Rough Cut Music Video Feedback - Ready To Go

Charly and Shannon your Rough Cuts demonstrate an emerging engagement with the music video brief and parts of your research and planning.

The opening of your music video uses establishing shots to clearly signify the location of your music video. The combination of shots used coupled with the typography ‘Panic at the Disco’ and ‘Ready to Go’ is engaging for the audience. Are the locations shot at the start and at the end of your music video able to feature throughout your music video also?

The mood and atmosphere created by your music video’s music is high energy with general feeling of fun. No doubt this reflects the genre and artists intentions. The make-up, costume and narrative are playful and upbeat. Post the initial establishing shots used during the opening of your music video would you be able to include quick cuts/cutaways to match the high energy atmosphere? This could involve both moving image and still image – lights/signs/people/places/buses/cars shot in a vibrant area such as Camden using a variety of shot types/angles? Including several rapidly changing consecutive shots would energise your music video – or time lapse could be an alternative technique to heighten the energy of your music video.

The themes of friendship/love/loneliness/isolation explored are captured meaningfully via the ‘selfies’ shot of your main character and the manikin. Can the joy of this moment be communicated further through various ‘selfies’ of other people/friendships using still photography heighten the tempo and reflect the mood of the music video? In your planning Shannon youhave indicated the music video would be a concept based music video without clear narrative – as your production has evolved a narrative has developed – this is of course fine but is it possible to include some of the abstract qualities you may have initially wished to employ to continue to maintain the mood.  

Time lapse inspiration (the first one is specific to London – note the angles as well as the shots):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZ1l67XSokY&safe=active

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZ1l67XSokY&safe=active

Variety of shot types plus examples of short, reasonably quick cuts (1 – 3 seconds) throughout the music video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eimgRedLkkU

Lighting/colours inspiration:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8R1X2TxW5Rk

City shots – lights and movement:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmi60Bd4jSs

Still shots of city/people/places (differing tempo to your own music video but hopefully a useful example):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UjsXo9l6I8

Charly and Shannon you have demonstrated a good level of care and creativity in the development of your rough cut for Ready to Go. Please maintain your creative focus and drive to develop your final cut. Please see me should you have any questions regarding the above feedback.

M.Cook: Research and Planning Concerns

Charly,

It is vital you maintain consistency not only with the quality of your research and planning but also with the rate with which you finalise your learning.

Please see me for support and guidance if you are finding the demands of A2 Media challenging.

Please use this final week to complete the following posts:

- Popular Culture, Your and Subcultures

- Description of your Target Audience

- Audience Questionnaires and Results Analysis (this does not need to be in written form e.g. audio)

- Goodwin and Mulvey - Theorists

- Research into the Music Video Industry

- History of Music Videos

- Conventions

- Media Broadcast Platform

- History of Your Chosen Artist

Please see you handbook for guidance but also please do not hesitate to contact me for focused support.

Thank you

Mr Cook

Richard Dyer's Star Theory

Richard Dyer's theory reflects on how the artist are a USP, a Unique Selling Proposition meaning that as artists how they affect their audience and how they idolize them results in selling them a style.

An audience that idolizes Jay Z sells different to an audience that adores Green Day as their style of clothing and music communicates to the audience, for Jay Z it more focuses on accessories such as glasses,hat,rings, wrist watch and necklaces, notice how Jay Z has a sort of colour pallet of black and gold. Green Day is a bit more colourful with clothing and hairstyle, their postures in the pictures and their attitude in their music may also have an affect on USP, notice how they are also wearing Converse shoes which for any artist brands affect their audience style of clothing.

                       

An interesting factor to being an artist is how their audience idolizes them, first because of how they feel about their music but then how their values and attitude might revolve into that. Idolization of an artist can be compared to a religion and how they worship the artist through 'believing' in them

An interesting factor to being an artist is how their audience idolizes them,which first starts and enjoying the music might turn into almost having an obsession with them, perceiving them as a sort of religion because of their values. The values of the artist are also something that the audience might become accustomed to or enjoy such as their attitude, if they can relate to the audience in some way due to their life story or way they came from like from a ghetto area etc. Something i think is also interesting to mention is the fact that they have a record label I don't think it's easy for every artist to just become idolized without one of these babies because they actually help put the artist under the spotlight and become more noticed by an audience compared to someone who does not have one.

Examples of ideology in MV

Thinking about who this music video is targeted to there are a lot of features that make it clear that this is targeted at teens male and female, their attitude being very rebellious and their clothing being a sense of formal but contradicting with their makeup and their hair styles, also what makes them targeted at teens is the sense that they are much younger than most of the classically known bands of their genre.

For our music video we will not be giving a USP to our audience, as the themes and style of clothing is focused only for the music video and does not sell a style in which the audience can generally take into their everyday life, BUT we feel this is not an issue as we feel the song and mood that the song gives will be able to communicate a sense of style for our audience.

Intertextuality

Starter

(Saturday Night Fever - you should be dancing)

(link to the M&S advert, problems with converting it)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpW_htAKSP4

The extracts Saturday Night Fever and the M&S advert are able to relate because they both use the concept of dancing and also use the same song, even though M&S is obviously focused on advertising themselves the fact that they used the same song as Saturday Night Fever might be able to create a meaning for their audience if they have the foreknowledge of where the song originated from, how that effects the audience could be that it brings more attention to the audience if they hear the familiar song playing on TV, they may also relate the song to the advert whenever they hear it, this is an effective way of making the M&S advert memorable and attracts attention towards them as they create nostalgia for the audience.

Katy Perry/Survivor/Queen intertextuality

1) Katy Perry's Roar takes the concept of being weak and then having enough of it and becoming a tiger/ strong in which from being afraid of the jungle she becomes the one to rule it becoming a 'champion'. Something that was easy to notice is that she uses lyrics from Survivor "i've got the eye of the tiger, the fighter" which I felt brought a sense of nostalgia to the audience as most people are familiar with the song by Survivor as it's been used in the Rocky movies and has just become well known through the years, using these lyrics also makes it more eye catching and becomes something people remember Katy Perry - Roar for and will start singing these part of the lyrics.

2)

Music Video Analysis: Rock Genre

Stuck in the Sound - Lets Go

Stuck in the Sound is a French indie rock band that had been formed in 2002, "Lets go" comes from their latest album "Pursuit" created in 2012 and is followed by two other creative music videos for the album (songs Pursuit and Brother).

The video envelops a narrative story on a boy focused on succeeding in his dream to become an astronaut, having planned his life so far ahead though takes a turn when planet earth explodes, traumatised he reflects on his plans for the future and how it's all been taken away from him now, his goal of becoming an astronaut getting in the way of living a life. Frustrated and a loss for a future, a grasp of a little hope is revealed through his monitor of a woman, a woman to share and create a future with? in a desperate attempt to reach the woman this is when we see our main character looking the most alive, his motivation compared to becoming an astronaut is different and more livelier. In conclusion he is faced with the blonde luscious hair of a man that he misinterpreted as a woman losing hope in his dream again finally comes to his senses and realise that there is nothing he can do for himself and humanity now and sits to play a racing game with his new and last friend with the time they still have left in this galaxy.

I feel the target audience for Lets Go are male and female university students (18-22 years) as I feel the video aspires to attract students of the creative arts, whether it be a musician or an artist/ animator, I feel it also gives off the idea of it being targeted at uni students because it's stylised and a little abnormal in its choice of colours and animation style compared to other animations, pink to represent an asian man and what looks to be a use of the pencil tool to animate the characters which makes them look less smooth and more sharp.

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Under The Bridge

Under The Bridge is an emotional song written by the vocalist of RHCP Kiedis about his experiences with heroin and drug abuse (3 years before the song was created) and his former girlfriend at that time in his life. It is a mix of narrative and performance and shows a mix of different scenes playing over each other as if to resemble the interpretation on being high and illusioned by these blur of images on screen, also to mention that the title "Under the Bridge" is referencing as to where he was taking these drugs.

As an old alternative rock song, i feel that the target audience in todays society is roughly 40 year old men and women who lived with the music, but as of when it first came out I feel it was more focused on teenagers and likely anyone else who has experience problems with drugs. Guitarist Frusciante interpreted the song as sad and depressing and felt that he had to create something a little happier with the chords that he played, which I found was an interesting as it created this mellow mix in the song that almost interprets the song as being high.

Mindless Self Indulgence - Shut Me Up

MSI, a punk rock band that creates wacky songs about sex,drugs and violence and doesn't seem to take making these songs very seriously, what more was expected with a music video, you could say what we hear is what we get. Shut Me Up's video consists of

Analysis of Music Videos

Goldfish - Fort Knox (ft. Sakhile Moleshe)

Goldfish is a duo band which creates electronic music, their song "Fort Knox" features Sakhile Moleshe a vocalist who is featured regularly in their songs as do some other vocalists. Fort Knox is animated by Mike Scott making it a creative piece just like Goldfish's other music videos, this artistic side to it might have an interesting and special reaction to it as it slightly comedic to see these characters with no body, it resembles Chiddy Bang's "Opposite of Adults" music video as they would put big heads of the artists on children, these sort of creative ideas are very eye catching and make it a very unique music video compared to one that would just show them performing, you could say that it relates to Andrew Goodwin's theory saying that electronic music can maybe only be expressed through loads of colours and creative ideas to represent the idea of making loads of different sounds.

The target audience I feel could be anyone as Fort Knox just seems to be a fun and energetic song to listen to, gratification theory can be applied here as the visuals could make from kids to adults entertained and could attract attention to creative students/ people, something almost similar to this would be Tom and Jerry as it's something that has been around for so long and everyone seems to know about the show. I also feel that it doesn't try and send a message either positive or negative like 50 Cent's "In Da Club" which sends a message of being a gangster (or asserting dominance in some way) and instead just tries to be unique and something you can come back and watch for entertainment.

Fort Knox's visuals are able to clearly represent the music and lyrics of the song through the images presented on screen, lyrics are shown through the characters movement and what they do, an example would be when Sakhile (beenie man) is running away from the girl at 1:24min the lyrics "you must try to escape it" playing over it. For music and visuals we can see throughout that the characters are using various items and instruments that are in sync with the song are suppose to represent the different instruments in the song (such as the salt shaker at 0:36).

RUN-DMC - Walk This Way

Walk This Way by RUN-DMC is a collaboration song and music video with Aerosmith in which it creates a mix between RUN-DMC's hip hop and Aerosmith's rock and roll. No doubt an interesting collab between the two as the music video portrays the change in the times shown visually with the gap between the two bands and their style of clothing, props and characteristics.

Aerosmiths rock n roll vibe is shown through their colourful clothing and accessories, their workplace environment messy with posters of pin up girls and their characteristics very wild or trying to provoke RUN-DMC with a look that makes it look like they're saying "our genre's been around longer and we know we're better than you", In contrast to this, DMC present themselves in matching black clothing and hats along with their gold chain and matching adidas shoes, their workplace is presented to look more professional with a giant print of their logo on the wall and the whole room and equipment black, their characteristics more bopping and expressing what their singing through movement (mostly with their hands). I think it's interesting to mention the difference between the two of them because it represents the contrast between Hip hop and Rock and also likely shows the sort of lifestyle that both of their audiences live.

                                                        

I feel although the music takes on two genres it is more focused at hip hop making the target audience teenagers, I think this because of the featured gold chain and branded shoes that RUN-DMC wear as they are both something that teens are aware of wearing to represent their like in genre as well as the idea that it still happens today, an example that I can think of is Robbie "Williams - Candy", although not the same genre it pushes the idea of branding its genre with clothing between 2:20 and 2:30 as even though he is in knights armor they insist on present his nike shoes and dedicate a shot to just the shoes just as RUN-DMC has.

Panic! at the Disco is a rock/pop genre band which formed in 2004 and have been around since. Gospel has been considered as an alternative rock cover and looks at showing a narrative through movement while vocalist Brendon Urie lip syncs along with the song.

Camea shots in the video are mostly close ups as the hands of people try to hold him down i.e. not letting him go, these scenes are quite intense as the camera moves around to the action of these hands and what they are doing to him, the narrative can be portrayed as Bendon not being able to go to the afterlife likely due to family still mourning over his death.