Music Video Commentary

This is me just explaining a few things from my music video telling you about why I did what I did and a few problems I encountered.

Question 4 Media Evaluation

How did you use new media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?

I used plenty of different programs on Windows and Mac computers.

The first technology that

has been used is this blog (Blogger.com) as it has kept track of how my coursework has

progressed over the months.

For my music video I used Windows Movie Maker. The reason I picked to use this was because I have had earlier experiences with it and have learnt to use it well.

Plus I thought that it had the right type of visual effects in the program in order to create the outcome I wanted.

I could easily use the effects Iwanted such as fades to black to cut to scenes but also fades to white to create a memory scene.

On my CD cover and advert I also used a special website that created the sort of font I waslooking for. I used a site called mylivesignature.com which gave me a number of different fonts to use and all I had to do was type in what I wanted to write so it matched the original Bon Iver signature that I had got from the Bon Iver website. As an example here are the two signitures I used. The first was the original from the website and the second was the one I made on mylivesignature.

I think that for the CD cover it gave it a much more personal touch with a signiture. I also thought that they matched quite nicely as it did take quite a while to find the right match to the first signature. The original signature was taken from Wikipedia.

The program I used to edit and create my CD cover and CD advert was called Pixelmator which was done on the Apple Mac. This was a very nice program to use. After about half an hour of playing around and trying to work out what things did, I was able to put together my CD cover and CD advert. It was a lot like a program I used last year in my AS media coursework called Photoshop but I didn't enjoy using it as much as Pixelmator as the image manipulation was so much easier.(Image from 917wy.com)

The next technology I used was Youtube. This was a great help in linking videos from there to my blog to show what I used as my examples but also to show my finished product. Because of how many videos it has on Youtube, I was able to research plenty of music video and songs in order to pick the right one for me to use. I was also easily able to upload my finished video onto youtube in a matter of minutes so it could be shown straight after to an audience forfeedback.

The camera I used to film was a Cannon Powershot A3150 digital camera. This is a very small digital camera and found it very good. I wanted to use a small camera because it made it easier to carry all the other props I had with me such as the guitar. If I had a bigger camera this would have been impossible. And the video quality was not at all bad either. I liked the fact that I could film a scene and then I could change the setting and take photos of the surrounding area for my blog or for my CD cover. (Image from ImageShack.us)

Question 3 Media Evaluation.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

This youtube video has a running commentary of my audience feedback.

The main negative piece of feedback I recived was because of the lack of scene changes but this was done on purpose as it sets the mood in the video and does link very well with the music. This seems to be apparent in my audience feedback.

The only thing I would do if I could make changes to my video is that I would have less scenes on the train and more in and around London. I think this would make it better as it would give a more lonely ambience to the person in the video.

Question 2 Media Evaluation

How effective is the combination of your main products and ancillary texts (Synergy, cross promotion)

I thought my three different media products worked well together because they all had a clear link to each other so it would be clear to an audience what was being advertised.

The CD cover and the advert work best mainly because they are made from the same background image (This being the CD cover) but this is common in the music business as it would be time consuming. For example I took Kasabian's Empire album as a clear outline for what the music industry expects of artists these days.

CD cover and advert

As you can see from these two examples they are very similar and the only difference is that the advert has got text at the bottom saying about when the album is out, ratings of the album by music magazines, supporting sponsors and how the album is being released. (CD, vinyl and itunes download) The artwork on both is the same so that the audience can recognise that it is from that album. This is where I got my ideas from.

The way that the music video relates to the other two is that the places that I filmed for the music video, I also took photos and made sure that they linked. For example, the photo in the middle is of St James park where I had my final scene and thats why I wanted to have it as my main photo as the song is entitled 'The Park'

As you can see from the video there is many places you can match up from the video to the CD cover.

Question 1 Media Evaluation

In what ways does your media product use develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

For my media coursework this year I had to make a music video, CD cover and an advert for this CD cover to be put into a magazine. For this task I did this for Bon Iver's cover of The Park which was originally done by Feist. You could call this genre of music, Folk an

d as a genre most of the music videos created for this genre is very slow paced and because of this I tried to imitate that sort of music video.

For the main video I took most of my ideas from Ed Sheeran's 'A team' because I thought it did show real meaning about people who fall on hard times. I also took ideas from Chase and Status - Time (ft Delilah) because it had a meaning to the story which was domestic abuse and I wanted my video to be about homelessness.

I did also copy a few shots from these videos such as the bench scene from 'A team' and you can see the similarities.

Because the song has a very slow pace to it I thought that the editing I used was appropriate as there were not as many cuts and each scene lasted around 5 seconds or so. I thought this went well with the music and it showed as the majority of people I asked about the audio and video link said they went well together.

I also did it for another reason as most other Bon Iver music videos are very slow paced and editing is matched up because of this.
For example here is Bon Iver's song Holocene.



This official Bon Iver music video shows how the editing is much slower to give a more calm effect which is what I wanted to reproduce. I also used quite a lot of fades in between scenes to give a better effect of loneliness and time showing that being homeless isn't an easy choice but sometimes its the only choice that some people have.
In this sense I tried to appeal to the audiences emotions.

Compared to different genres such as hip hop and pop where the idea of making music videos is to sell the artist, with folk there is much more focus on the music rather than the artist so that's why there is no real definite mention of the artist apart from in the things where it is needed most such as the CD cover and Advert.


I looked at quite a lot of examples before making my final choice of song. This is the mind map I had that shows most of my first ideas that I had thought of.
As you can see I first had the choice of three different genres of music, these being Folk, Pop and Rock but I decided that Folk would be the best one to do as the genre has plenty of variety and so I could choose a song that had a good rhythm so that it would go well with the idea I had for the video.
In terms of my CD cover, I wanted to make something that showed the aspects of my video. I included photos of places that I had filmed, for example a train station and iconic views from London. This challenged other conventional media types as I hadn't seen any other idea like it on CD covers that I had researched.
Although I did find a CD cover which you could make a link between the music video and cover art. This was the Feel Good Inc single by Gorillaz.
(Picture from Vblurpage.com)



The main idea that I picked was the collage idea which I took from James Blunt's 'All the lost souls' (Picture from Wikipedia) as that was set out very nicely to make the artists face out of lots of other peoples faces. I didn't do this but I developed it so that it gives the audience a clear link between the music video and Cd cover.

Last year I had to make a music magazine which had to include a front cover, contents page and double page spread. I enjoyed this task but didn't really like using the programs I was told to. For that coursework I had to use InDesign and Photoshop to do all the editing on my music magazine. Even though I managed to get the hang of those programs last year, I was pleased to be able to use programs that I was comfortable with this project and I do think it paid off as I created the three media texts to the standard I wanted.

Music Video and CD cover Questionnaire

Did you enjoy the music video?

Yes / No

Did you think that the audio went well with the video?

Yes / No

Did the editing between scenes go well with the audio?

Yes / No

Did you recognise any kind of storyline in the video?

Yes / No / Some

What did you like most about the music video?

Music / Editing / Video / Props and actor roles / Other? _______________________

What was the thing you most disliked about the music video?

Music / Editing / Video / Props and actor roles / Other? _______________________

Do you see any link between the Music video and the CD cover?

Yes / No / Some

Any aspects of the CD cover that you most liked?

Images / Layout / Font / Other?___________________

Any aspects of the CD cover that you think could be improved?

Images / Layout / Font / Other?___________________

CD Advert (Final)

Finished CD Front Cover

Bon Iver - The Park (Final Music Video)

Personnel/Actors

This was my only actor that I used. His name is Chris, he is 18 and comes from Leatherhead. He enjoyed being in my music video because he thought it was a great idea and loved the places that I decided to film.

There was only one other person and that was me who has done all the filming and editing.

Chris Forsdike - Actor

Jonathan Howe - Cameraman/Editor/Director

Shooting Schedule/Timeline

I started filming on the 4th of November and did about half of the music video then.

The other half was completed on the 18th on November.

It took a few hours each time in order to take the train up to London and do the filming in various places.

Music Video Mind Map.

This is the mindmap that I have created that has presented my inital idea for my music video.

StoryBoard

This is my storyboard for my music video.

Issues and Location of filming.

I did my first filming last weekend and it turns out that the placeI was going to film which was Jubilee Gardens, turned out to be under construction so I have managed to find another place to film which will be St James's Park. This will create the same effect as Jubilee Gardens as it has the same sort of ambience. Also on the day that I was trying to film, there was a lot of police activity because of protesters in the area. Thismade it difficult tofind a place to film without seeing the police. The next weekend that i plan to film I hope that there will be less police around as they had cornered off places I wanted to film.

The key locations I plan to film in will be quite varied and far apart as there is a train journey during the music video.

The music video starts off in Leatherhead and the train station in that town.

My actor will get on a train towards London Waterloo station and so there are bits of film from outside the train though its hard to put a location on these bits that will be filmed but the filming during this time will represent the change from suburban to urban travel. For example at the beginning of the journey there will be shots of trees going past and as the video continues there will be shots of more built up areas which shows the progression.

The next location will be London Waterloo Station, as it is so big in comparison to the smaller Leatherhead station that the person was last at.

There will be a few shots around here and then I will start filming the outside of London and all the big sight seeing spots. This makes the person think that it is an adventure and he hasn't understood the seriousness of his situation but he does eventually by the end of the video.

The last location is St James Park where he finds a bench to sleep on. This video is on a timescale of about a week and so he gets used to living on the streets by the end of the video.

Mise en Scene

I will not be using many props in my music video as it is about a homeless person who doesnt have many possessions. I will be using things like a Guitar to go with the style of the music and also things like coffee cups such as the one below to represent the coldness of the settings. This will also double up as a coin pot for begging.

I did think about using a blanket or bits of newspaper but this may prove a problem as it will need to be seen in the majorty of scenes and carrying around stuff in so many locations may prove difficult.

Music Video Research

A music video is a short film or movie that is created in order to promote the artist's music that accompanies the video.

The first music videos were in black and white and showed film of machinery.

As the 60s and 70s came there was a great advancement in the music video with artists such as Bob Dylan, The Beatles and Pink Floyd.

Pink Floyd made film length music videos which were very popular such as their hit album The Wall. (1979)

The 80s saw bands and artists such as Nirvana, David Bowie and The Beastie Boys.

The beastie Boys had a hit single Sabotage which was also released as a music video. They also created a number of longer music videos/films which were very popular.

The 90s saw Fatboy Slim who had successful music videos such as Praise You which broke the 'normal' view of the music video as it was filmed all on a video camera and was of a load of people dancing in the street.

In 2000 bands such as Coldplay and Kings of Leon were making music videos. Another band called Gorillaz had also formed at this time and were unlike most normal bands as their artists were all cartoon charaters. The music videos that they made such as Clint Eastwood and Feel Good Inc were all animated and was a large step for music video progression.

In the past few years, artists like Lady Gaga are pushing boundaries with music videos making them more sexualized. For example Lady Gaga's song Bad Romance was heavily sexualised and some people think that it is not appropriate for the younger generation viewing them.

Email to artist manager.

JPS@johnstonbarton.com

Hello,

My name is Jonathan Howe and I am an A2 media student at Guildford College. For my task I have been asked to make a music video. After some thought I had decided to use the song Bon Iver - The Park. This music video would only be used for educational purposes and to make sure that I do not breach any copyright infringement I wanted you're permission to use this artists song in this task.

Thank you for you're time.

Jonathan Howe

CD Cover Final Idea

For my singles cover I wanted to make it quite eye catching so I have decided to make a collage of photos that will be related to the music video. For example there will be pictures of trains, streets and iconic things from London. The main photo though will be from Jubilee Gardens by the London Eye. This will be the relation between the song title and the album cover.

I took the collage idea from James Blunt's album called All The Lost Souls. It has lots of photos that make up the singers face on the album. I didn't plan on doing it that thoroughly but I will be putting around 5-10 images on the single cover. This design idea will also be the same as the single advertisement but I haven't finalized an idea yet.

Final Idea.

The song that I have chosen will be Bon Iver - The Park. This is quite a slow song and will go with the tempo of the video.

The video idea that I have chosen is a story of a person who gets kicked out of their house for reasons unknown and has no other choice but to live on the streets. The video then shows this persons journey and struggle of being homeless and shows what it might be like to live this way. I will have filming locations such as London's Southbank and around that area. I will also have shots on trains and around train stations to show the endless travel that homeless people have to endure. I took ideas from other videos such as Ed Sheeran's A team. I also wanted to take the idea of telling a story from Chase and Status - Time. This told a story about domestic violence. Just like mine which will present homelessness in a very negative way.

It will first begin by watching the person leaving their house with just a bag and a guitar. This will be the same sort of guitar that the person will pretend to play. So the music will kind of match the video. In the middle of the video it will have plenty of shots of the person and their journey around urban areas but I will put in lots of shots of train travel and moving around. I will also have shots of the person sitting down and begging with use of a few props such as the guitar and a starbucks coffee cup. There will be no real conclusive ending to what happens to the main character (If he gets helped or not) but I will just have them sleeping on a bench and it will fade to black.

/ Bon Iver - The Park

Ideas from:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAWcs5H-qgQ / Ed Sheeran - A Team

www.youtube.com/watch?v=we9jeU76Y9E&ob=av2n / Chase and Status - Time

Bon Iver - The Park (Lyrics)

Why would he come back through the park?
You thought that you saw him, but no you did not
It's not him who'd come across the sea to surprise you
Not him who would know where in London to find you

With a sadness so real that it populates
The city and leaves you homeless again
Steam from a cup and snow on the path
The seasons have changed from the present to past
The past

From whole to half
The past

Why would you think your boy would become
The man who could make you sure he was the one?
The one
My one

I used these lyrics and this song because it is quite slow and will go with the pace of the music video. The use of the acoustic guitar in this song also illustrates the homeless feel to the video as some homeless people use instruments to get money off passers by which will be one of the scenes in my video.

Music album advert analysis

Kasabian - Empire

The band being advertised is Kasabian and their new album called Empire. This album comes right before their hit album West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum. The advert is targeting teenagers and young adults. The band is being shown as epic. They have put their advert onto a playing card. And the K which would normally mean 'King card' actually means Kasabian. The music genre isn't being represented in this music advert as the picture is rather misleading. The album over is called Empire and there is a picture of a Medieval solider as the two are sort of connected. It gives off the impression to the audience that Kasabian have an empire of music that they will be releasing as the album. The colours are very faint on the outside of the advert but more towards the middle there is plenty of colour to draw you're attention and see the name of the band and their album name. The advert has two reviews on it saying how good it will be when it comes out. One of the reviews is from NME which is a well known music magazine. Below that in very large bold writing it says when the album will be out to the public to get that date into you're head.

CD Cover Analysis

Pink Floyd - Relics



Pink Floyd's 'Relics was an album released in 1971. Pink Floyd is a progressive rock/ psychedelic genre. As you can see the Album is called Relics and the way that the font is presented is in a very old looking layout with a smart border. This shows that the album was laid out to show that Pink Floyd's songs will be seen as relics to a golden age of music.
The image is very strange but its quite easy to make out that the object is made up of lots of musical instruments and on the object there is a sentence which is hard to make out but it does mention something about antiques.

there is no reference to the artist on the cover but only the bands name as they want to sell the music and not the artist. There is no real representation or stereotype but the album cover is beyond the ordinary which is most likely the case with the psychedelic genre.
The audience that they are trying to get to is mainly the teenagers/young adult but also these days, the much older generation which would have listened to Pink Floyd in the 70's

CD Covers and Adverts analysis

CD Cover

Genre?
Lettering/ font styles
Image?
Stars/icons?
Representation? Stereotypes
Audience?


Adverts

What is being advertised?
Who is the ad targeting?
How are artists and music being represented
Any stereotypes being used?
What type of message is it giving to the audience?


Design? Colour etc
Function? inform pursued promote sell
Conventions Song/album title, artist. reviews release date. etc
What is it telling about the artist? Music genre ect.
How does it link to the product it is promoting?

MirrorBall - Spike Jonze

Analyzing Music Videos (2)

Roy Shuker - understanding popular music (1994)

1. The mood of the video. (Happy, fun, dark, depressing)

2. The narrative structure (Story)

3. The degree of realism or fantasy of the settings in the video. (Set in the real' world or a made up world)

4. Themes of the video (Love, Romance, Sex, Growing up, Political message)

5. The importance of performance ( of the artist)

6. Degree of sexuality in the video.

7. The video as a 'star' text (Creating the artist image How is the video creating a representation of the artist)

8. The Music (How it relates to what we hear and what we see)

Arcade Fire - Ready to Start.

In this video which is one of Arcade Fire's hit songs called Ready to Start. The video is set at a gig and because the song is very upbeat the mood is also very happy and joyful although there is no colour in the video, it is just black and white. You have shots of the crowd who are obviously enjoying the music by their actions.

There doesn't seem to be any narrative to the video. Apart from they are having a live performance playing to a crowd of people. The video has a big essence of realism as this rock band does plenty of tours and live shows and so this music video might not have been to hard to make.

There isn't a very specific theme to the video. Seeing that it is just a live performance that has been edited the band may be trying to pursued people to come and see more of their live shows. The main aspect of this video is to sell the artist as the majority of the camera time is either on the band members or the crowd. This may show that the artist is trying to tell their fans that they are a important part of their band as well.

There is a small aspect of sexuality in the video as the longer they are playing for the hotter and sweatier they are getting which does give off a very sexual image.

The music video has shown the band members as very in tune with their fans as they have put their fans into the video. It also makes the band look powerful with their high position on the stage.

Finally, there is no relationship between what we are hearing and what we are seeing. Apart from one aspect of the song lyrics where the band is 'Ready to Start' and we assume that they are ready to start playing their gig or even to start making music in general.

First Ideas.

I have looked at many music videos over the last few days and I have sorted through a few genres of music that I may want to choose and these are a few genres and artist that I will want to do a music video for.

Rock

30 Seconds to Mars - The Fantasy

Blink 182 - I Miss You

Folk

Bon Iver - For Emma

Bob Dylan - Times are a changin'

I decided to go with a song from Bon Iver but I then found a cover that he had done called The Park orginally by Feist. That is the song I have chosen to do.

Bon Iver - The Park (Feist Cover)

Music Video Analysis

Goodwin's 6 point analysis of music videos:

1. Music Videos demonstrate genre characteristics?
2. There is a relationship between lyrics and video?
3. There is a relationship between the music and the video?
4. Selling the artist. The demands of the record label will include the need for a lot of closeups of the artist
5. There is frequently reference to notion of looking (screens within screens, telescopes, etc) and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body.
6. There is often intertextual reference (to films, tv programs, other music videos etc).


Hallucinations - Angels and Airwaves


1. Band playing and singling lyrics. This is common in most rock/indie music videos so that it creates awareness of the artist.
2. There doesn't seem to be any relationship between the lyrics and the video.
3. Specific cuts when drum beats or music changing tone. Lights and flashes more frequent when the chorus comes up. At the start of the song there are views of a cityscape and planes landing. Giving the band an epic appearance.
4. Lots of closeups on the lead singer and also the other band members when they are playing their instruments as the instruments are the key focus of how they are a rock band.
5. Plenty of shots of the band members looking at the audience into the camera. One of the band members also wears glasses. The item of 'looking'
6. No intertextual references to tv or film. They may want to keep the audience focus on the band members.


Holocene - Bon Iver

1. Cannot see the person singing the song. Set up more like a story. Although the majority of his music videos are a story and not him actually playing the guitar and singing.
2. Small relationship between the lyrics and video. The great view and the icebergs but I think that it is just their to create a relationship between the beautiful scenery and the music. (Trying to suggest that the music is beautiful.)
3. No relationship between the music and the video. we are just shown a child having fun in a cold country on his own. May trigger reminiscing for people about childhood.
4. The artist isn't seen in the whole music video. More reliant on the music than the artist. He wants to create a video in which the music and the scenery will go together to make the music and the artist better.
5. Amazing scenery to catch the audiences eye but there is no eye contact between the child in the video and the audience. The audience is almost 'tagging' along with the child seeing a day in the life for example. Makes you feel like you are there with him enjoying the amazing views.
6. None but you are lead to believe that the setting is somewhere cold like iceland or greenland.

The Task

For my A2 coursework this year I have been asked to create:
A Music Video Promo
A cover for the album/single's release
A magazine advertisement for the Single/album

I will have to manage my time efficiently in order to finish all of the tasks by the end deadline of the 19th of December.
The first thing I have been doing is looking at other more professional music videos in order to get inspiration for mine.

First post.

This is the first post on my A2 media blog. I have begun this coursework by starting to look at music videos for inspiration. I have not decided what video I will go for yet but I will pick one soon.