Editing

Watching our rough cut gave Serena and I a chance to think about a number of things. We experimented with different effects and transitions. We included transitions to make the music video stand out and look more interesting. The high angle shot of the character sliding down the stairs has a fade out transition which makes the video look young and fun.

Editing

Today we have not been timetabled in the editing suite and therefore cannot continue with editing our music video. However Serena and i are up to the point where we have completed a rough cut of the video. We learnt how to lip sync and have successfully done this now. We need to film a few more shots to make our visual metaphor which is popcorn stand out more during the video. We shall hopefully complete this, this weekend.

Editing problems

Serena and I are uploading footage that we filmed last week, and thankfully the artist became available to film however we do not have enough of a variety of shots that we would like so are therefore filming again this weekend. We are doing this as we want to make sure that we have plenty to choose from. We will also be filming 'Popcorn Boy' and are using my brother as he will be available and i know that he will completely get into the character of 'Popcorn Boy'.

List of Shots

Scene	Shot Number	Shot Type	Location	Description
School	1-3	Tracking shot	School corridoors	Camera pans through school corridors establishing the location
School	4	Close up/Extreme Close Up	Lockers	Close up of main artist lip sinking to establish her as the main character. Performing with attitude.
School	5	Mid shot	Lockers	^Quick editing between two shots
School	6	Low Angle shot	Corridor	Boy walking confidently matching actions with lyrics (running his hand through his hair)
School	7	Close up	Corridor	Close up to see cheer leader’s reaction (excited, fainting)
School	8	Mid shot	Corridor	Boy still walking with a smirk look on his face
School	9	Long shot panning up	Corridor	Long shot pans up teacher as she walks towards boy.
School	10	Close up/Extreme Close up	Corridor	Teacher give boy a wink

School	11	High Angle Shot	Corridor	Main artist standing back, lip sinking, and feeling intimidated.
School	12	Wide shot	Corridor	Girls running after boy
House	13	Two shot	Bedroom	Someone getting the girl ready
House	14	Close up	Bedroom	Girl’s face transforming
House	15	Behind shot	Bedroom	Girl transforming in mirror shot from behind
House	16	High angle shot	Bedroom	Girls high fiving
House	14	High angle shot	Stairs	Girl walking down the stairs looking beautiful.
Grounds	15	Establishing Shot	Fields	A group of friends having fun
Grounds	16	Wide Shot	Fields	Water guns spraying
Grounds	17	Long Shot	Fields	Boy walking past getting attacked. Popcorn/waterguns
Grounds	18	Point of view/low angle shot	Fields	Girls throwing popcorn

This list of shots will help Serena and I as it will allow us to be very organised when filming.  

'Popcorn boy'

Serena and I have contacted a local theatre school, asking if one of their male students would like to participate in our music video. Unfortunately we have not yet heard back from the school so are going to chase it up. We have also started to ask friends and family but finding it hard to find someone who will fully commit.

Alternative character

Serena and I have not filmed this week as the main character that we have planned on using has lets us down twice now who is the artist of the song 'Popcorn Boy'. We are now considering using a drama a level student as we know we can fully rely on her.

Story boarding

Serena and I created story boards to help us with our filming. This will help us as it will make it clear to us which shots to use for each scene. Our post it notes, mood board and story board have all helped us as we now know what we'd like to to achieve with our music video.

Post it notes

Serena and I have created post it notes to help us when filming as this is where we first put down our initial visual ideas.

Booking equipment

Serena and i have booked equipment and are picking it up today after school to film over half term. We are taking our a camera, tripod and dolly and are hoping to get most filming completed.

Ideas in images

Serena and I have put together a collage of images from a variety of american films and music videos that have inspired us for the theme of our own music video, 'popcorn boy'.

50 word Pitch

In lesson today Serena and I pitched our different ideas we have for our music video. In this activity we had to pitch our overall idea that we had thought about so far:

My pitch: My song is called 'Popcorn Boy' by Antigoni Buxton. The 'Popcorn Boy' music video will portray the typical american high school. The video will include cheerleaders, geeks and a good looking boy. The video will consist of dancing, bright colors and eye catching make up. Popcorn is our motif for this music video and we will therefore use it as much as we can.

Peer Feedback sheet

In class we listened to each of our songs and gave each other feedback for ideas we could each use for our music video. The ideas for 'Popcorn Boy' highlighted to me things that i had not yet thought about. One of the ideas was to use popcorn as a visual metaphor. Therefore to show Antigoni, the artist throw popcorn at the 'Popcorn Boy' which illustrates that the popcorn can be used for many meanings, therefore in the instance of the song he is called popcorn boy as he 'pops' from girl to girl. However the popcorn can also illustrate a high school date to the cinema which links well with the popcorn. 

From the peer feedback sheet i am able to develop ideas and see what other point of views think i should include in this music video to make it the best it can possible be. 

Target Audience profile

Target audience

Our target audience for our song 'Popcorn Boy' are teenage girls around the ages of 14-18. Serena and I have chosen this as we feel teenage girls can relate well to this song as it is all about the difficulties of a relationship. I believe this song will attract quite the sterotypical confident, feminin girl. The type of girl that this song will relate to enjoys shopping in shops such as Topshop, River Island, Lipsy and Miss Selfridge. The girl also enjoys having a good time at parties and going out with her friends on most weekends. The girl is also looked up to by her friends at school. The subjects she does at school are Art, English, Media and drama so therefore is
 someone who is very creative. She enjoys sports
 such as netball and swimming and also has a
part time job as a swimming teacher .

Mood board

Serena and I have created a mood board as part of the planning process of our music video. This will help us at this early stage as it will allow us to visualise the music video we would like to achieve.

Planning

For this task i will be working with Serena Rossi. The artist we have chosen to use in our video has started to become unreliable which is resulting in us delaying an awful lot. We may have to reconsider if the artist continues to not have an interest in being a part of our music video. We have not chosen the definite song and therefore do not know the lyrics of the song. In result of this we have started to brand the artist.  

Artist name: Antigoni

Genre: Pop/Acoustic

Costume: Girly, soft, flowing outfit

Make up: Soft and natural make up, nude lipstick and eye shadows

Hair: Natural big hair, wearing it down/ Doughnut bun, scraped off face.

Hype Williams

Hype Williams

Hype Williams is an American music video and film director, born in 1790 and previously know as HYPE. Williams first displayed his work by tagging local billboards, storefronts, and playgrounds using HYPE as his grafitti tag.

Williams has created a number of music videos for many famous artists, including ‘California Love’ by 2Pac, ‘Warning’ by The Notorious B.I.G, ‘So sick’ by Neyo, ‘Rock the boat’ by Aaliyah, ‘Gold Digger’, ‘Heatless’ and ‘All of the lights’ by Kanye West, ‘No scrubs’ by TLC and many more.

Trademarks of Hype Williams signiture styles

Banners

Hype Williams uses a signature style in the vast majority of his videos, this involves placing shots in regular widescreen ratio, while a second shot is split and placed in the upper and lower bars, this is also know as using ‘banners’.Videos that use this style are ‘Diamond on my neck’ by Smitty, ‘So sick’ by Neyo, ‘Only U’ by Ashanti,‘Check on it’ by Beyonce and many more. This method is used as it allows Williams videos to be atmospheric and dynamic













 
Camera Focus












In the past 10 years, Williams has signature style combining a center camera focus on the artist or actor's body from the torso upward and a solid color background with a soft different-color light being shown in the center of the background, this is effective as it really focuses on the artist. This has been used in ‘Gold Digger’ by Kanye West, and Beyoncé's ‘Video Phone’.

Fisheye Lens

Another signature style used by Williams throughout the vast majority of his videos was the Fisheye lens which distorted the camera view around the central focus. This was used by the tandem Williams/Perez in ‘Gimme Some More’ by Busta Rhymes and ‘The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)" by Missy Elliott however it was dropped by 2003, when he experienced his lowest level of production activity since the beginning of his career as a music video director.

Auteur Theory

French film critics, most notably by Francois Truffaut, articulated auteur theory in the 1950s. The concept describes the mark of a film director in terms of thematic or stylistic consistencies, personal aesthetic vision, recurring themes, established technique, a defined view of the world and a significant degree of control over production. He suggested that this meant that the director should therefore be regarded as an auteur.

How can Hitchcock be regarded as an auteur? What was his style?

Alfred Hitchcock excelled in a variety of genres during his early British career, before moving to Hollywood in 1939. It was here he became known as the 'Master of Suspense', producing some of the most analyzed works in the history of cinema.  Hitchcock often made cameo appearances in his films, representations of the psychological and elongated suspense scenes.

The auteur theory now applies to music videos. 

Applying Goodwin's Theory to Gold Digger

When watching 'Gold Digger' by Kanye West and Jamie Foxx, I found that Goldwin's theory is used in this video, and therefore does not challenge the 6 principles.



1. The music video demonstrates genre characteristics
The genre of this music video is Hip Hop/R&B and
the conventions of the video match the genre.
The video shows a dancing scene with women
wearing near to nothing. Both rappers
 are dressed in typical  Hip/hop clothing and also bold chains.








2. The lyrics and visuals both need to match
When Kanye West raps 
'18 years, 18 years she got
 one of your kids got you for 18 years'
a little boy dressed in a red devil outfit which
may represent evil or danger.






3. The music and visuals need to match
Kanye West is represented as quite a dominating figure
 in the music video. At 2:44 the woman in the video
copies what Kanye tells her to do by doing a dance movement.







4. The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work (a visual style)
Kanye West had developed a motif where in most of his
music videos he wears half his shirt tucked into his trousers
and the other half out. He also has another motif where by he
does a dancing movement where he
leans back with his back facing the camera.








5. There is frequently a reference to the notion of looking (screens within screens, telescopes, etc) and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body
Throughout the music video women are looked upon
in an extremely sexual manner as they are dressed in
suductive clothing throughout the video.
There are also many close- ups focusing on the womens bodies.








Intertextual reference, film, tv programmes and music videos
A media outlet is shown throughout the music video,
this is a variety of different magazines which feature
 women on the them where by the women are portrayed
as sex symbols on male magazines.

Music Video Influences

What are the three most insperational music videos for you?

Katy Perry - 'The One That Got Away'

The video was released on November 11th and is influential to me as it portrays a strong message of never taking anybody for granted as you never know when you might loose them. The video shows Katy Perry playing herself as an older woman and also flashbacks of her life when she was younger. The video overall is extremely moving.

  

Eminem - Mockingbird

The video was released in May 2004 and is extremely influential as it tells a true story. The lyrics are a personal, undisguised account of Eminem's early relationship with his wife and daughters. The video includes home videos of Eminem with his wife and daughters which make the video even more touching as it enables the viewer to imagine the story even better.

Aerosmith - I Dont Want To Miss a Thing
The video was shot in 1998. It features the band playing the song intertwined with scenes from the film Armageddon. The video is influential as unlike the other two music videos the performer who is Aerosmith is performing the song which makes the video even more eye catching.