Props

Costumes
Lead singer:
4 colourful dresses
Colourful tights
Converses


Make up:
Black eyeliner
Neutral eyeshadows
Red lipstick


Props:
Microphone
Lights


Accessories: 
Jewellery
Hats
Glasses

As we do not have as much time as we once did we are getting all the studio shots done first of our lead  singer then if we have time we will include other couples.

For these other couples we want to approach the idea of love between different stereotypes and ages.

Costumes for couples:
Tracksuits (chav)
Shirts and braces (Geek)
Boots and heavy make up (punk)
Short skirts (Slut)

Lyrics to Satellite by Lelia Broussard

I slip and sway at every passing turn
I think I may be losing my mind
I ride my bike up the hills
To an abandoned house
On the outskirts of Los Angeles

Where no one can see me
No one really knows me at all

Would you be my satellite
Would you be my radar
They don’t understand us
But it don’t matter
Satellite satellite

I should just get on with it and
Say the things I’ve meant to say for so long
Bit my tongue till I tasted blood
I don’t want to lose control

I’m on the edge of my seat
I can feel my heart skip a beat

So would you be my
Would you be my satellite 
Would you be my radar
They don’t understand us
But it don’t matter
Satellite satellite 

I write love letters to pass the time
I’m a radio you’re the frequency I’m on
But it’s been so long since I’ve been gone

Would you be my satellite 
Would you be my radar
They don’t understand us
But it don’t matter
Satellite satellite

New song!

This is the song we will now be using, we wanted a song with an optimistic tune and a female singer, this song was one of the best we found! The song is fast paced and something I already know the lyrics to so when we go into the studio we wont have a problem remembering what to sing.

Lelia Broussard - Satellite

Updates

When we had finally finished our video, it came to our attention that it wasnt that well made. After discussing our opinions with our teachers we have decided to start over again.

This time with a new song, a new idea etc

Lelia Broussard is an unsigned artist and we will be using her song 'Satellite' this way we can be in the video and in the studio.

Digi-pack thoughts

Originally in our music video, when the song hit the chorus with the lines "good morning sunshine" my group and I were planning to hold up a sign with these words painted on. But as we thought it would be a tad random having some boards held up half way through the song, we decided against it.

As a result of this we thought it would be a good idea of, instead of the group themselves holding up the boards have leading star in our music video to hold them up and feature them on our digi-pack somewhere.

We came to this conclusion as we thought it kept in with the happy, and positive vibes we have throughout the music video and we also thought it was quite a quirky idea and would be something quite different.

Loss of Footage

A few weeks ago we lost the majority of our footage for our music video because of this we spent some of our holiday re-filming. We realised the importance of it, and had to reshoot.

However we feel like this time it was better anyway, because the weather was brighter that day which fit in with our music video's attitude and themes. As the song we are using is a happy one, we needed bright, happy weather to reflect the leading singers feelings. Also to fit in with the tone of the song.

Music Video update!

We are in the process of finishing the editing of music video.
We have had to make some adjustments to the idea of our music video for example;

• Whereas before we had various other couples surrounding the music video's main protagonist we had to get rid of that idea as it would be difficult to find enough people who were all free at the same time.
• We decided against having a beach as the setting as it was becoming difficult to find enough time between filming and editing, to actually go there.
• We removed one setting from our music video, as the footage was quite time consuming we realised we didn't have much time left of the song, so we decided we had to make it a little shorter.
• As a result of this we had to decided on a new ending in which we have to re-film.  
• Not only this but as we had a falling out in the group, being a group of 4 to a group of 2 we had to adapt to the change and while it was unfortunate, we managed to adapt quite well. 

Images of Props

For certain parts of our music video, like in the chorus for example we plan to hold up flash cards of the chorus. This gives the audience a break of the same shot of the same characters, setting etc. And also this helps keep continuity and also now lets most of our groups ideas to be included, but just combined so it still fits the flow and attitude of the video, yet still keep the affect and mood.

This first picture is our group in the middle of the production of the props, we used the paint colours to give off the correct connotations to the word that was written. For example 'Sunshine' is in yellow to represent the sun, the 'Morning' is to represent the blue skies. Also all the colours we used, are bright, this again helps set the mood and keeps our music video upbeat and positive.





This is the final product of our props, we are in order of how it will be shown in the song, the 'Good' starting then carrying it through until the smiley face is shown at the end of the chorus.
We each plan to stand against a painted wall which is the same colour as our props background, this helps with constancy. But we have considered changing the angles of each clip to keep in pace with the music and keep it interesting, opposed to one straight shot.  

Locations

1. Outside our College, to start the journey

     2. The colour zones, inside the college

    3.  Ipswich Waterfront, as it is a nice, serene and calm setting.

    4. Cineworld, as the main guy is a teenager, the cinema is a popular setting for a date.



   5. Christchurch park, again more romantic imagery.

  6. Train, looking out the window, shows how he misses her

  7. Felixstowe - The beach/ Sea

  8. The Amusements, playful and fun, which are themese for our video

Filming Schedule

Thursday 4th October - Filming in Grant's media lesson, AM.  Will be filming in college; the parts where we shall be holding up lyrics.

Tuesday 9th October - Filming in Town. All the parts with Shledon in town, and filming the couples who are available on the day. 

Sunday 14th October - Hopefully filming in Felixstowe, using the couples who can get there on the day. 

We also leaving some days free in case some people cannot make it, so we wont be tight for time and end up having to rush it.

Final idea

As we had so much trouble with signed artists and gettng permission we went with 'Good Morning Sunshine' by Alex Day, an unsigned musician but as he is a popular youtuber, he is still quite well known.

Here is our idea for our music video;

• Having a main person, being a male, walking through different environments/settings whilst couples, seemingly in love, walk past him. 
• Having a shot of the main person sitting on the train, looking out of the window.
• Using small aspects of stop motion, with us holding up pieces of card with lyrics at certain points in the song. 
• Use green screen available at college when doing the performance part of our video, to have our main person singing in front of a background image. 
• We now decided to make our music video an almost journey by having the romantic couple leave notes for the other and then the boyfriend go round trying to find his girlfriend.
• We decided to keep suspense we don't want to show the girlfriend until the end, to do this we will only shoot parts of her body, e.g. holding hands, we will flash back to the mainman's face but not hers, until the end.
• As our music video is the idea of a journey we are going to have establishing shots so it looks like our leading man is walking there, but these will be sped up.
• We also plan to have ALL of the girlfriends hold up card so this way no one is confused and it has a constant continuity.

A print screen of me asking for permission to use Alex Day's song, even though he's unsigned, I thought it might be good to ask.

First ever idea

Our original idea was to use a song by an artist called Matt Nathanson, we were planning to use his song 'Kiss Quick' as we thought the tone of teh song and the romantic imagery would be easy to transpire from lyric to visuals, like with the band 'Walk the Moon'. Matt Nathanson was also signed.
Below is the music video of the song and proof of asking for permission.
This shows how bands and artists who are signed are a lot harder to get permission from, whereas with an unsigned artist, their songs are their to use and generally just as good.

Conventions of a Music Video

Earlier music idea

Our beginning plan was to use a song by an alternative band, from America called 'Walk the Moon'. But as they were a signed artist, we decided it would be difficult to get into contact with them and we didn't want to break any laws by using their song 'Anna Sun' for copywrite reasons. Below is the song and a few images of our attempt at trying to get permission. We asked the record company personally, by emailing them and we also used a social networking website, 'Twitter' to also try and get into contact with the band members themselves.

Here is the letter a fellow member of the group sent to the record label.

Dear Michael and Lindsay

I am contacting you on behalf of myself and three fellow students to ask your permission for us to use the song Anna Sun by Walk The Moon. This will contribute to part of our A level media studies and will enable us to create a music video. We are currently studying at Suffolk One Sixth Form College in Ipswich, Suffolk England.

We very much hope that you will give us your permission and please do not hesitate to contact me if you need any further information.

I look forward to hearing from you as soon as possible.

Yours Sincerely

Victoria Thurlow

The video above is the official music video for the song we were thinking about using, 'Anna Sun' and below is a print screen of my twitter page asking for permission from the band to use their song

Risk Assessment

 We made this risk assessment to show we understood the dangers that could happen while filming. By knowing these problems we can take care when we film.

Goodwins Theory

Andrew Goodwin in his book, 'Dancing in the Distraction Factory' writes about what he defines as the characteristics of music videos.
1. Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics. (E.g. A dance routine for a boy/girl band or a performance in a rock video).
2. There is a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals. (Either illustrative, amplifying or contradicting).
3. There is a relationship between the music and the visuals
4. The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist/s and the artist/s may develop motifs which reoccur across their work. (A visual style)
5. There is frequently reference to the notion of looking (voyeurism). (Screens within screens, telescopes, etc. and a particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body)
6. There is often intertextual reference (to films, tv programmes, other music videos, etc.)
7. There are 3 types of music video (performance based, narrative based and abstract) however more than one can be used in one music video.

Star Image: Lady Gaga

Lady Gaga’s star image is a sexualised one, in nearly all of her videos she wears little clothing and this gives the idea of women being objected as a sexual object. This gives connotations of voyeurism, although the women are mostly undressed, in Lady Gaga’s videos so are the men. This makes the equality of the sexes more equal and far. It shows the taboo subject of women liking sexual objects just as much as men.

 Lady Gaga’s main image on her website is an image of her, this isn’t a regular image, it has many abstract elements. This is the key selling point in Lady Gaga’s style. The font on Lady Gaga’s website is quite feminine, this is because she generally attracts a female audience. Lady Gaga, allows merchandise to be bought, you can tell that she is an important star in the media because of this. This shows that she has many fans who want to show their support of her. This only increases her star image more, as more focus will have to be made on her.

Lady Gaga’s first ever music video, ‘Just dance’ is quiet tame compared to her later ones, the only abstract part of it being that not all of the lyrics match up to the visuals.

Matching lyrics to the visual is a very important part in any music video as it helps the audience understand the artists aim and style. Whereas Lady Gaga’s style is quiet outrageous, we now as an audience expect that constant shock factor from Lady Gaga.

In Lady Gaga’s videos she always has abstract and performance elements in it, her performance is always her lip syncing to the lyrics and usually include some type of dance routine, her music videos generally require many back up dancers, this gives the idea of an audience watching like voyeurism.

A few of her videos include narrative, in one of her videos for the song ‘Judas’ she refers to herself as being the one “in love with Judas”, this is a form of narrative. This helps the audience connect with the video, the connotations of the red in this video give the sense of romance with also links in with the idea of being in love. Like mentioned earlier, Lady Gaga always has a narrative in that she is the one lip syncing to her music, so everyone knows it is her own song. The abstract of this video is the religious elements, this video shows a biker with the name ‘Judas’ on his leather jacket, with men following him behind, like disciples would. Although these disciples have the same names as the ones that Jesus, for example, ‘Peter’ and ‘John’. As it is known that ‘Judas’ was a religious traitor, it’s an odd idea to pair his character with Jesus’ disciples.

Lady Gaga, also makes an effort on creating individual cover arts for her album, this is one of her later albums, in which by this point she has fully developed as an artist. Her album cover is an artistic one in that, she wasn’t ‘born this way’ as in half bike, half human. But it symbolises her unique nature in the way that she isn’t an artist of the ‘norm’. This is one of the reasons she has to now keep up this dramatic shocking image, for her star image. Her genre of music is pop and dance, her music is featured in the charts, this shows her to be a popular musician. Who is now someone people can idolise for her unique messages. As she is always expected to be in the charts, she has to think of new ways to create over reactive ideas.

She does this by expressing herself on stage and through her outfits, while at celebrity events where she is expected to ‘look the part’ she fits in with her star image by dressing outrageously. At one award ceremony she dressed herself up in meat, this then creates an outcry from the public. But her outrageous costumes do have her being talked about, which is essentially the point of it all.  

The lighting she generally uses in her music videos is back lighting which gives her a glow around her face as she usually uses that in close ups. Her general lighting is usually a hard light behind her and to the side so everything can be seen as her songs are usually happy and not emotional.  She also uses strobe lighting which gives the effects of parties and a good time. This fits in with the general idea of pop videos, as they are usually happy and exciting.

Lady Gaga’s body language is quiet sexual in her videos, her dance moves can be explicit and she usually throws her body around in these videos. This links back with the idea of voyeurism and women being looked at as sexual objects.

Her live performances usually match up to her general image and as she’s a very popular artist, many people attend this sort of concert. Her image is even represented in her support acts at these concerts, for example glam-rock band ‘the darkness’ have been said to perform and with them also sexualising themselves it appears to be a good fit for the theme Lady Gaga goes for.

Her support acts are usually shocking and compliment her style of performance. She likes to keep her crowd entertained and does this by bringing even more dance routines and interesting ideas of costumes and scenery into the mix.

While Lady Gaga’s star image is a publicised one, it has a keen effect onto her target audience. That being teenagers and young adults. The record labels know how to keep in trend with each year and model their artists to fit this accordingly. While at first Lady Gaga’s star image was seen as shocking, as time passed her fan base grew and more people turned to be more fascinated by it rather than appalled. Now because of this Lady Gaga is an icon and has started many trends, many artists and musicians now start to look up to her star image and try to turn it and make it into their own.

Song Choice

We chose this song because of the positive tone and the lyrics some relatively easy to transport from this music video into our ideas. This video is also an inspiration for our music video, in which we plan to have our lead singer walk through a road lip syncing the song.

More inspiration

In this video it just shows the main lead singer, in our video we plan to have one main lead singer but one of the ideas we did think about was the concept of paint, as an ending.

The way they use paint in this video is quite interesting and while the lyrics don't really match the visuals I think the way everything is expressed through the dripping paint walls is quite intense.
It is an idea I'd quite like to put into my own video.
While this idea is not for definite, the idea of colourful paints does give of a positive mood and tone, while the ones in the video are quiet dark, which can symbolise death and blood etc, those connotations fit the bands star image, as they are a rock band, that is something you would expect.
As our music video is an upbeat, positive song, the paints we would use would be a lot brighter with positive connotations, while in this music video, it is dripping like blood. In our music video it would appear to be more of a playful setting.

Inspiration!

The main feature of this video what gave us inspiration was the idea of the lead singer, still lip syncing but changing locations. The video builds up to a quick paced setting change by the chorus, we plan to slow our locations down to our actual video though.

Costume Ideas

The four of us in the group will briefly appear in the music video with the lyrics on a card but we plan to wear similar outfits;

• Bright coloured tights - We will all wear a different colour, the tights will be bright so it will contain connotations of happy and positive themes. Which match the lyrics and tone of the song which will be playing in the background.
• Black dress or skirts - so we don't colour clash!
• We have also now considered just wearing white tank tops against the coloured walls, to refrain from clashing, to match each other and also as we plan to have mid-shot camera angles, it's doubtful the coloured tights will be seen anyway.

For the hair we are all going to leave it relaxed and natural as its a happy video.

Likewise for makeup, we will wear what we usually wear, with muted colours. So we look natural and relaxed, if it were a serious song our hair and make up should reflect this. But as this is an upbeat song every aspect of it should be happy and carefree. 

Good Morning, Sunshine lyrics

Good morning, Sunshine,
I hope that you're well.
Honey, I missed you
Last night when night fell.
You should know, Sunshine,
You brighten my day.
The world gets so dark, Love, 
When you go away.

They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, 
But I can't help but wonder...
If the darkness came tomorrow,
Could I keep you in my mind?
When you rise up, I'll gladly follow
Just for the chance
To stand in your light.

Good morning, Sunshine,
I'm glad you're still here.
My darlin' it's hard when
My friends can't be near.
Until I can be there to show them I'm true.
I hope what they're seeing
Is as bright as you.

They say absence makes the heart grow fonder,
But I can't help but wonder...
If the darkness came tomorrow,
Could I keep you in my mind?
When you rise up, let me follow.
Just for the chance
To stand in your light.

If the darkness came tomorrow,
Could I keep you in my mind?
When you rise up, let me follow.
Just for the chance 
To stand in your light.
Just for the chance
To stand in your light.

Good morning, Sunshine,
I wish for your heart.
There's no point pretending
That you won't burn out.
But you're still a symbol
To all that you meet.
'Cause you keep on shining;
You're extraordinary.

If the darkness came tomorrow,Could I keep you in my mind?
When you rise up, let me follow.
Just for the chance
To stand in your light.
(x2)

Just for the chance
To stand in your light.
(x2)

Good morning, Sunshine.

Music Video: Abstract, Performance and Narrative

This music video is for Lana Del Rey's, 'National Anthem'. This is a music video that has many key elements to it, it is a performance video, an abstract one and a narrative.
In the beginning of the video Lana Del Rey, pays a homage to the late Marilyn Monroe by performing the popular song Happy birthday to you, Mr President. Which lyrical fits in with the original song, Lana Del Rey wrote herself, National Anthem. This is also a performance technique.
The video continues in Lana Del Rey's narrative but at this point she has now taken on the role of who appears to be Jackie Kennedy. By the end of the video the audience defiantly can confirm that plot of 'National Anthem' is actually a homage to the assassination of JFK and the romance he shared with both Jackie Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe. The video's abstract side would be how Lana Del Rey plays the narrative of both Jackie Kennedy and Marlyn Monroe, 'National Anthem' could be classed as a very artistic video because of this reason. The lighting in this video gives a very old fashioned effect, there is almost a yellow tinge to the video. Which indicates an old style, this also further backs up the idea on following the JFK story. Another aspect in the way of performance is that Lana Del Rey continuously mimes the lyrics to her song in the background. The camera techniques in this video constantly does close ups of Lana Del Rey and almost portrays a innocence when she is in the narrative of Jackie Kennedy and a seductive view of when she is Marilyn Monroe, both have a voyeuristic effect. The camera swaps between the narratives of Lana Del Rey as Marilyn Monroe and Lana Del Rey as Jackie Kennedy, this helps the audience keep up with the plot line and keep them interested.

Lana Del Rey doesn't really have a star image, more like her own image, she doesn't follow the stereotypes of typical star icon. She doesn't seem to follow the trends and has her own style, even though it isn't outrageous as someone like Lady Gaga. Lana Del Rey could be more similar to someone like Liza Minnelli or Lauren Bacall as with her deep voice, she could easily portray herself as a femme fatale like image. It could almost be said that Lana Del Rey was born into the wrong era.

Music Video: Narrative

The key creative feature in this music video, 'The Scientist' by 'Coldplay' is that the whole video is shot in reverse, e.g. the main singer, Chris Martin. Also the narrator, for the video keeps walking backwards whilst also singing the words to the song itself. Another example of the constant reverse editing effect in this video is that during the narrator's journey he picks up the jacket that was on the ground and puts it back on. Audiences can see with these examples that the actions in this video would needed to have already been done for him to repeat it, therefore the reverse effect comes in.

The audience can tell this is from his narration as the camera continues to follow him, the camera also starts this video with a close up of his face to show the audience who the narrator will be. During this video the camera never once takes the shot off of the lead singer, allowing the audience to follow Chris Martin and see his narration all the way back to what would have been the essential start of the video if it was not shot in reverse.

Another special effect that takes place is the transitions from night to day, this would have been created also using editing skills and these skills also are showing how long Chris Martin’s, the narrator of this video, journey in this video would have taken. Though the effects of night and day it shows the journey took a couple of days.



Music Videos: Performance

Each different artist contain different genre connotations from one another. Even when an artists/band music video is of them performing, different musicians tackle different styles and angles to get the right theme to fit their music. The band Jack's Mannequin, music video for their song 'Dark Blue' shows the whole band performing their song. In this video their performance of this song isn't exactly the main feature as many other actions take place in this music video. The other different actions in this video enable the audience to connect with the lyrics more than the actual band for example when the lead singer sings “Dark blue, have you ever been alone in a crowded room?” It’s quite an intense statement for this light song, so the audience connect quite well with the lyrics instead of noticing whether this video fits or not. So in this respect it was a good decision to have not so much focus on the bands performance itself. But also include the editing effects, like transitions into days and night, for example when the leader singer, Andrew McMahon, sings “I said the world could be burning, burning down” the scenery goes from night to morning.

The band Paramore, and their song 'crushcrushcrush' focuses entirely on the band and their performance. The camera only briefly moving onto different action shots like at the people watching the band through their binoculars, which helps connect to the lyrics. Although the audience get to see the bands performance to give a voyeuristic effect, this also helps the audience to connect more with the band and the performance more than anything else. Although this music video contrasts to one like Jack's Mannequin because both have different genre connotations, both music videos also withdraw a different tone from their video. Jack's Mannequin's being light and fast paced, whereas Paramore's is a lot more intense and almost threatening.  

Music Video: Abstract

The music video 'Spectrum' by Florence and the Machine is an abstract one because the video is quite random, in the way that the video clips don’t relate to the lyrics.

The whole of the music video is very artistic as it is creative in many ways. The lighting in this video is used as a constant flashing to attract the audience and give a very glamorous effect to the video. The lightening in this video also gives certain lyrics more intensity for example when the chorus starts the lighting helps follow the tune of the music to bring an intense atmosphere.

A lot of editing is used in that some of the shots are cut rather quickly to flow into another sequence, this occurs frequently.

A colour scheme of blues, silvers and golds are used in the scenery to give the entire video a glamorous and electric vibe to it, they do this by including props that fit into this scheme.

The lead singer, Florence, is in the middle of most shots to show the audience that should be their main focus point while she is singing also to bring her the attention. To back up this point the camera even performs extreme close ups of parts of her, to bring the audience attention to the singer, this also helps the audience focus on the song and not get distracted by the abstract and alternative video that might take the audience’s attention away.