Production Log #13 Throughout week production log 13, we edited some more of our 'final product' , and we decided we had to do some re-filming for the music video to have more diversification within camera shots, angles, etc. In addition, this applied having to look for details in the footage we had already and take down notes on a few that could be re-filmed and some others that could be filmed and added on later - it was also important for the music video to look biased, and we realised that throughout the video, there were only a couple of shots of Christopher, however, it was always in the same angle, whereas Karen's and Joshua's, there were plenty of angles and camera shots throughout the whole music video, which could possibly make it slightly complicated for the audience to realise who the artist was.
Shot by Jessica S. (me)
The drama studio was probably the most interesting place to set up the light and the stage settings, which allowed us to capture a great footage of Christopher; and even if we couldn't obtain the "perfect" lighting, there was Final Cut Pro in the end, which would provide it.
Shot by Samantha H.
Playing with the camera and finding different and unique angles was extremely important, in order to have a diversity of shots, which was mainly focused on the main character - Chris. (more than anybody else).
In what does your media products use, develop or challenge forms and convention of real media prodcuts ?
PLAN:
Research:
Sam:when researching the artist i found that he had a strong personality that we could build upon. Reality to Richard Dyers Star Theory, i felt it would be a good idea to build Lij as a star persona. It came across a pop artist who developed his own written work. This influenced the way we wanted to establish him as an artist. The lyrics of the sonf itself is also influenced our development of the artist and the video.
Video Styles:
Sam: We decided upon using a mixture of the narrative and performance as we were not only influenced by the lyrics but by other pop videos we saw while beach combing e.g one direction night changer/ drag me down which uses the artist as the main focus to perform has a story to follow along to.
Karen: We matched the visuals to the text and the lyrics and told a story through out our music video. We done this to attract more female audiences as we know Lij can be seen as 'female gaze' through his looks. Making a narrative, performance music video will allow the audience to fall in love with our artist due to the fact they can relate to his feelings as they are able to visualise what is going on in his life. When doing our bench combing I found that if i was a young 13 year old girl that loved Taylor Swift i would love her more if I could relate to a song like 'You belong with me'. Her lyric is about a guy she likes that is with a girl thats wrong for him. And her music video also matches the lyrics. I felt that i could relate to this song not only by the lyrics she sings but also because I could see what she means in her lyrics and thought it would be a good idea to use for our music video.
Camera:
Karen: From doing our research in our beach combing task we found the use of a hand held camera effective for our music video due to the fact we want to portray a real life situation through the music video. From watching the one direction 'night changes' music video I found that the hand held camera technique which made me feel like I was the girl they were going on a date with was a technique that I thought would work well with our music video as Lij is a starting up artists and having the music video make the audience feel special would make them like the artist. We did tried and use this technique of the point of view of Lij so the audience can feel what he feels however, we didn't use it constantly and the audience might not understand this.
Jess: The hand-held camera kind of makes the music video appear more realistic and gives the audience a slight feeling and idea of being there with the characters and the artist. Looking back on our 'final product', there are a few shots of hand-held camera where we see Karen recording herself and her friends, and this sticks up with the conventions we saw in a few videoclips, whilst completing our research.
Sam: We also developed some of the conventions we saw within the 'Drag me Down' video. We saw various shots of the band members at various angles which we felt would be great to build upon Mulvey's theory of 'Male Gaze'.
Editing:
Karen: I gave the idea of playing different scenes straight after each other at different times in the music video basically cutting to the beat. I don't remember where i got inspired to do this however i think most music videos cut to the beat and thats why I suggested it. Thinking about it properly it wasn't a music video it was a film in which the cross cut between two scenes thats happening at different times. I thought this would be a good editing technique to use to tell a story in which the girl always goes with other guys.
Sam:We took influence from Archers's theory of 'things we should look for when deciding a music video is any good', specifically his ideas on thought beats as well and the 'Not Letting Go' video and cut to the beat of the track throughout the whole video.
Mise-En-Scene:
Karen: As I was in charge of costume and make up I not only had to search the current fashion however, I also had to look at the trends occurring in the music videos. We used this scene of Lijs shoe tapping because it enhanced the typography of this image. I felt that using an urban costume would attract more audiences as the nike air maxes are known by everyone. Watching the music video of 'Omarion ft Chris brown and Jhene Aiko - post to be' their costume was enhanced by the white back ground. I focused more on their timberlands and clothing instead of their dancing as it called my attention. We done this my putting Lij in a room where the spot light is on him despite the fact it might be too dark we see him interacting with his jacket to enhance the costume he decided to wear.
Sam: We incorporated some of the influence we found within the Lianne La Havas Video and decided to experiment with the lighting choices we used. The first was the projector that we used and the second was the spot lighting we decided to use. Linking back to my original pitch, we decided not to influence the individual costume of the cast as looking at what each member already owned, it would fit suitbly with the video.
Location:
Jess: The location we chose for the main character, played by Chris was the drama studio, and this was because the lighting we were able to obtain and also to make him look lonely, whilst looking at his crushes' pictures, which relates back to the lyrics when he says he was waiting for this girl to arrive; this sticks to the pop conventions, because most pop artists tend to use this within their music video, such as Ariana Grande - The Way
Firstly, we were set a task as a class, which covers the brief overall - each student had to research and find an unsigned artist, analyse their song and create a treatment and present it to our group, in order to 'sell' our idea of a music video and also 'sell' the unsigned artist, in order to make a project as a group; additionally, we had to create a promotional package (including an album), a digipack, a music video and finally a magazine advert for the album.
The artist... the first time I found Kiki Rowe was on Monday, 15th of June 2015 through a YouTube channel called Hip Hop Zort, which I believe promotes unsigned artists, from this point on - I was able to research about Kiki a little bit more and I was able to find her Soundcloud account and her Facebook professional account and on the 12th of September 2015, I was able to send Kiki a music video request through Soundcloud and Facebook, and on the 16th of September 2015 I was able to receive a message back with a confirmation of my request. In addition, the reason why Kiki Rowe caught my attention was due to her artistic skills, voice and her 'ways' of interpreting herself as an artist, and these ways are pretty flexible and easy to see through her pictures taken as an artist.
Kiki's pictures are quite artistic and are easy to engage with teenagers between the age of 14-19 (maybe 21, in some occasions). Personally, it was important for me to find an artist that could represent our teenage generation and could sing but also express their style. Also, Kiki's songs are mainly about boys, break-ups and how to overcome a break-up and mostly important confidence!
Moreover, although all of Kiki's songs would of been suitable to pick, "Be alright" is a song that represents a lot of confidence within women, once a break-up occurs - as for her lyrics and one of her verse being "I will be the best girl you'd ever have". To be quite fair, once I found Kiki Rowe, I stopped looking for unsigned artists, because I believe Kiki has recognition for the extremely good singer she is, including her angelic voice when she "hits" the high notes.
Editing was the major key word throughout this week, wrapping up with our editing and finally completing our music video with Final Cut Pro. Obviously, there were a couple of times when editing was pretty challenging, as our group member/editor Samantha stated: "I had to cut to the beat for most of the song and make sure that I could sync all of Chris' lip sync with the song".
Additionally, after completing some filming and throughout the editing process - the group decided some footage need to be re-filmed, such as Chris' part lip syncing, as it was pretty much out of timing and the audience noticed it from miles away, as we shared what we've done so far to our class and received feedback, both positive and negative. Also, with the help of feedback we realised that we needed some more angles of Chris, in order to keep up audience's gaze and also to established Chris' importance as the main artist.
Last but not least, we've decided to gain some inspiration and look for different angles within other music videos, maybe quite related to our song/artist/music video choice (Lij Gilmour - Hangin' Out)
Throughout production log week 11 - I was absent due to be abroad; however Sam was in charge of filming and Karen is the main character alongside with Joshua, therefore they were able to meet up and begin to do some filming for our music video. Sam, Karen and Joshua met up and traveled all the way to central London, stopping by places they through and we planned and also discussed could be beneficial for the music video.
Overall, the group was pleased with the footage Sam was able to obtain from Karen and Joshua; in addition, the weather was on their side with a sunny sky and that also means that sunset was late enough to allow the team to move around before it was set. However, although the sun was out and the team had a big variety of lighting - according to Samantha (camera girl) - "we faced some problems because the sun was creating glare on the lens whilst filming, and it was hard to get some shots".
