Lighting Workshop

 In today’s lesson we had a workshop where we started to look into studio lighting for music videos. 

The first light that we looked at is a film making light called a red head light. 

The first step that we were told is to try and correctly position the light as close to the top camera as possible for the best results. This is called single point lighting.These lights are very bright and tend to have a really harsh shadow. However l, these lights have the tendency to end up blowing. So in order to resolve this possibility. There is a form of mesh stopping the glass from the bulb going everywhere. 

For a softer lighting effect we can use a form of semi-transparent paper called frost to diffuse the lighting for a damper effect. I recon that in our music video we will most definitely be using frost for our lighting in our music videos. 

Three point lighting is one of the most commonly used light techniques used. Often found on live TV and interviews. The three points are the Key light which is the main light, the Phil light which is meant to be slightly less powerful than the key in order to get rid of shadows. The final light is called the back light. The name of the the light that we are using for this is called a blonde due to its colour. This backlight is brighter than al of the others. The technique to using it is that you need it to be raised and slightly pointed down. This gives the shot a sense of depth to the shot and edges out the main character or object in focus. 

One of the lights that really struck out to me were the fluorescent lights due to the colour that they radiate in the shots that our teacher was using as an example. Having two colours that are contrasting have the ability to also compliment the subject in focus. With this lighting technique i feel as though we are going to be able to achieve some really good looking shots when we begin our production stage. 

Interviewing Kiera

 Kiera is going to act as though she is our lead singer in our music video and following on from what i had said in yesterdays blog after we had our meeting with Matt. We proceeded by having a small group discussion with Kiera present asking her about herself. With all of the question that she answered all of her responses were really positive in the sense that they gave us lots of really good ideas. For example, she explained to us all of the things that she gets up to whenever she is back home in London and this information on its own everyone in the group different ideas of as to what might work for some of the different sets. 

The idea that I had was that if we had a few shots where it seems as though she is outside under a yellow phosphorus street light, with some form of blue lights flashing due to the fact that, that form of lighting believe it or not is quite common at night time in London due to the occasional ambulance that passes by. This was the idea that sprung to my mind. However, in our next few media lessons we are going to proceed to continue a conversation between our group and discuss what the sets should be and in which order so we can try and put together a some form of a shot list. 

Re-thinking our treatment

 In todays lesson me and Luke looked into props. We split the props into to half, with Luke looking into the different types of furniture that we would have in our sets. Whilst I am currently looking for smaller props that will compliment the sets. For example, for some of the sets we planned on having alcoholic beverages be visible to the audience to show that our main character is at a party. However, she wants to leave. With these drinks in mind i thought that it would be quite good if we purchased coasters with LED's that light up glasses and drinks from underneath in a wide range of different colours that we could revert to for the different sets.

In this lesson we had a talk with another one of our media teachers who is in charge of film department side of the media department. In this conversation we looked through our treatment together and came to the conclusion that the idea that we had all put in place for our music video would be very difficult to pull off, in the sense that all of the different ideas that we had did not correlate along with one another. The patterns did not match the vibe from the song nor the setting from the other sets that we had in mind. However, with this in mind we were told that one of the best things that we could do was to ask Kiera who is the student that we chose to take on the role of RUBII and ask her questions about herself and see if we could try and portray some of her characteristic in the music video due to the fact that this whole time we are all trying to picture how RUBII would act and what setting would suite her character when realistically we should try and use Kiera's persona as the basis for this song and try and come up with sets using exactly that. 

Planning our treatment

 In todays lesson we analysed what we had done so far for our treatment. We continued to discuss what elements we would like to include in our music video. First we came up with four key words that describe the vibe and energy that we all feel when we listen to the song. Being, confident, relaxed, flirty and funky. With this in mind we then thought of different sets and what they would consist using these words to try and represent the feeling of the song in the music video itself as well so that they can both compliment each other. 

We set up a zoom meeting and shared ideas and conversed between what different sets would work with the song because the one issue that we have is that we need to be able to change between shots and show a variety of different angles in order to keep the audience interested. For example, one the of the shots that i found that would differ from our original set would be from what would appear to be the outside of the set when it is still in fact filmed inside of the studio. With this shot we would have Kiera who is going to be acting as the singer RUBII dancing in the window to try and switch up the shots whilst still maintaining  the same characteristics as the original set location.

Matilda has the full copy of the treatment on her laptop but the link can be found below.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1MUJdZNQC0eNspe1rAlJZI4msS0A3d7Tcz4M3tbU8Mdw/edit?usp=sharing

Camera Workshop

 In today’s lesson we were told about the technical details when it comes down to trying to achieve the best shot possible. Our teacher began by telling us about the shutter angle. It started off at 180 degrees and which we were told would be considered as natural. However, when the shutter angle is turned down to roughly 72 degrees, everything seems more ‘chaotic’ due to the fact that with fast movements there is almost a slight delay where by it could be deemed as ‘chaotic’ whereby it is used most commonly in action scenes.

According to my teacher in the UK filming is most commonly done with 25 frames per second. However, when filming in slow motion the amount of frames per second drops to a lower number 

In terms of lenses, last year we used a simple zoom lens. However, this year for our music videos we are going to use prime lenses. Which essentially can’t zoom in. However, they have a higher quality for the shot that they provide for the camera. 

With these prime lenses in order to figure out as to whether the shot is completely in focus you must have an assistant to tell you how far away from the camera the object or person who must be in focus is from the camera. With this information you must then use the focus dial that is measured by distance. The higher the number of the lens the higher the quality and more zoomed in the shot will be.

The last type of lens that we were shown were lenses made by a company made by DZOFilms . These are zoom lenses. However, they are arguably similar in quality to the prime lenses that have a fixed zoom. 

lesson 11 Social Media Campaign Analysis

 

For this task we were told to search for an upcoming UK artist who is within the genre that are music video that we have chosen lies in. We were then told to take screen shots from four weeks before the release as well as four weeks after the release. We had to look at the artists social media accounts on both twitter and instagram and scroll through until we could see what they have posted to try and engage with their followers on both accounts. 

I used the website highlighted in purple above to find an artist called ASHWARYA. The music that she creates has very similar characteristics to what RUBII creates. So in terms of comparison when analysing ASHWARYA she has a lot of similarities. However, in terms of posting on both social media websites she post the same photos but on instagram she posts more frequently about her personal life. For example, selfies, night outs with her friends, charismatic photos of herself but whenever she is about to release a song she lets her followers know in advanced. From research, she roughly lets her fans know three to four days before hand in order to build her media attention. Both of her social media accounts consist of photos of herself as seen above in the time line. However, as she gets closer to her release date she begins to nudge her audience by posting sneak peaks of the song with visuals from the music video itself. These sneak peaks reached the highest attention in terms of like and comments on both of her social media accounts especially her announcements about the actual release of her music, they roughly had 1,800 likes which for this upcoming artist is a lot. 

 

In terms of pattern I feel as though there must most definitely be a pattern when it comes to releasing music for artist with social media followings due tot he fact that before they actually release a song artist always tend to relase snip-bits of their music to re-gain their audience members attention to allow them to understand that they are about to release new music. However, as soon as they have worked their way through posting sneak peaks and informative posts about their music in the period after their release almost all artist tend to post pictures of themselves to show the people who have discovered them as an artist get a feel for the artist as an actually human being as they portray their self image to the internet.

lesson 10

In todays lesson we were taught that essentially generally every music video has the same principle. Someone most likely an artist standing in front of a camera singing. However, there are thousands of music videos that are like this meaning that if we were to try and create a music video like this it would most likely be boring. In our video our aim is to try and make sure that it is distinctive, it needs to be memorable. With this being said we need to ensure that we can include expressive use of editing and camera work to try and make sure that we can provide visual variation not only within our video. However, visual variation compared to anything that we have seen before. 

lesson 9 Looking at Treatments

 In todays lesson we were set to start preparing our Treatment for our music video.What this is, is a presentation brief about what a music video will entail. For example, searching the internet for images that are similar to what you would like your artist and music video too look like. This means that we have to find images that have certain characteristics that we would like for our music to include. With each image we then have to briefly explain the reasons why we want the certain features and what reasoning there is behind it. 

Lesson 8

 In todays lesson we all researched different music videos and compared them all to each other to see what conventions they have that are similar. I searched the internet for upcoming artists first few music videos. From my research I found an artist called Glowie and an artist called Art School Girlfriend. We all had to take 3-4 screenshots from the music videos that we had found and then compare them to each other and see what the differences and similarities are.

the first few photos shown below are from the two music videos that I found. At first, from the screen shots I felt as though the music video on the left felt slightly more vintage in the sense of colours used and the outfit worn. However, when in contrast, the location of the photos on the right side never changed location. As well as this, the colours used never differed. The music video on the left most definitely has characteristics that we would want to try and replicate in our music video. For example, the different camera angles, close up shots and colours compliment the energy and vibe of that we are aiming to achieve in our own music video. However, in terms of lighting the music video on the left drew all of our attention due tot he fact that when we were discussing lighting we are envisioned a similar lighting setup. yet, because of the tonality of the song we would most likely choose a varying colour palette that is less melancholy and brighter.

One of my other group members had taken screen shots from one of Rihanna's music videos. Although the look that she is portraying int he music video is extremely cool, upbeat and intriguing the only issue with it is that it is too far out of our budget. In our school we do not have the ability to create a set to match the size of the ones that she has used as well as the fact that the lighting used in her videos would cost far too much. 

Lesson 7 similar artist research from 2019

 In todays we all started to look at upcoming artists in different years. I was told to look at some of the upcoming artist in 2019. I found two artist called Glowie and another called Art School Girlfriend. The overall aim was to try and see what they did in their first music videos and see how we could possible learn from what they have created. The genre's of music have similar characteristics meaning that some of the ideas that they have used in their music videos we can therefore possibly replicate in our own video.

Glowie - I'm Good 

Art School Girlfriend- Come Back To Me 

As a group we compared all of our screen shots meaning that we had six artist total. We thought that they all had really goof conventions that we could try and replicate in our own video. For example, lighting or even having our singer start out of focus but zoom in but at the same time focus in.  The other idea that we thought that we might be able to replicate is possibly having LED signs with different colours in order to add more colours to make some of the shots more aesthetically pleasing. One of the main cons that we have all noticed is that we most likely going to film all of our shots in the studio meaning that we wont really have a variety in shot locations. However, This shouldn't be an issue for us as we are hoping to try and create a variety of different colours in multiple shots. 

lesson 6

 In todays lesson we tried to figure out as to whether we could execute shooting our music video in the studio. The reason for this is because we are not going to be able to continuously change shot location.

Me and Luke tired to look around school for girls who look similar to the image found below. 

So essentially today we managed to ask two girls as to try and perform just the start of the song to try and see as to whether they would suit acting as RUBII. Although they both fit the role tomorrow we are going to continue looking to see if there is someone who could possibly be an even better alternative although the two people we asked so far have really good potential.

lesson 5

 In todays lesson we started to look at how different music videos have been structured. For example, the music videos that we viewed in todays class consisted of the video on the right hand side but then every time that we saw a new location or different scene, a snapshot from that shot appeared on the left hand side. Essentially what this then had led to was our teacher explaining to us that different musicians or artists require different layouts depending upon who and how many people are the main focus of the videos. For example, he mentioned that one of the most difficult music videos to shoot are videos for boy bands. The for this is because with boy bands each individual musician require their own moment as well as the fact that they all have to portray the same energy in each individual shot and location. Making it not only difficult for editors in the post production of the music video but also for the artists themselves.

Lesson 4 Selecting a track and starting development of the campaign

In todays media lesson me and my group hit the ground running. We started to try and find a better track to use for our music video as an alternative to the track that we had previously found. The song that we found is called 'Manifest' by a fairly unknown artist called RUBII. 

Her current following on Spotify is 958 monthly listens and her most streamed song is called 'Bitter Lips' with 39,898 streams. Although this is above 10,000 all of her other songs don't come close to her most successful track. 

When it comes down to casting I can most definitely think of a broad amount of people that would be able to fit the image of her voice. The song itself consists of one singer. However, that doesn’t mean that the music video only has to consist of one person. For example, we have the ability to recruit some of the dance students here at Hurtwood house to take part as cast members and help add more character to the background or front of some the shots if needed. 

The song itself doesn’t have a music video. So with this in mind I did some research by looking at artist in the same genre of fusion'd genre's that consist of similar characteristics to this song. I watched each music video through and then went back through them and picked out screenshots that have shared genre characteristics to what we may aim for in our own.

Lesson 3

 In todays lesson we started reviewing all of our songs. We had one of our teachers join are lesson and give each group constructive feedback on their song choices. The feedback that we got on our songs was really helpful. For example, when i suggested possibly using the song I created my teacher said that it could be an issue due to the fact that if we were to create a music video for the song then that video would depict how contemporary media may me as an individual. Meaning that it might be best not to settle with that song. It also turned out that the song that i put forward to my group belongs to a duo that is slightly bigger than i had thought. However, with this in mind I'm going to continue to try and find a song that best suits what we are looking for. 

Lesson 2

In todays lesson we were placed into our groups for our A2 coursework project. I'm currently in a group of three of which we have all searched the internet for songs with under ten thousand streams. The reasoning for this is because if we were to use a song that loads of people know but have someone else acting as though they have sung the song then our video would be taken down. So it is really important that all of the songs on this lists are most likely unknown.

In this lesson we put together a list of the different songs that we had all found. Some of the songs simply didn't make it onto the sheet purely because of the fact that they ended up being too simplistic so we decided to not write them down. 

The first song that we wrote down was 'Smile Like That' by Terror Jr.Some of the good things about this song is that they are a male and female duo meaning that there is good opportunity to try and get several people involved, Both of the signers are young making casting selection easy. Also the entire narrative of the song is relatable to young people meaning that it could be deemed as more marketable. 

The second song that we wrote down was Quarantine. I featured as well as produced this song meaning that we have full access to it. The song itself also fits in with our generations current music taste meaning that a wider audience would enjoy consuming this product. 

The third song that we wrote down on the list was a song called 'Midnight Blue' by an all male band called Loveless Death Scene. This song had some good positives to it. For example, the lead singers voice sounds young which is a really good thing as it will mean that we will have a broader selection idea when it comes to looking for someone. The next positive point is that it is upbeat. Considering that it is a band and the song is upbeat it means that there is a lot to shoot camera wise. However the only issue with a song that is upbeat is that is that the duration of each shot is going to be shorter as we are most likely going to be flicking between shot more frequently than a slower song.

lesson 1

 In todays lesson we looked at how record labels generally have to different routes to singing a new artist. The record labels can find the select singer or band members by using digital applications such as Soundcloud and Spotify which Keith Negus would consider to be 'organic ideology' due to the fact that the artists image only has to be shaped very slightly. For example, artists such as Ed Sheeran who have a genuine raw talent that is able to be appreciated by a wide audience. Otherwise the other alternative that we looked into was what Negus would call the 'synthetic ideology'. This is essentially where a whole load of people with either slight or potential talent all audition in order to try and meet the criteria that the record label is looking for. From this the label would them heavily shape the artists image in order to try and make the artist more marketable. For example, the spice girls. None of them had know each other until they had all been picked out from their auditions and grouped together by their record label. 

The song that I have chosen that has below ten thousand streams is a song called 'Smile Like That' by an artist called Terror Jr. From research Terror Jr are an American pop duo their real names are David "Campa" Benjamin and Lisa Vitale.

Q. group or solo?  Answer. Duo 

Q. different roles? Answer. David produces and Lisa Sings. 

Q. ethnicity ?        Answer. American 

Q. national accent? Answer. American.

Song link below

https://soundcloud.com/terrorjr/smile-like-that