Further research

The Rule of Thirds

The rule of thirds is something that we have considered a lot when filming our video. I have done research on the rule of thirds to ensure that I fully understand it so that I can apply it when filming. It is important that I understand the rule of thirds as I am the camera woman and I am filming the majority of the video. This is because my other group members Frankie and Karina wanted to put their contribution into acting. We are all going to edit the video. 

The rule of thirds is based upon guidelines that apply when creating visual images such as films. The grid is composed of nine equally sized squares. The most important of the images should be placed along the vertical and horizontal lines or in their intersections as they would become the main focus of the shot. Aligning an object or a subject with these points creates more tension, energy and interest when compared to simply placing them in the center of the shot. It is very easy to assume that the object or subject in the center of a shot is the main focus for the audience, however research has proven that this is not the case.

The image to the left shows the key points as to where a person would focus their eyes upon the most. This is demonstrated in the image above whereby the sunlight is on the two horizontal lines. When filming a moving subject, the same pattern is often followed, with the majority of the extra room being in front of the person (the way they are moving). When photographing a still subject who is not facing the camera, the extra room should be in front of the subject with the vertical line running through the centre of their perceived mass.

Overall, the use of the rule of thirds makes a shot or a still image appear more interesting rather just simply using a central facing point.

Website inspiration

This is the first form of inspiration for the design of our website. The deep strong colour of purple shown above reflects the connotations of our song and of our artist. Faith's album, Dark Fantasy, is strong and powering and consists of a deeper meaning, although some of the songs featured on the album would be more positive which relates to the 'fantasy' side of the album. This website has an interesting user interface. The home page shown above is basic and provides ease of use for the user, however it is interesting to look at and is something that I did not come across when researching other websites. It is very unique modern.  The artist name is in the center of the page, giving it the main source of focus. It has been place in capital letters printed across the page. The designer has used  a mirror effect whereby the writing does not read from left to right back in fact right to left. It is also upside down. This implies that the artist and her work has a deeper meaning than what people would generally think. When researching other artist that are similar to that of our own and that we as a group find inspiring I did not come across any layouts that are similar to this one.

This basic setting would be easy for all end-users to configure with. For example, the links to the artists Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are placed clearly at the bottom of the page in the center. They are the colour of white and stand out clearly and obviously against the dark purple background. The links to the other pages are also placed clearly, featuring above the artist name and image. The font is smaller to enable the artists name to stand out even more so. I like how the still image of the artist is in focus due to the plain background and the blurred lighting effects towards the left side of her. The facial expression that she shows is very serious showing how she is an established artist.

This is the homepage for Rihanna's website. It is very different to that of Beyonce's website due to the layout. The layout is clearly a huge factor that impacts the success of failure of an artists website. This is more to the point when compared to the previous website, however it is much more complicated. The artist name is no where to be seen: the only indication that the users has of the artists name is the logo of an 'R' that is featured in the top left hand corner next to the navigation bar. This implies that the artist is well established and the only people using her website would be fans. Where as the Beyonce website had the main focus of the first page being her own name showing how she wants to make a statement to the users in order to be recognised and remain memorable. The first page that the user is brought to is labelled as 'now' providing the user with immediate information about the star: this information would be exactly what her fans would be looking for and what they would be desiring to know. This website has clearly been made based upon the needs of the target audience of fans, where as the Beyonce website could be aimed at potentially new fans as well as existing fans. 

Alike to the Beyonce website, there is a link labelled as 'music'. This is because the occupation of these stars are music artists and they want to inform their audiences of what they are currently doing within their career. The colours used in this website are much more relaxed and therefore I personally feel that less of an impact is made. However; having knowledge about Rihanna as an artist it is clear that she makes statements in other ways such as her fashion, music videos and so on: this would be something to consider when making the digipack.

This website is one of my favorites. I feel that it has many elements combined together needed to create a successful website. There is a large image of the artist placed towards the center of the page, showing the user who the website belongs to clearly. The use of this image allows the user to gain knowledge about the type of artist she is as they are exposed to her clothing, body language and so on. She is wearing several random bracelets that have no structure and have clearly been mix and matched - this implies that she is a funky character who would be deemed as 'cool' in today's society. She is not wearing a lot of makeup showing that she is a natural beauty and therefore she would clearly be iconic to many young girls who would be in the age range of her target audience. Her hair appears to be very casual and fairly scruffy: from looking at this image the user would assume that her music would be funky and perhaps in the genres of pop and dance and maybe r'n'b. 

There is a link on the page to her latest music video shown at the bottom left hand corner. This is a clever idea as it would promote her new songs to existing and potentially new target audiences that either purposely or accidentally visit the website. This was a feature that was not on both Beyonce and Rihanna's website. Alike to the Beyonce website there are also clear links to social networking pages owned by the artist. This would also promote the artist to different audiences as it allows people to find out more about the stars themselves both as artists and people.

Conventions of a music video

Andrew Goodwin

Laura Mulvey Male Gaze

History of Music

Make-Up Research

I was looking through Instagram and found an account named @makeup_madness which is where i found all the pictures from above. It was inspiring as it influenced us on how the artist 'Faith' will have her makeup in our music video. It also gave our group guidelines on how we could go about applying this look, so in the end, the picture below is an attempt on the look we created our artist to have. Using the same colours and dark tones we managed to get a punk/rock like mysterious heavy effect. As this make up is strong and bold, it makes the artist stand out more than the actor, which is what we wanted to achieve. 

Research on Performance in music videos

The Music Video ' Love the way you lie - Eminem ft Rihanna' shows many emotions such as anger, sadness, pain and desperation. All these emotion is what I will have to portray in our music video as it fits into the genre and narrative of our chosen song. Looking at Rihanna's performace throughout the song, there are many close ups of her face which makes the audience focus on her facial expressions. By using close ups it exaggerates the meaning of the lyrics and the narrative, but only if the performance of the actor/artist is passionately going for it and really enhancing their expressions. 

They way Rihanna shows attitude and aggression comes across very powerful by using strong direct eye contact towards the camera and a slight snarl projecting her lips at a certain angle. Also as her eye make up is smokey and dark this adds more effect and its looks mysterious and dangerous.

 The background of when Rihanna sings is always in front burning house. Fire associates to the lyrics and symbolises destruction, war and how powerful it is. Also links in to LoveEminem during this music vdieos also presents his emotions through his body language and facial expressions. Most of the shots for him are either long on mid shots, this is because he uses body movement and hand gestures to exaggerate his 
anger. 
When filming our music video im going to take all of this into consideration and try put across the same techniques as been used in this music video. 

  

Star Profile - Kelly Rowland over the years

Pictures from Practise filming

Picture from pracitce filming from sookarrykarina

Preparation for filiming

Weather

In order for our music video to go as planned, the weather is an important factor. First we have to take in to consideration that we have expensive equipment and will be walking around local areas with it in hand. Therefore if it does rain or thunder we need to ensure that the camera, laptop, tripod etc doesn't get ruined or affected. 

We want to do the filming in the early morning when we film in the basement room, this is because we are hoping for a beam of light to shine through the window and reflect off of the actors face. Later on in the day we are going to travel down to the subway, and although it is underground the weather still does matter. This is because we want it to be quite dark to make it clear that we filmed at night, however we don't want it to be too dull and gloomy so that it isn't even clear. After research i have noticed that with some cameras that don't have as much MB the pixels don't look as clear when filmed dark at night; and the filming never looks as effective. Therefore this is something we need to be careful of. Understanding that it is end of October/ November, we know that it will be really chilly particularly at night so we have ensured that our artist (Karina) will wear a coat so that she isn't too cold and it doesn't come across on camera when she is singing.

We have arranged to some random bits of filming, just to see how it comes across on the camera. for example we thought it would be a good idea if we held the camera at the wind screen throughout the day to film the journey. We will fasten up this filming just to see what it looks like to potentially put it in parts of the video that don't need narration. The filming will be similar to the video below apart from the settings will obviously a lot different.

Something else we're planning on filming is the artist walking along beside the motor way. We think we should do this at night time because all of the bright lights from the cars will be flashing in the background, it will hopefully look really effective and also bring a bit of mystery by making the audience ask where shes going and why. We need to make sure it doesn't rain or the wind is too strong in order for it to work. 

We have been checking the weather forecast on our I phones regularly to make sure that the weather on days we have chosen to film is how we expect it to be.

Setting

Based upon our pitch, we imagined our music video to be urban and edgy. This is due to the lyrics in the song and the fact that there is a semantic field of negativity and heartache throughout the song. Due to the lyrics we feel that it is vital to portray a sense of anger and despair throughout our video and this is why we have chosen specific settings, such as an empty subway, in order to give these connotations. In order for the music video to be effective, appeal to our target audience and to comply with the conventions of Andrew Goodwin's theory (alike to many existing music products) we need to ensure that the settings we pick have the correct purpose.

Unfurnished Room

As a group we feel that the setting of an unfurnished room would portray the idea of loneliness well to the audience as it would appear empty and unloved on screen. This is the impression that we want to give as it would allow the audience to understand the lyrics even further by using necessary visuals. The song is very moving and deep so it is therefore important to use the correct settings as a part of an effective mise en scene.

Subway

Our next desired setting is an underground subway. Again this gives dark negative connotations of loneliness and would make the audience empathise with the characters seen on screen. Although the image to the right appears to be of low key dark lighting, the subway near my house has continuous lights traveling down the ceiling. I feel that this would be a good setting to use as it would provide us with artificial lighting that will emphasis the quality of the video footage that could possibly be damaged due to the conditions of the weather. The brick wall is edgy but simple meaning that not too much will be distracted from the artists herself.

Brick Lane

Using Brick Lane as one of our settings would add in the effects and events of everyday life: making our video appear more realistic. The first two locations would feature only one person on screen because they are private or empty locations (Karina's house and the subway) whereas Brick Lane is a public location and therefore there would be many other people in the background of our footage. This would make the lyrics become more true as they are about people not caring and people being selfish. Therefore if people are walking by in the background whilst ignoring our artist it shows the meaning of the lyrics.

London South Bank

Based upon our research of the previous three settings, I have noticed that we have a dark look. Although this reflects the tone of our song well, it will not be interesting for the audience. This is why we like the next setting which is located in London South Bank. The urban, dull area has been brought to life with bright and colourful graffiti. The theme of vandalism here will portray the mood of the song well whilst adding colour to our video at the same time.

Field

Alike to the previous setting in London South Bank, a field adds colour to our setting list. It is plain and simple so the main focus would be upon the artist. It would be a good idea to flick back and fourth between the chaotic scenes to some plains scenes in order to give the audience some variety. The setting gives connotations of nature and nature is natural. This is good because the lyrics talk about people forgetting about others and only thinking of themselves.

Editing Research

We will be watching YouTube tutorials on how to create After Effects to help us create our own effects similar to the videos below. Before researching After effects my group and I tried to produce the effects but it didn't turn out as sophisticated as it could be. Also the software Adobe After Effects is slightly different to Adobe Premier which we are using to edit our music video. so we looked on YouTube and a variety of tutorials came up. 
Using special effects in our music video would make it eye catching and interesting to our target audience as it different. We were influenced by 'All of the lights- Kayne West.' By using these effects it will build up speed and a fast pace which links into our music video nicely. 
when we questioned our focus group on our concept ideas, the feedback we got from them was positive and relevant to use in our music video. 





However as we are using flashing lights and words, we have to consider whether people with epilepsy will watch our music video. Relating back to the song 'All of the lights - Kayne west' before the music video started a warning note came up before. Therefore we have also chosen to warn viewers before the video starts. 

Practice Filming Preparation

Practice Filming Preparation

In preparation for our practice filming, we have been discussing how we are going to do our makeup and hair, and what will work the best. I found some makeup tutorial videos on YouTube;

I like this video because it fits our idea of how we want the artists makeup to look. Quite old school/ retro with bold lips to suit her personality. Out of all of the videos this one gives the best guidelines and the out come looks really good.

For the actor, we were going for more of a dark, gothic look so I had a look on YouTube and found another tutorial that could help us out when it comes to filming;

I like the eyes in this video because although they have the 'smokey' effect, they look slightly disheveled and careless. This is the look we are going for because we want the actor to look sorrowful and sad. The black under the eyes will make it clear that she has been crying and also that she's very hurt and heartbroken.

 However, I don't think we will use the bright red on the lips for our actor because I think we should keep her dark and mysterious. also we wouldn't want to make her too similar to the artist. So i have found a 'gothic' lip colour that we could use to compliment the dark eyes. Its from Rimmell London, the Kate Moss range. The lipstickis £5.49, its called 'Rossetto' and it is shade number 4. Here is a picture of the lipstick, and what is looks like on;

We have all decided to bring clothes from home so we could choose what looks best and what comes across the best on camera. I have some chunky black boots from river island that fit the criteria for our actors outfit ideally

I have been looking for a baggy, vintage coat to be worn with these boots, preferably an old 'Barbour Wax' style men's coat, I've found one on Ebay that's quite cheap, it looks like this

The reason why I specifically think that this style of coat will look the best is because it has and 'old English' feel to it, which fits in well with our Brick Lane themed shots. Also, a lot of people know that this coat is a male coat, so it could make the audience question who's coat the actor is wearing? and also why she is hiding behind it? The questions will all be answered at the end when the girls broken hearted boyfriend is revealed, and her insecurities become clear.

We are going to do our first bits of practice filming in the subway in Harold Wood, Essex and also in Karina's garage. This is because these will be the most tricky scenes to get right due to the difficulties with lighting. Although, it is very important that they do look how we want them to because they are the most effective scenes. For example the garage scene is the opening and closing scene, and also what we will use to effectively narrate the story to the audience. The subway is also important because we have decided to do a variety of different shots ranging from close ups to long shots to pan shots. Therefore we need to find a different solution if we recognise these settings aren't coming across on camera as well as we'd planned. 

We have borrowed a camera and a tripod from school to bring to our practice filming, although we have already sorted out a professional filming camera to use. This is because we want to be sure that we know what we are doing and we are using the cameras correctly to the best of our ability. If we don't know how to use one; we have backup and can use the other. Another reason why we have 2  cameras is so that we can film using both, and see what one portrays our filming the best when it comes to editing. 

We are filming 2 days in the holidays, this is because we are going to re-shoot anything that goes wrong or we change our mind on.  We are going to travel from one setting to another by car, as I drive, But if worst comes to the worst, or something goes wrong, we have arranged the times of the local bus to ensure we can get to these places without any problems. 

Feedback from Pitch

Narrative: The idea of the actress in the music video drug abuses is a good way of showing her pain, as its her way of dealing with the break up of her relationship. However we have to make it clear that the actress is using alcohol and drugs, as if the artist was substance abusing this would present a negative look on the artist. 
The feedback we got in the use of flashbacks of the couple together in a different colour or lighting was positive however we would have to edit it in a certain way to make it look realistic, as pervious music videos which students did didn't turn out too well. so research on showing flashbacks will be done. 

Genre: The majority enjoy the genre of our music as it started off slow paced then busted into an upbeat, full with power song. As the song starts off slow they suggested to make the shots a longer to set the scene and as the music builds up add fast short shots to match the beat of the music. Some of the lyrics would be quite hard to lip sync therefore filling it with fast shots would make it easier. 

Concept: The ideas of flashing lights and and spelling out the lyrics on the screen was positive as we showed them videos of where this concept has been used (Kayne West - 'All of the lights'). The only problem is if the editing software can produce this so we need to trial out on how to make it work. 

Performance: To keep it simple and not too much going on so the target audience can focus on what is going on. The concept ideas were really liked so using that to keep a constant flow of interest and engagement in the music video.

settings: Dont use too many settings stick to a few which relates to the narrative. 

Advice: Dont make the artist appear negative, As she is a new face in the music industry. 

Lip Sync Practice

Experimenting lip syncing by Sydney and myself of the same song 'Your song - Ellie Goulding' we could see the differences watching back over the trials. My Attempt compared to Sydney's was a lot more confident. I exaggerated and put more emphasis in my mouth movements, which made the lip syncing more life like and believable. The facial expressions i used co-ordinated to the tone and the atmosphere of the song and throughout strong eye contact with the camera was used, adding to the confidence. We tried out two different shots which we all liked. The frame size we used in my video, made the audience focus more on my facial expressions as it was more zoomed in than Sydney's. Sydney's frame size was more zoomed out, giving the audience a wider view of the location of where she was. By Showing the location in the video this would give the audience insight on the narrative which is something we would like to portray in our final music video. We are glad that we carried out this task as we could see who would work better on camera as being the artist. It is helpful as now we can see what parts will be played in our music video. As i show more emotion we have decided as a group for myself to play the role of the artist. Improvements for Sydney can be made, she can improve her confidence by maybe learning all the words so she wouldn't feel uncertain. Furthermore incase a situation occurs where I cannot be the artist, a backup plan would be needed and Sydney would have to fill in.

Analyzing Music Video - Queen I Want To Break Free

What music means to me

What music means to me from sookarrykarina