Chosen Song

Choosing a Music Track

The final group choice is:__Dream- Alice Smith_______________________________
We chose this song as it isn't the conventional R&B song. Therefore we can play around with th concepts and contradict the R&B genre. Also, the song has much scope for a narrative music video as well as performance.

Track	Title	Artist	Genre	Postives	Negatives	URL
1	Freakin	"TV"fuc.kingz	Hip-hop	Has a catchy tune	Is too repetitive. Has little scope for good dance moves or narrative suitable to match beat.	"TV"fuc.kingz
2	When my life is over	"TV"fuc.kingz	Hip-hop	Good beat	Again, the song has little scope for a good dance routine. Perhaps too much rapping.	"TV"fuc.kingz
3	Dream	Alice Smith	R&B	Has good scope for a narrative as well as performace.	Maybe a bit slow. However, we can work around this as the dance routine can be made to match this.	Alice Smith

Location Recce

Location Recce

Animatic

Roland Barthes

Barthes was a French literary theorist who believed that all narratives share structural features that are brought together in various ways. He believed that texts could be unravelled in different ways. Barthes suggested that there are 5 codes which help to unravel meaning in a narrative. They are the following:

• ACTION CODE- This code applies to any action that implies a further narrative action and resolution is produced through action
• ENIGMA CODE- Narrative device which teases the audience by presenting a riddle or puzzle to be solved
• SEMIC- the denotations of the image/imagery
• SYMBOLIC-connotations of the image/imagery presented
  
• CULTURE-device which the audience recognise and associate with a particular culture.

Parody and Intertexuality (Lilly Allen-Hard out here)

Lilly Allen's recent video 'Hard out here' has caused a lot of controversy as it has many sexual references and intertexuality as well as a major theme of gender inequality.It takes a feminist stance on how women are often portrayed as sex symbols and furthermore the stereotypical image of women presented in the media. Throughout her video, Lilly Allen makes very obvious intertextual references to Miley Cyrus'  most recent VMA performance. She does this by making her backstage dancers 'twerk' in the same way Miley Cyrus did. This shows that Lilly Allen has particular views about twerking as she parodies it. Many people may also make comments about her choice of backstage dancers acting out the sexual references e.g. sucking bananas and twerking as many of them are black. It may be said that racism is being portrayed through this.











Robin Thickes music video of 'blurred lines' is also parodied and referenced in this video as the silver baloons at 3.07 are similar to the ones from Robin Thickes video where it displays an explicit message about him. Also, both videos are objectifying women as Lilly Allen shows that women should be in the kitchen washing the dishes or satisfying men by fulfilling their sexual needs. Robin Thicke objectifies women by showing that they can be 'liberated' by men only and that they are 'domesticated' by men.

Music Video Exhibition Institutions

There are many  institutions which are used primarily for music video exhibition. For example;

Viacom are the owners of MTV, which owns 100% of the company since 1985. It is the world's most watched television network by youths reaching more than 578 million households in over 162 countries worldwide. It is a very influential network and leading multimedia brand as it promotes music, fashion, lifestyle, news and politics.
The initial purpose of MTV was to play music videos 24/7, however they don't play music videos all day anymore even though their spin-off channels do such as MTV Jams and MTV Hits. In addition to this,  viewers can also play videos on-demand at MTV.Com. In this case, the music played on MTV.com is chosen by viewers themselves. The music played on  MTV is chosen by the public in a sense. This is because the music played is chosen according to album sales, popular downloads and most popular videos on MTV.Com.

Youtube is a video-sharing website which is used by more than 1 billion unique people worldwide each month. Also,  over 6 billion hours of video are watched each month on youtube which is equivalent to every person on earth watching an hour!! Google is the owner of youtube and has been owning it since late 2006. It was created by three former paypal employees in February 2005. It operates as a google subsidiary and allows users to sign up and upload unimited amounts of videos. Media corporations such as BBC, Hulu and VEVO upload their content via this site as part of the YouTube partnership programme.






Itunes is a software which is part of the Apple group. It allows users to buy, listen to and sync music/ videos onto their Apple devices such as iPhone and iPod. This software was developed in 2001 and is constantly updated to provide users with the best service.

Vevo is a music video website owned and operated by Google, Universal studios, Abu Dhabi Media and Sony music entertainment. The chief executive officer of Vevo is Rio Caraeff. Vevo serves many different countries such as UK, US, Germany, Greece, Australia. it was launched on December 8th 2009 and continues to be successful up until till today.Vevo has a goal to attract the high-end advertisers in order to make larger profits and maybe to settle for a higher-end, wealthier target group.

SBTV, also known as 'SmokeyBarz TV' was founded by Jamal Edwards on 2nd November 2006. However, it ran from August 2010 onwards. It is a company run by a very small amount of people (12 employees) thats work on webbased viral content at different music events. SBTV have their own YouTube channel as well as a website which displays alot of their content and even unprofessional footage. SBTV  content is designed to appeal to those interested in the grime, British hip-hop and acoustic genre.

Kim and Kayne music video

Kayne and Kim's new music video is banned from a lot of sites as it is controversial and 'x-rated'. It was such a big issue that it managed to make front cover of 'heat' magazine. This may have an impact on both celebrities and any of their future music videos as well as music videos as a whole. The reason for this is that many people are starting to ignore videos anyway and appreciate just the music due to the typical 'busy' life and multi-tasking; not many people have time to sit there and watch a 3-4 minute music video when the song is the main part and could be listened to while washing the dishes! Multi-taking is one factor, but videos like this cause people to cut off from watching music videos much quicker especially parents who think that the explicit content could have an impact on their children.


Shot-to-shot parody re-make of the music video



James Franco and Seth Rogen decided to make a parody of Kanye West and Kim Kardashian's 'embarrassing' music video. This proved to be very effective as it was publicised and gained many views and a lot of appreciation. 

Moodboard

Crew Requirements

In order for pre-production and production to be successful we need a reliable crew to share the work load there is a lot of planning and organising that will take place on the up coming weeks before filming and we all have to play our part relaying on each member of the group to do the work that they have been set. Once planning is complete filming will begin we will need all crew to attend so we need them to be flexible with there time as any time that we can film we will need to in order to get it complete , punctual will be priority if we set a time to meet they well need to meet this time we may be unable to start with out them and if they are not there , time will be wasted not just filming time but other members time will also become a waste as they may be left unable to do anything. crew must be able to use the camera this is likely as this is the second year of media and filming played a large part in the previous years , this will be needed as taking a number of different shots and angles for each seen to give more footage when editing and also a better variety of shot types will be very time consuming and hard work will will have to share the filming taking turns using the cameras for each shot or scene having just one person filming will be unfair on that member we will all have to take our turn and to do this everyone must be able to use the cameras effectively.

Equipment List

Equipment List 

Contingency Plan

Working as a group and making decisions together as a team is very important, everyone should have their say and play an equal part in the pre-production of our music video. Sharing work out equally, will reflect how our ideas will come together as one. We are aware that people will fall behind if they miss lessons or if they're ill. It will only become a problem if there is no communication between us, then things will be disorganised and messy.  To prevent this from happening, we will email each other and text so that we are always informed of where each of our team is.

In terms of filming, only one from our group will be the main protagonist, so it won't be as difficult to contact someone who is close to us. If she does fall ill, then we will be able to shoot certain scenes with just backing dancers, to help keep the production going! The filming will be divided equally and quickly, as we will all have certain things to do, and it will increase the amount of work we get done. Since we have four people in our group, everyone will always have something to do to help the other one out. Even if someone is not able to attend filming, we will have 2 or 3 people who will be able to utilise the time properly.  By using social networking sites/apps such as Facebook or Whatsapp, we always keep in contact with each other.

Our ideal place to film may not be available right now, but we will always have a back up, just in case things don't go to plan. We would film in similar places, even if we can't get the setting to look how we want it to. 

Lip Sync Practice

Calendar

Survey results

Audience research results | Infographics

Treatment

Our final song is called Dream by Alice Smith, we found the song on music alley;a copyright free site, meaning we could choose any song we wanted without it being taken off or switched with another song, once put on YouTube. After listening to the song as a group, we decided that it was our favourite and already had ideas about what kind of genre and type of music video we could create. 

Our overall idea is based on a 1950's performance music video, although the song is an R&B, this style will be going against the codes and conventions of how the music video for that type of song would normally be like.  As a group, we all had the same idea of how to present the narrative and lyrics to connect to the visuals. One music video that in my opinion reflects the codes and conventions of a traditional music video is Beyonce's 'Why Don't You Love Me', the costume, props and the techniques of how it is filmed reflects the 50's era. 

Our original inspiration of our music video, came from the movie 'Grease'.  Their use of costume and props looked really well done, and even if they did had a bigger budget, we can still mimic some of their scenes, for example 'Beauty School Drop Out' is our main influence.  I think our video will be successful because our idea fits really well and links with our song and the live performance part of the video. The thing that will make our video stand out is the fact that most current videos, utilise cars, money, women and over the top 'houses' (mansions). 




The music video, will be half Performance and half Narrative. Our main character will wake up in her home and will conclude the video in a hall, performing the rest of the song. We will also have the POV of the lover in her life, who will mimic the same things she does as her lover. During the performance, we will use some backing dancers but keep the main protagonist in focus by having a bright spotlight on her. As shown on our mood board, the costume, props will make it clear to our target audience, what we are trying to aim for in our music video to make it realistic and authentic.

Costumes, Props..

Storyboard

Character profile for female protagonist

Character Profile (Female Protagonist)

Audience Profile

Audience Profile

Andrew Goodwin

Andrew Goodwin

Andrew Goodwin is currently a professor of cultural studies at the university of San Francisco. Goodwin is also the author of a very well-known book on Music Television and cultural theory ( Dancing in the distraction factory: Music Television and cultural theory). In addition to this, Goodwin also publishes many articles on media and culture theory. His theory relating to music videos identifies 5 aspects that should be found when analysing a music video. These aspects also make a successful music video. the steps are the following:

• Relationship between the music and the visuals.
• Relationship between the music and the visuals
• Iconography
• Star image
• Voyeurism
• Intertexual references

Vox Pop

Narrative analysis

Song 1


This music video is an example of Strauss' theory of binary opposition. This is because it is displaying the opposition between the old generation and the new generation as well as the opposition between outcasts and friends. In addition to this, the video displays many aspects of Andrew Goodwin's theory as it has a link between the lyrics and the visuals at 0.20 . At this point the protagonist gets up in the morning and the lyrics are 'but i know where to start' therefore connoting the idea of  fresh start with morning. Again at 0.26 the lyrics link to the visuals when the lyrics are 'you say i'm too young to understand' and show a child looking up at the adult which firstly shows innocence and secondly shows that the adult is more emotionally intelligent then the child as she is looking down at the child. Another factor within Goodwin's theory is that a successful music video must have close ups of the artist. This is evident in the music video as it is showing Avici in a close shot at 2.46. Todorov's theory is also shown in this music video as the three stages of a narrative are included. Firstly, the two characters are shown to be sleeping and everything is okay. This is the stage of equilibrium. Then, they wake up and go outside thereby realising that they are in a place where they do not belong. This is the stage of disruption. Finally, they find the place where they really belong and go back resulting in new equilibrium.




In this music video, there are many narrative theories within it. Firstly,  at 1.44 we see the artist in a close up which is part of Andrew Goodwin's theory. Also, the lyrics are linked to the visuals at  2.19 when the lyrics are 'dancing through the fire' and the artist is just shown to be looking at images on the wall of tigers roaring whilst holding a stick lit with fire. Another theory made prominent in this music video is Todorov's theory of equilibrium. This is because initially, we see two characters turning up in a jungle. This is the stage of equilibrium. After this, we see the disruption as the male gets eaten by the tiger. The final stage of new equilibrium is shown when the female protagonist becomes the queen of the jungle and becomes friendly with all the wild animals. 

Parents fear 'sexualised music culture'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-24836571

 

This article is expressing parents views about the modern pop culture and potential  negative effects it could have on their children. Artist's such as Miley Cyrus and Britney Spears have been mentioned and parents are afraid that the 'sexualised culture' has gone a bit too far.

Analysing music video of inspiration

JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE- MIRRORS

This music video is an example of a performance and a narrative, which makes it a hybrid.

CONNOTATIONS

The connotations of this music video are represented within the mis-en-scene. An example of this is at 7:40 when the lighting is dark which makes one side of Timberlake’s face shadowed and hard to see. This may be reflecting his emotions such as loneliness and mystery. In addition to this, at 3:35, I can identify an aspect of Andrew Goodwin’s theory as the lyrics match the video and the lighting also goes dark, which connotes mystery and curiosity. In addition to this, 

SYNERGY

Swarovski ring being advertised as box is shown in a close up at 4:48

NARRATIVE THEORIES APPLIED TO VIDEO

Claude-Levi Strauss’s theory of binary opposition is prominent in this video as we see a contrast between old and young people.

Todorov theory of