Final song choice (planning)

For our final song choice we have chosen The Ting Tings 'That's not my name. Initially we chose to a song called ouch by Ndubz however felt that as their video had too much of a strongly narrative based structure, it would be to difficult to differ from this and make our video original.

The concept of our video is " a rebel without a cause on a mission to put an end to her lovers wondering eye, however in the end enough is enough" We chose this song as it elimated the expected genre of R&B of which typically consists of cliche love stories or half naked women. We felt that this song was an upbeat, energetic and interesting choice as far as narrative structures are concerned as there are a number of possible ideas that could work successfuly with this song. As the original video does not follow a distinctive narrative pattern and is very representative of disjunctre, it allows us to incorporate our own ideas and inject a bit of orginality into our finished product, avoiding the possibility of our video looking too similar to the original.


How our video will differ from the original ...


The original video does not have a narrative structure and so therefore the narrative is not illustrative of the lyrics. As there is no narrative the video rely's greatly on repetition and performance from the particicpant of which is the lead singer. For our video we decided that we should have a couple who are having issues due to the boyfriends obvious interest in other girls, paying little or no interest to his girlfriend. We will include a range of different female character stereotypes for the boyfriend characters love interests, such as the typically 'sexy one', the sporty one and the geeky one. The video will consist of the narrator constantly trying to regain his interest in her. Towards the end we have decided as a group to include an element of disruption where the tables are turned and she becomes disinterested and he is the one chasing after her. We will incorporate split screening of different individuals eyes, face, mouth and nose to create one face, A technique as seen in many other video's. We also intend on making use of a green screen and including close ups of numeral different coloured lips. As the song is also very energetic we want to keep that energy level up by including a performance from our participant which will be the lead singer. However to keep the audience engaged we will keep this at a minimum so the video does not become too repettitive.


The original Video



Examples of video's where the use of split screening ideas have worked well


Exhibit 1:



Exhibit 2:



Close ups of lips



Overall I feel that our video will strongly differ from the video and has the potential to be really great!

Final song choice (planning)

Our final choice is the Ting Tings ‘that’s not my name’. We chose this song as we felt there was a lot we could do with it. The song is quite versatile therefore our music video could have been about more or less any think. There is also a variety of technology we could of use when making this video, such as green screens. We could also make it naturalistic and use realistic locations. The original video to this song was quite basic and not a lot was going on therefore when we make our video to this song it will not constantly be compared to the original. The lyrics in the song suggested a narrative story; therefore allowing us to create a illustration video, but because the song is so quirky and up beat we can also play about with the green screen and create some un naturalistic things. The song is relatively fast however there is a steady beat running through it therefore editing will be made easier.


Our video will differ from the TING TINGS for a variety of reasons;

• Our music video has a narrative structure. The main singers ‘boyfriend’ is showing other girls a lot of interest and our music video is showing how she copes with it. Whereas the Ting Tings video is a lot more random and it does nor represent or suggest anything to the audience.
• We will be filming in a variety of locations in order. This is to make out video look interesting and fast, but also to show that time is going on. It will also give us a variety of shots and images to use for out final edit.
• The costumes in the Ting Tings video are quite colourful and bright. In our video we are going to use costume to show representations of the characters that are in the video. E.g. main singer dark clothing and an Indi/chic kind of look to represent her laid back rebellious attitude to life.

Analysing previous students videos (research)

I think the main audience for this music video is urban teenagers who like to party. I think this video attracts boys as well as girls, because the main character is a boy therefore a male audience can identify with him.  Also there are females in the video that can attract a male audience. Teenage girls and young females would also like this video because it is fast catchy and you can dance to it. The genre of this song is funky house, the fast beat and the rhythm of it indicates it as well as the ‘ illustration’ music video.
This music video had a linear narrative. It involved a group of teenagers ‘partying hard’. I found this video interesting as it showed the main character a ‘boy’ partying and then at the end we find out it was a dream. This video appealed to me, however the shots were poor and the framing was bad. This possibly could be 2 show the fast and exciting pace of the party. The variety of shots wasn’t great however the use of fast editing made it appealing to me, it also looked well and it created the effect of being in a party. The main representation in this music video was showing males being dominant and females being objects.  women were shown dancing around the males in a sexual way. The choice of camera shots also dismembered the female character sometimes in this video.

Final Song Choice And Why (Planning)

The Final song choice that we have decided to do for our A2 music video is "That's Not My Name" By The Ting Tings.
We decided to make a video out of this song because it an usual song. We also decided to create our music video from this song because as a group we started thinking about ideas of how we could bring the song alive and make it a good idea. We  also choose this song because we believe that we could create our own Little narrative with a twist on it. We also choose this song because we thought that we could be creative with the video because the original video is quiet basic and not allot is happening in it.Finally another reason why we choose this song was because we thought that it would be quiet easy to edit to the beat of the song due to the fact that the beat is easily noticeable and you can hear when it is about to change.




The following link bellow is the original version to the song "That's not my name" By The Ting Tings:






How Our Video will differ to the original:
I believe that out video will differ from the original video in three major ways.

1. First of all unlike the original video our music video has a narrative. Which is were the main girl is going out with her boyfriend however he is all ways ignoring her and talking to other girls.

2. Secondly our main character wears allot more darker clothes.She also represents a different class and status to the main singer in The Ting Tings.

3.Our third major difference between the original video and our music video is that we are going to have allot more brighter colours featured throughout our video. Plus  we will also have allot more going on in our music video because i believe that the original video is quiet bland and does not have a wide variety of locations.

Andrew Goodwins Theory (Research)

Andrew Goodwin



Goodwin believes that traditional narrative analysis does not apply in pop videos; there are several reasons for this.

The reasons for the different narrative structures are as follows:

-Pop videos are built around songs-and often songs do not pose traditional narrative structures

-The pop video uses the singer both as narrator and as character

-The singer often looks directly at the camera – this is an extension of performance and trying to involve the viewer at home with the performance

Men represented in Music Videos:

Another feature that he Goodwin looks at is how men and women appear in music video. Men are scene as the more dominant character and come across differently to women. For example espically in rap videos the men will be dressed in alot of clothes and with big diamond jewellery. They will also have alot of mid shots and close up shots of there face. By having this type of mise en scene and camera shot it shows men in a more postive light and how they are the alpha male. It also shows that mens status in society is scene as much more higher and important then woman.

 

 

 

Women represented in Music Videos:

However this is the complete oppiste to females in music videos. The majority of times they are scene as sexual objects who are dressed in small amount of clothes such as short dresses, bikinis and showing alot of cleavage. Also the shots that are focused on woman are usualy close up shots of the womans legs,bums & breast. They never usually focus on there faces in the video. This shows that woman are showed as low status characters to men and that how men portray women/see them in a sexual way.

 

Who was Vladmir Propp? (Research)

Vladmir Propp

About Vladmir Propp & His Theory:
Vladimir  Propp was a Russian and Soviet formalist scholar who analyzed the basic plot components of Russian folk tales to identify their simplest irreducible narrative elements.Vladimir Propp extended the Russian Formalist approach to the study of narrative structure. In the Formalist approach, sentence structures were broken down into analyzable elements, or morphemes, and Propp used this method by analogy to analyze Russian fairy tales. By breaking down a large number of Russian folk tales into their smallest narrative units, or narratemes, Propp was able to arrive at a typology of narrative structures.

When  Propp talks about his narratives, he breaks them down into 31 different sections/functions so that people could understand his approach to narratives. The following list bellow tells you how he broke down the narratives into different sections:



1.Absentation            2.Interdiction    3.VIOLATION of INTERDICTION  4.RECONNAISSANCE

5.DELIVERY           6.TRICKERY  7.COMPLICITY        8.VILLAINY or LACK

9.MEDIATION       10.BEGINNING COUNTER-ACTION 11. DEPARTURE

12.FIRST FUNCTION OF THE DONOR       13.HERO'S REACTION

14.RECEIPT OF A MAGICAL AGENT    15.GUIDANCE    16.STRUGGLE    17.BRANDING

18.VICTORY       19.LIQUIDATION       20.RETURN        21.PURSUIT  22.RESCUE

23.UNRECOGNIZED ARRIVAL    24.UNFOUNDED CLAIMS    25.DIFFICULT TASK

26.SOLUTION    27.RECOGNITION   28.EXPOSURE  29.TRANSFIGURATION
30.PUNISHMENT  31.WEDDING

I believe that the following  Busta Rhymes featuring Mariah Carey video follows a similar theme to propp. I believe that Mariah is the dansell in distress and Busta Rhymes is the Hero trying to rescue her.

Audience Task (Planning)

Sarah would like our music because it is fast, fun and rebellious, allowing her to be free and escape the troubles of life. .

Final song choice. (Planning)

Our initial decision was NDubz Ouch. However after an thorough analysis we discovered that because of the rapping we wouldn't be able to create a exceptional music video. Therefore our final decision was The Ting Tings- That's not my name. We chose this because we found it easy to generate ideas that could potentially make a good music video.

The lyrics are quite illustrative and so it will be easy to create a linear video.
The original video displays disjunction as it has no relevance to the songs lyrics.
Our video will be about couple who are experiencing difficulties as the the man is no longer interested in her. She is constantly fighting for his attention but he has his eyes on other girls who are more attractive.

We would like our video to be quite humorous as the song is upbeat and we feel that we can do a lot with it. At the end of our video there will be an element of disruption where the girl soon realises that she doesn't need him any more, the tables turn and he ends up wanting her back.

Vldadmir Propp

Vldadmir Propp was a Russian and Soviet formalist scholar who analyzed the basic plot components of Russian folk tales to identify their simplest irreducible narrative elements.
His Morphology of the Folk Tale was published in Russian in 1928. Although it represented a breakthrough in both folkloristics and morphology and influenced Claude Lévi-Strauss and Roland Barthes, it was generally unnoticed in the West until it was translated in the 1950s. His character types are used in media education and can be applied to almost any story, be it in literature, theatre, film, television series, games, etc.

Vladimir Propp extended the Russian Formalist approach to the study of narrative structure. In the Formalist approach, sentence structures were broken down into analyzable elements, or morphemes, and Propp used this method by analogy to analyze Russian fairy tales. By breaking down a large number of Russian folk tales into their smallest narrative units, or narratemes, Propp was able to arrive at a typology of narrative structures.

After the initial situation is depicted, the tale takes the following sequence of 31 functions:
ABSENTATION,INTERDICTION,VIOLATION of INTERDICTION. RECONNAISSANCE: DELIVERY,TRICKERY, COMPLICITY, VILLAINY or LACK,MEDIATION,
BEGINNING COUNTER-DEPARTURE,FIRST FUNCTION OF THE DONOR,HERO'S REACTION,RECEIPT OF A MAGICAL AGENT,GUIDANCE,STRUGGLE,BRANDING: VICTORY,LIQUIDATION,RETURN,PURSUIT, RESCUE, UNRECOGNIZED ARRIVAL, UNFOUNDED CLAIMS, DIFFICULT TASK SOLUTION, RECOGNITION, EXPOSURE, TRANSFIGURATION, PUNISHMENT andWEDDING:

Reflection on lip synch tutorial experience including photos and embedded video (planning)

In Today's lesson we did a lip sync tutorial. In the task we had to create a video for the 80`s song "Freak out" by .  We did this to understand the main features that you have to use within a music video, we also did this to understand how different music videos are so different to thriller trailers, which was what we did last year for our AS project. In the videos below i will discussing my thoughts of the task and how i thought it went in general.

What new skills did you learn through this activity?

-How to use final cut pro at a higher level
-How to edit to the beat
-How to cut between different shots
-How to sync the song to the video itself

What did you find most challenging?

I  found lip sinking the most challenging thing to do because you have to match up the the artist singing  to the sound track exactly the same or the singing will look out of sink. It will also look very unprofessional.

What observations did you make about how editing differs in music videos, compared to producing the opening to a thriller film?

I found that editing a music video is allot more harder than editing a thriller. This is because it is allot more time consuming and you need allot more photage to create a music video. You also need to be able to make sure your well orgainsed and that everything small details is planned.



Below are some images of the making of the making of our version to the "freak Out " video. Also underneath the images is our version of the video "freak out" video what we created.



Review one of the previous students videos that you analysed in class (Research)

I believe that this at A2 group created a reasonably good music video. For the Doneo song “Party Hard”. I enjoyed watching this video because I believe that for a genre like funky house it is hard to create high standard video which would keep the audience watching. However I believe that the A2 audience were able to do this.

I believe that this video has some of the key features that Andrew Goodwin Talks about in his Theory of music videos.  For example in the video when you hear the chorus, the lyrics come up on the screen which is “Party Hard”. The lyrics came in bright colours such as; pink, blue green & red. I believe that this was a good feature to have in the video because it went with the genre of video; it also allowed the audience to sing along with the chorus and made the words visually stick in their heads.

I also believe that another feature that they had in there video related to the Andrew Goodwin theory. This was that the video followed a narrative, for example you saw the boys on their way to a club and walking up the stairs. Then you also saw people dancing and partying as if they were in some type of party/house party. I found that by them using a narrative it allowed the audience to understand the song more and that it made the video much easier to follow. Another feature that I think worked well in this video was the use of sexuality. For example it had the “Artist” who was a male character surrounded by female dancers sexually dance and whining around him. I found this part followed the stereotypical accept that they have in a lot of music videos epically rap/hip-hop/funky house. The male character is seen as the dominant male and the female is seen as less dominate and all she does is serve for the males and that she is seen as an object & not a woman.

On a whole I believe that the video was good. I think that the editing of the video was fast quick and went to the beat of the song. I also believe that the synch and the narrative were to a high standard as well. However one thing I believe that this group could have concentrated on was the mise en scene. I think they could have had at least one more location to make the video more exciting. However I believe that the flashing at the end of the video while they were dancing made the party scene look at more attractive, eye catching and realistic.

Here is the link below to the Doneo version to party hard:


Here is the link below to A2 version to party  hard:

Reflection on lip synch tutorial experience (planning)

Lyrics

Attempting to read lyrics.

Performing

Camera Woman

On set (individual performances)

The set

For our video we carefully considered what kind of set would compliment the selected song choice and so consequently chose to film against a green background. We chose to use purple coloured lighting as we felt it created a warm disco feeling of which went with our chosen song 'Freak Out' which is an 80's track.

 This task was an eye opener as we learned who felt more comfortable performing in front of the camera and who did not. Often when people felt uncomfortable on camera, myself being included this was ultimately translated on film and reduces the quality of the work. To make our video look more authentic we actually sang the words, as after watching numeral videos where individuals were not singing, we decided that it looked too obvious. We tried to incorporate various filming shots and use a variety of angles, some of which worked really well and some of which did not. When we came to editing we received feedback from our teacher Dan who felt that some of the shots were poorly framed, in that there was too much unoccupied space in the shots.  We took this on board and will take this into account when filming the real thing.

We edited our video using final cut pro putting the skills we had learnt in the lip synching tutorial into use.  Such skills included using the razor tool to cut shots and inserting different marking points. We began the editing process by uploading the song and selected different 'marking points' which indicate which part of the song that is going to be synched. We also used the razor tool so that a variety of shots were included. After watching the video I feel that we did quite well for our first video, however I felt that there are a number of things we must consider when making the real thing, which I believe is a positive thing as it is an eye opener as to where area's of improvement are concerned. A few things I believe can be improved are better framing of shots and more variety.

Vladimir Propp (research)

Vladimir Propp was born on April 17th 1895 in st perersburg to German family. He attended st Petersburg university majoring in Russian and German philosophy. After graduation he taught Russian and German at a secondary school and them became a a college teacher of German.

1. The hero (seeks something)
2. The villain (opposes the hero)
3. The donor (helps the hero by providing a magic object)
4. The dispatcher (sends the hero on his way)
5. The false hero (falsely assuming the role of hero)
6. The helper (gives support to the hero)
7. The princess (the reward for the hero but also needs to be protected from the villan)






After watching this music video I was only able to Link three characters To propps theory.
The hero: 'Kong fu master'
Villan: Femail character who fights nikki
Princess: Nikki minaj.

In this particular music video i wanant able to apply it to propps theory. However there is a few simularities. 'Your love' contains a 'princess' Nikki Minaj, who is the singer in this song therefor she is shown in a good light and she is sceen to be innocent.  There is also a ' false hero' who is played by a handsom male character; and he is also the kong fu master. Although he does not directly help Nikki, he is shown in a possitve light and he is very emotional when he finds ous she is dead. The 'Villan' is played by a female character and she is shown to be jellous over the relationship between the 'false hero' and the 'princess'.

All the charactes in propps theory is not present in this music video. I think this is because as technology has improved over time better transition,editing,and special effects can be useed to make the video intresting; therefor the narritive does not have to be as strong as the narritive in an older music video would have been.

Reflection of lip synch tutorial- photos (planning)

The Set

 I found the lip synch tutorial helpfull as it will help us with the filming and edting of our music video. we used final cut pro to edit our video and synch it. Befor we started off the filming process we set up our performing space. As we wanted to create a dark atmospere we turned off the light and turned on the spot lights on instead. This created an 80s atmopsphere.

Jovan performing

We all took turns to film, this re-introduced us to using the cameras. This activity made us realise how difficult it is going to be to perform a song in front of the camera without feeling embarresed. As we got into it a bit we felt a lot more comfertable with each other and in front of the camera. we all had a turn in front of the camera, some of us were more comfertable with in than others. I think the main reason for this was the fact that we didant no the words of the song particuly well and we all got a bit tongue tied.in order to help with that problem we had to hold up the song words for the performer.

holding up lyrics

Inorder to make the synch prosess easier and to create a belivable video it was importaint that we actully sung the song words instead of mimining as this can look amature.                                                   


We filmed from different an therefor we were able to have a variety shots for our final edit. We were  instructed to film the song three times from different angels, inorder to be able edit  and synch it.

After we filmed all of our footage we uploaded it onto finalcut. The first thinng we had to do was chose the clips we wanted to use in our video.

Filming

We started off by uploading the song we were performing onto final cut pro. We then had to chose a word from the song that we will 'mark' on all of our videos. We chose the word 'freak'. On the videos we chose to use in our video we had to mark the word freak, this allowed us to synch the video to the music.

When we were filming we didant film the sonnga all the way throught so the editing and synching process was alot difficult that it would normally be.

Overall I found this task intresting but stresfull at the same time, because it was hard to work with the footage we had.