Production: Photos From Filming sessions.

Wordle

Planning: Animatic

Planning: Storyboard

Planning: Pitch

Initial Ideas

I will have a 4 panel digipak. Front cover will include mid shot of Sifa and her leaning on a street name sign, that I will be giving the name of the song below the image the name of the artist will be placed and we will get a clear view of iconic image of London at the background. The back cover will  include many different images of the artists in different type of shots with different use of coloured backgrounds, image sizes will be small so that roughly 30 - 40 different images will be included. The left side of the inside cover will include the list of the other songs within the album on the continues view of London. The CD will be plain white background with the name of the artist, (Sifa) in red. The colour code for this product will be black/white with use of red. With the design idea I am aiming to appeal to the target audience which this is the main reason that  I am not going for a very complicated style of design and making sure that style of the genre is clear within the product for it appeal to the target audience. 

 Example

Planning: Final Song Choice

Estelle is one of the leading british female artists and this song was a song that we all could in some way or another relate to, and in that sense our mind just morphed  and thought 'American Boy, American Boy' Estelle explained how the track came about: "We were just messing about in the studio, joking around. And John Legend just said to me 'Why don't you write a song about meeting an American boy?'. So I was like 'Well, that's pretty easy' - because I have a lot of male friends out there in New York. And I unwittingly ended up creating a new ladies' anthem! And Kanye basically just brought his own cheeky self to the track, his own sense of humour. At first he was like 'How can you rap over a dance beat?' - and now he's DONE it!" And i feel this song is about fun and i feel we can show fun through our video interpretion of ESTELLE-AMERICAN BOY

Analysing student work

Adam, Lisa, Nasima & Sayvita from 283goswell on Vimeo.

This video Is Pop And Is Shown through the use of amplification. The video is based on perfromance and doesn't show a story, however has connection to the song because of the paper cut outs of part of the lyrics. In this vide o there isn't a narrative but still connectes to the song.
I like how they used editing to show black and white with a red colour in selected areas, which easy and look effective. i also noticed during the chorus each beat has a different cut and i thought they used this effectively and will attempt to also use this in my music video. i also noticed that they had many close ups of the singer, this is very important in music video.

Planning: Lip Sync Video

Final Song Choice

Estelle Ft. Kanye West - American Boy is our agreed final song choice.
Official American Boy Video
We will use some features present in the original video and alter them into a concept of our own, like for example we are also having our video in black and white and some parts of it shot on a plain drop background. The artists in the video will be participants as well as narrators. So far we have come up a lot of ideas for editing which are not used in the official video which has inspired us from various UK and american artists' videos, also we plan to shoot at more than one location which is unlike the american boy video which is all on the same one back drop. In our video we would like to include a feature quite unique and unused some would say and that is free hand, free flow, camera movement. This is a camera art in its own right when pull of correctly so it therefore has its own standards, but it is a good style to use and doesn't require the best positioning and camera framing.

Review of previous students work

The video i have chosen to review is "Nas - The World Is Yours". The genre for this video is hip-hop, this is cleverly shown through choice of setting and background. The video includes urban backdrops like graffiti infested areas, train tracks, main streets, flats and other aspects typical to the hip-hop genre. The artists' choice of clothing also strongly relates to the genre, dark colours and hoodies bring out the seriousness of the genre.
The video does not follow a narrative structure, it is based mainly around the singers performance and his surroundings. The central artists' position in the narrative is a narrator and throughout the video various participants help make the video fit together.
The editing in the video is a mixture between fast paced cuts, close ups, tracking shots of backgrounds etc. A clever wide shot is used to shoot the train as it passes, this worked very well. Another great shot is a high angled wide shot of the artist in front of a graffiti wall, this was one of the videos best shots. The editing was in time with the beat of the song and the mixture of different features within the editing works very well for this genre.

The world is yours from 283goswell on Vimeo.

Comparing the original video to the students version, similarities start can be spotted. Firstly the student has also chosen to edit the video in black and white, this simple effect can get the deeper meaning like the one in this song, across to the audience more meaningfully. The original, included a kind of bent screen effect, this obviously grabbed the eye of the student as they portrayed a similar effect in their version. This effect was a fish like view, as can be seen in the video, i personally preferred the students effect compared to the originals. 

The choice of scenery/location is almost self choosing when listening to a

Planning: Audience

The song we have chosen to produce a music video relates to both male and female teenagers and young adults and this is the age group who mainly enjoys to spend nights out with R&B, Hip Hop and Dance music. The genre of music is suitable for channels of MTV, MTV BASE and KISS, these are the channels that our target audience will be switching through. Other than just music, we will be aiming at those who enjoys to shop and likes to dress mainly from high street outlets such as Topshop, RiverIsland, H&M and many more.

        

Moodboard

The main purpose of this moodboard was to understand the main aspects of our genre. We looked at many features such as clothes/outfit, target audience and instruments that is used within hip hop and r&b which has given us a brief understanding of what we need to be aware of whilst producing our music video.

Research: Review on a previous students video.

Adam, Lisa, Nasima & Sayvita from 283goswell on Vimeo.

I Personally really like this particular video mainly because of the contrast between the colors used in the video. The red with the black and white effect really enhances the video it makes it different and eye catching.

I think this video covers many points needed to make a good video.  For instance the framing is shot appropriately, there is a variety of different camera angles and the editing is good.

Planning: Final song choice

Estelle feat. Kanye West - American Boy

"American Boy" is the second single of Estelle's album "Shine", the song is her first international single. This song has a retro feel with Kanye West lending his rhymes to the British singer. Estelle shows off an sweet jazzy voice with the confidence of a star. The song has also won the Best Rap/Sung Collaboration at the 51st Grammy Awards.

Research: Who is Vladimir Propp.

Vladimir Propp

Born

17 April 1895. St. Petersburg, Russian Empire.

Died

August 22, 1970 (aged 75) Leningrad, USSR.

Occupation

Literacy critic, scholar.

Nationality

Russian

Subjects

Folk tales, structuralism

Vladimir Propp 

Vladimir Propp was a Russian and Soviet Formalist scholar who observed the basic plot components of Russian folk tales to identify their simplest narrative elements.

Vladimir Propp extended the Russian Formalist approach to the study of narrative structure.  Propp used this method by correspondence to explore Russian fairy tales. He did this by breaking down a large number off Russian folk tales into their smallest narrative units, Propp was able to arrive at a typology of narrative structures. He created a narrative form made up of 31 functions. He also studied character types, he came to conclusion that there were 8 broad character types. Propps character types are used in media education and can be relevant to almost any story, in literature, theater, film, television series and games. 
Hot N Cold by Katy Perry
 

Katy Perry - Hot N Cold on MUZU.
 I believe that two of Vladimir Props functions relate to this particular video.
26. SOLUTION: Task is resolved.
31. WEDDING: Hero marries and ascends the throne.

Planning: Audience Task.

Audience

The audience for our music video would be young adults who are outgoing and who enjoy R&B, Hip Hop and Dance music. Our audience carries their I pod with them at all times. They like to go out and party. They live life to the fullest possible because they believe that life is too short to waste and have what ifs. Our audience think its OK to make mistakes because we learn from our mistakes. Mistakes are like guidance, just try not to make the same mistakes. Our audience likes to shop from RiverIsland, H&M, Topshop, Newlook and many more high fashion shops. They love to socialise on the internet.

Love music ;)

 Love to party ;)

Post-Disco

Dance Pop

R&B

Hip Hop

Music makes you loose control ;))  

MTV

Kiss

It is important for the producers of music and music videos to target the correct audience to ensure that as much as money as possible is made.

It is unlikely that many adults in their 60s would find Britney Spear's music appealing just as it is unlikely that many teenagers will be interested in buying Michael Ball's music.
Michael Ball doesn't generally tend to make music videos, but then his target audience are unlikely to watch them.
Media Producers spend alot of time and money in researching their audience carefully.

.It is essential that we carefully identify the correct audience for our music video.

Name: Amerie
Age: 18
Gender: Female
Ethnicity: Mixed Race

Planning: Final song choice.

Final song Choice..

 We started off with 5 different songs.The songs we considered were, American Boy by Estelle Ft. Kanye west, Foundations by Kate Nash, Chasing Pavements By Adele, Just like a star by Corinne Bailey Rae and lastly Chasing cars by Snow Patrol. The song we have chosen to make a video to is, American Boy by Estelle ft. Kanye West.

American Boy By Estelle ft. Kanye West..

Released

24 March 2008

Format

CD single, digital download

Genre

Post-disco, Dance pop, R&B and Hiphop

Length

3:57 (radio edit)

4:44 (album version)

Label 

Atlantic 

Writer(s) 

E.Swaray, Kanye West, Keith Harris, Will.i.am, John Stephens, Caleb Speir, Josh Lopez, Kweli Washington.

Producer

Will.i.am

 

American Boy by Estelle ft. Kanye West

Estelle feat. Kanye West - American Boy

Planning: Short list of potential songs.

List of possible song choices...

 As a group we came up with a list of possible song choices. We choice 5 different songs, however we were really determined to do American Boy by Estelle ft. Kanye West..

American Boy by Estelle ft. Kanye West..

    Chasing Pavements by Adele..   

 

Foundations by Kate Nash.. 

 Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol.. 

 Just like a star by Corinne Bailey Rae..

Corinne Bailey Rae - Like A Star

Adele - Chasing Pavements

Kate Nash - Foundations

Estelle feat. Kanye West - American Boy

Snow Patrol - Chasing Cars

Lip Sync Tutorial

The lip sync tutorial was an interesting experience, the actual filming of the the video within the enclosed area of a classroom, showed us how difficult it can be at times along the filming process. It really made us consider how we should approach filming our final music video. The exercise also showed how not filming more footage than what's going to be included in the video can prove to be a vital blow once the editing stage begins, but from this mistake we will learn and better ourselves for the proper task.

Illustration, Amplification & Disjuncture

Illustration is when the video tells a story corresponding to the lyrics in a song,  Amplification is applied when a video introduces new meanings that do NOT contradict with the lyrics of the song, but add a greater depth of meaning & Disjuncture is when there is little or no connection between the lyrics and the video or when the video contradicts the video. 
Disjuncture

This video "Drake - Over" is an example of Disjuncture due to the lack of connection between the video and the lyrics. The video doesn't contradict the visual factors as of much, but the video is set all in one location just using different shots and angles which restricts its ability to connect with the words of the song even if there were any. 


Illustration

As the name Illustration suggests, a video that uses this method will have plenty to look at and clearly follows a sequence and tells a story. "Kanye West Ft. T-Pain - Good Life" is a very good example of one of those videos, the visual features have a strong link with the lyrics and definitely follow a narrative and tell a story.

Target Audience

The Andrew Godwin Theory

Andrew Godwin has arrived with a theory in which pop videos do not follow a traditional narrative sequence. He has a various number of reasons to back up his theory such as:

The videos being based around songs, pop videos of this era don't really seem to have narrative structures. Songs are commonly based on problems and them being solved. For those reasons the video has to have some what of a link to the song and its meaning, therefore creating a non narrative pop video.   

Singers in pop videos are both narrators and participants, this naturally may seem abnormal or confusing in the normal eye, but for a pop video its what makes the genre make sense and fit in. This style has become familiar to fans of the pop genre and its gotten to the stage where they understand this style as being typical to a pop video.

And singers performing and looking directly into the camera, involving the audiecne in the performence effects there being any narrative sequence within the video . The singer is aiming the song directly at the viewers and at times like these the sequence of the video tends not to follow any particular trend.


Other features common to pop videos, identified by Andrew Goodwin, a successful pop music video relies strongly on repition. Videos will repeat images throughout the song as well as lyrics (Chorus' and specific lines). This repetition leads to the familiarisation, standards and expectations of the genre. To add to the genres repeptitive nature, the video and song will be played on television and radio stations again making the audience and viewers aware and very much familiar through repetition.
Music videos in general have some sort of ending to them, in most cases the ending is dependant on the structure of the video and music (song).
Visual factors sometimes stretch beyond the original meaning of the song and provide visual enjoyment for the audience which leads to repeptitive viewing, leading to the promotion of the music.

In other cases such as when a video is promoting a film for example, there are three types of relations between songs and their videos: Illustration, Amplification and Disjuncture.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

Analysis of a music viedeo

Representation

The representation perceived in this video is the most easy concept to realise, it is the representation of gender. This is due to the high sex appeal of the women in the video, not to mention the lyrics which refer to females of the world as a challenge to experiment on and conquer. The females are filmed in slow motion focusing on certain parts of the body and rarely if at all show the whole body in a shot. The ratio of females to males in the video suggests that females are objects to be shared and that more than one belongs to a male at a time.

Genre 

The genre of this video is most definitely rap with traces of hip hop and RnB. This is strongly shown through the high sex appeal of the females in the video, mainly their costumes and shot methods used on them. In the middle of it all is an expensive car, typical of the rap/RnB genre.


Narrative
The video doesn't follow a specific linear narrative, there are some traces of illustration but most obvious would be the amplification used as the video doesn't connect obviously to lyrics of the song but definitely the genre. Overall i would say the video follows and doesn't follow a narrative at certain bits in the video.


Media Language

The editing in the video has been kept simple, a mix of close ups and wide shots are mostly used with the often high or low angle shot. As mentioned before the slow motion effect is used to emphasize on the females body when shot. Effects such as the animated writing that appears on screen interested us and will look into it and maybe include something similar in our work.

Research: Review on previous student music video

Thrasher from 283goswell on Vimeo.

This group of students music video includes variety of techniques which makes the whole video work well. I believe many techniques such as mise-en-scene, camera work and editing has allowed them to bring forward this result.

This illustrative music video gives their audience a clear idea of what is happening throughout the video. The camera angle is mainly used mid shot/ low angle whilst filming the main singer and the story in mid shot for the audience to get a clear understanding of what is happening which i believe they have achieved. Editing fits well with the beat of the song which makes the whole video ongoing.

Research - How does artists use media to appeal?

N-DUBZ

Origin: London

Genres: Hip-Hop, R&B, Grime

Instruments: Singing, Rapping

Years active: 2000 - Present

Labels: Polyder Records: (2007-2008)

                  AATW (2008-Present)

                  Def Jam (2010-Present)

Website: NDubz.com

Official site: -News -Blog -Music -Events -Gallery -Duku$ -3D -Video -Forum -Shop -Links

• My Space
• Bebo
• Face book
• Twitter

N-Dubz a British hip-hop group from London, based around Camden Town. They were previously signed to Polydor Records before joining All Around the World Records. All of the members of N-Dubz were born in Camden Town, North London and each attended several different schools, meeting together for the first time at when they were about 13 at Haverstock School, and coming together as group for the first time at about this age under the management of Dino's father, Byron Contostavlos (formerly of Mungo Jerry), who died on 12 April 2007.They had a hard upbringing, living on tough estates and experienced a lot first-hand as teenagers, including violence, depression, drug abuse, extreme financial difficulty, bullying and gang culture.

Leona Louise Lewis

Born 3 April 1985 (1985-04-03) (age 25)
Islington, London, England Genres Pop, R&B

Occupations Singer-songwriter

Years active 2006–present

Labels Syco, J

Website www.leonalewismusic.co.uk

Official Site - music, blog, shop, news, events, lyrics, forum, video, gallery, bio and newsletter

Twitter

You Tube

My Space

Face book

Leona Louise Lewis she is a British pop and R&B singer-songwriter. Leona began her fame in the third series of the British television series The X Factor. She found fame on the show by becoming first. Not many artists tend to be successful after TV shows like this. However Leona Lewis has great success in her career and has also performed alongside many stars such as Beyonce, Mariah Carey, Rihanna and many more.