Pitch For Music Video

Weekly Production Log 1

Weekly Production Log 

This week i selected my unsigned artist, i researched in the website unsingned.com and found a artist group that i liked, then i listen to the samples of their music videos about 5 of them and selected a song that i liked and would be easy for me to incorporate into a music video. Then i done a bit more further research to see if they are fully unsigned and couldn't find anything on them on the web, so i emailed them, to ask for permission i have not received a reply. However before that i also found other unsigned artists before i selected them, i emailed 2 more before them, i emailed them as well and one replied back to me, however i chose not to do that song, as i thought it would be a much harder task to represent the lyrics in a correct way. After i chose the artists, i went to find lyrics for it to research it in depth and understand what the song was about, however i could not find any, so i had to transcribe my own lyrics and it proved to be a quite time consuming task due to it being a rap genre song so it was quite fast, and had to stop it quite often and bring it back, and pause and play repeatedly, however i got all the lyrics down, and i analysed them in depth and got the message and theme of the song. 

'Star theory'

Star theory

Stars as constructions:

This is when artists are changed and funnelled into a personality/ character that they are usually not, this is usually done thorough a record label that wants to make as much money as possible so will alter the artist to appeal to a wider target audience as possible in order to make money, This then builds up the artist be to in a certain manner, This then makes the artist 'feel' uncomfortable in most situations as they are not represented as they would like to be. they cannot be their selves and often leads them to either leaving the record label, or having to suffer by listening to what the record label says all the time. Stars are constructed / made  they are artificial images of what the record label wants them to be even if they are represented as being 'real people'. It helps if their image contains a unique selling point, this will then mean the record label will use this USP to make even more money to show to the audience and promote that in all ways possible.

An example is

Stars as personalities:

This is when the artist relates to their target audience through their lyrics and relates to them through their actions and speech. The personality and character of the artist allows them to appeal to a specific target audience and relate to them on a personal level, through their culture and their beliefs that they may share with the fans, this allows them to be who they are and express their emotions and feelings more freely without being constricted by a record label, or in anyway that would constrict them, they are free to do what they want.

An example of this is Skepta, he is free to do what he wants as he has his own record label, and so can act the way he wants, he chooses when he wants to go on tour and does not conform to what people will want, He makes music that talks about the gang culture in London, he appeals to young males of London, and he talks about his past experiences, about how he was tied into the gang culture of London as well, however he talks about the negatives of it and does not try to promote it as a good thing, he often talks about how it is a bad road to go through and how it will end up with you being hurt. Through his actions and lyrics he makes him self likeable, as he does not care about what people think, he does what he wants and make songs about what he has strong beliefs about and draws on past experiences to back up his points.

Boy better know the roads ain't nice
So many gunshots, too many knives

These lyrics are from his song Shape Shifting. This shows that he does not endorse or promote the gang life, however talks about how he was dragged into it, and tries to express his emotions about this topic through his music.

Stars as products:

This is when the record label, uses the artists to be able to sell more merchandise, the artists are used as a 'product' to fill a gap in the market, so that the audience that can enjoy the artist for a while as there is a need for them in the music industry. If the artists are successful then the record label will promote them in all ways possible and make merchandise with the artists label or faces on them to make money by selling them. This may make the artist more famous and popular due to them being seen everywhere and creates more fandom for them. However the sole purpose of the record label is to make more money, and if the artist lose popularity or cause a scandal that makes them lose fans, they will cut the contract with the artist, as they would not want to be associated with a dieng artists or one that has shocked many people.

An example of This is the music group, One direction. They appeal to a target audience of primarily females, aged 7-16. They have a lot of merchandise for the fans to buy and endorse and support them.
The merchandise allows them to show that they are a fan, and so therefore allows them to be more involved in the artist life and music.

Stars as embodiment's of cultures:

This is when the artist also endorses or promotes a certain culture or ideology that the fans agree with and support them in to it. The star shows their part of their culture and will usually be in their music video's that show that they are a part of it, the culture that they promote will also reflect on the fans.

Stars represent shared cultural points and ideas, and they use their fame to promote their opinion or ideology that they follow, the interest that they show in the culture enhances their popularity and they show their opinions outside their music particularly through social media and create a 'self image' for them selves. They start a trend or ideology that their fans will follow and attract more people who have same ideas or opinions, and they often comment on current trending topics in the world to be able to fit into that culture as well, and portray their opinion on that particular culture/ idea.

An example of this is

Good and bad exmaples of music video techniques

Good and bad music video techniques

Lip syncing

This is an example of good lip syncing, at the time zones's of 0:45 and 1:01, Flo-rida puts an ipad in front of his face, and in the 'video' that he has pre recorded they show up and are in sync with the lyrics that he is currently saying, the lip syncing is perfectly on time and it shows that the artist has practiced and knew his lines before and so could record the videos with the lyrics in sync and with the beat of the song, and then proceeded to record the video with him swiping right on the ipad to be showing him lip syncing with the song. The lip syncing allows for the audience to be orientated also to be in rhythm of everything, so it makes the audience more engaged as they know that they are line with the artist and this boosts their self-esteem and confidence to be able to keep and up and acknowledge where the artist is and what verse/lyrics he is saying.

This is an example of bad lip syncing as the artist mouth movements are slightly off form the lyrics that he sang before hand, this causes the music video to be slightly disorientated as it is not in sync, this then causes the music video top seem unprofessional and decreases the quality of it, the music video seems to be taken in like a small room so they are not at a studio and they just played their music over the background and then lip sync to it, this causes the audience to slightly notice that it is off and causes them to be confused as the artist may be off int heir facial gestures and their mouth movements particularly at the times when there is a lot of noise coming from the artist but the lip syncing has the artist only open his mouth very small, and it is not possible to make so much noise with the mouth not opened to a bigger size this is seen at the time zone of 1:42. Also another bad part of lip syncing is at the time of  0:43 - 0:45 where the artist does finish the verse/line but the artist still keeps moving his mouth which is an example of bad lip syncing.

Cutting to the beat

This is an example of good cutting to the beat, as there are multiple artists the music video constantly cuts between the artists as they say their verse it cuts to the beat as they have recorded. Cutting to the beat allows for syncing between the lyrics and the beat in the background which allows for the audience to be in sync with the music video as it makes the music video look better. The multiple artists meant that they all have different verses to say so it cut's between them to show what they have to say, also cutting to the beat makes the music video more exciting and engages the audience as they are not bored by long shot, constant quick cuts keeps the audience interested and keeps them watching the video.

A good example of cutting to the beat is at the time zone of 1:13, although the cutting to the beat is very good throughout the whole video, in this particular time zone it is spot on and it allows for orientation and professionalism for the video, also makes the audience interested. The fast paced editing and the quick cuts make the video more enjoyable to watch as if it was just one long take of all the artists saying their verse it would be very boring and most people would probably not watch the video. 

 

This is a bad example of cutting to the beat, due to the time era where the music video was made, they didn't have the necessary technology to make the cutting to the beat perfect, and most of the times it either cuts to early or late from the beat and the lyrics that they are saying, this then causes the audience to be confused as to why the the music video is not in sync with the beat, although there are a lot of cuts in the music video they are not in sync and causes confusion to the audience, and makes the music video seems amateur.

A time zone  2:13 - 2:19 where it doesn't cut to the beat, and the shot just lingers on for about 5 seconds that does not have any relation to the lyrics. and also after quick cuts, a very long duration of one shot bores the audience as it makes them ask the question as to why they chose not to cut that shot, and make it just a long shot of him picking up the phone, the shot also has no relation to the lyrics and so makes the part of the video quite confusing and hard to understand as to why they did it like that.

Number of cuts

This is when the music video has a high number of cuts, to keep the audience engaged. Due to modern technology and editing made very easy, the number of cuts has greatly increases in music videos, the high number of cuts allow for the music video to be more diverse and show different locations, characters, costumes, props etc. to keep the audience engaged at all times, as they are experiencing and see different things on screen all the time. The song above is quite slow paced, but still has more cuts than the song below due to it being int he modern era, and humans have evolved to see and analyse things quicker and are bored by slow, long things that pre-long for a long time unless they hold very important significance, which in music video's they usually don't have something like that. In the above music video i counted 215 cuts.

This music video is all one shot, so there are no cuts, i believe that this is also in the modern era as it was released in late 2011, but due to the genre and nature of the song, and the rhythm and beat being very slow, the artist has gone with a one-take and one-shot that has no cuts in it at all. I believe that this suits this genre of music more, as it is a more emotional, and deeper meaning song. The one shot does however get boring, as we are just watching the artist walk along a beach, which bores the audience, and the song is mostly popular due to the lyrics and the artist rather than the music video. The one-shot would also have to have a lot of rehearsals and practice due to the artist having to get it to be correct, with the lyrics and no room for mistake sat all, as they cannot edit or cut out the mistakes that they do.

Special effects:

This is an example of good special effects, as the artist seems to walk around the 'room' with ease and not much effort, when in actual fact the walls of the room are moving and not the floor, and also the use of 'telekinesis' moving the objects without touching them,(0:23) with your 'mind power'. The special effects add a sort of surrealism to the video and may confuse the audience but it certainly does grab the audiences eye, and make them want to watch more of the video as it is not normal, and it personally intrigued me to see how they was able to do this back in 2009. The special effects allow for more freedom for the artist to be able to do as extreme things as they would want. This is seen in the time zone of 1:43 - 1:50 where he seemingly makes the sofa disappear, but then two shots later the sofa is relocated, this adds confusion but, also suits the genre and especially the music video's title: Virtual Insanity.

This is in my opinion of bad special effects, and one of the factors is that the video was released in 1984, so the special effects technology was not as advanced and sophisticated as the modern day, or the video above. The second reason being that the video also comes across as quite 'creepy' and 'disturbing'  and it is made by a Jazz artist, so the seemingly 'possessed' mannequins, doing weird actions, and the whole house being controlled by an outside source really made me question the video and did not make me want to watch the rest, the special effects look very old and dated. The video is also in the surreal category but does not include anything interesting or fun, rather just 'scary' and 'strange' 

Camera Langauge:

This is a good example of camera language, as there a lot of cuts, and the it cuts to the beat, and it shows different locations, and costumes and props. The camera language shows the artist in different locations. 

The video engages the audience by constantly cutting so they have different places to look and makes it more enjoyable as it not the same things that the audience have to look at, the constant cutting ot the beat allows for synchronisation and makes the audience feel a part of the song. The video engages the audience by the effects and the audience will often find being in time with the video and knowing when the cut is coming, this allows for the audience to be in sync and also make them more excited and into the video as they know what is going on, and so the knowledge and experience they gain from it makes it more fun and enjoyable for the viewers. I personally enjoy the genre of music: Grime. The lyrics and the chorus is quite catchy and i often find my self finishing the sentences. The different locations means that it is not the same background all the time, and it shows the effort that the artist went through to visit all the different locations and lip sync to the part of the song that they needed to place in that specific cut that they did, the timing of the cuts and the lip sync is also done very good and makes the music video a bit more enjoyable, the little things can make a big difference to the audience.

This is a bad example of camera language, it is only one shot, and it just is the same thing, just a figure standing towards a blue background. this is not very appealing and it quite boring to watch, the music video has nothing else, and you cannot even see who the figure is, this is just very boring and dull to look, at just a blacked out figure, the video has no cuts or things to make to exciting in anyway. 

I was quite bored while watching it, and by scrolling through the time zones through youtube i saw it was all the same shot, i think personally the music video does not amount ot any of the popularity of the video, more so the lyrics and the artist. We would assume that the figure would be the artist, but why he is not shown defeats the purpose of promoting yourself and showing the artist to the audience and viewers, the music video makes it really boring, and dreads on, if there was more cuts and locations to be shown then it would of made it more enjoyable to watch, the blue background also darkens the video and make it seem quite monotone, if it was bright colours or things going on in the background would have made it better, and allow for the audience to watch something other than just a blacked out figure.

Green-screen:

This is an example of a good green screen, firstly because it is from a very popular and rich artist Eminem and secondly because it was released in the very present in 2013,so the green-screen capabilities where very advanced and beyond those in the past. The green-screen shows Eminem going through his 'career' through a lift and at every floor seeing a step of his career, most noticeably at the time zone of 2:30. It shows a part of the Movie '8-mile' where as this song was not obviously released then, as the movie 8 mile was released in 2002, the green screen still shows Eminem saying the lyrics to this song while he is in the same location, this allows for the audience to have self esteem and confidence by recognizing that particular location and the song that he would of been rapping, but in this instance it is a different song, so they would make the link between the two, and be happy about knowing that knowledge, the green screen is done to a point where it looks very realistic, and you can probably only recognize that it's a green-screen if you've watched the movie and know the difference between the two songs.

This is a very bad example of green-screen, as it shows the artist to just be flying in the sky with their equipment, and the floor keeps changing positions and so do the artists to compensate for it. The song was releases in 1995, but the green-screen in ridiculous and poses no realism at all, the music video is not even surreal to permit such un-ordinary things going on, it simply is a very bad green-screen. It will make modern audiences and maybe even older audiences to see and instantly be bored or not interested in it, due to the fact that we can clearly see it's a green screen that has been done very badly.