29th Dec - First Shooting, Disaster

Today was the first time we went out to get footage for our music video. We got everybody together at the church by the prearranged time and had all of our instruments in cars outside waiting to be brought into the church. However, the vicar who was supposed to have let us in didn't show up. After waiting for an hour outside whilst trying to contact him we lost hope of him coming.

This unforeseeable event has set us back in terms of timings and we will have to act fast in order to get the footage we need in time.

Storyboarding part 2

This is our finished storyboard. The video represents our plan for what the music video should look like overall and we have included a number of shots that we think would look good when it comes to filming. Throughout this storyboard we have included narrative elements, at the moment we don't know for sure whether or not we are going to use these or if we are going to go full narrative for the final piece. We ended the video with the singer blowing out a candle as it seemed to create a fitting conclusion to the song and the setting.

No Alfies were harmed in the making of this video

St Michael's and all Angels Church

We visited St Michael's and all Angels church yesterday and got permission to use any part of it for our video. In this post I will put many photos that we took and define how we would use the space if we choose to use this location.

We originally were going to use the main altar area for the setting of the video but when we got there we saw that the are was almost filled with bolted down pews for the choir. This meant that it would be very difficult to fit in the whole band in a way that looks good.

After that, we found another possible filming location. This room also has a stained-glass window in the background and is a much more open area (when the chairs are taken out). There is also another stained-glass window on the right side of the room that will look good in side shots. Another thing about this room is that just outside, there is a drum set and a keyboard that the church has also allowed us to use.

Storyboarding Part 1

Before we go and shoot out video we think that producing a video storyboard of what we want to happen in the video would help to outline what types of shots we need and hopefully forewarn us of shots that are out of our reach to obtain. Another objective of the storyboarding process is to get more familiar the application Final Cut Express in preparation for the final piece video editing.

To make a storyboard, we first drew pictures of lots different shots as we heard them in the song (right). Once we thought we had enough, we uploaded the images onto the computer and opened Final Cut. Jamie and Alfie mainly worked on the storyboard as they needed the experience of working with the program more than I although we did have to keep going back to produce more drawings for shots that we hadn't thought of originally.

This post will be used as an easy-to-use guide including links to all of my blog posts. I will list all of my posts along with other posts that compliment or flow together.

The first post of my blog contained the Project Brief. It outlines how I narrowed down the many possible briefs to three of the most likely candidates and how the music video brief seemed to be the most appropriate of the three.

After determining what brief I would be working to I begun to make some initial research into the area of music videos. I begun by conducting research into the Role of Music Videos over time, the History of Music Channels and also Trends in Album Sales to get an overview of the music video situation.

I then began to branch out and develop further into the project itself. I made an In-depth Analysis' on Eminem's Stan to get a good insight into some of the conventions of music videos.

At this point it was time to begin searching for a song for our own music video. We got into a group (I work with Alfie Fraser and Jamie Hodgskin) and begun to Search for Song Candidates.

After Choosing Our Song (lyrics and video can be found here) I did some more research on Editing and Conventions of Music Videos and another video analysis on the alternative rock song 'Bittersweet Symphony' by The Verve so that I had a broader understanding of music videos before going into planning stages.

In order to use our song legally we Sent a Letter to the Copyright Holder. As of yet we haven't had a reply so we are taking that as a 'yes'.

The song that we chose is 'Secrets' by One Republic. In order to begin to plan our music video appropriately it was necessary to do some Research into the Audience of the Song.

After that, we began to plan our music video. We used a website called bubbl.us to create a Brainstorm of Ideas. We also made a mood board to further look into ideas.

We looked at Locations and Settings for the video to take place at and decided that a good setting for our video would be a church. At this stage we begun to Look for Churches that both look the part, and are accessible. The first church to contact us was St Micheal's and all Angels church so we looked around and decided it would make a good setting to film.

Soon we began to start story-boarding so I had a look at ways that some of the Diverse Instruments used in 'Secrets' are shot in music videos. I also made one last video analysis of . At this point I begun to Learn the Basics of Final Cut Pro, however, the group decided that as I would be in charge of much of the ancillary task work someone else should take charge of the final cut work. I taught Jamie what I'd learned and he went on with Alfie to Complete the Story Board.

It was now time to get some filming done. We gathered all of our band members and set a date with the church and went along with all of our equipment on Friday 29th of December to film. Unfortunately on this occasion the person who was supposed to let us into the church never arrived so we couldn't get any footage. This set us back in terms of timings and we were then told that the church was going under construction for the next six months. Luckily, we had arrangements with another church as a back-up so we organised a meet as soon as was possible. This time was a success and we ended with a lot of footage to make a rough cut with.

With the footage at hand we begun work on the rough cut. This was mostly left to Jamie to edit the video together with mine and Alfie's occasional input. At this time I began to work on the digipack photoshop work. I did a research post into logos and styles of bands for their digipaks and then brainstormed some ideas about themes that could be included in the digipak. I came up with a first idea for the digipak cover featuring doves that tie in to the theme of secrets and confessions. The rough cut was finished and we soon got round to collecting feedback on it.

I continued to make different drafts for digipak covers and I experimented with some interesting ideas. At this time we had another shooting session and got the rest of the footage that we needed to finish the final cut. Shortly after finishing the final cut for our main task the final digipak design was finished. I logged the detailed construction notes for the first 2 panels, the 3rd panel and the 4th panel separately. The final digipak can be found here.

Next was the magazine advert. First I did some research and planning into it. The plans that we made were well recieved by those we showed it to and the construction of the adverts kept close to them. The finished adverts were done around the time that we had a feedback session for our final cut.

Lastly to finish for the project were the evaluation questions:
Question 1
Question 2
Question 3
Question 4

Learning Final Cut

We first planned that I would be involved with the editing of the music video. To this end I began to learn how to use Final Cut Pro. I used a combination of video tutorials and a book called 'Final Cut Express, Video Editing for the Digital Enthusiast' to learn some basic video editing techniques that would be necessary for the completion of the storyboard and eventually, the video itself. I learned how to:

• Insert video clips and audio onto the timeline and move them around
• Insert and manipulate text onto the video
• Insert and manipulate video transitions
• Render the clips

After a while, however, we decided that as I would be in charge of much of the ancillary task work someone else could be working on the editing since we'll be doing both tasks at the same time. I have taught my team mate, Jamie everything that I've learned so that he can take over as chief editor.

Location Progress

We have received an e-mail back from one of the churches we contacted and a spoken reply from another. Both of these are good potential locations that we are looking into in more detail now. The churches are called 'St. Micheal's and all Angels' and 'Stone St. Mary's church'. We are looking around St. Micheal's next Tuesday afternoon and St. Mary's on the following Sunday, after that we will decide if we want to use one (or both) of them and continue to set up filming dates. Below is the first e-mail we received from them and our response.

 

Diverse Instruments

Because of the diverse instruments used in the song, it is important to make sure that we know how to shoot them in a professional way. As there are not too many rock bands that make such use of cellos and violins, much of this research will be from studying One Republic themselves.

The following images are taken from the official video of 'Secrets'. These show good ways of portraying a cello in shot solo and with the rest of the band.

Another band that uses a cello is 'Murder by Death'. These are some shots from one of their videos.

 

For the violin I went back to 'Secrets' and found more screenshots. The violin was much less focused on than the cello in the video and the cuts were shorter.

Location and Setting

Our group has decided that to work best with the style of the song, filming in a church would make for a fitting and unique setting. The song is slower than traditional rock songs and the cello and violin create a smoother sound than guitars that lends itself well to a church setting.

Also, lyrics such as 'Need something that I can confess', 'I'm gonna give all my secrets away' and 'Something to get off my chest' all lend themselves well to a church setting. These lyrics show how the song is about the singer confessing his secretsOur group is thinking of including the confession box from the church in the video to create a greater relationship between the visuals and the lyrics.

These photos are taken of a local church that is a possible candidate for a filming location. We have created an e-mail to send to various churches asking for permission to film which we will send when it is proof-read. I will post a screen-shot of that e-mail when we send it and any replies we get.

We also needed to make sure that the churches we asked would have the correct look for our video (ie We do not want to film in a modern church that doesn't have a holy or grand look about it. Churches made of stone and with stain-glass window(s) are what we are looking for.

There is however a problem with lighting in churches that will need to be adressed since churches are so dimmly lit.

Music Video Brainstorm

This is a brainstorm created using bubbl.us. It includes our initial ideas that we drew from the song presented as a spider diagram for simplicity and ease.

Music Video Analysis - Bittersweet Symphony, The Verve

I have chosen to analyse Bittersweet Symphony by the Verve as my second video analysis because I wanted to analyse a song from the same genre as my chosen song. Both Bittersweet Symphony and Secrets are in the alternative rock genre and both make use of a cello to create unique and interesting sounds.

Bittersweet Symphony is the 1st single on The Verve's third album, Urban Hymns and it reached number 2 on the UK Singles chart. The song is 4.33 minutes long and is of the alternative rock genre similarly to One Republic. The song also in a similar way makes use of violins to give it a unique sound. These qualities will make it a good analysis to conduct for research regarding my chosen song. The video is in a pseudo-performance style as the lead singer is shown singing as he walks along a street but the rest of the band is not shown.

The video begins with a camera panning to follow the lead singer (Richard Ashcroft) as he walks onto a busy street. The unique sound of the violins fade in on the 3rd second eventually drowning out the ambient street sounds that could be heard before. This highlights how the character is thinking and how he becomes almost oblivious to the world around him as the song continues. He stops and turns to face the camera as it pans up to show his face. The camera moves slowly backwards as he pauses and looks towards it as if deep in thought.

Eventually, Ashcroft begins to move forwards, following the camera. The rest of the song continues as he walks along the street throughout which, he is shown to be completely uncaring and almost oblivious to his surroundings. Almost immediately as he crosses a road where he doesn't look, he is almost run over but he shows no reaction. He continues to walk down the street and doesn't move from his path regardless of who or what is in his way. The lyrics were clearly used directly when the video was being created, the third line of the first verse is ''I'll take you down the only road I've ever been down''. This is represented by the road he walks down and along with ''it's a bittersweet symphony, this life'' clearly set the theme for the whole video in the eyes of the director and the video reflects that in the singer's nature and actions.

Secrets - Video and Lyrics

Video



Lyrics:

I need another story Something to get off my chest My life gets kind of boring Need something that i can confess Till all my sleeves are stained red From all the truth that I've said Come by it honestly I swear Thought you saw me wink, no, I've been on the brink, so [CHORUS] Tell me what you want to hear Something that were like those years I'm sick of all the insincere So I'm gonna give all my secrets away This time Don't need another perfect lie Don't care if critics ever jump in line I'm Gonna give all my secrets away My God, amazing how we got this far It's like were chasing all those stars Who's driving shiny big black cars And everyday I see the news All the problems we could solve And when a situation rises Just write it into an album Singing straight to cold? I don't really like my flow, no, so [CHORUS] Got no reason Got no shame Got no family I can blame Just don't let me disappear I'ma tell you everything [CHORUS x2] All my secrets away (x2)

Our group is creating a mood board around these lyrics to brainstorm ideas which will be photographed and uploaded.

Audience Research

In order to create an effective music video that connects and draws in my target audience I have to research into who my audience would be.

My audience will mainly be the people who watch the music video on music TV channels so I looked into what music channels may show 'Secrets' on them. After some research I found that MTV Two plays alternative rock music like One Republic. On their website they say:

"The music channel with attitude for indie, rock and alternative music enthusiasts An interactive music channel playing diverse and cutting edge music. MTV Two is where the viewer defines the music programming - create your own hour of videos via the web. With a leftfield take on the world, it really is a channel created by and for individuals.

Target audience: 16-24 male"

Another channel that shows alternative rock, Kerrang! put their target audience at 15-35 male. These two channels are fairly consistent with each other and show an audience that I should be targeting mainly when creating my own video and when conducting research and getting audience feedback.

To appeal to this audience the musicians in my video will have to look 'cool' so that the viewers can look up to and want to be them. They must also have qualities to them that is preferred by this audience such as being relatively young (20s-30s) and dress in an appropriate way.

For example, bands like One Republic and Coldplay often involve the members dressed in a smart-casual way with fashionable clothing.

Music Video Research - Editing and Conventions

Editing and camerawork are two of the most important aspects when creating a music video. To create a good music video, the editing must follow the pace of the song and make sure that key points in the song are highlighted by the video, all whilst keeping the video looking professional and clean.

A help website called about.com has outlined some of the key difficulties people have when filming a music video. These include such editing techniques as excessive zoom and excessive special effects. Although both of these can be used well, in many videos these will look amateurish and unfitting. Other points outlined in the article include the use of adding post-production sound effects and that a well-done simple idea can be better than a bad complex one. A quote from the article's author defines editing well:

"Your footage might be great, but it'll only become a great video through editing. To do a good job you'll need patience, time and more patience. You'll need to decide the 'feel' and pace of the video. Will it be made up of long sweeping shots, or quick sharp edits? Do you want to follow the mood of the song and edit to the music or do you want the video to contrast with the track?"

Many music videos include an introduction, a scene that occurs

before the song begins to play (or during a song intro). These intros can last from anything between 5 seconds and 2 minutes. Although this is usually done in narrative style videos to set the scene, it has also been done in performance style videos too such as in 'crushcrushcrush' by Paramore. Other songs where that have an intro include; Stop and Stare by One Republic, Maneater by Nelly Furtado and Stan by Eminem.

A main aspect of developing a music video is to make it clear who is privileged in each shot. For example when the listener can hear a guitar during a solo the guitarist should be privileged in the shot or even the only person in the shot. Close ups of the instruments are common for these types of shots as they can show the skill and manual dexterity of the musicians which fans like to see. Most of the time, however, the lead singer is privileged in shots. This is to emphasize the lyrics and to show the singer meaningfully singing the words as well

as to create and uphold their own iconography as mentioned in Andrew Goodwin's 'Dancing in the Distraction Factory'.

Also in Andrew Goodwin's book, he talks about the relationship between the music, lyrics and visuals that make up a music video. He explains that "There is a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, with the visuals either illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the lyrics". This occurs in every single music video. An example of the visuals illustrating the lyrics is in a song called 'Toxic' by Britney Spears. It shows Britney dropping poison into a man's mouth as the words ''with a taste of poison paradise'' are heard in the lyrics. Another example is a Coldplay video for 'The Scientist'. It shows the lead singer walking in reverse which corresponds to the lyrics, ''lets go back to the start''. An example of the visuals contradicting the lyrics is in the song 'Good Riddance' by Greenday. The lyrics are sarcastic and although the singer says ''I hope you have the time of your life'', he doesn't mean it which is shown in the video.

The book explains how the continuous release of videos from an artist throughout their career can tell a story of the artist and how they developed, this was defined as a meta-narrative. It is important that artists maintain this meta-narrative or 'star persona' in order to keep their fans happy with consistent material. If a band/musician makes a big change in the music that they create, it can potentially cause them to lose fans (although also has the potential to gain fans).

Copyright Permission

The copyright holder for 'Secrets' turned out to be the band's lead singer and writer, Ryan Tedder. This is the letter we sent to him asking for permission to use the song, 'Secrets' for our project.

Chosen Song - Secrets, One Republic

The final choice of song that we made was 'Secrets' by the alternative rock band, One Republic. Before we can completely confirm this as a song choice, we are sending a letter to the writer/producer of the song asking for permission to use it which I will put in the next post.

Reasons for choice

Secrets - One Republic has a number of qualities that our group wanted in a song and presented good opportunities to create an exciting video.

• It lends itself well to a performance style video as the instruments are prominent and can be fittingly brought in throughout a video. This means that at different points in the song where certain instruments are privileged they can be shown in a video for a powerful effect.
• It has a unique sound with the use of different instruments like the cello and violin. This will not only make our music video stand out (with focuses on diverse instruments) but also help to create a 'feel' for the band. There is also an absence of guitars which also contributes to this.
• The song is not too fast. This allows us to set a calm scene with greater focus on each individual sound. It also allows us to have more flexibility with our locations in regards to filming. This is because fast songs tend to feel as though the video should involve a live concert.

Album Sales Trends

Over recent years, trends in music sales have begun to make a change toward a more digital market. In 2009 the BBC wrote an article about the fall in album sales giving way to a rise in digital sales. Overall album sales had decreased by 3.5% over the year despite downloaded album sales increasing massively by 56.1% consisting of 1 eighth of the total sold. This has become a growing trend and 2011 became the sixth year in a row where album sales have dropped. Despite this trend, singles sales are still increasing. In 2009 152 million singles were sold (up by 32.7% from the previous year) with 98% of those being digital downloads.

One of the most insteresting things in regards to albums is that none of the top 50 highest grossing albums were released after 2000. Michael Jackson's Thriller tops the list with 110 million estimated copies sold worldwide - over doubling the next highest; Back in Black by AC/DC at 49 million.

Music Video - Song Candidates

Before choosing song candidates to create our music video to, we first made up some guidelines on the style and type of songs that we wanted. To do this a number of things had to be decided:

• Performance or narrative based
• Genres
• Artists
• Song choices

At first our group had wanted to create a narrative-based video. However, after looking into different existing narrative and performance based videos we decided that it would be a better idea to make a performance video. Reasons for this include:

1. Performers were easier to obtain than good actors
2. Most songs lend themselves more to performance based videos
3. Easier to avoid cliche and bad end products
4. Less locations would be necessary to obtain

Once we chose this we moved on to music genres. The consensus in our group was that we should choose a genre from which a performance video would lend itself most to. Most rock style music videos that exist at the moment are semi or solely performance based, clearly showing in each video the band's energy and drive with their music. This genre clearly was a good choice to look into further, and as we did so we started to look at different sub-genres. Alternative rock was an area that sparked our interest as it still lent itself very well to performance style videos, but also had varied sounds and instruments within that weren't typical of normal rock music. We considered this as a good thing because we'd be able to create a unique video that stood out among others. This also, however, will create challenges later on when finding musicians that can play these instruments, but I will talk about these in a later post.

We looked at several artists within the alternative rock genre (and the rock genre for good measure) including Red Hot Chile Peppers, Gorillaz, One Republic, Arctic Monkeys, Bon Jovi, The Verve, Nirvana and the Oasis. Three songs stood out in particular for us from these artists:

1. The Verve - Bittersweet Symphony
2. One Republic - Secrets
3. Bon Jovi - It's My Life

All three of these songs fit a performance style video and have their own unique sound using various techniques and instruments that would make for an interesting video.

In-depth Music Video Analysis - Stan, Eminem

The music video for 'Stan' by Eminem is narrative based (as opposed to performance based) and tells a story of a crazed fan who eventually murders his girlfriend and commits suicide. There is controversy as to whether or not the story is based off of a real event or not but it defiantly has relevance in the fact that some famous people have to deal with crazed fans like the character of Stan. The song was set to become the 2000 Christmas number 1 hit but was overtaken by Bob the Builder's 'Can We Fix It?'.

The music video for Stan has a large intro that lasts about 1 and a half minutes. The video begins with a shot outside a window in the rain and zooms in until Dido (Stan's girlfriend in the story) can be seen on a bed, pregnant. Rain outside the window acts as pathetic fallacy to set a dark, ominous mood. lightning strikes light up Dido while she sleeps adding even further to the depth of the problems ahead. More lightning strikes are used to hide the next short dissolves and repositioning of the camera. Firstly, a bird's eye view, then a side-on medium close up of her face, her expression lit up by the lightning is sorrowful and melancholic.

The next scene is of Stan in the bathroom. Instantly the viewer is taken aback as Stan looks very similar to Eminem but is not actually him. Stan has just cut his hair like Eminem's and is admiring it as his girlfriend tries to enter the room. A bird's eye view shot shows Stan getting annoyed with his girlfriend as she demands to come in. Stan is quickly shown to be angry and fanatical.

The song begins with Dido's chorus and the line 'My tea's gone cold and I'm wondering why I got out of bed at all'. Already, the tone and lyrics reveals much about the character which is accented in the video with all of the cool colours in the mise en scene. It suggests that she is uncomfortable with her life and wants change. The next line, 'The morning rain clouds up my window, and I can't see at all' however, reveals that her future is unforeseen and dark. The chorus continues and repeats as the video shows Stan going down to his basement and preparing to write a letter. His basement reveals just how fanatical he is. Posters and newspaper cutouts of eminem cover the walls and his desk with nothing else in the room aside from a TV showing eminem videos (most likely on loop or had been shown many times since Stan waved at it as Eminem waved at the camera).

When Eminem's verse begin, Stan is shown to be writing a letter to eminem (The verse even begins with 'Dear Slim'). This is the scene for most of the verses of the song. The use of panning and tracking shots outline Stan's emotions as he writes, building up tension with each new verse. There are 3 long verses (letters) throughout the song that show Stan become progressively more angry at Eminem and a final verse which is Eminem's reply. Stan's anger builds up to the extent that the last verse involves Stan about to commit suicide and murder of his girlfriend. The pace of the music drives the pace of the editing and as Stan gets more angry the camera begins to move quicker and with shorter cuts. This adds to the tension already created in the story and creates a dynamic and emotional video.

Stan's build-up of anger seems to stem from the absence of a response from Eminem to his letters. After the first letter (in the song) during the chorus a scene is shown of Stan's letter falling off the fan mail trolley which would have lead to the anger shown in the second letter (verse).

The second verse begins again with 'Dear slim' but Stan's attitude is much worse. He is shot in a medium close-up view but in a low-angle shot that amplifies his frustration and growing tension. Stan's words reveal an even greater degree of fanaticism during this verse when he writes 'PS: We should be together too'. He even is shown to paste a picture of Eminem over one of his girlfriend.

With the third verse, Stan has lost it, instead of starting his message with 'Dear Slim', he says 'Dear mister 'I'm too good to call or write my fans'. He is shown in a car talking into a voice recorder with heavy rain and lightning strikes outside acting as pathetic fallacy. The lyrics become heavy with curses as Stan explains to Eminem how he should feel guilty for making Stan do what he is about to do. At the end of the verse Stan drives off of a bridge killing himself and his girlfriend.

The final verse is Eminem writing a letter in response to Stan. Eminem is shown in a positive way in contrast to Stan's personality. He talks about how Stan should calm down and treat his girlfriend better. Another contrast is that although the window is black, there is no rain or lightning until the very end when lightning strikes light up the window to show Stan looking at Eminem like a ghost haunting its killer.

The Role of Music Videos

Music videos have not always accompanied music. In the past, music was released as a record and could only really be advertised over the radio. In 1965 the first real music videos were created by the world famous band 'The Beatles' in order to be able to have their music shown on different TV shows around the world without them having to do a live performance.

The next band to begin making music videos was 'Queen' in 1975. Again it was made due to the inability to make a live show but this time the show was the BBC's 'Top of the Pops'. After this, music videos started to become popular and by the early 1980s there were just enough of them to sustain an entire TV channel, MTV.

MTV was a very controversial channel when it was introduced. Although to many people it was viewed as the beginning of a new era in music history where musicians can show what they've got besides singing, many others viewed it as the loss of many possible musical talents due to the fact that musicians could become more appreciated if they were good looking. At this point the role of the music video changed. They were no longer just for appearing when bands couldn't make performances but were now becoming necessary for the advertisement of the song as well. MTV showed non-stop pop music and became the first of the many music TV channels that exist today. It even gave birth to a new form of director where directors can use music videos as a platform for showing their talent before moving on to other platforms like films or TV shows.

Eventually, if you wanted your music to be 'heard' it was almost necessary to create a music video. Music videos had become an art form where the music is presented to its audience in a more engaging and visual way. Music videos had become so important that videos from the most famous artists were made at a cost of up to $7,000,000 dollars (Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson's 'Scream' in 1995).

Music videos allow artists to impress their audience with not only their music but also with their looks, moves and acting. People can become instant fans after watching just 1 music video on a music channel. Music videos are considered as almost as important as the song itself and can often be the reason why a song is particularly liked.

But what is a music video? 

A music video is described by yourdictionary.com as "a performance on film or videotape of a musical recording accompanied by synchronized actions, such as a dramatic interpretation of the lyrics or a series of, sometimes surreal, images". There are 3 ways in which to conduct a music video, performance style, narrative style, or a combination of the two. Below is a table showing the differences between the two.

Narrative	Performance
Band members are actors in a story	Band members are shown playing the song
Key points in the song create room for important moments in the story	Individual members get privileged shots when their instrument/voice is heard
Can be set anywhere and can have a variety of locations	Usually set during a live concert or in a studio or rehearsal room although can be set anywhere if done well
The music dictates how the visuals are presented	The music and visuals share the onus and both have to be in sync with each other