I am splitting my video. I plan on filming in London for half my music video and hopefully I can film the other half in another country. If this isn’t possible for me to do I’ll have to think up another idea of what I can do for the other half of the music video.

I plan to go to as many places as possible for this video. I intend to show all different types of people. This would include gender, ethnicity and social class. I intend my video to have somewhat of a meaning but also be fun at the same time. Going to as many cities and towns as possible will help me with my goal to get in as many different people in the video as possible.

The Journey

This week I started going through songs i wouldn’t mind listening to for several months. I thought about the genres i usually listen to, but this was hard to choose from seeing as i listen to quite a few music genres. Taking into account that I didn’t want to have a sad slow song playing i chose to use a Chris Brown song. Choosing the song allowed me to have a variety of ideas on what i could use and do with my music video. With the current news that I might be going on holiday i had the idea to show a journey and have a change of culture in my video. However if i don’t go on holiday this summer id have to change half the ideas I have for my music video. This video pretty much depends on me going away for this summer. Planning ahead i asked my media teacher if I would be allowed to take a camera with me during this summer just in case I did go away. A fault with my plan is that I generally have no clue on how id film on the camera. My skills are more limited to an iPhone camera...this should be interesting. I’m hoping I would get taught how to use the camera in order for me not to mess up the footage I’d like to take.

I’m looking forward to seeing my ideas come to life. If all goes to plan this video could be meaningful and emotive yet not too sad because on the choice of song. I looked at magazine adverts for digipaks which games me ideas of what conventions are usually seen in the magazine adverts. Conventions such as; the title of the CD, name of the artist, having a similar image as the album itself, when the album would be released etc.

Magazine Poster Analysis

What is a Digipak?

 

 

Aim of a Digipak

Used by record labels to promote the sales of the artist. Its features give fans multiple reasons to buy the CD rather than downloading the content via a website such as iTunes. It offers a more aesthetic experience, allowing the buyer to gain pleasure from the exclusive photographs and artwork included in the pack.

A Digipak will promote the artist by creating brand identity. It will present the artist in a particular way whilst paying close attention to the target audience and the genre of the music.

 

Conventions of a Digipak

 

Conventions of a Digipak

 

A Digipak is usually created as a 4 or 6 plate folded piece pf card with a CD in the middle. The back of a Digipak includes information of the songs included this allows people buying the Digipak to get an insight of what they are about to buy. With the increase in digital downloads and apps such as Spotify and websites such as YouTube, demand for Digipaks is declining. The use of Illegal downloads are also at fault as to why Digipaks aren’t in demand

 

It sometimes includes:

·         A DVD

·         Lyric Book

·         Artist photos or Imagery

·         List of Songs

 

How does a Digipak benefit the artist?

 

The font of the Digipak will have some aspect of what the artist represents and what their predominate genre is. The Digipak will most likely embody a message about the artist image. This emphasises the artist’s brand image which would increase the popularity of the album. In addition, the Digipak exemplifies the artistic and creative approach the artist is taking throughout their music.

 

Digipaks benefit the artist and their music as it is a promotional aspect of the music industry which helps bring awareness to the artist, thus selling the artist and encouraging consumers to buy and listen to their music. You could argue that by buying a Digipak it in turn establishes your loyalty to the artist.

Digipak Analysis

Thinking Of Ideas

When thinking up my ideas for my music video, I considered having something emotive after looking at how effective past students had made their music videos. Regarding the fact I had just moved and was still without internet, thinking up ideas using YouTube wasn’t a choice for me unless I stayed after school during the week. During the week we had a lesson where our teacher talked to us about what effects we can add to our videos. My first initial ideas were to have dancers and go to London and film skateboarders and the skate park I shot my pictures for my magazine. I was encouraged to use more emotive songs if I was planning on making and emotive video.

Considering that I didn’t want to use a depressing song or make a depressing video. I reflected on songs I enjoyed listening in the past years. Regarding the fact that I would have to work on this video for many weeks; filming, editing and putting it all together, I would have to choose a song I wouldn’t get sick of so easily.

I wasn’t going to make a parody because…Im merely not creative enough to take time and think about a different idea for an already existing music video. I’ve considered using, time lapse, reversing footage, travel and journey. Using a green screen wouldn’t be an option I would choose to use, I found that I wouldn’t be able to be as creative as I would want with this video. I prefer to use more live footage that I can capture myself and use to make my full video. for me to use or maybe the thought of having to light the screen properly wasn’t appealing. Looking at past pictures I took for my magazine in a studio; the lighting wasn’t much to brag about, it was more or less…looking amateur.