Research into my artist- Gemma Castle

This is a small interview with the singer and writer of the song i am producing....

Filming!!!

YES I HAVE DONE FILMING!!!!!!
IT was amazing and gemma was an absolote star she did everything I asked of her and followed my instructions to the letter!!!

Had fun and got alot done although i still have more to do!!!

Editing and more filming still to be done!!

Digipak

"Digipak is a patented style of compact disc or DVD packaging, and is a registered trademark of AGI Media, a MeadWestvaco, Inc. resource, which acquired the original trademark holder, IMPAC Group, Inc., in 2000. MeadWestvaco licensed the name and designs to manufacturers around the world."

Quote taken from Wikipedia.

Digipak is something i will have to produce as part my media project so looking into this product as part of my preparation for this will be extremely useful.

"Digipak is a patented style of compact disc or DVD packaging, and is a registered trademark of AGI Media, a Mead Westvaco, Inc. resource, which acquired the original trademark holder, IMPAC Group, Inc., in 2000. MeadWestvaco licensed the name and designs to manufacturers around the world."

Health and Safety Risk Assessment

Today we discussed health and safety and came up with a list of things we should abide by...

• No filming in inappropraite locations.
• Check safety of locations e.g. roads.
• Minimise risk of theft of equipment.
• When filming on location ensure teacher and responsible adult know where you are and have you telephone number and when you will return.
• CHeck all equipment is working before you leave.
• Ensure you have permission for filming if neccessary.
• Always film with at least one other person.

This list was very useful and opened my eyes to some aspects of health and safety.

Filming

This evening I filmed the first part of my filming and I was really happy about this. Gemma followed direction well and undertsood the look I wanted to acheive. What I filmed this evening was a piece that we could possiblly use at the start of the video before the music starts and I think this is a brilliant idea.
Will let everyone know when I do some more filming.

FILMING THIS WEEK!!

I'm starting filming this wednesday with Gemma which i am so happy about....
Already got lots of good ideas that should b really good and fit the song Gemma has written well.
Will keep you posted...

Feminist Film Theory and Audiences

Laura Mulvey and her her essay on Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema (1970).

• She beleived cinema reflects society. Therfore cinema reflects a patriarchal society. (patriarchal = a society lead by and for men)

HOW DOES A PATRIARCHAL SOCIETY MANIFEST ITSELF IN CINEMA?

Example : Patriarchly and phallocentrism are linked.

• The phallus (male genitals) is the symbol of power.
• NOTE HOW GUNS ARE USED IN FILMS.

GUNS = PHALLUSS = POWER

eg. When a both man has a "mid-life crisis" they buy themselves phallic objects (sports cars).

THE GAZE

The 'gaze' of the camera is the male 'gaze'.

• The male gaze is active, the famle passive.
• Within the narrative male characters direct their gaze towards female characters.
• The specators made to identify with the male look, becuase the camera films from the optical well as libidinal, point of view of the male character.
• Thus three levels of the cinematic gaze - camera, chracter and spectator - the objectify (sexual gaze/glorifies woman) the famel character (the triple gaze).
• Therfore the audience is constructed as though everyone was male.Women are forced to look as though they were a male audience member.

AGENCY

• In the classical Hollywood cinema the male protagonist has agency (he is active and powerful).
• He is the agent around whom the drmatic action unfolds.
• The famle character is passive and powerless - she is the object of deisre for the protagonist and audience.

EROTIC DESIRE

Mulvey argues that women have two role in film:

1. As an object of erotic desire for the characters.
2. As an object of erotic desire for the audience.

Animatic

This is the animatic of my storyboard idea.

Suture Theory

This theory is the 'classical Hollywood' narrative and editing 'sutures' or positions the audience in certain ways making only one preferred reading possible, however unconscious the audience is off that position.

Deadlines and Expectations

My music video must be filmed and edited by the Christmas holidays.



The Digi-Pack and magazine advert and this blog must be finished by February Half term.



Today we also look at a good music video example done in previous years and anayliased it.
- The video had a poor setting of a classroom and this didn't fit the song words.
- Good steady shots were used.
- Mise-en-scene was good.
-Editing was ok/good.
- The lip syncing was very good.

We will be marked on three areas:

PLANNING
CONSTURCTION OF VIDEO
BLOG AND EVALUATION

10 marks for DIGI-PACKS
10 marks for magazine advert
40 marks for music video.

Level 4 (This is the level of work our teacher expects to see from us)

The candidate is expected to demonstrate excellence in the creative use of most of the following technical skills:

• Hold a shot steady, where appropriate.
• Framing a shot, including and excluding elements as appropriate
• Using a variety of shot distance as appropriate;
• Shooting material approraite to the task set;
• Selecting mise-en-scene including colour, figure, lighting, objects and setting.
• Editing so that meaning is spparant to the viewer;
• Using varied shot trainsitions captions and other effects selectively and appropriately;
• Using sound with images and editing approriately for the task.

Where a candidate has worked in a group, a excellent contribution to the constructions of the video is evident.

ILLNESS!!!

I hate being ill!! Thats exactly what i been for the last week and now Gemma has got this dreaded cold aswell so absolotely nothing has been done. This illness was actually a real eye opener for me i can't how LITTLE you can do on your own! You do need a dedicated group of people around you to make a music video wok... which i dont have! But i will do thiss and get this done....
I WILL!!!

Reception Theory

• Given that the Effects model and the Uses and Gratifications model have their problems and limitations a different approach to audiences was developed by the academic Stuart Hall at Birmingham University in the 1970's.



• This considered how texts were encoded with meaning by producers and then decoded (understood) by audiences.

The theory suggests that:

• When a producer constructs a text it is encoded with a meaning or message that the producer wishes to convey to the audience.



• In some instances audiences will correctly decode the message or and understand what the producer was trying to say.



• In some instances audiences will either reject of fail to correctly understand the message.



• Stuart Hall identified three types of audience readings (or decoding) of the text:

1. DOMINANT

2.NEGOTIATED

3.OPPOSITIONAL

Dominant

Where the audience decodes the message as the producer wants them to do and broadly agrees with it.

eg. Watching a political speech and agreeing with it.

Negotiated

Where the audience accepts, rejects or refines elements of the text in light or previously held views.

eg. Niether agreeing of disagreeing with the political speech or being disinterested.

Oppositional

Where the dominant meaning is recognised but rejects for cultural, politcal or ideological reasons.

eg. Total rejection of the political speech and active opposition.

Uses and Gratifications Model

THIS IS THE COMPLETE OPPOSITE OF THE EFFECTS MODEL!!
In this model:

• The audience is active.
• The audience uses the text and is NOT used by it.
• The audience uses the text for it own gratifications or pleasure.
• Here, power lies with the audience NOT the producers.
• This theory emphases what audience do with the media texts how and why they use them.
• Far from being duped by the media, the audience is free to reject use or play with media meaning as they see fit.
• Audience therefore use media texts to gratify needs for:

DIVERSION
ESCAPISM
INFORMATION
PLEASURE
COMPARING RELATIONSHIPS AND LIFESTYLE WITH ONE'S OWN
SEXUAL STIMULATION

• The audience is in control and consumption or the media helps people with issues such as:

- Learning
-Emotional satisfaction
-Relaxation
- Helps with issues of personal identity
- Helps with issues of social identity
- Helps with issues of aggression and voilence

• Controversially the theory suggests the consumption of voilent images can be helpful rather than harmful
• The theory suggests also that audiences act out their voilent impluses through the consumption of media voilence.
• The audience inclination towards voilence is therfore sublimited, and they are less likely to commit voilent acts.

The Effects Model

This theory suggests that the consumptionof media text effect (often adversely) the audeince. The audience is inflenced, sometimes to replicate what they have consumed. Also known as "The Hypodermic Syringe Model". Here the audeince is passice. The image of the tect are 'injected' already into the brains and the audeince is powerless to resist.

First Case Study - Manhunt (video game)
It was stated in the death of Stefan Pakeerah that friend, Warren LaBlanc, had brutally killed his firend after watching this violent video game. Pekeerah was killed on thr 27th February 2004 and in the court case is was stated that LeBlanc was obsessed with the game and this had lead to killing Pakeerah.

Second Case Study - "Child's Play 3" (film)
Murder of James Bulger. James was abducted and murdered by two 10 eyars old boys in 1993. It was stated in the case that several of the scenes out of "Child's Play 3" had infleucned the boys and they copied the scenes. This is a very common exmapl;y of "The Effects Model". There was no evidence that the boys had ever seen the film. The two boys had very bad upbringins and were badly neglected. However, politcians balmed the film so it wouldn't look, to the rest of the world, they had failed and therefore they banned the video.

The Effects Modal is used in cases such as the ones mentioned above.

Evidence that proves "The Effects Model"

1960's - Albert Bandura - Bobo Doll experiement
Children watch people hitting a Bobo doll and then put them in a room with the Bobo doll to see whether they would replicate te behaviour. Albert Bandura beleived that agression must explain three aspect: 1. How aggressive patterns of behaviour are developed. 2. What provokes people to behave agressive. 3. What determines whether they are gogin to continue to resort to an aggressive behaviour pattern on future occassions.

However, in this experiment, the kids invovled were placed in a room first where they wasn't allowed to touch or play with any of the toys. This made the chidlren very aggressive. Then the chidlren were allowed into the room with the Bobo doll where they could play with all the toys. This obviously means that they attached the doll to get rid of built up tension.

ADVERTS HOWEVER EFFECT US IN A POSITIVE WAY!!! THey make us want to buy the products they are advertising.

WRITING!!!

Today i worked with Gemma on a new song which is definately going to be the song we use. Its called "The Show" or "Your show" and i have a feeling that the video is going to be very good. I already have alot of good ideas for the video already.

Hopefully this will be recorded soon and we will start making the video.

OH NO!!

Still no further forward on the music front. Gemma has now found a guy called Tyrone who she may do a duet with. This in the meantime doesn't help me!
However, I had managed to find a guy that would be in the music video a guy called Seb who is an actro so would be prefect for the part.
However, one of my friend Nathaniel said that his band would love to have a music video made and they already have songs recorded so this is my definate fall back plan now...
Will keep blogging and tell you any more updates....

Update

Ok so it was all going to well and now its not. My artist has alot of owrk on at the moment and i don't and we still havent recorded the song but I not going to push her because i know she will come through eventually. If not i have a plan i will just have to look for another artisit on www.unsigned.com and hope that something comes through on there.
I think i will wait to the end of September/start of October and then approach Gemma again about the music otherwise find another artist.
However, today we did practise the song and it sounded FANTASTIC so i do hoep it all comes through.
Will keep you posted.

Quick notification

Right I am in the process of writing the 100 great music videos up which will give me vital tips and pointers to how to produce my musaic video.
There are alot of videos and I'm linking them to the youtube videos to so it is taking some time but when they are all done it will be a great list for myself anf anyone else to use as reference.

Research - 100 Greatest music videos

For the last couple of days we have looked at the 100 gretest music video countdown. This is a very helpful list of videos with lots of tip for me to use in my own videos



At number 82 was the 50 cent video - In da club. This music video is "brillaintly simple" and features Dr Dre and Eminem and these 2 people are both in the video. Also, 50 cents first appearance he actually 'decends' into the frame rather than using the conventional routes.




At 81 was Ultravox - Vienna. This video features some of the worst acting ever and is very over the top. However, the music video is all in black and white and is very effective.



At number 79 is New Order - True Faith. The whole group shared a distaste for music videos so they hired a non-music video producer and directer to make their video. Also, their music video proves that it doesn't have to carry a moral.



At number 78 is Godley & Creme - Cry. This video featues multiple faces, wiping into one another.






At number 77 is MC Hammer- Hammer Time. This video is all about the costume proving to me that costume is a huge part of a music video.






At number 73 is Basement Jaxx - Where's ya head at? This video features mutant monkeys with the lead singers face instead of the monkeys. many have described this as "gross".






At number 72 is Robert Palmer - Addicted to Love. The female backing group make this video completely and the song is remembered for the video.






At number 71 is Bjork - All is full of life. This is a very surreal music video and proves to me that you don't have to make a video make sense.






At number 69 is Frankie Goes to Hollywood - Two tribes. Based on the cold war leaders. This video was also made by Godley and Creme






At number 68 is Madonna - Ray of Light. "This video is a day of life in 4 minutes." Many have said that Madonna always seems to tap into the trends of the moment. The filming is done with a type of editing called time Laps.






At number 66 is Bob Dylan - Subterranean Homesick Blues. There is no miming or lip syncing there is just the words on cards. Its just "Not trying to be brilliant".






At number 65 is The Apex Twin - Windowlicker. This video takes the micky out of previous R n B culture and various other actors are made up to look like the main singer of the group.






At number 61 is The Prodigy - Smack ma bitch up. This is a very controversal music video all done in POV shot and its suppose to be a lads point of view. However, at the end it is actually a woman.






At number 60 is the Eurythmics - Sweet Dreams. This shows women ruling the world. "Annie's image made the video". The video has a moral - Where does the things we strive for get us?






At number 59 is Abba - Knowing me, Knowing you. Brilliant at the time but comedic now.






At number 58 is The Cure -Close to me. THe song and video should feel like they are created at the same time like this feels.





At 57 is Meat Loaf - I would od anything for love. This is based upon the theme of Beauty and the Beast and Meat Loaf himslef said thats whats he bases most of his videos on.





At number 55 is Fatboy Slim - Praise You. This has a candy camera effect and is almost seen to be using a hand held camera.





At number 50 is Paul Simon - You can call me out. This is a very comedic video and the song is mimed in a childish way considering the nature of the song.





At 49 is Jamiroquoi - Virtual Insanity. Appears to have a moving floor in the video but it is reverled that the walls actuallly move. This video is amzingly cool but very expensively made.





At number 48 is Johnny Cash - Hurt. This video is very emotive and depicts Cash looking back over his life. Cash was coming to the end of his life in this video and it is cut with footage of how he used to look. This video was also filmed in Cash's home proving you don't have to us expensive locations for filming.





At number 46 is Adam Ant - Prince Charming. This is a mini video based on the fairytale 'Cinderella'. This video is completely tasteless due to the nature of the acting and the over exaggerated costume and setting.





At number 44 is Kylie Monogue - Can't get you out of my head. This is a "Great video and makes the song even better and more provocotive". This video is both sexy but still has the twist of obession that comes from the song lyrics. A female director gave Kylie more freedom and it was less perverted.





At number 42 is Bjork - It's so quite. This video is a celebration of old style musical video where things comes to life before your eyes. "It feature the sort of ending you only see in technicolour" videos.





At number 41 is The Spice Girls - Wannabe. This video is based around gate crashing a party and is about 5 girls sticking 2 fingers up to the world. The costume and action give away the characters instantly proving to me again that these are a huge part of a music video.





At number 38 is Fatboy Slim - Weapon of Choice. Features the actor Christopher Walking who was in fact a dancer before he was an actor and therefore this video looks very good. Then at the end of the video he flys off.





At number 37 is Guns 'n' Roses - Novemebr Rain. This video has a "Big cinematic feel" and this video in total is 9 mintues long.





At number 35 is Sinead O'Connor - Nothing compares 2 U. THIS MUSIC VIDEO MADE THIS ARTIST!!! This video forced the audience to stare into Sinead O'Connor's eye and recognise her vunerability. It features a 4 mintes close up of her face which can only be done if you have a compelling and beautiful face. The tears were actual real emotion let out for her mothers death.





At number 33 is U2 - The Sweetest Thing. This video and song was in apology to his wife for missing their anniversary. This is sad yet comical at the same time. THIS VIDEO HAS NO LIP SYNCING.Its all about the facial expression.





At number 32 is Chris Isaak - Wicked Game. This video propelled the model featured in it to stardom.





At number 31 is Eminem - Stan. This video is a very basic story. Its very dark and an example of how celebrity obsession can get out of hand. This video caused a media outcry, which inturn made it one of the biggest video's for its time.



At number 30 is Weezer - Buddy Holly. This video is cut with real clips from 'Happy Days'. This made it automatically recognisable.



At number 29 is Electric Six - Gay Bar. This was a very controversal video and depicted President Lincon in bondage gear. "Just shy of being offensive".



At number 28 is the Foo Fighters - Learn to fly. This video uses camera trickery which makes it very effective.

At number 24 is Radiohead - No surprises. THis depicts the lead singer of radiohead drowning ina tank of water. IT IS VERY DISTURBING! The video adds value to the song.

At number 23 is Britney Spears - Hit me Baby one more time. This video depicts Britney dressed as a school and it is said to be very Paedophiliac. "Its a dirty song coming out of a school girls mouth."

At number 19 is Madonna - Material Girl. This song shows the world obsession wiht money and is a replicant of a Marilyn Monroe song.

At number 17 is Blur - Coffee and TV. This video was described as "Wasn't the greatest song, at the time though is was the BEST video".

At number 16 is Outkast - Hey ya. Andre 300 is every role in the video and this is very effective. This video also makes reference to the 60's.

At number 14 is Christina Aguilara - Dirty. This video is Christina escaping her old 'babyface image'.

At number 12 is Micheal Jackson - Scream. This video cost over 7 million pound which caused alot of problems considering he always use to talk about how bad poverty was and how he wanted to change it. Then he makes a video thats cost this amount of money!

At number 11 is Coldplay - The Scientist. This video was all done via reverse filming and it took Chris Martin 3 months to learn the words backwards so when the filming was reverse the words were infact roudn the right way.

At number 10 is Nirvava - Smells Like Teen Spirit. This video is known for the music and the outspoken singer. The video took the band front obsercurity to international stardom.

At number 9 is Madonna - Vogue. THis video proves how Madonna understands what the video could do for her. The dance movement of the underground gay dance scene was brought into the lime light with this video.

At number 7 was Micheal Jackson - Billie Jean. This video feature Micheal Jackson on a specially designed set with pavement slabs that lit up. The only probvlem was not all of the slabs lit up fo Jackson had to be very specific with his dance movement.

At number 5 Madonna - Like a prayer. THIS IS ONE OF THE MOST CONTROVERSAL VIDEOS OF ALL TIME!!! It depicts a black jesus and religious ecstasy and also sexual ecstasy.

At number 4 is Queen - Bohemian Rapesdy. This was ahugely popular video in the early 70's and was also filmed in one night. THis video is fundermentally about nothing in particiular.

At number 5 is A-ha - Take on me. THis video is absed aroudn a comic book and was turend into one of the msot fantastic video's of all time. When the song was released on its own it flopped but with the video it sold millins.

At number 2 is Peter Gabriel - Sledgehammer. "This is a animaed video and could almost be made out of plastecene".

AT NUMBER 1 IS MICHEAL JACKSON - THRILLER. This video is actually 15 minutes long and was actually made like a proper video.

FINALLY!!!

GEMMA HAS FINISHED THE SONG!!!
A HUGE thank you goes out to my best friend and clever little musical star for creating an amazing song and making my music video (hopefully) just as amazing.
The fun starts here!

A month on...

Sorry it has taken so long for me to give everyone an update on how the music video is going but I have had a trubulant month. My music spreme queen, Gemma, has been having artistic difficulties as she really disliked the song i had told u about previously. So she has spent the last couple of weeks trawling the wonderful site of www.newgrounds.com looking for a different backing track for our song. Hopefully she will find something that will satifisy her musical needs. I would just like to add that she has feel inlove with the site mentioned above and has used many of the musical pieces off of there for personal use.
As soon as i know more i will let u know.

Practise Session in the recording studio

Can't quite beleive that today i managed to hear the song that will be behind my music video. Gemma made the second verse whilst we was in the studio and although it needs alot of improving i feel really confident about the whole thing and Gemma's lyric were truely amazing and i could see the video developing infront of my eyes. Gemma very happy with her lyris and said she may change the song and although this was abit scary for my she has the entire summer to get it all right so i trust her judgement.

New Grounds

Today our teacher introduced us to a website that allows people to use their music as it is not copyrighted. I looked through this site and found a couple of tracks that i quite liked. I discussed with my teacher whether we could use one of these tracks as a backing track and put our own lyrics to it. He agreed to this and i thought I would get started on it immediately. Upon returning to my school i spoke to my best friend Gemma Castle who featured in my previous coursework. Gemma is very talented as not only can she act, as many of you saw from my Thriller coursework, but she is also a singer/songwriter. She agreed straight away to take on this challenge for me and started looking at songs. We searched through many songs and found a couple and she started writing there and then. We wrote for about an hour and had a verse and chorus by the end. I am really excited about the whole situation now and I know that Gemma will make a great job of my song so i can make a fantastic music video.

Research

In class on Wednesday 17th June we were asked the following question by our teacher to make us start to think about music video's and which ones had influenced us and might therfore influence our final project.

1. What are you three favourite music videos? I found this question difficult to answer and could only think of one and that was Take That - All you said
2. Why do you like them? It's obsucure and i remember it becuase of the costume the band memebrs are in (clowns) and the setting (an empty stage).
3. What makes them effective? The clowms and the acting the band memebrs do is fantastic. Also, the contrast between light and dark on the video (chiaroscuro).
4. What do you think is the purpose of a music video? Gives a visual image of the actual artist to go with the song. Gives an identity to the artisit.
5. How can a video be judged to be successful? Gets talked about by other aspects of the media industry, this usually happens when the video is controversal. Has a big public impact and has the public talking about it (word-of-mouth).
6. What factors must be taken into consideration when planning a video? Target audience, whether it could contina a message of statement, location, costume, who is featured in the video, budget, controversal or offensive content.
7. Can pop videos be considered to be a genre? In my opinion no.
8. What are the conventions of the genre (if it was one)? Someone usually lip syncing the words of the song, some tell a story, some feature special effects, some feature dancing, also people are sometime playing a musical instrument.

We also once again looked at the model of media:

Text (music video) -> Audience -> Institution

Our Task....

Our task is to produce:

• A music 'promo' video.


• Upto 5 minutes.


• Either working on you own or in a group of upto four members.

Also we need to produce:

• A website homepage for the band.
• A cover for its release on DVD.
• A magazine advertisement for the DVD.
• A critical evaluation. (Which has to be featured in the blog.)
• Research and planning. (Which also has to be inclcuded in the blog.)

*!!!OUR DEADLINE- CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY!!!*

New year... New Task... And this year she goes at it alone....

Welcome back to my blog... Its a new year so there is a new task to be undertaken. Also our beloved group have also split. The Spice Girls did it and Take That did it and now its out turn. And its all because of Carla. ITS CARLA'S FAULT!!!! (I hope yu are getting the message here). So this year we are all going it alone. This has now tripled my work load but I have alot of interesting ideas already and am looking forward to it. In the following blogs I will document every stage of the music video, all the way from the start to the finish.