Filming Continued...

The next stage of our filming took us back to the living room in my house. This time we had Amy playing the female character in the song with us, so we were able to film more.


We added in some lip syncing aswell this time, as we were told this would gain us more marks.
We managed to get a lot of important footage filmed today that set the scene well.

Song Lyrics Analysed

Artist Background - The Nites.

The Nites consist of two people. Anthony, who does the vocals, and Michael, who plays the guitar. Both men are from South London, they met in 2004 and began playing gigs round the acoustic circuit in and around London.
At first they only sung cover songs, but now they write all their own stuff.
The band have recently released a new album which is available for download on itunes.
The Mail on Sunday described them as 'Brilliant Pure Popular Rock.' They also went on to say 'The Nites continue to build on their experiences and thrive on the excitement of what lies ahead'

Locations Continued...

Another filming location will take place in a restaurant. We want to show the couple being together and use close ups and reaction shots to represent their feelings to the audience.
In the song, the lyrics mention about a 'fake smile' so it is important we try and make reference to this in the visuals. The timing of matching the lyrics to the visuals is extremely important, if the timing is out then it will be made to look like one of those badly dubbed translated adverts seen on television.

Shooting Locations

We have a variety of different locations where we are filming the footage for our music video.
The order if which we are filming is not necessarily the order in which it will appear in our final piece.
The first location we used was my living room, here we filmed Alfie (who is playing the main male character) is sitting down looking through old photo albums, remeniscing through photos of him and his ex/girlfriend. We took a lot more footage than we will actually need but we thought that its better to have too much than too little. We used a range of different camera angles, such as close ups and reaction shots.
The next part of our filming took place inside Alfies car, he was filmed driving from Stevenage to Hitchin. In our video this will signify him just trying to clear his head and him having some time alone to think about what is going on in his life. We also filmed him driving into his road from an upstairs bedroom window. This gave us a nice high angle shot. Not all of this footage will be used but we will be able to experiment with it when we are editing.
The next stage of our filming took us to ninesprings park, this is where we film the main female character on a 'rebound date' with another male. (played by myself.) Close up and reaction shots are important here as we need to portray how the girl is feeling. The idea of this rebound date came from listening to the lyrics repeatedly, this is our interpreation of what may be happening. The lyric 'whatever you gotta do' shows that the girl is doing anything she can to try and move on but its not as easy as she hopes it is.

Filming Effects and Ideas

Now we have a solid idea and understanding of the song we thought about how we could present our ideas through the camera.
We quickly decided to use the flashbacks in our video, to show different time periods and also to show emotions/feelings. We used flashbacks in our previous course last year, and we felt it worked well, so we decided to stick to our strengths.

Last time we used the flashback effect, colour represented present day, and black and white represented the past. However, this time we decided to do it the other way round.
Colour would show past memories of when the couple were happy and content with one another, and black and white would show the present day when things aren't so positive anymore. We decided to do it this way round because we felt colour shows happiness and black and white shows a feeling of negativity and generally feeling low, drained.
For the colour parts we would show the couple together and how they once were, the black and white would show them going their separate ways. The split screen affect will also work well here as we will be able to show what the two individuals are doing when they are apart.

Interpretation of the song

After listening to the song all the way through a few times, interpretations of what the lyrics mean are able to be formed. When we listened to the song as a group, Alfie, Joe, and I verbally brainstormed what we thought could be going on at particular points of the song, and tried to create a possible story line for the song itself. This helped us understand the song in more detail, and also gave us a good idea of how we would go out and film the music video.
The way we have interpreted the song may not be the same as how the artist interprets but we feel our interpretation works well for us.

We believe that the song is about a couple going through a rough patch in their relationship. The song is from the mans perspective of what is going on. He is saying that he knows his relationship is not working but he desperately wants to give it another go, his girlfriend however, isn't so sure that she wants to be with him any longer. The lyrics say that whatever happens he will always be there for her. 'You're gonna make it to the other side' shows us that he is confident that they will get through this tough time, and will, in time, be happy again.

Change of Song

After presenting our film pitch to the rest of the class, we decided we were not happy with the song we had chosen. As we were planning to make it a parody, we decided it would be too hard to make it work well and gain us a good mark.
So we went away over the weekend and found a new song by a new artist. The title of the song is 'Whatever Gets You Through' and it is sung by an unsigned pop/rock band called The Nites.
We feel much more confident using this song for our new project, and have some good ideas of how we are going to make it work as effectively as we possibly can. As the song is far more serious than our original 'Nando's Skank', we are able to come up with far more viable ways of filming it.

Song Lyrics for Whatever Gets You Through

You say to me
That everything is okay now
but it's not

You try so hard
To put on that brave smile that you ain't got
I don't care how long it takes baby
I'll be by your side

Whatever gets you through
I'll give you space
Whatever you gotta do
To find your way

Baby you can cry, you can fall
You can break through it all
I'll be there for you
To do, whatever gets you through

Whatever gets you through

I know it hurts
But i can't pretend to make it be alright
Some day, some how
You're gonna make it to the other side
Coz no matter what it takes I will
I'll be what you need

Whatever gets you through
I'll give you space
Whatever you gotta to
To find your way

Baby you can cry, you can fall
You can break through it all
I'll be there for you
To do, whatever gets you through

Whatever gets you
I will listen, be your shadow
I will run to you
I'll never leave you behind

I'll hold you close
I'll let you go
I'll give you time x3

Yeah!

Baby you can cry, you can fall
You can break through it all
I'll be there for you
To do,

Whatever gets you through
I'll give you space
Whatever you gotta do
To find your way

Baby you can cry, you can fall
You can break through it all
I'll be there for you
To do, whatever gets you through

Through x4

Music Video Project (original idea)

For our project we are going to make a music video for the 'Nando's Skank', by Ed Sheeran and Example. We want the video to be a parody of the song 'are you gunna bang doe', it is going to be filmed in the chicken restaurant, Nandos.

We want the cuts to be extremely quick so we will be needing a lot of footage. Parody music videos are very risky to do as if they are done correctly then they are not good at all, however if they are executed well then they look excellent.

Online Revolution

The new revolution of music downloads has affected how bands and artists promote their music.

The Arctic Monkeys took advantage of the online revolution, they became successful through the social networking site, myspace. The band put their songs up on their myspace page available for everyone to listen to. If people liked what they heard then they would go out and purchase the album or download it off itunes or other such programs.

Other bands like Metallica for example, didn't like the idea of people being able to listen to their songs without paying to do so, this lost them quite a lot of fans as they proved to the public that they were only in it for the money. Whereas other bands were in it purely for the love of music and weren't as fussed about people listening to music for free.

Other artists like Lily Allen, for example, had similar ideas as the Arctic Monkeys.

Creating a 'niche'

It is important for solo artists to create a 'niche' as this is what

separates them from other artists, and gives them a unique selling point.

If artists don't have a niche, then they will just be like everyone else and won't stand out from the crowd.
For example; eminem's niche is his ability to mock other hip-hop artists in his songs.

Lady Gaga's niche in a way is her identity in general, the clothes she wears are always very unique and original. She has got her very own brand identity, separating her from other similar artists.

Goodwin's Theories

Andrew Goodwin came up with principals that he said can be applied to every music video.

There is a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the lyrics.- There is a relationship between the music and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the music.- Genres are complex and diverse in terms of music video style and iconography- Record companies will demand a lot of close-ups of the main artist or vocalist- Voyeurism is present in many music videos, especially in the treatment of females, but also in terms of systems of looking. Some examples are screens within screens, cameras, mirrors, etc.- there are likely to be intertextual references, either to other music videos or to films and TV texts, these provide further gratification and pleasure for the viewers/fans.
These principals are vital when producing a music video, all of things above need to be addressed.

Different types of music video

So far we have learnt that there are 3 different styles of music video. A narrative based video is one that tells the audience a story, a good example of this is Lady Gaga's Bad Romance video. The second type is a performance based video, for example, Green Day's American Idiot. The final type is a concept video, these kinds of videos have nothing to do with the performance or the lyrics.

Our original song idea was going to be a performance based video, but our new song by The Nites is a narrative based video.

Introduction

This blog will be used to post my A2 media studies coursework. We must produce one main task, which involves us creating and producing a music video for a specific artist of our choice.
We also have to do two ancillary tasks. For this, we have decided to design the album cover for the artist and also to design a magazine cover promoting our chosen artist.