On going weekly production diary - what we did this week

This week, I focused on looking more in depth of girl bands and what they are typically like. We looked at conventions of current girl bands such as Little Mix as well as creating moodboards of what we think a girl band should look like. This includes their hair, clothing and personality. The main thing we did this week was our vox pox on our target audience. Not only did we find out some opinions on our chosen song from a selection of girls we got the chance to improve our skills on premiere pro. We got the chance to edit our footage and cut bits together to make a better quality video. Although the quality of film isn't the best it could be we did what we could with what we had.

VoxPop

Little mix - wings video analysis

Girl band moodboard

I created this girl band mood board with a collection of images i thought would be appropriate for our girl band. The mood board includes jewelry, clothing ideas, microphones and make up. The clothing ideas are what current girl bands dress like and could be potentially ideas for our girl band to dress like for out music video. The colours of the mood board consist of a lot of pink and pastel colours as it connotes girly-ness.

On going weekly production diary

This week we were given the task of doing another lip sync but with our music video team and to a song from an animated soundtrack. This task gave us another opportunity to develop our skills on Premiere Pro. As the software is complex you need a lot of practice with it so doing another lip sync was a good excuse to practice. We also started our market research by doing Vox Pox on students in our 6th form. We wanted to know what they think of our inicial ideas and see if they had any developments or ideas for us.

Disney Lip Sync

Conventions of a girl band

These mood boards are screenshots from popular girl bands videos such as Girls Aloud, The Spice Girls, Destiny's child, Little Mix, The Saturdays, B*witched and The Sugababes. They are some of the most popular girl bands since the 90's and some of the conventions have followed through the years. The conventions we saw through out the videos are their clothes; they are all different and match each individual style but they still manage to match the other girls in some way. Some bands in some scenes do wear the exact same outfit and if they do its often because they are performing a dance routine. We picked out a few things we would like to take inspiration from such as the Little Mix - Wings video in which the screen is split in four and each girl has their own background of their favorite things; graffiti, flowers, stereos and bows. We also want to include scenes of all three girls walking down the road in sync and it would match the beginning of our song More than a million miles.

Conventions of a girl band shopping list

On going weekly production diary

This week I developed more research into The Sugababes including their most famous songs, their always changing line ups, why the Sugababes were around for such a long time and why they were so iconic. Doing this research allowed me to realise what kind of music the Sugababes make and what kind of band they are. They are very positive in their music. They prefer to sing about themselves and others in a light that looks everyone good (in most cases). They were incredibly influential as they were the biggest girl band in Europe (minus the spice girls in the 90s'). They wanted to keep that positive influence they have over their fans so they kept making music under the band name Suababes.

More songs from The Sugababes (all generations)

Camera tutorial

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8PqTFLzry0

Premiere Pro tutorials

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqwHVIlhPtI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8iILtLRq58

Chosen artist research - Sugababes

On going weekly production diary - What have you learnt this week?

This week we learned about Auteur theory and what Auteur means for an artist. We were each given a Auteur director to produce a case study on. I was given Spike Jonze who works with most types of media and his Auteur theme was off-beat comedy which means that his work is funny but its unconventional funny. We noticed the kind of pattern he was following through out all of his work from Fatboy slim music videos to Jackass tv series. he follows the same kind of rules for his theme.

Blank space video analysis

Blank space is the second single from Taylor's album 1989 released in 2014. The lyrics of the video is aimed at men but there is speculation that the actual video is aimed at the paparazzi who create all the headlines and stories that perceive Taylor as some kind of man eater.

The video is set in a country house-mansion decorated lavishly. Taylor plays a character going through stages of a short term relationship. She goes through all the feelings a jealous and insecure person goes through in a relationship ranging from her thinking she is being cheating on, wanting to take revenge, ignoring all the crazy thoughts and taking out her rage

It's possible to say that Taylor's character is purposely over exaggerating everything include the murder of the lover to prove her point that the stuff in the tabloids is far from the truth. She knows that there is some truth in what the papers say about her but the truth is boring so they add thing to the story to make it much more exciting and readable. She's portraying the person the paparazzi think she is.

Because she's dated huge stars such as harry styles, Conor Kennedy, Ed Sheeran, Jake Gyllenhaal, John Mayer, Taylor Launter and Joe Jonas for famously a short period of time and with never a neutral break up she is used against this constantly. Not to mention the abuse she gets because she writes her songs based on her relationship experiences (which every artist does its just her that gets abuse for it) it's escalated to a point where she is no longer dating because she can't deal with the abuse any more and after at least 5 years of it it would get pretty tired defending yourself when your not the only one who does it or the only one in the relationship. 

The narrative in the video is very strong and clear. As stated before, she is playing out the phases of an insecure girl in a relationship. There are scenes in which she is happy and being all romantic with her lover but there are scene when she is the complete opposite; drawing red crosses through paintings of him, dropping his phone in the pond and cutting up all his clothes. She is then seen sitting on her bed dressed in black (much like something you would wear to a funeral) with a  giant knife in her hand stabbing a heart shaped cake. We also see her slashing pictures of him with the same knife. The more sceptical people watching this video who isn't a fan of Swift would have seen this as an actual murder and some reports even suggest the murder actually took place, but we can infer that the death of the man in the video is a metaphor for Taylor making an actual stand against all abuse she's been getting and she is no longer that girl. That girl is gone. 

Taylor Swift fits perfectly into Richard Dyer's star theory. He stated that "the terms 'pop performer' and 'pop star' have become interchangeable. The difference between the two is that the pop performers are simply known for performing pop music. Pop stars are known for having an identity or a certain persona which is not necessarily restricted to just their musical talent. "  Taylor is one of the biggest pop star in the  world but she didn't just come on to the music scene like it. She was constructed by management for the pure purpose of making money. They know she was a relate able teenager who sung about real life situations so they stuck to that but they exaggerated it a ridiculous amount and they've created the world phenomenon that is Taylor Swift. 

Hold back the river - James Bay video analysis

James Bay is a British singer songwriter and guitarist. His first EP was released during of the summer of 2013. He is a indie pop, soul and alternative rock artist.

The title is a metaphor for holding back tears during a break up or an emotional time in a relationship. There a number of lyrics in the video that imply that a break up is happening but neither of them want it to happen. For example "lonely water won't you let us wander let us hold each other' this line implies that the tears are because she feels lonely but the tears are also the symbol of them parting from one another. James also sings about how the tears are stoping him from seeing how she really feels almost as if to say that she is hiding something from him such as cheating on him.

The video is set in a circular empty space with James in causal wear; jeans and a denim shirt with a hat and a guitar on his back. The first minute of the video is in blackness with just a small spotlight on James to emphasize the effect of whats happening. Both the song and the setting then begins to get more upbeat with yellow panels around the circle and the tone lifts with  heavier drum beat. It becomes more upbeat because the verse he is singing is about when they first met and fell in love which for him is obviously a happy memory. After this verse, a band comes in to the circle with James in the centre to help lift the feeling of the video. The members of the band all are dressed similar to James in casual smart wear. The camera focuses a lot on the instruments as that is a convention of indie music videos.

There is a lack of narrative in the video so its difficult to fit it into one of Simon Firth's broad typologies. But its possible for it to be a performance video as he is performing like he would do at a gig just without the audience.  Andrew Godwin's theory of "particular music genres may have their own music video style and iconography" fits perfectly t Hold back the river. The song is clearly an indie song and those of that genres tend to stick to two things in their videos; either having a strong narrative which matches the lyrics without the artist in the video or having simply the artist in the video performing. In this case its the latter for James Bay. Choosing to do this in a video allows the audience to identify with the song a lot more because they can focus on the lyrics and the meaning behind them rather than watching some kind of story.

Indie songs have similar conventions as rock songs in terms of their videos. They both include close up shots of the artist playing instruments (often any lead singer of a band also plays guitar) and always have shots of the band playing live in the video. Although James is a solo artist, he still had a band in the video backing up his guitar and his voice. The main shots are always of James as he is the focus but even in bands its mostly the lead singer who gets the most camera time because its him that leads the band; he is the voice and without him there is no band.

When it comes to the bridge of the song the setting goes back to being a blacked out space with a spotlight on James for the first two lines.
"Lonely water, lonely water won't you let us wander
Let us hold each other
Lonely water, lonely water won't you let us wander
let us hold each other"
On the second two lines, it goes back to the yellow panels with the band because it intensifies. For the rest of the song it switches from the yellow panels in the circle to a blacked out circle with the tempo of the song staying up beat. His voice also intensifies as he gets more and more into the ending of the song. The last 30 seconds of the song goes back to James in the blacked out room with spotlights shining on him and his guiar.

Spike Jonze

Detailed song choices

Sugababes - A million miles 
Our inicial ideas for this song is that the girl band would be dressed in winter clothes and they are outside walking in the cold in their individual scenes. The are each singing their own parts and although they are singing about love, a boy does not appear in the video. The lyrics are about getting through the tough times of a relationship but still coming out strong in the end. In the choruses of the song the girls would all come together in the same scene and have the girl band performance element. The idea of the video is that the girls are thinking about their relationships and how the good stuff about the relationship makes them want to forget all the bad stuff. The individual scenes would be shot on a long pathway, road, corridor or any piece of land to have the visuals matching the lyrics and the title of the song.

Katy Perry - One of the boys
Our ideas for this song is that at first there is a girl who is very much a tomboy and has only male friends. She acts like a boy and generally dismisses the fact she is a girl. Through out the video she starts to realize she actually wants to be more of a girly girl and she develops a crush for one of her male best friends. Through out the video she gradually turns into a girly girl wearing make up, pink, hair done nice etc and she walks into a room full of the boys and nobody recognizes her except for the man she fancies. This type of video can be filmed both out on location for the transition into a girly girl and then we could also film in school for the scenes when she is with her male friends.

Kelly Clarkson - You fond me
We could create this video in a very literal way. A boy and girl could be walking around through crowds with obstacles getting in their way and they are eventually leading to one another to a reunion. There would be lots of nearly finding each other but missing them by a few seconds. On their journeys together, there will be flash backs of the two together as friends because they've only just realized the romantic feelings they have for each other which is why they are finding each other. The main idea is that two good friends have realized that they are actually in love with one another and they are finding each other to confess their love.

We have narrowed our song choices down to these three songs and have discussed ideas for the video including narrative, location and costume. Two of the songs are solo female artists so we would first have to try and make sure the girl band would suit a solo song. As for the girl band itself, we are still unsure of the members because different songs and genres require different aesthetics.