The Hobbit

A few days ago, I went to see The Hobbit on the day of release in the Wimbledon IMAX cinema. Although I have not yet seen the statistics for how well it has done, I already know it is extremely likely do do well because it has a few unique points that help it to sell.

Firstly, it is a prequel to The Lord of The Rings trilogy, the last of which was the 6th highest grossing film of all time, beating Star Wars and all but one of the Harry Potter movies. Even though the Lord of The Rings trilogy was released nearly ten years ago, it has also sustained interest in the franchise, due to multiple games being release, some of which have been extremely successful, such as Battle for Middle Earth 1 and 2. Not only this, but for over 50 years, The Hobbit and The Lord of The Rings have been a much loved book across the world.

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Lip syncing

Lip syncing is something I am having to take a lot of time over for my music video. If the clips of the singer and band members are not synchronized with the music, the video will look unprofessional. Since I recorded audio with my footage, it is easier to lip sync because I can put the clips in so that they music on the footage is in time with the real audio, then all I need to do is cut the clip where I want it.

Work Experience

Camera that was used for filming

On Friday 2nd, I went for work experience with a BBC film crew. We were on two locations, one was a pub just outside Camden and the other was an old house in the same area. I was mainly working with the sound department and got to operate a boom mic for one scene and operate the mixing desk for two scenes. Here I have some pictures of my experience but unfortunately the picture quality isn't great due to the pictures being taken on my iPhone.
From this experience I learned a lot about filming techniques and camera operation, that I can transfer to my project. I also learned a lot about the most effective ways to organise a film shoot, and about how to position and effectively use lighting. This are all skills that I can use in my project.

Park of the mixing desk's rig

Part of the mixing desk's rig

Filming outside the house late at night

Filming in the Pub

PLANNING: MOOD BOARD

Here is a mood board that I created on the website www.bhldn.com . I have tried to get across how I want the music video to look and feel, how I want my audience to feel when watching it and how I want to have a very DIY approach. 

PLANNING: EDITING TECHNIQUES

Editing is very important in music videos because if it is not done well and in time to the music, the video can seem very unprofessional and just wouldn't look right to the viewer. One music video that I found that is a good example of an effective use of editing is the video for "That Golden Rule" by Biffy Clyro, which you should be able to watch in the video box on this post. During the verses the camera cuts very rapidly between shots. This gives the verse a very energetic feel and goes with the loud and fast sound, but it doesn't look messy and random because the cuts are in time with the beat of the song. In the chorus however the editing calms everything down a little. The shots of the singer (Simon Neil) singing, are put into slow motion, and the shots are displayed for a lot longer before they cut. In actual fact, the song doesn't slow down an awful lot in the chorus, but the editing gives the impression that it does.
In my music video, I am going to put in a lot of time to make sure that the cuts in my music video are to the beat of the song because I believe it will be more visually engaging and will also look more professional.
Aside from cutting and slow motion, I will also need to think about adding things like colour correction and blurs etc, which I have already started to do on the footage I have shot.

PLANNING: Asking Permission

I asked permission to use the song on Dinosaur Pile Up's facebook page. Most large bands wouldn't reply to posts like this on facebook pages, but Dinosaur Pile Up often communicate with their fans who message them via Facebook

PLANNING: Call Sheet

Here is the call sheet I will be using for the band scenes which will all be shot in one evening

PLANNING: Time Line

I made a time line for the narrative parts of my music video. I wrote what happens next to the lyrics so that it will be easier to put together when it comes to editing

PLANNING: Shots

Here are the shots I will want to take for the band performance scenes

Overhead shots of the singer (perhaps panning down to a profile shot)

Three person shots of the full band

Shots of just the instruments being played (shot by attaching a go pro to the
guitar or piece of drum kit)

Profile shot of the singer

Shots from behind the band, panning round the drum kit

Full body shots of each member of the band with their instrument

PLANNING: Album cover sketch

Here us a quick sketch I did for an album cover idea that I came up with. The idea is a toy dinosaur standing on a pile of other smaller toy dinosaurs with a guitar. The background would be perhaps a child's room with other toys scattered around. I came up with this idea because the song talks about childhood and the music video is funny and un-serious

CONSTRUCTION: Editing

All of the editing for the footage that I have currently shot has now been completed in After Effects.

PLANNING: LYRICS ANALYSIS

Since I was young i've always felt some sort of trouble, 
The nervous one with his finger on the buzzer, 
Bless my poor mother she always knew somethin' was goin on, with her son, 
I Guess it Shows... 

I guess it shows that some things are clearer than others, 
My rock n rolls been causing kinda problems, 
Amongst my friends and the ones I call my brothers, 
It's not fun... No it's not.. 

I hit a wall about a half week ago when, 
My rock n roll became lodged between my two extremes yeah, 
Heavy metal and love songs oh so sweet became confused... So confused Ididnt know... 

I asked my boy Eddy down at the studio and, 
He got annoyed and said "why cant you keep them together?" Now thats a point but it's always much easier said than done. No it's not, Hey said Hey... 

Since I was young i've always felt some sort of trouble, 
The nervous one with his finger on the buzzer, 
Bless my poor mother she always knew somethin' was goin on, with her son, 
I Guess it Shows... 

I guess it shows that some things are clearer than others, 
My rock n rolls been causing kinda problems, 
Amongst my friends and the ones I call my brothers, 
It's not fun... No it's not.. 

Rock N Roll... X9 

Since I was young i've always felt some sort of trouble, 
The nervous one with his finger on the buzzer, 
Bless my poor mother she always knew somethin' was goin WRONG, with her son,

The song My Rock n Roll talks about the singer of the band's love affair with Rock n Roll and all the problems he came across when he started the band. The lyrics for My Rock n Roll are very un-complicated and there are no hidden meanings. It is therefore easy for the listener to grasp the topic. This kind of simple every day topic helps to emphasise the bands reputation as normal every day people. Also, because of the simplicity yet relatable topic of the lyrics, the mood is therefore created more by the instruments. When it comes to interpreting the lyrics for a music video, I think that the mere name "my rock n roll" shows that it has to be mostly performance based. Because of the simplicity of the lyrics however, it would be easy to make the narrative whatever you want, since to do simply what the lyrics describe would be very cliche and predictable.

PLANNING: Amature vs Profesional

Here is a quick post on music videos I am taking inspiration from. I am mainly trying to look at how the bands perform so I have tried to pick music videos that are mostly performance based. The first video is a Dinosaur Pile Up video. Of course I am taking inspiration from them because they wrote the song and I feel that they give a very good live performance. Watching this video has also given me a good feel for what the band are like as people. The second one is the music video for Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana. I choose to use this video as inspiration since it is such an iconic video and the band have a very definitive performance style which people can easily recognize. The last one is the live video for The Captain by Biffy Clyro. I picked this because since it is a live video, the way they perform is very easy to analyze. The way they control the crowd could be transferred to a music video to captivate the audience.

PLANNING: HOW MY BAND DEVELOPED ITS STAR BRAND

• Dinosaur Pile Up are an alternative rock band from Leeds. 
• Dinosaur Pile Up are a relatively small band. Because of this they don't quite have the "star quality" of bigger artists like Marilyn Manson or Guns n Roses, but they are able to build up a certain intimacy with their fans, meeting them after shows etc. Even though they are small however, they still have a very committed fan base. For example, I met a man in his early 20s who had been to most of their shows on one of their smaller tours.
• The way that many bands like Dinosaur Pile Up market themselves, makes them seem very real/normal and like every day people. This helps the target audience to connect with them. The band wouldn't be able to connect that way with their audience, if they marketed themselves in the way that bands like KISS do, almost putting themselves in an untouchable god like state in the eyes of their fans. Although this may not seem to give them "star quality" so to speak, it helps to gain their fans respect which results in the fans giving the same kind of commitment.
• Modern bands are now very dependant on playing good live shows. For example, they make the majority of their income now from touring. This was proved when I went to see a band called New Found Glory last year and they actively encouraged the audience to "illegally download the new album, as long as you keep paying to go to shows and buy something from the merch stall". A lot of bands now put their singles up for free download online as a result of this. Also, bands get most/if not all of their exposure from their live shows. The band 30 Seconds To Mars for example, played 300 shows in the space of a year. Dinosaur Pile Up gained a lot of their exposure through touring with bands like Feeder and Twin Atlantic and have gained a reputation as a good live band, which has increased their star quality. Because of the bands dependancy on live shows, I want to convey in my music video that the band are able to offer a unique and exciting live experience, as well as providing an entertaining narrative.
• Dinosaur Pile Up's guitarist and front man Matt Bigland has gained a lot of star quality because of his musicianship. He is a very talented musician, so much so that on the first album he played all of the instruments on the recordings, also writing all the songs himself. He is also the one that features on the cover so people that became fans of that album very much became fans of Matt. Also, recording and writing all the tracks himself would remind most fans of Dave Grohl the Foo Fighters front man and ex Nirvana drummer, who did the same with the first Foo Fighters album. He has much more star quality and being associated with him would be a boost for any bands reputation.

Dinosaur Pile Up

PLANNING: Audience Profile

Here I am doing research into the kind of people that would watch my music video. This will help be get a good idea of what themes and perhaps references to other parts of popular culture that I could include in my music video

• T.V: People that tend to listen to bands like Dinosaur Pile Up tend to watch channels like E4, VIVA and BBC 3. VIVA is a very new T.V channel which shows a mixture of various different genres of music and mostly comedy programs. Comedy programs include South Park and The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. These programs are made in the 90s and I think 90s humour appeals to my audience. My audience would also view BBC 3 mainly for the comedy with programs like American Dad, Family Guy and Russell Howard's Good News. They would watch E4 for a mixture of comedy (such as The Cleaveland Show and The Big Bang Theory) and more dramatic thrilling programs like Misfits.

Alton Towers



The Boiler Room in Guildford

• Spare time: In their spare time I think that fans of Dinosaur Pile Up would be very much into the live music scene for signed and unsigned bands. When going to see bigger bands they would go to see bands like Foo Fighters or Biffy Clyro in big stadium gigs, but they would also regularly go to smaller local to see unsigned bands. For example, locally to me we have The Boiler Room in Guildford which has regular gigs every weekend and many week days too. During their holidays they would also go to music festivals like Download, Sonisphere or Reading/Leeds. Aside from music however, they would go to places like Alton Towers or Camden Market to spend time with friends and enjoy themselves. 

Nirvana, although having tragically lost their singer,
are at the front of alt rock culture and I think fans of
Dinosaur Pile Up will be into their music.

• Other bands: Fans of Dinosaur Pile Up would tend to listen to alt rock, grunge and punk bands, so really they would listen to many bands from most rock n roll eras except perhaps the 80s. These bands could include Feeder, Twin Atlantic, The Foo Fighters, Biffy Clyro, The Clash, The Sex Pistols, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, The White Stripes, The Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Weezer.

• Music Magazines: Fans of Dinosaur Pile Up would definitely buy magazines regularly or in some cases subscribe to them. I think the most popular one would be NME, followed by Kerrang! and Rocksound. NME tends to lean more towards ALT Rock where as Kerrang! and Rocksound tend to feature less of a range of bands and slightly heavier bands that wouldn't be associated quite as much with Dinosaur Pile Up.

PLANNING: Location Report

These are some photos of the setting I want to use for the band scenes of my music video. My location is in one of the tunnels leading into the mansion building at my school Claremont. I chose this venue because it looks like it could be the venue for an underground or "secret" gig

RESEARCH: STARDOM

My Chemical Romance while their image was classed
as "emo"

After My Chemical Romance changed their
image to escape the "emo" trend

Stardom is not all glitz and glamor and its often the controversy around bands and artists that can draw in new listeners. A stars image can make or break them. If the media decides they like them they can help them every step of the way with good reviews and publicity. However, even if the media does set out to ruin a band, often any publicity is good publicity since it gets the bands name out there.

One extremely good example of this is after the band My Chemical Romance released their album "The Black Parade". The Black Parade was a concept album, which means that the whole album has a certain theme and the songs help to tell a story when put together. The story based around The Black Parade was about a man who becomes terminally ill and he was being comforted by his own thoughts and others but also had moments of hate and anger at what was happening to him. To go with the theme of the album, the band dressed up as if they were skeletal soldiers leading this mans "Black Parade".

After one girl who was mentally disturbed and depressed to commit suicide after having owned a copy of their album, the media immediately set out to ruin the band. The Daily Mail directly blamed the band for the girls suicide, saying that the band were members of a "suicide cult" and that they "glorified suicide" which were completely unfounded remarks, backed up by no physical evidence. However, even though the media set out to ruin them, it resulted in everyone was talking about them. It even got to the stage where there were fanatical religious protesters outside their concerts saying that they were "connected to the devil" but this just generated more news reports and more interviews. More interviews and more publicity meant that more people were exposed to their image and their music making the band and their publicity managers more money, it is a perfect example of how any publicity is good publicity. However, many stars cant handle the pressure of this and so to try and escape all the controversy My Chemical Romance's next album was another concept album, but with a much brighter outlook and style to go with it.

Here is the Daily Mail Article on My Chemical Romance
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-566481/Why-child-safe-sinister-cult-emo.html

RESEARCH:STUDYING MUSIC VIDEOS PREZI

Research into music videos on Prezi


Information sourced from: Steve Archer 'Music Magazine' February 2004

RESEARCH: DIRECTORS' LABEL

For this, I decided to do a video commentary over one of the music videos we studied. I chose to do the Red Hot Chili Peppers "Cant Stop" which was directed by Mark Romanek

RESEARCH: MORAL PANICS

Music and music videos have always caused controversy. Be it in the 70s with the Sex Pistols or in modern day with the apparent "sexualisation" of music videos. Just reading back on that first couple of sentences, I can already see one trend in how music shocks the world. Sex. Music has always had sexual connotations but it has just got less and less subtle as the years have gone by. The Beach Boys used to sing about their girls giving them "good vibrations" and "exitation" where as modern bands like Good Charlotte say "she sounds like sex on the radio". People often say that music has become more sexualised, but I simply think it has just become less subtle, it has always been there and on the same level. However, if we leave the songs themselves aside, music videos have become more sexualised. Many music videos of all genres include an archetypal sexy woman and it is extremely predictable now, especially in pop music. I want to try and move away from this in my music video.

However, there are issues other than sex that are presented in music videos and in the culture that follows them. For example, a lot of people blame Marylin Manson for teenage depression and he has even been blamed for suicides. Taken at face value, Marylin Manson has a very shocking image that is especially conveyed in his music videos and it could easily scare people. However, people will often speak out against something they don't understand and while I can understand their distaste for Marylin Manson and other similar artists, if you speak to their fans they will almost always say how the artists songs have "saved their life" or "helped them get through hard times". I have included a video of Marylin Manson talking about the subject on an American chat show and one of his more shocking and visually creepy music videos. I would argue, that if people who are depressed or have issues in their life, if they didn't turn to music and music videos to help express themselves that they would turn to another art form like books or painting which would then cause the same controversy (and in many cases often do)

RESEARCH: TRENDS

Over the summer there have been two particular tracks that have taken the world by storm. Those tracks are "Call Me Maybe" by Carly Rae Jepson and Gangnam Style. Both are synth led mainstream pop songs, however, Gangnam style could be seen as more suited as a club track. Both songs however, most defiantly have something in common, and that is that they both have some sort of memorable hook that the audience can easily retain in their minds and repeat. This is why they have become popular. However, the hook is presented in a different medium for each song. In Gangnam Style, it is the dance that the singer does, pretending he is on a horse. It is an extremely simple dance move that anyone, without any previous experience at dancing, can learn to do within a matter of seconds, and that makes it extremely accessible. The hook in call me maybe is the lyrics in the chorus "Hey I just met you, and this is crazy, but here is my number, so call me maybe". The melody of the lyrics, is based around a 4 chord progression that is invariably the same for any successful up beat pop song because it is easy to sing. The lyrics are simple and stick in your head (whether you like it or not) and so therefore (as is the case in school) if anyone sings the song to themselves or plays it out loud, most other people in the room tend to join in.

What can we learn from this?
Well, the song that applies most to our situation is Gangnam style, since we are producing a music video and the medium that made it popular is the music video, not the song. If I could include some kind of repeated hook/action in my music video that the viewer could join in with or retain in their memory, it would have more chance of succeeding if it were to be released commercially.



I have included the two music videos below. The first is Call Me Maybe, and the second is Gangnam Style.

RESEARCH: British Music Experience

Planning my music video

My music video will be in two different parts. One part will be the narrative which will be following our main character (played by Ben Ressa) and the other part will be footage of the band playing.

Band section

The tunnel at Claremont

Bon Jovi's "Its My Life"

For this section, I want to have a visually interesting setting, not just a boring old blackened room or a very cliche stage. Therefore, I had the idea of having the band perform in the tunnel which leads into the main school building. Although I wasn't particularly conscious of it when I first came up with the idea, I think that I most probably drew inspiration from Bon Jovi's music video "Its My Life" in which they are playing in a motor way tunnel. The fact that the tunnel is a small, cramped space, I think will also help to create a certain intimacy with the audience.

This is the kind of shot I want to be able to achieve with
the Go-Pro camera.

I have various shots in mind that I will be trying to capture in the band section. Of course, I will be getting a lot of close ups of the front man, whole band shots and shots of the individual members of the band (who will come in mainly when their instrument is prominent in the song. However, I also want to get some shots by attaching a Go Pro camera to the guitars. I saw this used in the music video for Papa Roach's "Kick in the Teeth" and thought that not only was it a great way to capture the energy of the song, but it also gave a really visually interesting kind off shot because the camera moves with the guitar and you don't see in a lot of music videos.
I am also using my band to perform as Dinosaur Pile Up and because of that I should be able to drag along a small crowd to give the impression that the band are performing a small underground/secret gig. I am in the process of making posters to help advertise this.







Narrative section

The steady cam I will be using for shooting

The storyline for my narrative section is my lead character (Ben Ressa) waking up in an obscure location, having lost his memory. The only item he has is a blank CD player and he ends up searching for a CD to fit in it. He ends up finding a Dinosaur Pile Up CD and he also finds a poster advertising an underground/secret Dinosaur Pile Up show that is on that day which at the end of the video he ends up going to. I am proud of this idea since I think it is original and will be memorable partially because it is so cliche. In the style of most alternative rock bands, I will try and create elements of comedy in the video and not take it too seriously, since I think that with the story line I have chosen, if I took it too seriously my audience may find it boring.
I will be shooting in Kingston using a Steady Cam to help make my shots smoother. I chose Kingston because people who live locally will recognise it and people who don't will be able to relate to it since it is a very average shopping town that you may get in any part of the UK.
I have also story boarded the narrative so that when it comes to shooting I will be able to remember what things I need to shoot. This may not be an issue for some people but I have a tendency to be quite forgetful.

Here I am story boarding

RESEARCH: MUSIC TV CHANNELS

Music television channels like "MTV", after being created in 1981, have changed a lot in the past ten to twenty years. Back in the 80s and 90s MTV aired purely music videos and programs/documentaries about the bands and their music. However, because off sites like YouTube, which make music videos much more easily and freely accessed music channels have been unable to sustain themselves. T.V channels that can put their hand on their heart and call themselves a "music" channel are practically non existent in the modern day. Instead, they now show programs that would appeal to people involved with musical culture, that often have no direct connection with the bands or music that are also played every now and then on the channel. Sites like YouTube, allow you to watch whatever music video you want, whenever you want, where as if you were watching MTV you would have to settle for whatever music video was being played, whether you liked it or not. Also, to help boost viewing figures, MTV in particular has started to air much more mainstream music, where as in the 80s and early 90s, they would have aired less mainstream artists.

Me shooting in Kingston last weekend

Story boarding and planning

Here is a picture from my note book which contains some of the story boarding and planning of my music video.

Storyboard

Here I am storyboarding my music video before I started shooting last weekend. I also wrote out a list of equipment I would need, the cast, what they should wear and noted down ideas for location.

Describe and evaluate your skills development over the course of your production work from Foundation Portfolio to Advanced Production in relation to creativity

The shots in my prelim included an establishing shot, two-person shot and shot / reverse shots: some room for creativity in that I learned to shoot, capture and edit in Adobe Premiere and iMovie.

I got at my most creative when we did our main task however, our thriller opening. It took me and my group a long time to come up with a story that would attract and interest our target audience- a teenage boy who blames himself for his girl friend's hospitalised condition and becomes suicidal. We filmed in Kingston which is a place where our target audience may go to socialise, so our audience could easily relate themselves to it. All the camera angles and shots required creative planning in order to  create a sense of suspense and mystery. In our research process, we also used  a lot of creative ways to present our ideas, for example like a spider web mind map, Prezi, Yudu, Slideshare, InDesign and Photoshop. I find all of the above very interesting, enhanced my creativity and are very user- friendly. 
During our planning, we created storyboards, call sheets and risk assessments, they all help us with organising and preparing for our filming secession and I now realise that without detailed planning everything would have taken us longer and would have lead to simply more stress. However, throughout the project we did make a few mistakes, for example the lighting was too dim or too bright. But we used creative ways to solve these problems for example by using colour correction on Adobe Premier to adjust the brightness and contrast in order to create suspense.
I also think I advanced creatively with all the editing software we used. For example, I was able to teach myself to use colour correction, edit pieces of film together and many other things, which I think requires a good level of creativity.

Music video narative

Heidi Peeters' view on narrative in music video is much more about building the emotional environment surrounding the band or star and thereby making connections with the audience than about plot or interpreting lyrics. For Peeters, this ability to connect the band to the audience is the KEY GENRE CONVENTION: 'One would be surprised at how the majority of theorists still consider music videos to be visualizations of a song.

While they may seem discontinuous .., the shots (in music videos)are highly connected through the image of the star.” “The star promotes the phenomenon of identification, a process by which viewers become attached to a star, ranging from emotional affinity limited to the context of the movie theatre to projection, by which fans try to become their idols through imitating speech, movements and consumer patterns.'

The Manic Street Preacher's song "From Despair to Where?" deals with teenage depression.