Inspiration and Research

This is a video by Cajun Dance Party we got some of our ideas from this video such as running through a field and animation, however are animation isn't going to be the same or as extreme. This wouldn't be a very interesting video if it wasn't for the random animation, so we have taken this style and will use more random images to help make the video more appealing to the audience. Bright colours are also going to be a main feauture in our video and the animation is this video used bright images that are also happy and child like.
Seeing as the song we are doing is by Cajun Dance Party it is important that we looked at there videos and took notice of there style as we want to portray this in the video and make sure it is right to there genre style of music.



Since we have decided to not use animation in our video any more, as we don't think they are right. We still wanted to use things such as a flower, however real ones instead of animated ones. In beyonce's video she is pulling petal of a rose but it is in reverse order this is what we are thinking of doing, when Marianne is in the field and maybe with a daisy.This video also uses black and white. We may use this in our video for different effects as we want to focus on graphics as well as a narrative to make the video more interesting. Similar to Beyonce's video as there is clearly a narrative between her being a 'Broken Hearted Girl', which we see in the video and a male also features in the video, he isn't a artist but he supposed to be someone Beyonce knows and the storyline is about romance so it is quite important that a male is shown as this fits and emphasises the point of romance and love which is what the video is about.
Not only does she have the shot of her pulling petals of a rose, but in reverse order she also has petals falling from what looks like the sky as the shot fades out and in to another one. There are various settings and costume changes in this music video, although it is mainly set at a beach and Beyonce's costume is long or floaty dresses portraying her as feminine and stylish.

Teacher Feedback on Pitch and Blog

Your pitch was very good and there are clear links in your initial developmental stage between your music promo video and your ancillary products, which is great.
I particularly like the contrasts you intend to create by a mix of black and white and strong colours, and carrying that contrasting idea through by contrasting your costumes and locations i.e ballgowns in cornfields.
Your blog is good, my advice for making it even better is that it is currently lacking visual representations of your influences. Look at some other real and student music videos that explore similar themes to yours and then blog and analyse them.
Props and costume lists are important and location scouting is also necessary. In addition, some of your posts need labeling to indicate who exactly contributed to the content, even if it is all of you that needs to be made clear. This is particularly the case with the post of your Goodwin analysis presentations.
This is looking very good, keep up the good work.

Shot List

Lyrics: The Hill, The View & The Lights

High up in the sky
I will go flying
The lights that catch my eye
They keep me flying

High up in the sky
Romance fills my eyes
The tears that come alive
They keep me flying

High up in the sky
Sunlight burns my eyes,
But I’ll keep on breathing,
But I’ll keep on flying

(High up in the sky, I will go flying, I will fly high, I will fly high)

Wishing I could take you here to feel the same feelings
Understand my thoughts about the sun,
About the lights,
About the way you can try to share my lights and frights,
Walking up the hill
I feel the gritty city shadow urging me on
Urging me on
Walking up the hill
Walking up the hill
Urging me on
Urging me on
I’ve forced myself to see further than the clouds would let see more clearly
The horizon light in the way
In the way
Restricted romance in the way
In the way
But I am walking up
Climbing to the top
Flying to the hill, the view and the lights
The hill, the view and the lights

High up in the sky
In the colorful life
My light will reappear
When they keep it on
To hear my songs

Here we have highlighted all the key words that we will use for shot ideas that will help us to have a strong link between the lyrics and visuals.

Ideas:

First Shot

The main girl singing will be sitting on the swing with her legs crossed and the shot starts behind her.

Second Shot

It then zooms in, into a low angle and then she will start swinging, which means we can see the back round and the sky, where there will be different animations such as flowers and birds flying in the sky.

Third Shot

A medium shot which goes in to a close up of her face so we can see her singing.

Fourth Shot

For the forth shot it will be at the end of the first verse and as she jumps of the swing.

Fifth Shot

it changes location to her in a field, with a different costume.

Sixth Shot

The camera will track her as she is running through the field, there will be different animations and they are going to be the same as the lyrics for example when she says romance fills my eyes.

Seventh Shot

We will then use a range of different shot's and angles of the girl singing in the field, using the different shots to make it more appealing to the audience - keeping their interest.

Eighth Shot

We will here change location to a wood, using tracking shots, both medium and close ups of her singing directly to the camera. We will use slow motion when she's running to emphasis the slowness of her part in the song.

Ninth Shot

As this will be point that the girls lyrics finish, we will end her part by here sitting on punts, we will use a low angle shot looking down at her, maybe over the shoulder.

Magazine Pitch

The ideas we had for making a magazine cover were that it had to be similar to the CD cover. We would have our main characters from the video at the front of the cover, behind we were going to have a picture of an estate at night time, this is because the Cajun dance party often use scenery in their photo shoots or album covers. We would use a lot of graphics to create lights and a modern effect as this is also how we want to portray the band, as individual and contemporary. The band like bright colors, but their lyrics can often be quite dark so we thought in contrast to this we would show the two main artists, who will also feature in the video in black and white and then the back round will be all bright colors and images. There will only be two members of the band in our magazine cover though as we are only using the a male and a female in our video similar to the two main people in the band the female and male vocalist.


The initial idea is that the magazine cover will be similar to this, however we would change the back and edit it, so the artists are in black and white. As you can see this is the Cajun dance party and they are dressed in an indie style with bright colors which is why we thought it is important that we incorporate this into are magazine as this would be the type of style they would like for a magazine cover.

This is the photo we edited in photo shop it isn't finish but it gives an idea of what it could look like with different effects. We liked this as well as we wanted to use lights and a night time effect and this show that, however we would have the back round as an estate and in a photo style and normal color. You would also need to see the artists faces if it is for a magazine so we like the way the artists are looking at the camera and the effects, although we would need to edited in better detail so it looks more like a magazine cover.

Digipak Pitch

It is important that as well as pitching ideas for a music video we also must pitch ideas for our digipak that we will be producing throughout the course. A digipak is described to be a patented style of either a compact disc or DVD packaging. Focusing on the design and style of it in order to be able to attract the intended audience, so instead of downloading the music online people would prefer to go out to the shop because they want to experience having either a additional product or being able to experience having the unique and beautifully designed compact disk or DVD.

For our digipak we will be designing unique and outstanding compact disk cover including all of the conventions that a compact disk cover would be expected of such as : A track list on the back, the artists name and the song title on the cover and on the spine, either a image of the artist or specific colors and symbols which reflects the artist. Here i will list the ideas we have came up with that we may include in our compact disk cover design :

- The artists will be centered on the front, in black and white.

- The background will be in very bright colors, contrasting to the artists being in black and white, allowing them to still stand out even though their not in color. We have chosen to have a variety of bright colors in the background as the music title is : "The hill, the view and the lights".

-We are thinking for the photograph we will set the location in a field as a lot of their music videos are shot in a field (also as we are thinking to set our music video in a film - as this will make our product all link together).

-We will then use our photoshop skills to import graphics such as bright colored shapes and texts and patterns.

We together as a group feel that bright colors, country sides and randomness is what represents the Cajun Dance Party so we will use these representations in our compact disk cover design and for also our magazine cover so our project will come together into one product at the end.

Music Video Pitch

Together we have chosen track 4 : "The hill, the view and the light". We have decided to choose this song because we feel we can experiment with many different ideas and have a chance to use more experimental techniques which differs from our past work, so we can challenge. This song in our opinion allows us to use graphics but can also focus on a narrative, making it hopefully a more appealing music video.

Mise en scene

Location : Were going to try many different locations as its quite a slow song so we need to maintain the audiences attention. A lot of the lyrics include references to out door locations and situations such as the weather (sun,sky), hills and a lot about walking to different locations, in this case we are planning to do a lot of tracking following around the singer focusing on her. Were going to contrast the locations to costumes for example if when in a field or estate the singer would be wearing classier clothes. Here we have written a list of different possible locations :

- Park (close up shots of her on swing)
- Woods
- Walking through estates
- In busy areas such as the city center (we were thinking to have her stood still in a crowd whilst people are rushing by her (we could use a effect to speed up all the people around her - fast motion)
- Fields and hills (mentioned a lot in the lyrics) we were thinking to film at different times of the day showing different types of sky's as a lot of the lyrics mention looking up at the sky.

We want a shot similar to this to show not only the female artist who will be singing, but to show the sky and setting around her, as these are all important as they relate to the lyrics and we therefore want to make sure they are seen.

One of our idea of where we might set part of the music video is in the woods, similar to the picture as it creates an atmosphere and we want to have lots of different location in our music video to create variety and interest.

Narrative

The theme of the song is love, which shows in the lyrics and a lot of metaphors are used to represent love and we will use these to help us with the narrative and to relate the lyrics to what is going on in the video. We aren't having a fixed narrative as the lyrics don't specifically relate to two people. We were thinking that when the artists are singing there is lots of tracking of what they are doing and at the end they meet, which is what are main narrative will be based on.

Pace

The pace of the song is relatively slow to begin with however when the male vocalist starts singing the music and pace increases, this is when we would start to make things faster, and could be when we have people walking past the female singer or male in fast motion.

Goodwins Theory

One of Goodwins theories were that there is a relationship between the lyrics and visuals, we are going to show this is our video by showing what is said in the lyrics for example how the lyrics talk about sky and hills which will be included in the setting of the video. Also how the song is about love and at the end we hope to illustrate this by showing the female and male artist together.

There will be a number of different shots including a lot of close up on the main artist and this is how we are thinking to start our film with a close up of the female singer. This will be for both the audience and to help set the narrative and visuals to the lyrics. It is also likely that both artist will be singing directly into the camera which is a example of voyeurism.

Costumes and Props

It is likely that the setting and location of our music video may be a more run down area, therefore in contrast to this we were thinking we would have the people in our video dressed in a more classy, indie way but yet still showing the youth of the artists, as this fits the genre of music. The props will be fairly simple as we are going to focus a lot on graphics and the setting of the video, however the props we will use will probably be day to day things as we will be tracking the artists as though they are doing normal day to day things. Our main prop though will be a multi coloured umbrella which is a main feature in our video

This is what we imagine the artist will be dressed like, similar to this, however maybe slightly more colorful.So we are thinking Marianne will be dressed in a floaty prom dress in the field with wellies, then maybe converse and laddered tights for another location. The male artist will be dressed in skinny jeans and a smart suit jacket and then smart shoes. For another location skinny jeans again, more casual shoes either converse or high top trainers and then a casual jacket and top.

To make sure that all our products fit together as one package we are going to be using the colorful umbrella in all our products, such as: both the magazine cover and the digipak will have the umbrella included in the image, or we will somehow use the umbrella as an opening mechanism on the digipak. The umbrella will also be used in a few different shot's in the music video.

Spike Jonze

For this task our group had to focus on a specific famous music director - Spike Jonze. To present the information we researched about him and also his work and then we made a power point presentation. The main focus to our research was to look at an auteur (to look at what makes his work recognizable to others). So that we are able to think about how our three products will link together well representing our production company label.

On a whole we feel that his work is quite unique and can be easily recognizable to his audience. This is the type of media we need to look at us to help us with our own work, as it is very important to make sure that all our products link well together indicating that all of which are from the same production team.

By Naomi, Marianne and Sian

Q1 Auteur Presentation - Spike Jonze

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Andrew Goodwin Conventions

To make sure we have a good understanding of the conventions of Goodwin's theory we each analysised a music video of our choice and explained how the goodwin's theory was inlucded in each one.

By Naomi
Q1 Music Video Analysis

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By Sian

Q1 Music Video Analysis

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By Marianne

Q1 Music Video Analysis

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Music Video Choices

First Choice : "The hill the view and the light" (Track 4) is one of our choices. We feel we could make the video quite narrative, we imagine a girl or a variety of different girls in different situations matching the lyrics in the song such as "head lights", "flashing lights" and "rain". As there is also a male vocalist in the song as well we could base it on a love story for example when the women is singing she could be walking to go see the boy. A lot of graphics would also be quite relevant to the song. A lot of visual effects and close ups used. The screen shot above is by the same artist but in a different song, a good example of how were going to use tracking shots on the artist running.

Second Choice : "OCWD by self service" (Track 7) is a more up beat and quite grungy song compared to the others. For this music video we imagine it located at a party, with a band playing (close up on instruments) and maybe even some kind of narrative included. We then thought for when the lyrics start the main girl could be walking home (so we would be tracking) from the party in slow motion vandalizing things on the street, while quick flashbacks (use effects) from the party and the band the night before.

-The genre of this song is more rock punk in contrast to the other two.

Third Choice : "The riffle" (Track 10) is another of our choices, if we were to make a music video for this song we would make it quite surreal almost like a documentary or as if it was from a film. A lot of the lyrics are about nature and a lot of running and woods are mentioned so we quite visualize it in having shots of a girl or a child running perhaps through some woods (so here we would use panning and tracking). A good idea for this song would be to maybe document or follow a girls day in life.

- Both track 4 and 10 have quite unusual lyrics in them, this is often reflected in their music video. We are planning on using this similar technique if we decide to use on of these two videos. The style of this music is indie which normally means the videos and lyrics are quite random, and the singer normally is in direct contact with the audience, its as if the singer is singing to you. People who are into this genre would normally expect there to be a narrative and to be quite abstract and artistic.

The mise en scene in terms of location in this genre are quite surreal and everything has meaning, normally reflecting to the lyrics.