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This is the final post of my Media blog - I hope you have enjoyed reading it.

Media Music Video, finshed product.
Owl city - Hot air balloon

Here is a link to Fletchers YouTube channel with our Music Video on, in addition to the hard copy -- http://www.youtube.com/user/enjoiflea

Ancillary Text One - The Unofficial Owl city Website

www.wix.com/enjoi_flea/owlcityowlcityowlcity

Ancillary Text Two - NME Cover and Advertisment

Evaluation question 4

How did you use new media technologies in the research, planning, construction and evaluation stages of your media coursework?

Research

In the research stage of my media music video, the very first new technology I used to help me was the internet, and more specifically internet search stations such as Google. By using these we managed to find loads of information on music videos, the conventions within them, the diversification they hold and techniques that are useful to employ when creating one. Another new technology that stemmed from search engines is the use of online magazine achieves, such as that of Q magazine which we used to look at their ‘Best music videos of all time’ article.
Wikipedia was a good source of background and overview information, as well as providing some useful external links, but as it is anonymous it is not a truly reliable source so could not be trusted unless thoroughly cross referenced.

Moreover, YouTube was a brilliant source of primary research as we could watch loads of music videos (Such as stop motion influences, PEN story, Raconteurs – Salute your solution, The White Stripes – Blue Orchid), read what people thought of them on the comments below and evaluate them ourselves. It also enabled us to pick up on loads of ideas and inspirational techniques used by other directors and producers. Finally YouTube enabled us to watch several Pop up Videos and learn about certain music videos, techniques used within them, the budgets they had and other trivial information about them and the artist.

The final new media technology we used at the research stage is DVD extras; we watched DVD extras on Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry both were extremely useful in giving us an insight into the kinds of principles and work that goes into music video. In the Michel Gondry DVD we watched videos he had done for Beck, The White Stripes and the Foo Fighters just to mention a few. In the Foo Fighters video we saw a perfect example of textual schizophrenia where Gondry lived out a nightmare he had as a child through Dave Grohl.

Planning

For the planning stage we used technologies such as camera phones to take pictures of location ideas so that we could evaluate which would be the best location for our video, this was because if we were out and about and found somewhere that would be perfect for a certain part of our video it was a lot easier to capture on a camera phone than an actual camera.
In anticipation of our main media product we downloaded a few trial versions of different editing software, such as Sony Vegas, Pinnacle Studio and Adobe premiere elements. This helped us to gauge what each software was like to use and which we felt was best for what we were doing and which we felt most comfortable with. Finally we settled on using Sony Vegas as it provided us with everything we needed to create our video and the effects to give it the finishing touches. It also enabled us to cut the music down within it which was helpful as we cut the song down slightly to increase repeatability and ensure it did not drag on or become repetitive in a bad way. Plus Sony Vegas was compatible with our Canon Camera files which was essential as our entire video was made up with them! The only downfall of Sony Vegas was that every time we put a new photo on it, we had to cut each individual one down to the correct time, but this was the same on all editing software so there was no way around it really.

The final piece of new media technology we used in the planning was a scanning machine that enabled us to get our hand drawn storyboards onto the computer and therefore the blog. It was a very simple piece of technology to use and it enabled us to use our original storyboards instead of having to try and create digital ones on the computer.

Construction

In terms of using new media technologies in the construction of the music video itself there are 3 main technologies used.
The first one is the camera itself, we used a Canon EOS 1000D, it is in Canon’s DSLR profession range, it has many functions that helped us to create our music video, for example ‘sport’ or ‘burst’ mode, where the camera will take loads of frames per second, making it a lot easier to capture movement within the shot, however as the frames have to be captured so quickly you sometimes sacrifice quality if there isn’t enough light, so we had to make sure there was enough light either by photographing at certain times in the day, using artificial light or using the flash on the camera. It would have not made any sense to use a Sony Handycam like we did last time as everything we needed to do involved completely still images as although the Handycam can take still images, it is not specialized in doing that, whereas the Canon is extremely specialized in taking still images.

The second new media technology we used in the construction of our music video is the editing software, for our media piece as mentioned in planning, we used Sony Vegas, we used Vegas because it allowed us to do everything we needed and it was simple to use. We used it on our AS media project so we knew our way around it as a package, however, we did still download trial programs for other software just to check to see what they were like. Vegas allowed us to upload our photos quickly by letting us drag them in, shorten the time length they remained on the screen for, change the colours of them, change the intensity or the opacity of them, use filters, effects or blurs and it also let us cut our music down so that we could cut out the last chorus in order to increase repeatability and decrease monotony, what was especially helpful was that Vegas allowed us to make certain parts of the song e.g. the vocals or synthesizer quieter, which made it a lot easier to fit the song together.

The third new media technology we used in the construction of the media music video was the Kodak 24 hour printing service; this enabled us to put all of our photos onto memory stick, give it to the person in the kiosk and then picked all the printed photos 24 hours later. This was a great service as it saved us a huge amount of time and money compared to how much it would cost us in both time and money to print them out ourselves. Plus by using Kodak it guaranteed a good quality of print and on good quality paper. For 800 prints it cost our group £40 which is highly cost effective; this price is as we had so many prints as the more prints you have the cheaper it becomes.

Finally the two media technologies we used in the construction of our ancillary texts are Photoshop and Wix website. Photoshop was used in the construction of our magazine cover to import and edit images, create many layers over each other and insert text or logos. In terms of creating a website we used Wix.com to create ours, it was quite simple and very effective. It provided use with a loose layout on which we could build upon, adding information pictures and songs onto a music player in the bottom corner. Both of these technologies are highly effective in helping us to create our supporting products as without them it would have been much harder and taken much more time overall.

Evaluation

For our evaluation we received loads of feedback from social networking site ‘Facebook’, all of it was positive and very supportive this was good as it minored and reinforced the views expressed by teachers but it was feedback from an age group closer to the target audience for music video, especially of this genre. Within a few days we had received over 40 comments and more than 50 people had ‘liked’ it.

The second media technology we used in the feedback / evaluation stage of our coursework was email. We did not initially intend on emailing our video to anyone within the media industry, however when two of my close friends who have worked within the industry for years expressed the strong recommendation of sending it to Owl City we were persuaded. After roughly two weeks, we received feedback from Owl City’s manager saying that he ‘loved it’ and that he was going to forward it to Adam himself who is currently touring in Hong Kong and China.
So overall in the research, planning, construction and evaluation of our music video we used quite a few new media technologies to their full extent which were exceedingly helpful in helping us to create an effective media product.

Evaluation question 3

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

In terms of evaluating our media piece by looking at the feedback we received, we received lots of positive feedback and some constructive criticism that could be and was used to improve our video.
The first feedback we received was from a year 12 media class, to gain this feedback we showed them all our video and gave them a feedback sheet to fill in, the sheet included a mark out of 10, good point and bad points; the results were very pleasing!

This pie chart shows the marks that we were awarded by the students, in the blue is the proportion of students who gave us 9/10 and in the red is the proportion of students that gave us 10/10. The class we showed it to was a class of 16 and the actual number were, 13 gave us 10/10 and 3 gave us 9/10; so as is clearly evident the video was a great success!Another positive aspect of this form of feedback is that the feedback was gained of students who make up a very large part of the target market for music videos, proving that our video appealed greatly to its target market, once again confirming its success.

In addition to the quantitative data collected above, we also got some qualitative data from the feedback sheets; we asked the students to list 3 things they liked or thought were good about the music video, things that came up a lot included:

Good use of stop motion
· Impressive editing - in time with the music
· Lighting
· Use of colours
· Originality
· The roundabout scene
· Had a consistent flow
· Imaginative intro / ending

The fact that ‘Good use of stop motion’ and ‘Originality’ came up the most shows us that we understood the conventions of stop motion and developed them so that we put our own twist on the idea of stop motion and used it in conjunction with a loose narrative and in a music video.
The last part of the feedback sheet was asking the students to write 3 things that they thought would improve the video or make it a better viewing experience overall. Some of the constructive criticisms are listed below:

· Some photos were blurry
· Some photos had a glossy finish to them due to the flash on the camera
· The background could have been more interesting
· Becomes slightly repetitive

All of these comments are fair and have a completely valid point, not just because I myself agree with some of them, but because these students are our target audience so if they feel it would improve the video they are almost definitely right, as they are the people who will be watching them and who have seen many official music videos. For example, if we could film again we would look at filming or photographing in better day light so we would not have to use the flash and we would not get the flash visible on the glossy photo paper, we could use more imaginative or varied backgrounds for the photos to travel along and perhaps vary the techniques or possibly use more animation (Like in the chorus) to reduce the impact of repetitiveness.

Our second source of feedback was the social networking site ‘Facebook’ we uploaded our video onto Facebook in the hope of getting some feedback and it was hugely successful as we got loads of feedback, again from people who are bang on the same age group as the target audience for music video. Here are just some of the 44 comments we received:

· "That is actually amazing considering the resources and technology we have to work with, it wouldn't look out of place on MTV."
· "That is crazyyy, its profeshh. and a lot of effort."
· "What i like most is that it's photos of photos, which is really imaginative"
· "Awesome you all obviously put in the effort and got your reward"
· "Mentally good! on the feedback sheet I couldn't say anything bad about it! this belongs on MTV!"

Another big point that people made was that they thought we should send it off to different institutions in hope they would use it in one of their promotions or that it ‘Belongs on MTV’, this again reassured us that we had hit the target audience perfectly.

Right at the end of the video, you see the photos hanging off balloons and then being placed back into an envelope from the bed, this was not initially how our video ended, however, we decided that upon hearing a few comments from people within our target audience expressing the view that they thought the ending could ‘Be better, and not end in such as abrupt way, perhaps having more of a conclusion’ we decided to re-shoot this scene and feature the balloons and envelope again. I think it worked perfectly as the photos going back into the envelope refers back to the start and them coming out of the envelope and the balloons add a new and exciting idea into the blog. The initial people we received the constructive criticism off felt that ‘The ending has much more of a conclusion now, it wraps it up perfectly’ which once more shows that we have pleased and satisfied our target audience.

However by far the most pleasing piece of feedback we received was from Owl city’s Marketing Director and their Manager. We did not initially intend to send them our video, however, when two of my friends who have worked within the music industry for a long time saw it, they persuaded us that it was good enough to show them! Olivia Nunn Owl city’s marketing director said ‘This is absolutely amazing! I’m very impressed!’ she then added ‘The video has been sent to Adam (Owl City) and if I get some feedback I'll let you know. His manager loved it." We have not yet heard back from Adam, but the fact that we received this feedback from his manager directly and that he thought it was so good that he decided to send it to Adam himself reaffirms that it has done its job as there are very few people as trustworthy when it comes to feedback as the artist or the artists manager as it is there music, reputation and livelihood at stake if it is a bad media product. So the fact they praised it so highly clearly states that we understood the conventions of music video and carried them out in a stylish and imaginative manor ensuring that our video stood out from the crowd.

Evaluation question 2

How effective is the combination of your main media product and ancillary texts?

As well as producing a music video, we also produced a website and magazine cover and advert. These were two media texts that are essential in creating an effective brand, as the advert needs to attract people to the band and the video, so without advertising the song/video would never be seen to fully recognized.

"A good brand delivers the message/ genre/ ideology/ subculture clearly, and confirms your credibility as an artist" – I believe that through the combination of our website and magazine pages we achieved each of these different aspects.

Firstly we created the ‘unofficial owl city’ website, this website had to ‘sell’ the artist to their target audience and look professional and not out of place compared to other websites so we researched other websites first, we looked at:

· The layout of different websites / artistic or unique aspects

· Different sections that need to be included / information within those sections
· What colours / pictures / conventions are present within certain genres

We needed our website to look professional but at the same time fit with the message that owl city put across, which is a very happy, feel good message. This would ensure that it appealed to our target audience. The headings we used on our website provide a similar purpose to subtitles and the information each subtitle holds is good as it provides additional information on the artist which helps with the process of commodification as the video sells Adam’s or Owl city’s creative side, and the website provides information on him making him look cool or desirable.

The headings for our website had to be as realistic and professional as possible in order to make the whole website realistic and believable so we used headings that many other official band websites used, allowing our target audience members easy access to information on him. The use of a quite artistic yet interesting and happy background keeps in running with the rest of Owl city’s image and does not look out of place when put together with other media’s he employs such as obviously music, music video, magazine covers and social networking pages such as MySpace.
So overall the website works as a back-up tool for his music and videos, providing information and sometimes additional images behind the artist to reinforce their star image. I also feel that one of the most effective marketing tools on the website is the virtual iPod in the bottom corner as this would enable someone to hear or see the music video to ‘Hot air balloon’ go on his website, then listen to other songs by him, perhaps encouraging them to purchase some of his music.

Our second ancillary text was a magazine cover / advertisement using the popular music magazine NME (New musical express); we chose this media form as it is highly successful in marketing and advertising bands and videos to the public and is a hugely recognized image / brand.
Our research involved looking at music magazines such as NME and Q to establish such factor as:
· The text / information included on the page
· The balance of imagery and text
· Short slogans or phrases that get the point across

Our front page cover design for NME was to advertise an interview within the magazine and to basically advertise Owl City as a brand or a commodity to the readers of NME. We looked at previous magazine covers and designed our own which works effectively with our video as it attracts audience attention towards the magazine and especially Owl city which will then direct them onto the music video itself, so the magazine is almost a catalyst to start a chain reaction ending in the viewing of our music video.

The advert we created was intended to be spread over an entire page or possibly half a page and it is purely to market the band, the song 'Hot air balloon' and the video that accompanies it. Before we had the idea for what the advert would look like we looked through loads of magazines such as NME, Q, Kerrang in order to take inspiration from other adverts and see what kind of things were included in them.
I believe that this advert is really effective as it is simple, effective and informative. It does not take the viewer a long time to comprehend and it gets the point across. Another good thing about it is that it encompasses the idea of the video itself, its a photo of a still image, but this time the still image is on an iPod touch instead of printed off.

The ancillary texts that we created in addition to our music video have helped turned Owl city into a desirable of commercially popular product or commodity. The logo we produced was simple and effective in that it got the name of the band across in a simple and stylish manor while creating a point of interest and inviting people to research ‘Owl city’ where they would find the website and possibly the magazine pages that would provide them with loads of information and images to further the commodification of Owl city. The simple contrast between black and white is striking to the audience and catches the readers eye. The magazine is especially good at advancing the idea of commodification as it features many world class artists not just one (such as the website) so the fact Owl city are in there makes a big statement about how good they must be musically as magazines would focus purely on his music and videos rather than his life and background.

The fact that we produced two different media texts; our magazine cover and advertisement and our website shows we have utilized synergy as a strategy. I feel that it worked brilliantly and that both of our ancillary media products worked well in promoting and advertising our main media product, furthermore it did it in a very professional and successful manor while still retaining artistic and visual merit.

Evaluation question 1

How does your video, use, develop, or challenge the forms and conventions of real music videos?

The first point that needs to be made is that it is almost impossible to tell how we have used or developed the conventions of music video as they are incredibly varied! However, one thing that is usually always considered a convention of music video is that the artist is almost always seen ‘performing’ usually ‘live’ or miming; in order to give the video a sense of believability. Although in our music video we did not feature anyone performing at all, completely challenging the convention just mentioned as we maintained the loose narrative throughout the whole video instead of cutting to anyone performing. I believe that it worked perfectly as it does not feel empty or lacking in any way and it flows smoothly with the music maintaining the rhythm and not disrupting the audiences viewing experience.

Secondly it is often considered a convention that the video explores the lyrics or meaning of the song in some way, however we didn’t explore the lyrics in any way, but by ignoring the lyrics or any possible meaning to the song; we actually followed two other conventions. These conventions being disjuncture and developing a loose narrative, disjuncture is incredibly common amongst music video as it enables some true artists and talented directors to develop very creative technically profound videos; this is what we tried to achieve with our video, which I believe we achieved. I think using the idea of stop motion and disjuncture in conjunction with each other was a very good idea as for disjuncture to work, the video needs to be aesthetically pleasing and interesting, or simply. It must look cool; which stop motion does, so it combined perfectly to create an interesting and unique visual experience. And all of this was because we challenged the idea of using the lyrics to build up a loose narrative by just coming up with a loose narrative that used the idea of disjuncture instead of the lyrics as its base.

The last major convention that we challenged was the idea of cutting the edits so that they reflect the songs structure, as normally they cut from live footage to perhaps a close up of the singers face, or a loose narrative, however we maintained the loose narrative all the way through apart from at the chorus where we animated the lyrics on a piece of card (relating to synaesthesia) , we intentionally maintained our loose narrative all the way through so that we didn’t not over complicate the video and make it confusing or cluttered. We also did it to deliberately attempt to challenge this particular convention and see if it would work maintaining the narrative the whole way through the song. I feel that it worked brilliantly and it keeps the video simple but still visually interesting and repeatable due to the stop motion aspect of it.

In contrast though, there are some conventions that we did follow, for example displaying the name of the artist and song title at the beginning and end of the song, this is purely to do what it is intended to do and help the audience recognize the artist and the song, enabling them to find it at a later date if they wish so. So it is actually a marketing or advertising technique really, first adopted by MTV but has now become an important convention of music video simply because of the need for recognition. So we as a group felt that we should include the artist and song name because it makes it look more professional and likely to be on television such as MTV and secondly out of respect to the artist, as we would not want to take any undue credit for the song itself as none of us helped to write it.

Secondly we did use fast cuts, which are popular amongst music video, but we adapted the fast cuts and used them within stop motion, so we cut from different scenes of stop motion and cut the photos so they ran quickly with very fast cuts between them.
The major aspect for any music video though is seen to be; if it looks ‘cool’ it will work, and in a sense we used this technique as one of the major factors for us in creating this video is we wanted it to look visually striking and smart. (Hence why we used stop motion, it looks fantastic!) This idea is represented by the phrase ‘MTV foregrounds the signifier over the signified’ – John Friske.

We followed other smaller conventions of music video through contemporary culture, these would be things such as the costume our main character was in, the hair style he had, the items in his room etc; all of these are present in youth culture and appear to make the main character or the ‘meat’ cool and combined with the music they can be a useful marketing tool in creating a ‘star image’. This is the effect we were trying to achieve by using these clothes, hair styles and objects as not only does it make the video more interesting, it also adds colour which was another crucial aspect that we needed to bring to the media product.

So overall I would say that we used enough conventions to make it clear that it was a music video and that it still worked as one, but we also developed some conventions in order to stand out and produce a more visually interesting and attractive video than the completely conventional music videos on channels such as MTV.

Storyboards PLANNING

Storyboard page 1

Storyboard page 2

Storyboard page 3

Mise en scene PLANNING

The mise en scene in our video will mainly include the set design, location, props and costume. Due our video consisting entirely of stop motion, which is purely still images, we will have to think about the mise en scene at the initial photography stage, and possibly change the framing at the editing stage.

Location

For our location we are going to use Fletcher’s bedroom, this is because it is very accessible, can be made to look the same as in a previous photography session (which could be very handy if we need to reshoot certain parts) and it provides us with many objects to place the photos on and around, such as;

· Two desks.· Wardrobe.

· Walls/radiators/doors.

· Shelves

· TV/Computer/Speakers

· Floor/Turntables/vinyls.

· His bedroom also contains loads of random objects, objects that our audience could associate Owl City with, objects such as; cameras, gameboy, headphones, little toys and random figures, turntables, glasses, etc.

Set design

Set design is another crucial aspect of mise en scene and of the music genre we are trying to use and develop. We will relate our set in some way to the video for Owl City’s ‘Fireflies’ as that is of the same artist and genre and has the intention of keeping the ‘happy’, ‘feel good’ mood.

As we will be working outside we will have to do our best to manipulate the set how we want it to look, but it will be almost impossible to change it in any real degree; however we can control the set design within Fletcher’s bedroom completely.

As mentioned within the section about location, we can include loads of objects from around the bedroom in the video:

·Random items of clothing such as; glasses, belts, bracelets, t-shirts, hats, gloves, scarves, etc.
·Items that can be associated with the genre of electro/pop; gameboy, headphones, retro Polaroid style cameras, retro video games characters, turntables, and other objects that represent music or electro as a genre.
·Other placed items may include; stationary, drawings, random toys, objects that reflect the scene in the printed photos.

Props

Most of the props (properties) within the video have been mentioned in the previous sections about location and set design, though some that haven’t include; breakfast bowl, spoon, cereal and objects outside that we intend on using such as swings, slides and climbing frames.
One of the props Adam uses in his video for ‘Fireflies’ (and probably the main one) is the piano he is playing on, however we intend on featuring no musical performance within our media product so we will have to stick to other items such as random toys and objects from the bedroom.

Colour and lighting. PLANNING

Colour within our music video

Planning the colour within a music video is hugely important as colour can have a big effect on the way a person perceives something and the emotions that are put across. Colour can be used to enhance a certain mood or tone within the music video; however it can also be used very effectively to develop and add to the mise en scene of the set.
Colour in our music video

· Due to the very happy feel of the song there should be a lot of colour used, especially bright colours as they reflect the mood of the song perfectly.

· As well as using bright colours in the piece initially, we can enhance or change the colours in the editing stage, perhaps in parallel with the music.

· The random objects that are needed for the photos to move in and out of can be colourful purely to add extra colour to the scene, we could use items such as headphones, gameboys, toys or vinyl.

· We can use different settings on the canon camera we are using in order to achieve a better overall effect than would be possible without it as we will get brighter and sharper colours.
Hopefully this combination of ideas will help use to use colour to its full potential and enhance our music video perfectly, reinforcing the idea of happiness.

Lighting within our music video

· We will do some test shoots to see what we get the best result with, however some bits; such as when our main character is walking around in the day have to be filmed in actual daylight so you get the impression of time going by.

· If we lose natural light, we have the option to stop filming and resume filming another day, or we could switch to an alternative artificial light source.

· Our final option in terms of lighting is to use the flash that is provided on the canon camera however this could prove problematic as we might get a reflection of the flash on the glossy photo paper, so we would have to be careful about this.

The Meat and Beat, PLANNING

The meat

We decided to use Fletcher in our video as the main character.
The ‘meat’ of most pop songs is a close up of the singers face, as it allows the audience to put a face or an image to the voice behind the song, which is very important as the voice is seen as the most important part of any song, even more so within the pop / electro genre that Owl City falls into.

But as neither Fletcher, me nor James have anything to do with Owl City it is not fair or conducive to represent them, so the best ways to keep ‘The meat’ are to……

· Keep central focus on the main character
· Try to frame the main character properly at all times
· Use Close up shots to enhance the focus on the main character
· Use Camera movement to follow the photos and keep the character in focus

The beat

A crucial part of representing the music and keeping the flow of the video is the idea of cutting the music to the beat or the key rhythm. Hot air balloon has quite a slow tempo in some parts but in others it actually more than doubles in tempo so we will have to cut the images at an appropriate speed. When you upload photos onto Sony Vegas (the editing software we are using) each photo is given a specific time length, so depending on the amount of images we have for that particular shot and what the tempo is like at that point in the song, we will have to shorten the time length by different amounts.
All genres use the same technique when it comes to editing, which is to cut the visuals at a change in tempo or structure, for example in the Foo Fighters video ‘The Pretender’ the visual shots change when the tempo dramatically decreases then increases again, emphasizing the music.

Camera shots, movement and editing, PLANNING

Camera shots

We feel that to make our video the best it could possibly be and look at professional as it can possibly look, we will be using a Canon 1000D which is from Canon’s DSLR professional range, this is opposed to our last project where we used a Sony Handycam. The reason we will be using the Canon over the Sony is because it offers up a range of settings for different shots and types of shot, it will also enable us to get high quality prints which therefore will allow us to create a stylish piece of stop motion media work.

We will be taking particular influence from the PEN story that first inspired us as it uses a wide variety of camera shots that are important in creating a believable and interesting piece of media work. In order to challenge the conventions within pop / electro we will need to use a wide range of camera shots which will allow us to highlight the main character within our narrative and the narrative itself effectively.

We will be using in our media production:

• Establishing shots (ES) – such as the start of the PENstory video – to establish the scene – where it’s set and to establish the surroundings.

• Mid Shots (MS) – These will aid the establishing shots – and give a closer view of the objects in the frame.

• Close ups (CU) – These shots will probably be the most important shots in the video – these shots will give the audience a close up view of the moving photos – allowing them to see the detail in the actual photos as they move. This is vital as the moving photos explain our narrative, even though the narrative has no link to the song, it is important in terms of repeatability, etc.

• Extreme Close Ups (ECU) - Extreme close ups will also aid the audience in understanding the narrative – it will also allow us to pick out fine detail through using one of the specialist settings on the Canon.

The camera movement will be much simpler however, using techniques such as:

• Panning & Zooming – to change setting and cover space.

• Camera Tilt – tilting to various angles using the tripod will allow us to follow the photos up or down, or round sides, etc.

Fast cutting / montage editing

The editing of a music video is another deciding factor as to whether it is likely to succeed or fail as a media product. The editing can determine the speed of the video, the mood and sometimes help to explain the narrative, so it must match the song and be done properly. Different genres will vary in editing styles, so example drum and bass will have extremely quick, close together edits, where as more ambient music often has slower edits and sometimes holds certain shots for a longer space of time, again to match the music.

Other editing includes post-production special effects which can be used to create thing which otherwise would not be possible or just create and enhance things to make them ‘look cool’ (MTV foregrounds the signifier over the signified). A good example of this would be ‘Wanna be in LA’ by the Eagles of Death Metal, as the majority of the video has aspects of post-production special effects.

Our stop motion idea will have to work closely with the tempo of the song, and due to the fact that the tempo within ‘Hot air balloon’ varies, such as at the chorus, we will have to edit the photos and how long they are shown for accordingly. Therefore removing all distraction to the viewer and increasing the believability of the piece and making it run smoother and more stylishly; increasing the repeatability.

Illustration, Amplification or Disjuncture? PLANNING

Illustration is the simplest and easiest concept to base a music video around as it is just a literal meaning to the song’s lyrics in visual form. Owl City have used illustrative ideas in their videos before, for example in ‘Fireflies’ when Adam (The artist behind Owl City, Adam Young) is singing and as he says ‘fireflies’ the word fireflies comes up on the screen to a little toy gadget.
But due to the expense of the printing out process we will be using, our video needs to be kept simple and effective, as if we were to illustrate everything in our video, we would need to involve an actual hot air balloon or at least an obvious reference to one. The one part of the song that offers us the opportunity to use illustration is the chorus; our idea for the chorus is similar to that part in fireflies mentioned above, as we intend to write out the lyrics to the chorus on a piece of card and have them appear as they are sung by Adam Young.

Amplification is closely related to disjuncture, but amplification is just the enhancement of a concept while still retaining a link to it, this technique works brilliantly in marketing and advertising the band in question. However, it will not work for us as our concept for the video bears no resemblance at all to the song, so it would not work as amplification does.

Disjuncture is the idea of basically completely ignoring the song’s meaning or concept completely and instead, create a whole new set of meanings or images that can be put to the song, a perfect example of this would be Can’t stop by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The idea of disjuncture works excellently with our video as the concept we have for the video has no relation to the song or its meaning in any way.

To keep up this idea of disjuncture we will have to:

· Maintain our loose narrative
· Ignore the songs original lyrics or theoretical meanings
· Create our own meanings or ideas, i.e. our narrative
· Use and create new conventions so as to challenge the normal conventions of electro / pop music such as Owl City.

Some shots in the Owl City song Fireflies use disjuncture so this shows us that is works brilliantly with this genre of music and that it can be really effective in creating an excellent visual experience.

Initial ideas PLANNING

So the audience does not have too much to think about and the shot isn’t too busy, my video will have quite a simple loose narrative, also enabling the audience to take into account the fact that it is actually the photos that are moving.

The narrative will include a day in the life of a teenager / young adult, this could involve him getting up at home, getting ready / getting dressed, possibly a morning routine such as washing or eating breakfast, going out for a walk in the day, participating in activities such as going to the park? Maybe a transaction in a shop? Then the main character walking home and going to bed or going back to his house / room.

It will be heavily disjunctured due to the loose narrative we as a group are looking to incorporate, but that has no relation to the lyrics or concept of the song. One technique that a lot of music video directors employ is switching between narrative and performance when there is a change in the music, for example between chorus and verse, but I don’t think that we will do this, we will just stick with the loose narrative and keep it one continuous piece of loose narrative.

The idea that we have for this music video incorporates two artists influence, firstly the work of Mr.Taijin Takeuchi who first came up with the idea of using printed images to recreate movement in inanimate objects, and secondly the work of David Hockney who uses many close up printed images to make up a picture instead of just one zoomed out image. As a way of challenging or developing this convention we are going to include a loose narrative within our images and we will create stop motion within stop motion.
In order to challenge the conventions of the Electro / Pop genre, we must integrate some of the same technical aspects into our video, some of these we can take from another Owl City video called Fireflies such as:

· Sweet playful objects
· Objects that relate to the tempo or beat, for example the lights in ‘fireflies’
· Central focus – close ups of the objects within the video
· Possible subtle links between the lyrics and certain objects
· Perhaps daydream or fantasy world theme due to the genre
· A general happy feel to the video

Another way that we can reinforce the idea of movement within the stop motion is to move the photos in the direction of the action, for example if the character is walking to the right, move the photos to the right as well. This is a concept used in the PEN story and it works brilliantly enhancing the illusion of movement within still images.

In an attempt to get permission to use Owl city's song Hot air balloon, i sent this email to their managment explaining our situation.

From:
gregg stone (gregg-stone13@hotmail.com)
Sent:
16 December 2009 21:33:44
To:
ocmgmt@foundationsmusic.com

Hi Steve and Brian.Just a quick email to ask if we could use Owl city's song Hot air balloon for our A2 media studies coursework in which we are required to create a music video?Me; Gregg and my group, Fletcher and James would really love to put our music video to this song, we won't publicise it or take credit for the song in any way. Full credit will be given to Owl city and Adam Young and the name of the band and title of the song will be at the beginning and end of the video.We are big fans of Owl city and would love to be able to take this opportunity to show our appreciation for Adam's music by using it in our coursework.

yours sincerely

Gregg Stone

Synaesthesia within PLANNING

For my media music video I am going to use the artist Owl City as the music that Owl City creates is very upbeat and is easily linked with the idea of synaesthesia due to this. It creates all sorts of visual images in your head when you listen to it. But the key to the success of my music video is whether I can link the music and the visual aspects of the video in an aesthetically pleasing and enjoyable way. Synaesthesia works by taking into account the way the sound is stacked within a song to create a certain mood or feeling.

The song I am doing is called ‘Hot air balloon’ by Owl City and when you listen to it you immediately feel that it is a happy, feel good song. So clearly to make a successful music video my video needs to have a feel good, warm aspect to it so that it matches the song.
One problem that I do face in my music video is Roland Barthes’ theory of grain of voice, which refers to the idea that the singers voice is unique and an excellent tool in marketing a band or an artist, this means that the majority of music video incorporate shots of the singer ‘singing’, however our concept does not feature a ‘performer’ making this impossible and furthermore it could jeopardize the synaesthesia of my piece. So instead of focusing the synaesthesia around the voice I shall focus it mainly around the instruments and the structure within the song; which are generally very positive and sets a cheerful mood on the viewer. So I shall have to take into account the narrative which is clearly flying in a hot air balloon, the tempo of the song, the instruments used and just the general feel of the song.

One of the aims of my music video is to incorporate the idea of intertextuality, making a better and more repeatable music video as it will refer to the cultural bank of knowledge that we share.

The technical aspects of music video

The most important and main technical aspects of music video are;

· Speed – speed is visualized by camera movement, fast editing (montage) and post production digital effects. All, if done properly and to the right music can help the visuals run smoothly and in parallel with the song.

- Camera movement is often motivated by running, walking or dancing performers. As in most genres the camera will keep the performer in centre frame, however, with genres such as rock, the camera often switches between the band ‘performing’ and the narrative or loose narrative that accompanies the song. Whereas in genres such as dance, pop or electro there is often a choreographed routine that is just as much of a focus as the performer themselves.

- Fast – cutting and montage editing create a visually decentred experience required in creating a successful music video. Sometimes images move so fast that they cannot be understood when viewed for the first time, therefore demanding a second viewing, increasing videos repeatability greatly. This applies to certain genres more than others, for example drum and bass or fast, up-tempo dance music, as the visual images are edited quickly so as to add intensity and possibly a sense of urgency to a song.

- Post production digital effects are a key feature of any music video as again; they greatly increase its repeatability, a crucial aspect determining how successful a music video is. It involves complex editing techniques to produce effects such as split screen images, colorizing and so on. This is often not applied to genres such as indie or rock, as it is to dance music or drum and bass, as these genres of music are seen to be more ‘trippy’ or in some cases ‘psychedelic’ and using post production effect is often a good way to reinforce these notions.

- However do not think that all camera shots and edits must be fast and will only fast cuts will give a desired effect, as some music videos use slow editing and ‘dissolve’ cuts to give a different desired effect. For example ‘Nothing compares 2 U’ by Sinead O’Conner; where slow edits and dissolve cuts are used to set the song and its video away from the generic hustle and bustle of pop music.

· The meat – the meat of most music video is the close-up shot of the singers face as the singer or the voice of the song, is seen as the most important aspect musically, so it is accentuated visually as well. So close ups of the singer help the audience put a face to the voice therefore meaning the audience can associate this face with a bands star image, or vice versa and associate the band with the singer ‘star image’.

· Beats – often a video will be used to emphasize and represent the music in visual terms, this is achieved by cutting the images to the beat or key rhythm. It can also be realized by cutting the images when the structure of the song changes i.e. when the song goes from chorus to verse etc.

· Lighting and colour – can be used effectively to emphasise key points within a song or piece of music, as the image could be turned black and white at a dramatic part in the song or even just different or extra lighting could be employed to create certain effects; hopefully provoking certain emotions. Or simply informing the audience of a change in timescale, for example going from black and white implies moving forwards in time, as demonsrated by the PEN story, shown to the left.

· Mise-en-scene – as with any piece of media production the setting is crucial in creating the feel of a video and the visual qualities it holds, but more often than not it is used purely to guarantee the authenticity or verisimilitude or a piece. This leads to many artists using settings such as a concert hall or a rehearsal room in their video to portray the realness, grit and effort that goes into the ‘star image’ they possess. However increasingly of late, genres such as dance and drum and bass are using CGI which does not focus as closely on the believability of a piece as rock or raps artists do.