We were given the task to to play our track to a group of people and hear their opinions on it and what they think about it. These are the questions and response's they had to give.
Picture showing me and Ebun writing down the response's our group had to give.
Picture showing Taju and our ex member Aklema writing down the response their group had to give.
1. Without too much thinking give three words that come to mind after hearing this song? There is no right or wrong answer, we want your first impression/emotional response.
Their response; Boring, Long , Lost.
2. Which other artist(s) does this music remind you of?
Their response; The kooks, The cure, Joy Division, Alex Coleman.
3. What are this/these artist's music videos like? What would you expect to see in their music videos?
Their response; Lots of close-ups, Emotions, Love stories.
These are some examples of what these artist music video's are like.
4.How would describe the mood of this song?
Their response; depressing, upsetting, relaxing and easy to listen to.
5. If The song was a color, what color what it be?
Their response; Grey,Red and Black.
6. What pictures does the song create in your mind?
Their response; Relationships (Break ups, Sunshine.
7. What narrative do you imagine with this song?
Their response; Typical Love story.
Having got this information, we think that our music video is still viable because we have a lot of good ideas for our own music video and believe that we can change our their opinions once they have watched ours.
A new member named Leon will be joining our group to help us as we have lost a member which had weaken our group. However Leon came to the rescue and saved our group. His is 17 years old and a Robert clack student who is currently studying Media, Business and Sport! His strengths towards our group will be idea making and acting in our music video.
This is the shot list for the band scene that will be filmed on Tuesday 6th October, which had to be delayed from Wednesday 30th September due to technical difficulties. We have only listed a minimum of 12 main shots, however on the day we will be taking much as we may have some new ideas. The band will be consisting of Taju and 3 other friends.
Shot List
Scene
Shot Number
Description
1(Band
Scene)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
Extreme
close-up of the neck of the electric guitar whilst being played at the start.
Extreme
close-up of the guitar base whilst being strummed by the electric guitarist.
Close up of
the base of the guitarist whilst playing along to the song.
Mid shot of
drummer.
Close up of
the drummer only seeing his torso and arms.
Close up of
lead singer, from the shoulders upwards.
High angle
to mid angle shot of drummer.
Close up of electric
guitarist strumming, viewing his arms and torso.
Emil Nava is part of OB management, which is an agency for directors of music videos. Their main aims are to nurture talent, work with production companies, work with record labels and match the right director to the right artist.
Emil Nava began as a runner for film production companies. He's worked for Bink Productions and then free lanced for OB Productions.
Even though it seems Emil sprung up out of no where in 2014, we identify that it was the clumination of many years as an AD and then a director in the UK.
Emil Tells us abit about himself in an interview where he states..
"I always really wanted to be in music. My whole family is involved in film. My dad was an actor, my mom was an actress. I've got four brothers, all directors. Another one of my brothers is an art director now.
I left school when I was sixteen and trained as a chef, because I always knew if I was going to be in this industry, it would be good to have a fall back. So I was a chef for a couple of years. Then, just before I turned eighteen I went and worked on my first video set. I just loved it. I came from the kitchen, so being a runner PA was was very easy because it wasn't scrubbing potatoes or peeling mussels and stuff like that. I never went to college or Uni, I always thought that doing it was the best way of learning it.
After being a PA, I became a video assist, so I was always at the monitor, always listening to the director's conversations, and the AD's and the camera men and I was constantly trying to learn. Every time I left the set I was like, "OK, that's how they did that."
Then, when I was about nineteen, I got lucky. A friend of mine was a director and I was like, "Oh, you should let me first AD for you." He co-directed something with this big video director in England called Phil Griffin, and we really got along, so I started being his AD. I did all the videos from the Amy WinehouseRehab album with him."
CAREER
In addition to Emil making music videos, he has now began a career in commercials. They have high budget values. However Emil says their are pros and cons of commercials rather than Music videos. The pros are that the higher budget the more he will get paid and the more profit he will make. However Emil says the cons are that this restricts him from being creative and broadcasting his skills as adverts aren't very long.
In 2014 he began shooting for independant labels that had budgets of £5,000-£10,000.
However Emil's top present expensive videos are from the likes of Jesse J and Calvin Harris. He has even directed music videos for Ed Sheeran, TI ft Chris Brown, Jennifer Lopez and Alesso.
Emils top tips
-Use a lot of close up and extreme close ups
-Do not film the whole video in a medium/long shot
An example he compared this to is Sinead O'Connor- 'Nothing Compares 2 U'
HOW HAS EMIL NAVA TRANSFORMED?
Emil's first budget music video was for the band Kid British - 'Our House'.
It had a budget of 20,000 and was shot in Manchester in a whole day. The video took 2-3 days to edit and 10 days pre production. The cast featured the local people/neighbours.
He then went on to film Jesse J- 'Do It Like A Dude' which had a budget of £25,000 As well as Calvin Harris - 'How Deep Is Your Love'
One of his older videos when he became a directer and Ed Sheerans First music video.
He is now in America shooting top budget music videos for the likes of TI ft Chris Brown and Jennifer Lopez.
Slipping on the wet grounds, when handling equipment or when acting.
Taju, Abi, Jessica, Ebun and David
2
3
2
We need to make sure that we are checking the weather forecast before we decide to go out and begin filming.
Y
Tripping on the lose wires of the music instruments when filming in the drama studio.
David, Jordan and Samuel.
2
3
2
We need to be making sure that the wires are tucked away, in places where its less likely for someone to slip. This will prevent any accidents happening.
Y
Crashing into someone, whilst we are carrying around the filming equipment
Ebun, Taju and Abi.
3
3
3
We need to make sure that when we are carrying the filming equipment around the school and in public, that the area it clear and there is not a lot of people, which prevents us from crashing into anyone and injuring them.
Y
The equpiment falling on someone when we are filimg the party scene.
Guest at the house party, Jessica Taju, Abi, Ebun and David.
3
4
4
We need to make sure that we are taking extra care of the filming equipment, and making sure that the equipment is placed in a safe secure place, where it is not putting anyone at risk of being injured.
The story-line of our music video is about a girl who has been cheated on by her current boyfriend. She had attended a party, and she was happy because she was going to see her boyfriend. Bu when she had arrived at the party, she had seen her boyfriend taking another girl upset, leaving her distraught and shocked. She gets angry and begins to drink alcohol, she leaves the party and heads to London drunk, and she begins to reminisce all of the good times that she had with her boyfriend when she sees different couples everywhere. After all of this she falls asleep and wakes up to a guy bringing her some coffee, leaving her feeling more better about herself.
Key Genre Conventions:
Narrative:
You could say that our music video is a sort of narrative type of music video. This is because it has a sort of love story theme, the girl has just had a falling out with her boyfriend, and she's now torn up inside, and she wants to get revenge on her boyfriend, but she is too drunk to be able to carry anything out. So instead she just continues to have flashbacks of the good times that she has had with her boyfriend, and it makes her more depressed because she wants to get back with her boyfriend, and relive all of the good times that she has had with her boyfriend, but she cant. Then you could say her 'prince charming' comes to save the day by giving her a cup of coffee and making her day more better, hence the smile at the end of the music video.
Here are the lyrics to 'Kink In Your Soul'. We had to listen to the song multiple times and write them out as they were not available online.
You can learn the lyrics and sing along while watching our music video!
Hello everyone and welcome to another update of our journey into making a music video. Today we had our first production meeting in which we planned our music video and wrote down some of the ideas that we wanted to include. Here's a couple pictures of our mind maps.
We have now finally decided to go for Kink in your soul by Red Emperor.
We really liked this up beat song and we decided that we could get a good video out of this song, this is because we could use instruments such as a guitar or drums for the bass. We also had the idea that to match the song we need a young, confident good looking man who dresses well to fit the song. We decided that we could get our friend David to match this as he has confidence, he could wear a nice suit or maybe look a bit edgy with a leather jacket and his collar up. As they are unsigned, we believed that this would be perfect for us to actually film and we could build a good story line out of this song.
In 2013 "Blurred Lines" by Robin Thicke and "Wrecking Ball" by Miley Cyrus provoked Controversy. 20 university student unions ban the record because of the controversial lyrics. It was said that it reinforced rape and sexual acts. The lyrics " You're a good girl... I know you want it" caused controversy as it suggested that Robin Thicke is promoting rape. It is also shown that there are different versions of the music video. One with completely nude women and one with the women in underwear. Both versions portray the women as sexual objects, as our media theorist Laura Mulvey would say, the women are viewed in a male gaze. This is a theory that women as viewed as objects of male erotic desire in film and in the audience. The men are active and women are passive with no agency and do not move the plot toward. They are simply there for men's pleasure and desires.
Laura Mulvey says this is how women are presented in the eyes of the men and audience.
In comparison to blurred lines. "Wrecking Ball" by Miley Cyrus also caused an outrage to pop music. Miley Cyrus who was once Hannah Montana and a role mole figure to most teenagers showed the contrast between the two. All of her teenage fans who knew her as Hannah Montana were shocked with the difference and the way she has changed from a funny inspiring teen role model into a sex icon. I believe Miley Cyrus made this video to show she is no longer a teenager and is now a women. Sinead O'Connor warned Miley, "Not to them prostitute you!" She believed that the music business were using her to exploit her body and herself to make money.
Key features of a music video
1. Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics.
2. There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals(either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting)
3. The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close-ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work (a visual style) E.g. Katy Perry/Michael Jackson.
4. There is frequency reference to the notion of looking(screens within screens, telescopes etc.) and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body.
5.There is often intertexual reference (to films, TV programmes, other music videos etc)
Michael Joseph Jackson was an American singer, songwriter, record prouder, dancer and actor.
He was born on August 29th 1958 and died June 25th 2009 at age 50. The cause of death is said to be due to cardiac arrest induced by propofol and benzodiazepine intoxication.
He was called the King of Pop, for his contributions to music, dance and fashion, alongside his publicized personal life which made him a global figure in popular culture for over four decades.
Michael had began his solo career in 1971. In the early 1980s Michael became a dominant figure in popular music.
"Rockin Robin" 1971
The music video for "Rockin Robin" shows Jackson five performing however the main focus is on Michael Jackson who is the lead singer. It also shows a variety of different clips emerged into one this demonstrates genre characteristics which confirm Andrew Goodwin's theory of key features in a music video.
The music video is basic and promotes the song in a well manner. It shows a limited variety of sophistication and lacks complex techniques to with editing and special effects. Michael Jackson is also lip syncing throughout the whole music video.
"Rock With You" 1979
The opening shot of Rock with you shows us a silhouette of Michael Jackson dancing in a front of a light projector. The use of this creates an enigma for the viewers as we are eager to the see who the person is as their identify is hidden by the light.
The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close-ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs. The applies to "Rock with You" as we see a section where it is a close up of Michael singing. The light that is shown behind him makes him look dazzling as well as eye catching for the audience. It then cuts to an extremely long shot of Michael performing with the light still shining above him, it then fades to a close up of him performing from the other side.
"Billie Jean" 1982
In this music video we can see that there is a relationship between the lyrics and visuals. This once again confirms to Andrew Goodwin's theory, that there is a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals either portrayed as illustrative, amplifying or contradicting. The lyrics is about a girl named Billie Jean lying by claiming Michael is the farther of her child, in the music video a man is stalking Michael Jackson trying to set him up of a crime even though he is innocent which portrays the story of Billie Jean.
In the first chorus we hear Michael say "Billie Jean is not my love, she's just a girl claiming I am the one but the kid is not my son" Whilst Michael sings this he is standing and there is a man behind him (referring to a police officer) trying to arrest him, this is seen as two shot, however as the camera cuts away we can see Michael getting away.
This music video represents Michael as an entertainer which is emphasized when he is dancing throughout the music video. At the time of this music video it was very unique as not many people had videos of them dancing it in, especially in the manner that Michael did. Many artists where then influenced by his music videos and make reference to MJ's Billie jean therefore it has intertextual reference which again confirms to Goodwin's theory rule number 5.
"Thriller" 1983
The music video of Thriller is considered the most famous music video of all time by the Library of Congress, which added it to it's National Film Registry in 2009, the first music video in their registry.
The video was a cultural milestone which introduced elaborate choreography, costumes and dialogue and the concept of the long-form music video, where a mini-movie was made for a song then edited down for the short version.
The long version of "Thriller" runs nearly 14 minutes, but had remarkable longevity, easily racking up over 100 million views when it showed up on YouTube. MTV usually ran the short version, which ran a little under five minutes but still contained about a minute of non stop content in a story line that limits most of the movie the couple is watching in the beginning.
The video cost about $500,000 to make. Jackson's record company had no intention of paying for it, since the album was on the downswing and they had already financed videos for two of its song.
According to John Landis (the director), Jackson really wanted to run into a monster, so he offered to pay for the clip himself. Landis took on the project because he saw it as a way to revive the short film genre, which he loved.
The Finance
MJ did not have to pay for the video out of his pocket because they made deals with showtime and MTV to cover the costs. Showtime got to air a one hour special with the "making of" documentary and the 14 minute film before it was broadcasted anywhere else.
When MTV heard about this, their executive Bob Pittman decided that losing a Michael Jackson video to showtime was unacceptable, and paid $250,000 for the exclusive broadcast rights once Showtimes window ended. MTV was founded on the principle of not paying for videos, so Pittman got around this by paying for documentary, even though the money was really used to pay for the film.
The video won for Best Performance Video, best choreography and viewers choice at the first MTV Video Music Awards in 1984.
With its famous graveyard dance, the video started the trend of group dance scenes in Pop Videos. The video owes a debt to Alice Cooper, who in 1975 created a movie based on the stage show for his welcome to my nightmare tour. Cooper's production was based on the entire album, but it also used a horror theme and was narrated by Vincent Price.
Most homes has video cassette recorders in 1983 and sales of videos with big business. You could buy a VHS or beta copy of Michael Jackson's Thriller, which included the full video and also "The making of Michael Jackson's thriller" a behind the scenes documentary.
The tape became the best selling music video at the time, and was later certified by Guinness World Records as the top selling music video of all time, moving 9 million units.
The timing helped, as the video was released a few weeks before Christmas.
Thriller was directed by John Landis and produced by George Folsey, Michael Jackson, John Landis and Jr.
To begin with, the illusions and make-up that were used were phenomenal especially for the time period that it was made. There was a lot of organisation and effort that had to be done into creating the music video, from how long it would have taken the actors and actresses to get ready to the many hours of rehearsals it took to get the dance routine perfect.
At the start of the video there are comments that are from Michael Jackson himself which are what he thought about the video, it also ends the same way which adds a touch of brilliance to the music video.
The storyline that is being introduced starts with a horror story, where Michael is a very petite, pale female character. It then goes on to where the girl is about to get eaten and instantly cuts to the scene which shows below where the cinema is full of people watching the film. This touch makes us feel as if we are actually watching a film in the cinema.
The music then starts after the happy couple have come out of the cinema and the camera paces from this shot to the next and then zooms in to see the two characters. The dance routine is one of the most memorable dance routines ever, as Michael dances with the zombies. The dance routine continues for a good 5 minutes, which was very interesting to watch as during the time period it was uncommon for dancing to happen in music videos, let alone last this long.
"Bad" 1987
Following Michael's success of "Thriller" he was the biggest pop star in the world and his videos made the news.
The video of "Bad" was a major event. Shown for the first time on BBC. People wanted to see his new image and dancing.
Just like "thriller" Bad was another music video that had consistent dancing throughout. Michael's looks were different to when he shot thriller, he appeared must lighter however this was because of a skin condition that Michael was facing called vertiligo.
Once again Goodwin's theory is being applied with the performance of his dancing and use of close ups of Michael. In Bad we was the lyrics and the visuals contradicting themselves as the music video shows Michael becoming one with the bad guys and dancing together where as the lyrics are suggesting that he is "Bad" In this music video he has portrayed the oppositie as he actually shows himself to be a peacemaker.
"The Way You Make Me Feel" 1987
In this music video we see Laura Mulvey's theory of the male gaze apply perfectly, as the woman is viewed as the objects of male erotic desire, and women do not have agency nor do they move the plot forward.
Once again Michael has his own performance of him dancing which confirms Goodwin's theory. However in this music video we see the female character surrounded by a group of Men wearing a short dress in the middle of the night. We see the female trying to escape but can not find a way out as Michael will not stop chasing after her, she is then accompanied by a group of females and she then stops running away and enjoys the attention as suggests that he shows her what he's got to prove. Laura Muley's theory applies perfectly as we see just how men view women to be. At the end of the video, we see that the female character has given up her phase of playing hard to get and finally gives into Michael has we see her embarrasses Michael.
"Black Or White" 1991
The music video for black and white was very expensive and inventive. It had cost around $4,000,000 to make and today that would be around $6,925,000. Clearly we can see this was one of his highest budget music video's of all time.
This video was to resurrect his career and sent out a serious message as he was having serious problems with his skin condition vertilago which seemed to be getting worst. He had also had an array of allegations of being 'strange' and many other things.
In conclusion, I believe digital technology helped Michael Jackson's use of the pop video as it allowed him to add more special effects used for example in Black and White it allowed him to change from different person and different skin tones and gender through the use of modern digital technology which he may not have been able to do many years before.
His videos became much longer and complex through the use of digital technology and the music video became just as important as the song itself. Michael used pop videos to be able to reinvent his image, tell stories and address serious issues that he believed people needed to know about or things that he wanted to share.
