Introducing The Team (Jonny)
Josh Mugridge
An original person with an original mind, Josh is never short of unusual and creative ideas which are likely to keep our audience aesthetically pleased. This is Josh's second year of Media where he is also studying English Language and History. Josh gained plenty of experience on the camera filming last year and hopes to contribute his experience to this years project of producing a music video.
Jonny Murray
Jonny is really looking forward to working on this project with Josh. He hopes to build on the previous skills he learnt last year to produce a great music video. Taking on the difficult challenge of leading the editing last year on Imovie, Jonny now hopes to develop his skills on final cut. This is also Jonny's second year of Media where he is also studying Business and Law. Jonny feels that with his careful planning and organisation skills along with Josh's creativeness that they have a great recipe for success.
Josh and Jonny have been good friends since year 7 and believe that this duo team combination will work really well. Both are hard workers who hope to pursue careers in Media. Although the genre of song they have chosen is not necesarily one they would be likely to listen to, they feel that it gives them the best chance at creating a great music video! The two hope that their long term friendship will reap the benefits whilst working together on this project.
Record Labels
I have selected two different record labels to look at for my this post. I have chosen to look at syco and Virgin records. The reason that I have chosen these as they are both founded by individuals that are very well known within the UK. Both Simon Cowell (syco) and Richard Branson(virgin records) also have various other lines of work.
Virgin records have a number of different people signed to them with one of the biggest most popular names to have been signed to them being the spice girls. Others the Gorrilaz and the Rolling Stones. This particular record label seems to be aimed at bringing developing artists through as well as having some that are already very successful. I like that this record label doesn't seem to have a great deal of bands therefore it is able to focus on them all more so than labels like sony that have 100's or even 1000's of artists and therefore may not be able to put as much effort into them all. This is one reason for why Sony own many smaller labels in order to make sure that all of the artists still get enough attention so that the music doesn't begin to suffer.
As for Syco they tend to take on artists from talent show that Simon Cowell, the founder, is part of. Recent artists include Little mix and One direction. I like that the label takes these people on to ensure that they do get a chance and that the show finishing isn't the end of the road for them. However they have a reputation of dropping artists quickly if they begin to fail and dont have a good spell.
Case study of iconic music video directors (Josh)
For this I am going to look at how two different music video director and talk about how their careers have differed but also how they have remained the same. Also I will be looking at weather different director tend to produce the same genre of music video as well as working with artists that all produce the same genre of music.
The first director that I am going to look at is Ray Kay, born with the name Reinert K. Olsen. Olsen has been producing music videos since 1996 when he was 20 years old. He has collected numerous awards for the videos that he has produced including from MTV music. This just shows that he has been very successful with his work and has become very well known within the industry for his ability to create fantastic videos. This means that more artists are going to want to work with him as they all want to have the best video in order to gain more publicity for their song. The video that Olsen is probably most famous for is the video for the song Baby by Justin Bieber, this video has over 700 million views and is one of the most watch music videos of all time. In recent years Olsen has tend to stick the pop music genre another example with also directing videos for artists such as Cheryl Cole and Jessie J. This could be because he feels that they are more interesting to produce as there could be a number of different genre of video that he uses such as being able to create both a performance and a image video for the same song. However that he tends to make hybrids of these videos so as to not make them to repetitive but with the Cheryl Cole song - fight for this love Olsen has focused completely on the performance aspect the video almost entirely consisting of the artist singing in front of a green screen or dancing with other backing dancers.
The second director that I am going to look at is Joseph Kahn. Kahn has been directing music videos for 22 years and over that time has created some very iconic videos. Kahn has had a number of his videos nominated for best video and subsequently won quite a few awards for his work. One notable achievement was in 2002 when he won his first Grammy for Eminem's "Without Me" video which also won the MTV Video Music Awards (VMA's) video of the year. Other videos that he has produced such as "Toxic"- Britney Spears also won the MTV VMA's video of the year award. This video covers a few genres the main of these is performance and image but there are some element which could be argued to be spectacle. However from looking at a number of Kahn's videos it appears that the main focus of them is the performance side and promoting the overall image of the artist. There are some which do consist of other genres with other prominent genres used being image and narrative. The main type of artist that Kahn works with is unclear as he doesn't have a particular genre that he sticks to. Due to the high quality of his work many artists re-use him one example is Britney Spears who after the Toxic video asked Kahn to direct the music video for her song womaniser. There have been instances where Kahn has directed a music video for a charity purpose with an example being Helping Haiti which is used to raise awareness of the struggle that the people of Haiti endured after the earthquake using a number of artists to sing different lines of the same song. This video is not really in a particular genre but there are elements of performance as when a new artist sings images of that artist recording their part appears on the screen.
To conclude it appears that directors tend to stick to creating the same genre of video. This could be so that they gain more and more experience at creating a particular genre and become the best they can be at that genre.
The first director that I am going to look at is Ray Kay, born with the name Reinert K. Olsen. Olsen has been producing music videos since 1996 when he was 20 years old. He has collected numerous awards for the videos that he has produced including from MTV music. This just shows that he has been very successful with his work and has become very well known within the industry for his ability to create fantastic videos. This means that more artists are going to want to work with him as they all want to have the best video in order to gain more publicity for their song. The video that Olsen is probably most famous for is the video for the song Baby by Justin Bieber, this video has over 700 million views and is one of the most watch music videos of all time. In recent years Olsen has tend to stick the pop music genre another example with also directing videos for artists such as Cheryl Cole and Jessie J. This could be because he feels that they are more interesting to produce as there could be a number of different genre of video that he uses such as being able to create both a performance and a image video for the same song. However that he tends to make hybrids of these videos so as to not make them to repetitive but with the Cheryl Cole song - fight for this love Olsen has focused completely on the performance aspect the video almost entirely consisting of the artist singing in front of a green screen or dancing with other backing dancers.
The second director that I am going to look at is Joseph Kahn. Kahn has been directing music videos for 22 years and over that time has created some very iconic videos. Kahn has had a number of his videos nominated for best video and subsequently won quite a few awards for his work. One notable achievement was in 2002 when he won his first Grammy for Eminem's "Without Me" video which also won the MTV Video Music Awards (VMA's) video of the year. Other videos that he has produced such as "Toxic"- Britney Spears also won the MTV VMA's video of the year award. This video covers a few genres the main of these is performance and image but there are some element which could be argued to be spectacle. However from looking at a number of Kahn's videos it appears that the main focus of them is the performance side and promoting the overall image of the artist. There are some which do consist of other genres with other prominent genres used being image and narrative. The main type of artist that Kahn works with is unclear as he doesn't have a particular genre that he sticks to. Due to the high quality of his work many artists re-use him one example is Britney Spears who after the Toxic video asked Kahn to direct the music video for her song womaniser. There have been instances where Kahn has directed a music video for a charity purpose with an example being Helping Haiti which is used to raise awareness of the struggle that the people of Haiti endured after the earthquake using a number of artists to sing different lines of the same song. This video is not really in a particular genre but there are elements of performance as when a new artist sings images of that artist recording their part appears on the screen.
To conclude it appears that directors tend to stick to creating the same genre of video. This could be so that they gain more and more experience at creating a particular genre and become the best they can be at that genre.
The Brief (Josh)
At the start of the year we were told that we were to produce a music video. This seemed very simple but there were two key rules which we had to adhere to; one the artist had to be unsigned and two we weren't allowed to take ideas from existing videos. We were shown the six different genre of music video; Performance, Image, Narrrative, Spectacle, Promotional and Personal. We decided that due to the fact that we have very little experience at creating music videos there wasn't really are need for us to make a personal music video as neither of us had any particular thing that we really wanted to do. With regards to creating a spectacular music video we established early on that this would be very difficult due to the lack of finance and technology we have avaliable to us in order to execute this perfectly. So we decided that we would be doing a hybrid video that overlapped; narrative, image, promotional and performance. The reason that we decided this was because the aim of any music video is to promote an artist so by showing lots of performance and close-ups the reputation of the band would be enhanced massively.
Succesful Bands Similar To Village (Jonny)
Two Door Cinema Club is a three-piece "indie rock" band from Bangor and Donaghadee, County Down, Northern Ireland. The band was formed in 2007 by Sam Halliday (lead guitar, backing vocals), Alex Trimble (vocals, rhythm guitar, beats, synths) and Kevin Baird (bass, backing vocals).
The band has received mixed reviews since releasing their first album ‘Tourist History’ in march 2010. Some of their successes include being selected for the Choice Music Prize for "Irish Album of the Year" (2010) and being placed at number 1 in the Irish album charts in September 2012.
The Village Musicians and Two Door Cinema Club are very similar. Although Village play more of a pop style of music whilst TDCC play more rocky both bands represent themselves as Indie. The formations of both bands are also very similar with 3 main members of Village who all play similar instruments and vocals.
I believe that Two Door Cinema Club’s success came from their individuality and style. Although the band are not world known they have received a small cult following of those that relate to the bands style of music and quirkyness. I think that Villages style of music is much more universal across ages, genders and socio economic statuses. However the way they present themselves is not as original as say ‘TDCC’ because of this I think they may find it hard to accumulate mass groups of fans due to being a standard indie pop group.
Josh Running Green Screen
This was our first attempt at producing a green screen clip and as you can see it wasn't quite perfect! The edges are very blurred with a purple tint and with green parts coming off the sides. I feel that the main reason for this was that we tried to film a very complicated clip with lots of movement which we were not experienced enough to edit effectively. If we were to do this again I think I would film a still image to make it easier. Although the final outcome was not perfect, I feel that we are now able to produce a green screen clip having learnt all of the necessary steps needed. The filming on the screen itself was easy and the image is now much clearer as we have industry standard lights. The software on final cut was very simple to use once you get the hang of it and CAN be effective in eliminating the green background. Hopefully as we continue to practice our clips we will get better at the green screen!
Record Labels (BIG and small) (JONNY)
Virgin Records
Virgin Records is a British record label founded by entrepreneur Richard Branson in 1972. Virgin Records owes its fame to Mike Oldfield who arguably flung Virgin Records to fame after releasing his multi platinum single 'tubular bells' with the label. Virgin Records were sold to EMI in 1992 to fund Branson's airline business.
Virgin have a wide mix of artists from many different genres including David Guetta, The Kooks, Deadmau5, Emeli Sande and many more! Although Virgin Records does not have a specific 'image' with such a diverse range of genres all Virgin businesses try to brand themselves as a fun and youthful organisation.
Virgin Records is a large record company in its own right yet is owned by EMI a record company 10 times its size with numerous record labels to its name some which are much more genre specific such as EMI Nashville which specializes in American country music. Being with a large label like Virgin means that there are no problems with the cost of producing an album or creating the publicity for it, these people know exactly what to do. The problem is that these record labels are likely to care more about the profit made from the musician rather than the musician itself,
Disturbing London Record Label
Disturbing London is a small independently owned music record label run by Patrick Chukwuemeka Okogwu aka Tinie Tempah and his cousin/ manager Dumi Oburota who are both founders and CEO's of the company.The record label was originally set up to facilitate Tinie's music however has since signed new artists all with the similar genre of pop/
hip hop. In recent years up and coming artists such as Sasha Keable and Dot JR have been signed to the record label.The benefit of being a part of this record label is that they are far more likely to have the musicians best interests in mind considering the fact that it is run by a musician who has experienced many of the same situations before. When Okogwu was asked why they set up Disturbing London he explained "We wanted to have a platform to put out our music and there wasn't any Def Jam or Roc-A-Fella label equivalent in England. [Also] I wanted to create a major independent label with quality artists. I felt like the major labels had lost the passion for music."
Disturbing London brands itself as a quirky yet high end record label recently expanding in to the designer clothes market figure headed by Tinie.
The clothes line looks to be just as high end as the record label with a Disturbing London T-shirt likely to set you back £70 or so. What I like about Disturbing London is its genuineness. A record label run by a musician for musicians, they really care about the artist and its music, something which may be difficult to find at EMI.
In The Sun (JONNY)
Today our Media class had a project to reconstruct the music video 'In The Sun' by SHE AND HIM. We had already drawn out the story boards and decided on locations so we had the majority of the day to film and then to edit the piece. We split in to two groups with each group doing half of the video.
I found this to be a good learning experience for when I attempt my A2 coursework next year. Something which I used today for the first time was a tracking dolly which I found to be very effective, and is something I may consider using in the future. The dificuilties we faced with this production were very diferent to those we faced when filming our AS coursework. This is because many of the problems were to do with timings of the music and lip synching. When I produce my A2 project I will write greater detailed storyboards and use a larger music system when filming. Hopefully this will help prevent some problems however I am sure we may still face some dificulties. I hope to avoid these problems by taking multiple takes of each scene to ensure that only the best image and lip synch is used. 'In The Sun' is a very fast paced song which was easy to make cuts and scene changes to. I plan to find a song with a similar tempo inorder to have the same ease with editing. My use of final cut (the editing software) at the moment is limited however like Imovie I hope to develop my skills as time goes on. I found this experience really useful and it has got me really excited to start the project in September!Blog Task Checklist
Section
|
Component
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Who is responsible?
|
Technology/format used
|
Teacher comments
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General
|
The brief
|
Josh
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Group dynamics –
introduce yourself
|
Jonny
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Labels
for each element of your blog
|
Jonny
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Research
evidence
|
History of music video
|
Jonny
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||
Case
studies of iconic directors of music video
|
Josh
|
|||
Conventions of your
genre with specific references to examples
|
Jonny
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|||
Existing
record label company research
|
Josh
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|||
Audience expectations
from your music genre
|
Jonny
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|||
Collage
of iconography associated with your music genre
|
Josh
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|||
Still frame analysis
|
Jonny
|
|||
Nine
frame structure analysis of music video in your genre
|
Josh
|
|||
YouTube
documentaries/programmes which give insight into your genre
|
Jonny
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|||
Magazine
advert analysis: layout, brand ident, image, text
|
Josh
|
|||
DVD/digipack analysis:
layout, brand ident, image, text
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Jonny
|
|||
Font
analysis: DVD and magazine ad
|
Josh
|
Section
|
Component
|
Who is responsible?
|
Technology/Format used
|
Teacher comments
|
Planning
|
Record
company name/profile logo
|
Jonny
|
||
Photographs/footage of
group planning
|
Josh
|
|||
Recorded/filmed
conversations of planning
|
Jonny
|
|||
Initial planning ideas
(brainstorms)
|
Josh
|
|||
Mood
board for music video
|
Jonny
|
|||
Photographs/footage of
locations
|
Josh
|
|||
Synopsis
planning
|
Jonny
|
|||
Props list
|
Josh
|
|||
Physical
timeline for opening – clear focus on timings of titles, footage and sound
|
Jonny
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|||
Scripting (if
applicable)
|
Josh
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Costume
planning
|
Jonny
|
|||
Filming schedule
|
Josh
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|||
Editing
schedule
|
Jonny
|
|||
Storyboards
|
Josh
|
|||
Animatic
|
Jonny
|
|||
Health and safety
information
|
Josh
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|||
Alterations
made along the way
|
Jonny
|
|||
Construction
|
Test/raw footage
|
Josh
|
||
Rough
cuts
|
Jonny
|
|||
Drafts
|
Josh
|
|||
Technical
difficulties
|
Jonny
|
|||
Photographs from filming
|
Josh
|
|||
Interim
evaluations of work achieved
|
Jonny
|
|||
Storyboard changes
|
Josh
|
|||
Evaluation
|
1
|
Jonny
|
||
2
|
Josh
|
|||
3
|
Jonny
|
|||
4
|
Josh
|
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