Analysis of S2-47 I consume you

This video has a lot of things going on in. There is a mixture of performance shots with shots of a party. They have also used green screen to make it much more exciting. They have made the cutts so that they happen at pacer and on the beat. Theyhave also decided to keep cutting from one set of footage to the other so that they look like they are linked. This hepls the theme keep going. They also start with him finding a post it note and then finish with him reacting to the note which helps tie the whole thing together.They have 3 types of shots in different locations and by using quick vutts its gives this montage effect. They also use different points of views and angles. When doing the green screne they have thought about a background that will match the rest of the oter footage and have not just used it for the sake of it. There is a mix of close ups and wide shots which works well with the quicke and short cutts.

Megan

P2-34 Funky Y2C

This video is effective as it includes a short narrative sequence at the beggining, leading the audience into the track, although this is continued a various points as the children seen at the beginning are shown watching a TV set with the performers on, it sort of dies out towards the end. A variety of angles are used to show the visuals from different perspectives and the performers change regurlarly to keep the audience entertained and interested in the music video. Different effects and motion are used succesfully to make originally static shots much more interesting, the effects used are only used for a short time to match the fast pace of the song. The performers especially the rapper featured in the video are believeable and the lip synching is good. The two boys dancing create a certain edge that fits with the genre of the song and makes the overal video seem much more convincing.

- Annie.

Analysis of last year's videos

P2-32, 'This Electric'



I like the variety of shots in this video, especially the use of close ups and the low shots. The fish-eye effect on the band shots works well, and creates an interesting visual effect. The split screen at the beginning of the video is effective, as it allows the audience to see all the members of the band at once. The lip-syncing is well executed, and the performance is very believable. I really like the ending of the video, where the shots run in reverse and the boy is shown waking up (like at the beginning of the clip). This gives the video a sort of cyclical, dreamlike quality.

- Umit






Group R1-12 -
2Gether - ‘U+Me=Us’

This music video demonstrates a lot of conventional characteristics of its boy band genre, which accord well with the music. However the humour placed behind the use of the conventions of the genre are clear and allow me to appreciate the cleverness of the music video.
The relationship between the lyrics and the words was physically demonstrated with hand actions, the actors’ facial expressions and also direct gazes into the camera, which is also a generic convention of the boy band genre and is illustrative of the meanings intended within the song. The visuals, which include some beautiful locations, silhouettes of the actors, or ‘band’, against a sunset,
grassy hills, blue skies and a stage, assist the genre characteristics by also illustrating the themes and meanings within the song.
The lip synching within the video was badly done, which is one thing which defies the characteristics of the boy band genre; however it is unclear whether this was done purposely or not.
There was a sufficient amount of close-ups, mid shots and long shots, and also a successful use of mise-en-scene with regards to positioning the band in the frame, to satisfy the viewer. A motif which was clear within the piece, and which is used in a lot of boy band music videos, is for the band to be wearing matching colours and similar clothes, which was a technique adopted in this music video. An example of this was when the band appeared on the stage location all wearing matching black suits with white shirts; this gives a sense of unison and assists the clear deliverance of the song by directing audience focus to the band.
Overall I felt that this music video was successful in its aims, despite the bad lip synching, and was enjoyable to watch.

- By Ruth Noakes

FEEDBACK FOR ANIMATIC

We showed the other groups our animatic in order to obtain feedback, and to improve our ideas:

* Good variety of shots
* The band shot will look interesting, with the montage
* It matches the sound and pace of the song well
* Like the band shots - very interesting & effective
* Repetition on clips works well, overall feel of video is good
* Slightly repetative towards the end, but good overall
* Montage works well, we like the idea of flashbacks
* Split screen is effective, very original idea
* We like the experimental techniques you will be using, very interesting
* Fisheye will work well, visually interesting.

Party shots plan

We are planning to do our party shots for our music video during our lesson on the 28th September in the white room. We have chosen the white room as it is an area in which we can have a lot of control as well as it is a small enough space so we can make the room look full and party like.

Here are some photos of the white room:






We will need to bring some items into college to create the scene and atmosphere they are listed below:
- Fairy light
- Strobe lights
- Disco lights
- Glow sticks
- Material (to cover window and anything we dont want to be seen)
- Brightly coloured clothing
- Extension lead
- Possibly UV light

Items that we need to borrow from the college are:
- Camera
- Fish eye lens
- Lighting
- White room

Contacting the band

We messaged 'Love Is All' using Myspace in order to tell them our ideas, and to gain permission to use their song:

From: umit?
Date: Sep 24, 2007 5:33 PM

Hello!

We are a group of 17 year old Media students from Cambridge, UK. At the moment, we are working on a project for our class, which involves filming our own music video. We have chosen to create our video to your song 'Make Out, Fall Out, Make Up', as we really enjoy it, and the themes and lyrics in the song give us a lot of potential to work with when shooting our video.

We hope this is OK with you, if you would like any further information about our ideas, you can look at our planning work which is posted here: http://39musicvideo07.blogspot.com/
or feel free to contact us!

We intend to finish the video by mid-October, and we'd love to show you once we're done, to see what you think.

Hopefully we'll speak to you soon!

Umit, Annie, Megan & Ruth.

x


We received these replies from the band:

From: Love Is All
Date: Sep 24, 2007 6:21 PM

hello there,
this sounds like fun. and very flattering that you chose our song. we are definitely interested in seeing the end result. please send us a link once you're done. we could put it up on our web page.

thanks a lot for writing.
hope you have fun working on it.
josephine/love is all

------

hey,

that sounds cool. please let us see the video once it is finished!

good luck! /markus


We intend to show the band our completed video and to obtain their feedback and suggestion once we reach the Rough Cut stage.

ANIMATIC

feedback please!

PARTY SHOT

We are planning to use the white room in the media block. We are going to black out all the windows then have fairy lights, strobe lights, and other froms of dull lighting to create a moody and trippy feel.

We also want to use a lamp or torch of some kind that we can then shine on people's faces, to give the idea of observing on what is going on. We are also going to use the fish eye lens attatchment, like in the clip from 'Skins' from the previous post.

We are planning to get loads of people from college to come in the room and dance, to we get the real sense of a party.

TEACHER FEEDBACK

Your blog is jam packed full of great research which gives me a really strong impression of the overall mise en scene of your video.
Your pitch is clear, concise and very detailed.
Great work so far, keep it up.

ACTORS

People participating in our video:

Band:
Megan Hill - Vocals
Annie Mallins - Drums
Umit Koseoglu - Keys
? - Guitar

Narrative:
Ruth Noakes - Girl (main character)
Group of people - Party scene

MORE INSPIRATION FOR PARTY SCENES

The Used - 'Pretty Handsome Awkward'

The video below shows how a variety of experimental techniques can work together to create a very surreal atmosphere, much like the one we are trying to create in our own video. We like the use of focus and overlaying footage, which is used to create confusion and frustration. I think that it has a great energy and “trippy”, spaced-out feel to it. It uses experimental techniques like motion blur, slowing down and speeding up footage, as well as overlaying and mirror-imaging some of the footage. Like the music, the video is exciting and always has something happening in it. Again, the pace of the video matches the music.

IDEAS FOR LOCATIONS

These are some ideas for locations where we can shoot our music video. We will shoot part of the video during the day, for the shots of the girl walking through the street, and part of it at night, for the party of the "night before".

Busy streets in Cambridge, for scenes of girl walking, looking confused:

Backs of Colleges, fields, for alternative shots of girl walking:

The Band - Love is All

They are from Gothenburg, Sweden.
Their genre of music can be classed as indie, experimental, pop, punk.

The Band Members:
Nicholaus Sparding - guitar +vocals, - saxophone, Markus Görsch - drums, Johan Lindwall - bass guitar, Josephine Olausson - vocals + keyboard.

The band themselves do not have a style that we feel matches their sound. We have decided that when we film the band performance we will wear much more flamboyant and outrageous clothing.

INSPIRATION FROM OTHER VIDEOS

'Bloody Murderer' - Cursive

This video is played backwards, which shows the murder of the victim in retrospect, beginning with her motionless body in the lake, and showing the events which led to her death. We like this idea of playing footage backwards, as it creates very intersting visual effects which are much more effective than just straightforward narrative. The shot of the dead girl in the river at the end of the clip helps bring the audience back to the story, in order to stop the video from becoming confusing, and makes the video more cyclical...



-

'Bad Education' - Tilly and the Wall

We like the way this video portrays the protagonist walking through the setting. Lots of fast cuts are used between various settings, which creates the surreal, dreamlike effect that we are trying to achieve. The performance footage is also effective, as it keeps the audience's attention and is not too repetative. We will experiment using editing in this way to make our video dream-like and interesting...

Performance/ Narrative Shots

The video below is a Coldplay video "The Scientist".
We really like the idea of the whole video being shot backwards. It has that sort of jolty and awkward feel to it and makes you feel uneasy. The video also mixes this idea with slow motion to make the effect even more obvious.
For this video the lead singer, Chris Martin, had to learn how to sing the song backwards so that when it was played backwards it would look like he was singing normally.

Montage images.

These short art films i found on Bebo have inspired us for the montage part of our own music video. They are extremely bizare and we would like to attempt to create a similar effect in our video when the character is reminicsing about events from "the night before".

The video clips use lots of fast cuts and different editing techniques that are interesting, they use many of the ideas that we have thought of ourselves such as fast motion, slow motion and backwards motion.

http://bebo.com/FlashBox.jsp?FlashBoxId=4482000472

http://bebo.com/FlashBox.jsp?FlashBoxId=4435824911

Party Shots

The video below is a clip from the channel 4 series "Skins"
We like the scene which happens at 4.37 in which there is a sequence that is filmed through a fish eye lens and shows how he is really drunk and stoned etc. It deffinatly has a trippy feel to it and this is something that we want to recreate. This inspiration is for the party scenes in our music video.



The video below is a clip from the film "Garden state" Directed by Zach Braff
The scene is of a drugs party and again has the trippy feel we want to create. They have sped up and slowed down the footage and random pockets to help the ths spaced out feel. They also use the idea of keeping the main actor in the scene in real time and sped everyone around him in the background, which is something we want to create as well.



I have also found this very short clip of a spin shot in which the camera moves around the person who is stationary. We want to use when she is breaking down in the middle of the street. so show her dispair and how confused she is.

*FINAL PITCH*

‘Make out, Fall out, Make up’ – Love is all

This track adheres to the band’s prominent theme of confusion by incorporating a deliberately experimental use of instruments, which is becoming more and more popular within the music industry, and assists widening the awareness of the ‘experimental’ genre of music. Some more of Love is all’s characteristic components, with regards to their individual style, is that they create pictures of confusion and misunderstanding, because they claim to be inspired by such; they use quite a fast pace, an experimental use of instruments, a convergence of the pop, punk, indie and experimental genres of music and a purposely portrayed sense of disarray.

The video will portray the theme of confusion, but in such a way that it is understandable to the audience because the audio will be accompanied by the visual aid of the video footage. To save the video from being cliché, it will involve an abstract use of shots and editing techniques, such as: fast pace, perspective shots, layering of footage, montage, flashbacks, cross cutting (from the live performance to the narrative), and split screen (as a physical representation of a break-up). The camera and editing techniques will effectively act as metaphors to portray the song’s meanings.

Imagine a girl walking in distress down the street, a variety of close-ups portraying her distress and confusion, having obviously broken up with her boyfriend. The song speaks of “the night before”, and through the lyric’s repeating of such we shall use this as an opportunity for flash backs to “the night before”, and then return to her retrospect of the events as she half walks and half stumbles down the street. Meanwhile we shall juxtapose the surreal nightmarish situation in which the girl finds herself to the live performance through the use of cross-cutting and split screen.

The use of fast editing will come into effect when the music speeds up, and during this crescendo a series of flashbacks will flicker on the screen (memories of the previous night, images of her and her boyfriend when they were together) flashing by so fast that the audience just about catches them and longs for more insight. The effect of the series of flashbacks will be to symbolise and ending to her relationship, just like one’s life is said to flash before their eyes before death, and also will reflect the atmosphere of confusion built throughout the video; which conveys to the audience her personal perspective of the world at the present.

Due to present and past being prominent themes within the piece, fast and slow motion shall be used to represent such. For example; there shall be a flashback to a party she was at the night before where the break-up occurred, she shall be sitting still and centred in the frame, whilst behind her and around her the party guests dance and drink in fast motion.

The cinematography shall be striking; the themes of love, confusion and misunderstanding shall be conveyed by using a vast amount of camera angles and movements, including:

Slow motion.
Fast motion.
Split screen.
Varying focus.
Layering footage.
Contrasting black and white with colour.

- Experimental/avant-garde shots.
- Cross cuts between performance and narrative.
- Fast editing/Quick cuts to match pace of music.
- Lip synching
- Mechanical looking (performance)
- Based on the night before.
- Smooth flow of narrative.
- Stop animation but using the actual actors, symbolistic representation of the way the girl's emotions control her, captured in a non-literal metaphorical sense. E.g. split screen representing the split.
- Indie music- therefore abstract and experimental techniques.
-Aim- to make the audience feel how she feels, the prominent theme of confusion always present E.g. the use of flashbaks and montage feel will assist the creation of a confusing atmosphere.

The style of the video will be contemporary and visually striking to correspond with the music itself, and also to communicate to the audience the surreal and confusing feel of disarray that making out, falling out and making up hold.

PRELIMENARY PITCH

Genre:
- Indie/Experimental/Electro

Target Audience:
- 14-25

The lyrics mention events from "the night before" and effects on the character in the morning.
We have decided to link this theme into our music video without physically acting out the lyrics. We are going to use metaphors and over exagerate shots to create a surreal, disjointed atmosphere. We will use experimental shots such as speeding footage up and down and playing footage backwards to show the effects from the night before, thus showing the world as she sees it (the events in retrospect) And her feelings and emotions to these events. We are also going to incorperate band performance using cross cutting and split screen. We will juxtapose reality (the performance) with the surreal nightmare of the character.

The fixed location of the performance will help keep the audience grounded in the midst of abstract and experimental themes and shots. For the performance we are planning to make it more realistic than the other shots but we don't want it to become boring in a studio for example. Location options: Barn, field, rooftops, park, bridge, by a lake (water of some description).
Locations for narrative: Busy street, city, party,

LYRICS

'Records and clothes on the floor
remind me of the night before
a pounding pain in my head
I think I'll spend all day in bed

A thousand cigarettes went nuts
The stranger's hand in mine went white
Smudged lipstick, feeling sick
make out, fall out, make up

Make out, fall out, make up, fall out

Dancing in the living room
with light supplied by the moon
Things I've said but shouldn't
Tricks I've tried but couldn't

Sorry if the music's too loud
Now the air is thicker than the cloud
Did I really call you
I was looking for someone I knew

Make out, fall out, make up, fall out
fall out (fades) Make up fall out!'