Creating an ideal pop star

We were given the task to create an ideal artist. This artist was to be the idol which we would like to look up to instead of one which the media sells to us.

Our artist was called "Billie Kaden." She was an ex-Olympic athlete who competed in the decathlon at the  2012 games. She encouraged people to play sport and tried to be a positive roll model. Her style of music was elecro-pop and was very politically active and often volunteered for charities. She styled herself in sporty clothing and had a hobby of playing the bongos. She was active on social media and had a pet dog.

This activity was beneficial as it showed us how to create an artist's persona, and a good way to present it. It showed us how to look at individual segments of an artists image to make a believable character

Music that Means something to me

Childhood
I was very much raised on magic FM. Which meant I heard the same 20 or so slow moving, ballads which Magic Fm. I think this is a typical representation of one of the many songs which I heard so many times in my childhood



Early Teens
By absolute chance I stumbled upon Metallica when I was about 13 and absolutely feel in love with Master of Puppets.

 

Now
While I moved away from classic metal I'm still into rock/metal. I went to my first gig (Papa Roach in July 2011) and from there I've moved into obsessing over many a band ranging from All Time Low to Yashin.

Music Video Research

here are some of my ideas for possible tracks we could use to make a music video for:

Music Video Remake Evaluation

We created a remake of Little mix's "Wings" video. We had a crew of people who are in the media industry for us to learn from as prepared for and filmed the remake, after this we split into groups and edited to look as close to the original video as possible. This is my response to some evaluative questions on the video remake activity.

Did you enjoy the workshop day? What were your best bits and why?
Yes. The workshop day was very fun, it was very interesting to see how the crew operated, and it was fun to see everybody working together to create something and watching how everybody collaborated on such a big scale. One of the parts which I particularly like was shadowing the person who was doing the lights it was quite fun to move around where the lights were pointing. The best bit for me was probably watching it all come together as we performed the final dance in front of the union jack. Being able to see that everybody was in time and that all the preparation for the dance had paid off was very uplifting.


What have you learnt from participating in each of the prelim tasks?
The first task which we did for the prelim was an analysis of a music video (which can be seen in full here). I analysed My Chemical Romance's "Welcome to the Black parade" video this taught me what typically appears in an effective music video.



We next we made a lip sync video was very useful. Despite initial nervousness at being in front of the camera, my group warmed up to the performance and made sure we just had fun. From this I learnt that the best way to get a good performance was to relax. Also the editing style we used,cutting between different layers all of which had been lined up with the song.

We were then told which part we would be playing and we assembled costumes for the different parts. This was a surprisingly intricate process and this showed me that every part of a performance has to be thought through to get an better overall effect

We also had to all learn the dance. This not only helped us prepare for the workshop day but also helped us gain confidence in front of the camera so that we will be more confident for next year's music video.

The workshop day was enjoyable and showed me how a professional shoot was run it was very interesting to see how professionals worked together. We learnt what each of the roles were on a shoot and how each worked together to make the shoot work. I also saw how quickly people became tired and how important it was to be organised so that everything still runs smoothly when everybody is tired

After the workshop day we had to edit the final video. This was laborious, however taught us the correct way to edit the video, using non linear editing to speed up the process

Are you pleased with the footage and your edit? Is it how you expected it to look?

The footage taken on the workshop day was all very good. The thing I particularly like about it was the colours. The use of such a professional camera really made the colours all look very vibrant, which I think made our edit look more professional. My favourite shot which was filmed was the shot of the 4 girls dancing in the grunge set up (shown left). I particularly liked this shot as the camera is positioned in a way relative to the lights such that as the girls move around in front of the lights a lens flair appears in time with their movements, which was stunning effect.

However on some set ups all shot distances were recorded. For example the individual girls shots for the grunge set ups were only filmed at 1 distance. this was inconvenient when editing as it made it harder to recreate the original video as well.

I'm quite pleased with the edit (which is shown bellow) we have as we had limited time to edit it and it looks quite good. However I think that the sharing of the workload in our group could have been better, especially as we had the smallest group to edit in. However we managed to edit the whole video, using up a lot of our free time in the process. We did not manage to achieve what I was expecting to achieve, which was a shot for shot match up with the original. There were a couple of shots which we did not have and so could not make it as authentic as being shot for shot.

How do you think your prelim experiences will impact on your approach to next term's music video coursework?
I think I will approach next term's music video thinking a lot more rationally after the prelim. I will make sure that any ideas we have are doable and play to our strengths. I think that getting a good performance will be a lot easier than I would have previously thought especially considering that we will be more likely to be enthused for the music we choose to make a video for. I also think that after the prelim I will approach the video with a lot more organisation that I have done with previous projects. I will make a schedule for all our shoots and make sure that it is stuck to, as this will lead to a much more time efficient way of shooting. I will also make sure to choose the group I work with carefully to avoid the stresses of editing with a disproportionate workload. Ultimately I will approach next years music video with a more open mind as to what song we pick, as the experience can be enjoyed either way.

Performance Music Video Analysis

The "Welcome to the Black Parade" video is a performance video at heart but at the same time tells a compelling narrative, with many levels of understanding. The video is based on the idea that when you die, death comes to take you in a form that you decide and upon doctors failing to save his life, the protagonist for this video, "The patient", has a visit from death in the form of his most treasured memory of seeing the black parade as a child with his father.

At it's heart this is definitely a performance video, as there is only one scene featuring a performance from the band, on a parade float. However there is a narrative within this of the Patient's journey into the afterlife is compelling as he find meets "Mother War" to reflect upon his life and then accompanied by her sidekicks, "Fear", and "Regret" joins the black parade. My Chemical Ramance play along with the music on a float, with a believable lip sync done by Gerard Way (the lead singer). However this lip sync is very much in the style of previous videos and performances as Gerard's over the top singing style is something that will seem familiar with fans of the band. The band also play throughout, however some shots of the band are in slow motion, and so not synced with the music and at some points the sync of the drums with the music is purposefully played around with to comedic effect, for example at points 2:30, where Matt glances at the camera, breaking the fourth wall and then plays is drum fill, this is repeated at 3:21, when Matt suddenly stops playing the drums, turns his head and gazes at the camera.

The performance is very entertaining, the mixture of the brilliant backdrop and Gerard Way's performance, audiences are kept engaged. The backdrop and blimp as well as the extras all contribute to a consistent, visually striking style. The band's uniforms are consistent with the uniforms on the album, and My Chemical Romance are well known for their costumes, so good costume design conforms to their audience's expectations. The ruined city backdrop is a adds to the gothic/dystopic style of the video. As well the costumes another key signifier of the artist's identity is Gerard Way's over the top singing and playing with the microphone stand. This can be seen in several other My Chemical Romance videos such as "Teenagers" and "I'm Not OK (I promise)".

The editing in this video is discontinuous with the camera jumping around the band and to the patient to continue the narrative. Several beauty shots appear in this video for example at 3:08 there is a shot of the band on the blimp, but they are not playing their instruments. Another example being towards the end of the song at 4:34, 4:38 and 4:42 there are shots of the band standing with the Patient with Fear and Regret on either side of him, which is used as the cover art for the single release of this song.

On of my favourite things about this video is it's polysemic nature. There are many different ways of interpreting the video, for example The Band playing in the video could be seen as "My Chemical Romance" however they could also be seen as "My Chemical Romance" playing the part of "The Black Parade" in the video. In a similar way without knowledge of the back story to the video there could be many different interpretations of "Mother War", the lady in the gas mask. Another layer of meaning which could be seen in this video would be the story of a part of the Gerard Way's life drawing to a close in favour of the start of a new one. This can be seen by the make up worn by the Patient, which is the same as the make up worn by Gerard Way during videos and photoshoots for their last album, "Three cheers for sweet revenge." Whatever the significance of the Patient joining the black parade, the progression of his storyline from death to joining the black parade is quite emotional, and provokes a strong response from many viewers.

In conclusion I think that the "Welcome to the Black Parade" is a highly effective, video as it offers a visually engaging performance with many layers to read into and things for fans to read into.

Reservoir Dogs video

We made a remake of the intro Quintine Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs"

Dexter Activity Evaluation

During our last lesson we created a series of tiles to go into the opening sequence for Dexter. Olivia and I made this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28LSXtw0AaA&feature=plcp

1. Summarise the conventions of title sequences that were most important to this task.

• We found it was important to to include as many different roles in producing the show as possible
• We used a font and font colour which fitted the themes of the show
• We used visual ques to time our titles

2. How did your group plan to edit the title sequence? (consider timings, industry requirements etc). 

• Olivia and I started with the last title, as we had come up with a good idea for this as we watched it (the title disappearing as he walked by)
• We then went to the beginning and started to inset titles we thought it was appropriate 
• We tried out different effects to see which looked best

3. Explain the creative decisions made by your group.

• We tried to make the effects fit the tone of the show
• For example we used the font "Cracked" which gives a spooky feel to the sequence, while being legible
• We used a red for the font colour mostly, only using which when the Red was too similar to the background to read

 4. How does your re-edit compare to the original?

• Our edit contains less information
• It has a similar animation on the shot with the sink
• Generally our titles have more animation 
• Their titles use a more formal font
• Their titles a consistently Red (in a lighter shade than our red font)