Rough Cut Music Video

This is our rought cut video. It only includes the starting portion of our video and we havent played with the colours, transisions or anything yet. We just wanted to see if people felt our narrative was going in the right direction, something that we were really concerned about because of the issues we had with changing the narrative slightly.

These are the responses that we got from people who watch our rough cut:

- Good
- Not much to critique. Looked really good. Can already see a story forming through the shots.
- Good misc en scene, especially during the miming, can see that lighting is considered as its darker during that scene. Next scene with the note is good explained to the audience. Helps tell the story.
- Editing, already added a few jump cuts during the scene, good effect.
- Actually looks like a music video!
- Steady camera work.
- Not sure about the part hitting the suitcase, not sure of the meaning.


Our response to the feedback we recieved:

We are really posistive that things have gone well in the sense that the video makes sense so far. Plus we are very pleased that they think the misc en scene works. The way they like our jump cuts is also a really good thing, the jump cuts are a slight experiment on our behalf because they are slightly outside the conventions of the pop rock genre although they are seen in some of Maroon 5s and Kelly Clarksons video.

When it comes to the hitting of the suitcase, we have decided to leave it in and try seeing if it works wit the entire "her going crazy with the bage idea" if not then we shall take it out and use something else - we are not worried yet about this scene as we totally understand that at the moment it is a bit too disjointed for the scene.

Decided Narrative Compared to Lyrics

This is our initial look at the lyrics in comparison to the narrative. We have therefore tried to work out how all the editing between narrative and performance would work. These are our initial ideas:

Further video research

We chose to look at more videos of the same pop/rock genre of the track we chose.We looked at more Kelly Clarkson videos because when we innitially heard the song we thought it was a Kelly Clarkson. The first video we looked at was 'My Life Would Suck Without You'



This video has a fragmented narrative switching between flashbacks and present time. It is also performanced base as there are many shots of her performing this song with a band when she sings the chorus. There are close/ mid shots where she is shown doing direct narrative. There is comedy such as when they throw each others belongings out the window.

How does it fit in with the conventions we have already established for the pop rock genre:

1. It does include main narration, flashback narration (which adds to the back story of the main narration), it does include a performance (which is one with lots of band members), yes there is a seperate performance with just the singer (although not show with plain background or in closeup form - her singing at window).

2. The majority of the lyrics are shown to be sung by the performer (although not during the actual narrative).

3. This video is slightly different in the sense that it uses only a few closeups the majority is shown in mid shot.

4. The edits are fast and lots of different shots being editied together very quickly with longer continous performance shots and shorter time spent on individual narrative shots.

5. Young people are used in the video, fitting in with Kelly Clarksons age of early twenties. All the people in the video are under thirty.

6. The edits are nearly always clear cut.

7. The narrative again focuses on the braking up of a couple although this video does show the couple staying together.

8. The imagery created by the lyrics does not truely transpire to the video.

9. The misc en scene is also quite dark.

Narrative Final Ideas

The fragmented narrative goes as follows (to be editted into sections through the editting process):

1. We see the present time where "the wife" walks into the club, "the husband" at the bar drinking heavily flirting with the barmaid. "the wife" goes on stage and starts singing song "times up", "husband" looks dumb struck and screws up photograph of "the husband" and "the wife" from happier time.

2. Then we go to flashback of happier time in the pub.

3. Then we go to slight past/present of the house where "the wife" goes to serve up a meal to her "husband" but he blanks her carries on drinking and makes her get out of the way of the television. "The wife" gets angry and packs a bag and leaves.

4. "The wife" leaves the house with bag. Getting angry in the street she kicks the bag aside and walks off down the street.

5. She then walks out across a field.

6. The lyrics end and "the wife" leaves the stage.

7. She walks away in field.

Location Ideas

1. A house - We needed a house where "the married couple" would be living.
                              - We decided to use Jodies house for the interior because it is a bungalow      where the kitchen, lounge and other rooms are in a great persision when it comes into filming. It is also easy for us all to access, local to other locations we are considering.
                              - We will then use Jades house for the exterior shots because it is also a bungalow so it will link together. As Jade's house is postioned on a road, it would made it easier and more realistic for the 'leaving' scene. Jodie's house is on a site so would be harder to film. We cant film the interior shots at Jades because it doesnt have such a good layout when it actually comes to filming- not as reliable.


2. A public house (club)- back hall- Luckily for us, we have connections in the group for using a pub as a possible location. The Old Windsor Club, a committee run membership club, is much like your average pub, with a bar and back hall used for parties and functions- part of which has a stage. This location gives us great opportunity for combining narrative & performance, which is something that occurs in many of the music videos we've looked into. We were allowed permission to film in this location with no problems, so this made a highly likely chance we use it in some way. As for the location linking to our narrative, we decided to base it around the pub- so the husband being an alcoholic and 'drowning his sorrows', as an escape from his wife. We would work on the details later on.

This is a photo of the front of the Old Windsor Club

Inside- The back hall.

The Stage- also with a white screen we could consider using.



Another view from outside



Inside- the back hall- bar



view of most of room.


3. Road/ fields - We want to capture the journey of a wife walking out on her husband- needing a location for 'walking away' shots. We have decided upon the road outside Jades house, as we briefly mentioned before, to link with having the house in the background.

                            - We also would like to try using a field for some shots. There is a good field, nearby to our school, which we feel would best suit the walking away scene. Using this location would almost emphasize the feeling of loneliness and the wide open space to symbolise her wide open choices for the future.

- We considered using the alleyway next to school- mainly as it was easy access for us all. But when testing it out, we found it was much to busy with the public and just its general look didn't fit our vision of the video. It has grafitti on parts of the walls that seems unavoidable and even when it is sunny weather- the trees block out the light and not exactly what we want while filming.

                                           The 3 images below are of the alleyway next to school.

  

Narrative Ideas

Knowing that we needed some kind of narrative to tie in with what appears in a pop rock video which is therefore a convention.

To decide upon a narrative we looked back at our research and tied it all in with what is expected from a video of a pop rock genre.

We quickly came to the assumption through looking at the lyrics that we knew it had to be somehow to do with a relationship. Because of the main lyrics being "Times up" the relationship braking up.

We then had to look at why they would brake up. So we decided that the boyfriend would be a lazy drunk who flirts with other women.

The narrative would thus be about a wife walking out on her husband after getting sick of him.

We will interlink this with a performance, the performer singing on their own, and flashback sequences.

Star Analysis

Katy Perry was born in Santa Barbara, California, U.S. October 25 1984. She was named Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson. She started her singing at her parents church between the ages of 9 and 17, singing gospel music. She was not allowed to listen to non-religious music and attended Christian schools and camps.
At her freshman year at high school, she decided she wanted to start her music career. She later enrolled at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, and studied Italian opera for a short time.
From singing in church, it had attracted the attention of rock veterans from Nashville, Tennessee. She was taught how to improve her writing skills, write songs and play guitar. She started recording demos and was signed by Christian music label Red Hill where she started recording her first album. Performing as Katy Hudson, she released a Gospel-rock album in 2001. This album was unsuccessful and dropped her at the end of 2001.
She changed her surname to 'Perry', her mothers maiden name, as Katy Hudson was close to actress Kate Hudson. And at the age of 17, she moved to Los Angeles, where she worked with Glen Ballard on an album for the record label Island. Ballard helped her to develop her songwriting even more over the next few years. This album was due to release in 2005, but was criticised for going nowhere and so she was dropped by the 'The Island Def Jam Music Group'. One of the songs 'Simple', however was released on the soundtrack for 'The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants' in 2005. In 2004 she was signed to Columbia Records, but the label didn't allow her control of her music. She was named by 'Blender magazine' as 'The Next Big Thing', but with no albums or projects ongoing, she began to record on her own. 80% had been completed but Columbia but had decided not to finish it and dropped her from the label. She then worked for an independent A&R company called Taxi Music.
Katy was then recommended to Virgin Records. In 2007, Katy was signed to the newly created Capitol Music Group. The label secured the masters of the unfinished album, recorded whilst at Columbia, that then became her debut album 'One of the Boys'. This album contained some of the hits, 'I Kissed a Girl' and 'Hot n Cold'. An image/ reputation was then created of her with the releasing of 'Ur So Gay', aimed at introducing her to the music market. 
With her name in the papers, gossip on the radio, and an online buzz, Katy Perry was gaining lots of attention, even from the likes of Madonna. People wanted to spread the word about this new music artist on the scene.
Since then, Katy has won many many awards for her hit songs, and as a talented artist. Some she won, and others nominated for. She guest starred on 'The X Factor' as a judge on the 7th series, alongside Simon Cowell, Cheryl Cole, and Louis Walsh. She temporarily filled in the spot of Dannii Minogue.
She has made number 1 releases, including 'Teenage Dream', 'E.T' and 'California Gurls'. As she has grown more and more famous worldwide, fans have been inspired not just by her music, but her dress sence too. Her fashion of brightly coloured garments and accessories, everyone wants to be like her.
She is currently happily married to comedian, Russell Brand, still in the music business. Releasing brilliant hits featuring other famous artists, she is doing incredibly well and has come along way, no doubt will she continue in the future.  

 

Schedule

Pop Rock Conventions

After looking and researching several videos of the rock pop genre it became quite clear what the conventions of pop rock happen to be:


1. All the videos are built up of several elements that almost nearly always are used:
        - Main narration   
        - Flashback narration
        - Performance whether shown through a fake performance as in Pinks video or in seperate performances that are almost random as in Maroon 5s video where they are in a room randomly.
        - A seperate performance where it is just using a closeup of just the main singers head where they are singing the song.


2. The main singer is shown to be singing for the majority of the video, with very few of the lyrics not being sung.


3. Lots of closeups are used to fit in with the idea that the singer is singing throughout most of the video.


4. Lots of shots are edited together and the edits are fast and almost keep to the beat of the song.


5. Young people are used in the video, either late teenage or in their twenties.


6. Transisions when it comes to editing are clear cut generally although the image is sometimes overlapping.


7. The narrative is generally about a break up of some kind between a man and a women.


8. Imagery in the lyrics is generally not exactally matching with nothing exactally literal. Though there is matches between the two.


9. The misc en scene is pretty dark in colour and tone when it comes to clothing, setting and image.

Lyric Annotation

This is our first annotation of the chosen song lyrics. We looked at the lyrics and thought about their meanings and certain aspects we could picture happening in the video. E.g. 'Love is a train we wait for it'- the obvious word being train, this we could picture a location of a train station, perhaps a senario between a couple- romance.

Pop/ Rock Stereotypes

In pop/rock the stereotypes of women tend to be, beautiful, sexy and confident. They are portrayed wearing on trend clothes that are associated with the style and these clothes can sometimes be revealing. Women are often made to act on 'male gaze'. Men are also portrayed to act on 'female gaze' as they are often shown to be strong, handsome and sexy and wearing clothes that are of the pop/rock style and look good on them.
But it depends on the type of character being used in the narrative such as if there was a lazy boyfriend, he is unlikely to look like a hot model. So we would have to take into account what kinds of characters we want to have and then base their look on the stereotype of that particular type. We will keep the characters to their stereotypes so the audience can recognise who they are.
We will try and incorporate the pop/rock stereotypes into our video to show that this is of the pop/ rock genre.



Example of female gaze

  

Example of male gaze

                                                            

Pop Rock Videos in General

Although the song is performed by Katy Perry, an artist known for her work as part of the pop genre, this particular song has much more of a pop/rock quality. Before knowing who the artist actually was we thought it was sung by Kelly Clarkson, who is well known for performing in the pop rock genre. We therefore looked at videos of the pop rock genre.

Pop rock as a genre is defined by the Oxford Press as an "upbeat variety of rock music". Artists that use this genre inlcude: Kelly Clarkson, Avril Lavigne, Pink, Maroon 5 and even in some instances James Blunt. We therefore looked at these artists work.


KELLY CLARKSON


NEVER AGAIN



Some key thoughts on the video:

- Narrative is interlinked with performance. Both of which are shown extremely seperatly with the colours of the performance part of the video shown with a thouroughly white, bright, contrived look. The narrative meanwhile is kept extremely dark, even the clothes are kept in black or mundane colours.

- There is a lot of different narrative stories going on throughout the video with lots of flashbacks which interlink with a seemingly present time when the main man is escaping. All of which is interlinked with shots of performannce.



- In the video Kelly Clarkson is shown to be singing throughout the entire time she is involved in the video. Lots of closeups are used in the video to fit in with this.

- Other instruments and muscians are shown in the video which is different to most just pop videos where it is simply the big singing artist that is shown. (Something that appears in Katy Perry videos).

- The people that appear during the video are all of early adult age (mid twenties). This fits in with the age of Kelly Clarkson, even though most of her fans are teenage girls.

- All men and women that appear in the video are good looking and fit in with the idea of the male gaze and female gaze theory.  

- The transisions between shots is clear cut.

- Starts with seemingly random shots of dripping water:

- Underwater/ low angled shots are used:

- These water shots at the beginning all add to the narrative idea of the man strangerling the woman. This is then all backed up by the images of Kelly Clarkson and co wearing white seemingly dead (white = angles).

- Their are no direct links between the lyrics and things actually happening in the narrative but it does flow in the sense that the shots jump from one to the other in time with the music (shown most obviously when it comes to the chorus).

- Comedic in the sense that their is irony with the dressing up like someone from the 1950s (perfect housewife), plus when the man is going crazy and you cant see the "dead woman".

- There our several locations used in the video:

AVRIL LAVIGNE

WISH YOU WERE HERE

- This video is quite different to that of Kelly Clarkson in the sense that it shows just Avril Lavigne without narrative. Instead it is basically a performance piece.

- The focus is very much on Avril Lavigne and not at all on any other musicians that helped her make the song which are shown in the video we looked at for Kelly Clarkson.

- Lavigne is also singing continulously throughout the song, their is of course no break for narrative shots.

- Some of the "dance" movements that Lavigne does are fitting with th the song. For example she says that "your everywhere" and ellaborates on this by basically swinging her arm round.

- After a while in the video the images of Lavigne are interlane:

 - The film almost build up from wide shots used almost introductericly showing the room and Avril Lavigne. Then mid shots are itroduced. Then closeups which focus on her singing:

- Strangely enough this video does also contain water but I feel that is more coincidence and want of a different texture when it comes to filming instead of a pop rock video convention.

- There is only one obvious location used throughout this video. 

- In only showing a female figure in the video it is focusing on the male gaze theory.

MAROON 5

WONT GO HOME WITHOUT YOU

- There is a main linear narrative with some flashback images aswell. I think the clever thing about this video is that the linear flashbacks are shown in black and white. The choice to do this is symbolic in the sense that it is practically a intertextual reference to films of the pre colour age, people therefore innitially see black and white and infer that it is from the past without any further explaination:

- The different shots are seemingly edited together extremely quickly. The longest chunks of shots meanwhile follow the lead singer, this includes when he is singing with his band and then when he is walking along the street. These quick edits fit with the beat of the music and this is something seen in both Kelly Clarksons video and Avril Lavignes video.

- The main narrative then follows the main character (the singer - Adam Levine) as he make his way through several streets and then he ends up in a resturant, then he gets chucked out of the resturant and then he comes back in.

- Several locations are again used but less than in Kelly Clarksons video and more than in Avril Lavignes video. Locations include:

- I looked specifically at the different shots involved in the video looking at what portions of the video are primary narrative, flashback, performance and single performance:

- Like in both the previous videos the singer is shown to be singing for the entire video.

- Water again appears in the video but again this is coincidence.

- Male and female gaze theory are again included in this video with the use of both good looking men and women .



PINK

SO WHAT!






We looked briefly at Pink and her work especially this video:

- It includes again almost random shots of pink singing to her "boyfriend" something reminiscennt of the videos by Kelly Clarkson where she does exactally the same thing.

- This video also includes shots of performance like the other videos.

- Pink uses a lot of comedy in this video which goes with the more pop- ie angle of work that she does.

- This whole video is full of  over exagerated imagery, several different events such as Pinks hair setting on fire being edited together.

- The edits are again clear and edited together so that they fit in with the beat of the music which is extremely fast.

Test Shots

We did some test shots of different angles, movements and shots that we could encorperate into our music video.

We could use High Angle shots to show how our main character has little power or to cause dramatic effect. As with Low Angle shots it will provide dramatic effect and will give the focus of the shot a sense of importance and power. Dutch Angles will give a surreal effect and make it mysterious. Although this doesn't suit our idea we could use it for dramatic effect.
Wide shots can be used to show all of the events occuring such as when our character walks down the road and can give a sense of space. Medium shots can be used to show more detail and focus on a certain person or object. Close-ups can be used for direct narrative and to show the facial expresions to emphasis the lyrics and singing. Extreme close-ups can emphasis a particular object such as a photograph or a particular area of the face such as the eye with a tear falling down their cheek.
Panning shots can give the audience a sense of involvement or distance depending on the distance between the subject and the camera. It can be used to follow the characters actions as they move across the shot. It can be used dramatically to create a good effect. Tilt shots can be used to cause dramatic effect.
Other shots that can be used are the Pedestal shot to create dramatic effect. Over the Shoulder shot to show a conversation/ argument between the characters. Point of View shots can be used to show what is happening through the characters eyes and can cause more involvement for the audience keeping them insterested. Cut in shot can be used to show a certain action such as if the character is picking something up. A follow shot can be used to give the audience involvement in the narrative or can be used as a Point of View shot to show that the boyfriend is following her.

Risk Assessment

What are the hazards?	Who might be harmed and why?	What action if necessary?	How will you put the assessment into action?
Smashing glass bottles. (in our preparation for setting up a pub scene)	Anyone involved in filming or anyone around at the time. You could cut yourself in the glass.	Be careful when handling them. Make sure you do not hold too many at once.	Make everyone aware of this hazard of breaking glass.
Heavy duty filming equipment, e.g. cameras, tripod.	Actors, film crew. The heavy equipment could fall on them and injure them.	Take care when handling equipment. Make sure you are holding it correctly.	Make sure whoever is handling the equipment knows this.
Filming by road- traffic.	Actors, film crew or anyone around at the time. Could get distracted and cause a road accident.	Check there is no traffic coming when crossing the road. Be street-wise.	It is general knowledge, but make sure people are aware of the roads.
Filming in woodland areas	Actors, film crew. The risks of falling branches or uneven ground.	Ensure the ground is safe and watch out for branches- especially in windy weather.	Check the location before starting to film
The health and safety of the people involved.	The general health of the people. E.g. someone could be an asthma sufferer and require medication.	Check that if any should require medication- then they bring it with them.	Tell anyone involved, before we start filming, to check they have what they need.
Transport & Travel	Anyone involved. They could get lost or left behind.	Ensure that everyone has a safe way of getting to where they need to go.	Organise lifts and other means of transport beforehand.

Feedback of our Initial Ideas Presentation

Feedback we received for our presentation:

• Make it clear that our track was of the pop genre.
• Discuss and think more about the audience and what would interest them.
• Add another video of the same genre and look at the style and conventions to further our research.
• Add more analysis of camera work, mis-en-scene etc of other videos of the same genre.
• It was a good idea to look at videos from the same artist.
• We used good still images from the videos to show what we were discussing.
• Looked clearly at the micro-areas and casting.

We learned from this feedback where we needed to improve and we added the work we needed based on the comments we received.