REASERCH

Carol Vernallis

  





Carol Vernallis studied editing and camerawork  closely in music videos. she observed that edits in music video come much more frequently than in film. many edits stand out in disjuncture and that the editing seems to have a rhythmic basis closely connected to the song. 

the main points of her observation are:

1. she says that the usual rules of 'continuity editing' (editing usually found in classic broadcast fiction) are broken in order to draw attention to what is on the screen. for example a continues edit would be : you see someone with a drink in their hand, and then the next shot would be them drinking it. 
  





However a disjuncture edit would be; they could be on a roller coaster one shot and then next they could be on a stage singing. This would really keep the audience intrigued about what is gonna happen next. 


   

2. she says that the edits may be really obvious to draw attention to themselves, such as swipes and special effects added. I was looking at this music video and thought that it had great editing, it contains lots of special effects for example showing that she is singing love songs to people inside a song machine. This song is called 'love song' by Sara Bareilles. 

This is another classic music video that has been filmed with editing in mind, they have a lot of really obvious editing, lots of transitions and  i think that its fantastic that they were able to do this. its called cant stop feeling by Franz Ferdinand; 

3. She states that Jump cuts were often used: A jump cut is a cut in film editing in which two consecutive shots of the same subject are taken from camera positions that vary only slightly. This type of edit causes the subject of the shots to appear to "jump" position in a irregular way. jump cuts are considered a violation of continuity editing, however Jump cuts are great to use in music videos because they draw attention to the video visually and make the artist seems more interesting. I have found an quick example on youtube of a jump cut.

4. a master shot (base track) is frequently used to give the video a structure
i think that the song below is a good idea of a base structure because this one has a story; beginning, middle and end. the song is called 'you belong with me' by Taylor Swift 

5. the camera may move  in time with the music.


This video below 'Mary Mary- walking' is a really good example of having a variety of Carol Vernallis's  theory's incorporated in it, it has; a lot of recognizable jump cuts, the camera moves in time with the music and there are very obvious edits.

REASERCH

Andrew Goodwin

Summary of Andrew Goodwin's theory:

Andrew John Goodwin born in Hillingdon, Middlesex was a Director of Music and Organist at Bangor Cathedral for 37 years, Andrew Goodwin feels that traditional narrative analysis don't really apply to pop videos. there are different reasons why but he says that it isn't because pop videos are trying to be avant garde- its just they approach narrative from different angels to novel and films.

1. Pop videos are built around the song- most song don't pose traditional narrative structures which are normality, problem, resolution.

2. The pop videos use the singer both as a narrator and as a character. 

3. The singer often looks directly at the camera- this is an extension of performance and trying to involve the viewer at home with the performance.

I have found a presentation highlighting Andrew Goodwin's theory:

Andrew Goodwin: Theory of Music videos

View more presentations from Zarak92

              

Andrew Goodwin says that pop videos reply on repetition, he says that the video often repeats images the same way the song repeats the chorus. he says that because they keep repeating the same thing we become familiar with the genre and build certain expectations. he also says that they could advertise it everywhere to make the song more familiar through repetition; video will be played on TV, song would be played on the radio, there might be an advertising film or TV tie in. For example Selene Dione's, 'my heart will go on' was a tie in with the film Titanic. This song became very famous because they were advertising each other, so when it played on the radio people would instantly link it to the artist or film.   

 

Sometimes the video produces a visual pleasure that encourages repeated viewing leading to promotion of music.  

He says that some music videos are autonomous from the music the spring from, the visualisation of a song may go beyond the original meaning. Andrew Goodwin says that there are three types of relationships between songs and videos:

1. Illustration: this is where the video tell the story of the lyrics, dance is often used to express the feelings/ moods in the song.
2. Amplification: occurs when the videos introduce new meanings that do not contradict with the lyrics however they add layers and meaning to the song or artist.
3. Disjuncture: this is where there is little connection between the lyric and video or where the video contradicts the lyrics.

An Example of Illustration:

Madonna-crazy for you   

The video by Madonna crazy for you is a good example for illustration because it follows the story of the lyrics. in the video Madonna sings a song about being in love. The characters in the video portray this. The video to this song has been taken from a film that links back to Andrew Goodwin’s theory. The video promotes another commodity which is a film which is Vision Quest. Madonna plays two roles; a narrator and a character. The video imitates exactly what the lyrics say, its about two characters expressing how they feel towards each other for example how they are portrayed to look at each other and they show physical acts e.g. kissing.

An Example of Amplification:
Snow Patrol-Chasing Cars                                  

This music video is a really good example of amplification. because they focus these lines of the lyrics "if i lay here, if i just lay here, would you lie with me and just forget the world." this is amplified through the fact that he is lying down in different places that are not normal, e.g. the  middle of a road, in front of an escalator, lying in the middle of a train, on the top of a rock near the motorway etc. This song is about a girl/ love. you can tell because he is lying in bed by himself at the end with the other side of the cover not made. i think that this was a really good way to emphasize the fact that he is lonely or wants a promise from the one he loves. 


An Example of Disjuncture:
Micheal Jackson-Man In The Mirror

This music video is a good example of disjuncture because the lyrics and the video have very little to do with each other. the video contradicts the lyrics. the song is about self realization; a line from the lyrics "if you wanna make a change, look at yourself and make a change, i'm starting with the man in the mirror." this tells us that he wants to change himself and that he wants to be a better person. However the video is  very different; its full of radical world events for example the Nazi's in the world war 2, racism, war, starvation, poverty. 

Visual Motif

A visual motif is something that is carried through each frame throughout the whole video. We were told think about incorporating a visual motif into our music video, I thought of other music videos that have included a visual motif. One video thats done this is for example Black Eyed Peas -Where is the Love, and the visual motif is the question mark sticker that they posted everywhere throughout the video.


However what really stuck out in my mind as a good video with a visual motif wasn't a music video, It was actually and advert. A John Lewis that actually came second the ITV awards best adverts of 2011.

Heres a look at the video:

This video challenges the convention of video motif because the person actually changing but the person acts as the visual motif. I posted this because i thought it was a very interesting and creative way of using a visual motif, and it has inspired me to try be more creative in my video, especially with the visual motif.

Digi Pack

Short-list of potential songs

My groups short list of songs consisted of:

Kate Nash – Do-Wha-Doo

The reason we felt we could do these song was because the beat called for a lot of editing/media language which what we want to incoperate, because you don’t want the video to be focused on the performer. Also another advantage was that the song or the video wasn’t well known.

Other song we chose was, Sara Baraeilles – Love Song

This choice was because as like the Kate Nash song the instrumental allowed a lot of editing and was fast paced.

Lastly we chose, KT – Tunstall – Suddenly I See

The reason for this choice was because it enabled us to create a lot of ideas and play with editing also. 

Skills Audit...

AS-------------------TO---------------------A2

During the AS year i leant a lot. It made me be more independent on my work. With all the research and practical work from this course. I have knowleged alot of skills in research and many of the softwears which can be very useful later on. I did not know to use many of the soft wares like First cut pro, photoshop sound track etc. But from the recent year its taught me many creations and things that were new to me. In AS i heard many peoples weaknesses, with this it taught me to work harder and to make my own stronger. It allowed me take their ideas and make my one better.  I learnt many skills like using the cameras and editing on softwares like final cut pro. I also leant being well prepared is key and important especially in practical work. Also being organised on exactly where to film, the shots etc, is very important. Always getting everyones opinions and votes makes it easy for everyones to be happy rather than wasting time arguing.

At the beginning of the AS course, my research skills were not so good, as i didnt have the chance to develop it before as i just has started the course, but because i did not allow my self to try i do more. This year i will try way harder with reaserach and i hope to put all the negatives into positives and follow these steps and develop even more.

Favourite previous Student video......

In class we looked at a couple music videos that were created by previous student's. We then filled out a chart and discussed what marks we gave and the good and bad things about the video.

The Student video that i really liked the most was 'Who's world is this' By Nas. 

The audience for this type of music genre and video was quite youthful and young and more for males, those interested in rap and hiphop style of music. Generally it would be highly associated with young black males but it is also widely listened to be a variety of different people. The genre was also represent through the lyrics or the song as well as what the artist was wearing. There is no narrative within the video but it however does illustrate part of the lyrics for example there is a part where it talks about gun crime then the singer does a hand gesture like a gun. This shows the audience and reenforces them. 

There are great shots, transitions and the main part music video was the fish eye lens which made the footage stand out even more. there were also lots of different locations and the lip sync was in time and looked very realistic. 

The representation was conventional and there was many young people saying 'this would is yours' reinforcing us as the next generation, there were good representation throughout and generally a very good music video. I think this video is editing at it highest and final result was fantastic. I hope to achieve something like this with many edits and shots in my video. :D !!!

Laura Mulvey's Idea on Reprentations......

"In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female. The determining male gaze projects its fantasy onto the female figure which  styled accordingly." 

 Laura Mulvey, 1992 

Laura Mulvey looked into how women were represented in music video, as a whole Mulvey sees society as having men as active and women passive. According to Mulvey, the male perspective is given more importance. The male gale produces a female figure who is styled accordingly. An example of a "male gaze" video would be Dizzee Rascal's Holiday, throughout this video the camera shows women's bodies. The video has close ups on parts of the women such as their breasts. Women are "dismembered", in shots their face is not shown and this shows how women are objectified. Contrasting are the men in this video who's faces are always shown. The camera angles in this video make the viewer "check out" the women, the camera often moves from a low shot to a high shot. In such videos women are demeaned and seen as just sex objects. These types of videos are more common within the genres hip-hop, R&B and pop. 

Review

The previous student video that was probably favourite was Cosmic Love by Florence and the Machine. This is because the video was made in a similar style to how Florence and the machine would make theirs. It has a realm of fantasy and an alice in wonderland kind of theme and even though there are only three people in the video, it still is good. The video has a simple but effective storyline. In the beginning of the video there is a reverse technique used and it matches well with the music. Slow motion works well in the music video as well. The lighting has been placed well in the video and it helps the viewer focus on what the group wanted us to focus on. The video is cut well together because it cuts between the singer and the mise en scene on beat. I really like the colour theme in the video and its one of my favourites because it could very well pass as a Florence and the Machine video.

http://candihalloffame.blogspot.com/
The last one in the first post.

Laura Mulveys ideas on representation

"In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female. The determining male gaze projects its fantasy onto the female figure which  styled accordingly." 

 Laura Mulvey, 1992 

From this theory I learnt that the kinds of representation of women you could see in some music videos, mainly hip hop/ R n B, are them having the 'ideal' body, dressed in fitted clothes and dancing around in the background. They are objectified. Theres normally a group of women and are usually shown in promiscuous angles and/or slow motion. An example of an artist who does this is 50cent. Missy Elliot and Alicia Keys challenge this. 

An example of this is That Candy Paint by E40.

Vernalis's theory

Carole Vernallis' ideas on editing and camerawork.

She concludes that there are more edits in a music video than in a film and that the edits (camera movement) tend to follow the beat in the music. There isn't really any continuity editing because they want to grab the attention of the audience. Jump cuts are used the most and there tends to be plenty of special effects used like slow motion.

An example of this is Unorthodox by Wretch32 ft. Example.

This video contains slow motion when there are a gourp of them walking past the camera and when the little boy is dancing towards the end. There are some jump cuts when the girl in the yellow jacket dances and obvious edits like when the trainers are flying around the guy.

Andrew Goodwins theory

Goodwin's theory is that pop videos use a different angle for narrative as oppose to films and novels. The reasons are:
1. Pop videos are built around songs - and songs don't consist of traditional narrative structure.
2. Pop videos use the singer as both the narrator and a character.
3. The singer looks directly at the camera from time to time to involve the viewer.

He says that there are three types of relations between a song and its video:
1. Illustration - the video tells the story of the lyrics.
2. Amplification - the video isn't telling a complete story. Layers of meaning are added.
3. Disjuncture - when there is little or no connection to the song itself.

Pop videos have repetition in them and have recognisable features. Its kind of like the signature of the artist.  Intertextuality is also used so people can easily tell which genre the music is from. If a song is written for a film then normally the video contains scenes from the film to promote both the song and the film. So if someone goes to watch the film and hears the song or watches the scene that was shown in the music video then they will be able to make the connection. Good examples of this is My heart will go on by Celine Dion from Titanic. A more recent example is Decode by Paramore from Twilight.

REASERCH

Analysis of music video's... 

In class we were analyzing some music videos, we looked at the structure of music videos and media language; techniques that music videos have used. I ahve put some of the music videos on here and I am going to analyse them. 

Analyzing the structure of music videos:

Cee-lo Green; fuck you

This music video is a narrative video, the story is: 
He likes a girl and she rejects him all throughout his life and then he becomes rich and shes sweeping outside a club and shes poor now.


The artists position within this narrative is 'the participant' and we see the artist sing throughout the whole song at different intervals. the difference this music video has compared to TV Drama/Film is that it compresses time, it also has chunks of different time periods put together so that it matches the visuals. this music vdeo contains titles and a lot of change in costume. in this music video the artist was the main focus, and he was in it. The video was edited to the beat, they also had discontinuous editing which is one of the conventions of a music video. To make it simple they only focused the key moments, another way was that They used simple symbols to represent what they were trying to say e.g. when they wanted to show that she was going to break his heart they wrote it and when he was saying that he couldn't afford a fancy car they showed a toy car:

(put in picture of him holding the car)

                                                                                                                                                          






This shot is at the end of the video to show that the roles have reversed and now he is rich and a lady's man. I this video the ratio of narrative to performance if about half/half. i think that this music video is really good because they have clearly thought about a concept and a clear repeated motif throughout the whole video. 

Ed-Sheeran; The A team
This music video is a narrative video, the story is: 
The story of a heroin-addicted prostitute, we see her homeless and then she tries to get money by sitting on the pavement and it doesn't work and then she prostitutes herself and buys drugs with the money.


The story is told through symbols/ props e.g. sleeping bag, the big issue, her cloths/appearance, lipstick/makeup, drugs. This also compresses time, shows key event of like a day for example and shows it in a short time. it also has discontinues editing . The central artists position in the video is the narrator how ever he makes cameo in the video when she is on the streets begging for money. in this music video we do not see the artist sing, and he is not the main focus of the video. there was a higher ratio of narrative to performance. i think that this music video was good because it had a simple story and they told it with simple symbols. 


Analyzing music video's by looking at media language/technique:

Artist/Group Name: Wretch 32 ft. Example - 'Unorthodox'   Genre:  Pop aimed at teens. 
The music video for this song contained: jump cuts, low motion towards the end, lots of obvious edits e.g. 20 edits just in the chorus, the camera wasn't necessarily moving in time with the music however the editing was in time with the beat of the song, the artist was making eye contact with the camera several times, the music video had repeated shots of the artist/performer. I think that music video is really good because it has a variety of locations, angles and I really like the fact that they have a lot of people in their video who link in with the lyrics and I really like the fast paced editing that the do in the chorus. 


(see if you can put in pictures out together from the chorus)

Artist/Group Name: The Bike Song by Mark Ronson         
Genre: pop music - traditional pop audience; girls aged 13-24  


The music video for this song contained: there were a lot of jump cuts in this music video for example when the bike thief was riding away with the bike, also when the 3 boys were riding alongside the 3 girls. There was slow motion when the first introduced the girls, there were a lot of obvious edits for example when the guys in the red jacket was looking at the bike, also when Mark Ronson's bike changed into speakers. the artist doesn't make eye contact with the camera, there are repeated shot of the artist when he is riding his bike, after some shots it goes back to the artist on his bike, they have edited in time with the beat and when the lyrics stop,  for a while,  they do close ups of the bike and the guy in the red jacket, they put a lot of edits in there and it is edited in time with the beat and i think that it works really well. i think that this sing is very good in the aspect that it is very simple and it has a simple concept. i think that this is what made people remember it, also the editing on the bikes were really impressive.   

This is when he is looking at the bike suspiciously

These are the two shots that they edit together, it goes back and fourth between the two shots,
 this is to emphasis that he is looking at the bike, they also do it to match the music 

 

REASERCH

What Is The Function Of a Music Video?

A music video is like a short film including a combination of a song and imagery, this is normally produced for promotional purposes. Modern music videos are normally made and used as a marketing device so that they can promote the artist and so that the music recording will sell. Although music videos came out much earlier they became important in the 1980s. 


Artists have become even more famous and well know from their music video's. Some artists become iconic from doing something spectacular in their music videos. Britney Spears for example if a really good example of a person who made their music videos promote what kind of artist she was and how she wanted to portray herself. as you can see below she has changed her image considerably;    


     
                                                            



The Beatles:


                                        


                                   
In 1964, The Beatles starred in their first feature film A Hard Day's Night, directed by Richard Lester. This was Shot in black-and-white and presented as a mock documentary, the structure was loose musical fantasia interspersing comedic and dialogue sequences with musical ones. The musical sequences were basic templates on which many more later music videos were modeled. It was the direct model for the successful US TV series The Monkees (1966–1968) which similarly consisted of film segments that were created to accompany various Monkees songs. Here is the music video my the Beatles; 

REASERCH

Obtaining Copyright Clearance

Over the summer break we were given a task of obtaining copyright permission for some song of our choice. firstly we had to think of the genre we wanted to do; we had to think about how easy it will be to replicate this genre because we wont have a large budget for expensive props like houses, cars etc. we had to think realisticly, we also had to think of a British artist/band that we were going to use the song of. we had to think of a genre that we thought we could reproduce, we had to keep in mind that it may not be a genre that we lsiten to and that if we were a real music produaction company then we wouldn't have a choice at all what genres we make. Here is my letter to get copyright clearence for the song that i have chosen;  

                                                                                                  

                                                                                               
                                                                                                My Address
                                                                                                                                                                                
05/08/11

A&R:
Address of the record company/label


Dear sir/madam,

This letter is to request copyright permission to use part or whole of: Rolling In The Deep by Adele

I am a student of A level media studies and for my advanced portfolio and I will be working in a group to produce a promotional package for the release of a new album track. I would like to request permission to use the above track for this project.

The finished project will not be made available publicly and will be used solely for the purpose of my coursework. The holder of the original copyright will be fully acknowledged in the finished project.

If you do not hold the rights for the song I should be grateful if you could forward this request to the appropriate person, or return it to me with the contact details in order that I might approach the copyright holder directly.

Yours faithfully Fatama Begum

FATAMA BEGUM
email address:
example@ Hotmail.com

Skills Audit: How my research skills have developed over AS

The AS course required a lot of independent research and learning for practical work.

I have developed skills in research in the terms that I can further develop ideas by researching similar idea, seeing how they incorporated them and then try to imitate them in my own way. I have also been able to research about the topic and tried to copy some ideas into my own.

     I try to learn from other people’s weaknesses, and take their strengths and make them stronger when doing them in my own work. Therefore allowing my film to be a lot stronger.

     However, at the beginning of the AS course, my research skills were not so good, but not because, obviously, I hadn’t gotten to develop my skills because I had just started the course, but because I didn’t allow myself to try and do more research. This year I plan to start with extension research straight away so that when it comes to making my video, I am well informed.

The state of the music industry in 2012

Over the years the music industry has been facing problems since the change from analogue to digital then the birth and growth of the Internet – a form of synergy between the telephone and computer. This change has effected the production and exchange in the media industry concerning media ownerships.

The switch from analogue e.g. vinyl to digital e.g. CD had – for a short term – massively positive effect on the music industry as CD sales skyrocketed, but then had a long term negative. This is because analogue was a type of format that didn’t copy well, as with each copy the quality would get worse and worse from the original, due to ‘noise’ that was picked weakening the quality.  With digital its waves were either 1 or 0, whereas analogue waves were very precise. So with digital it was easy to copy because it was easy to translate the waves, so it produced a better quality. This greatly impacted the music industry as many consumers where buying CDs to replace their old vinyl’s.  However with the birth the Internet and easy copy of the CD, file – sharing came about. Websites like Napstar affected the exchange in the music industry because Napstar allowed people to share files of free. With the shut down of Napstar its 38 million subscribers went to other file sharing websites and the music industry has forever since been trying to get back the consumers.

Media Ownerships, such as the big four, are affected in terms of production and exchange. One of the ‘big four’ for example is EMI, which is a British independent company. It owns 8% of he music market and has artists such as Katy Perry and Coldplay. Media Ownerships face issues in terms of exchange, with file – sharing. A study showed that 61% of 14 – 24 year olds downloaded illegally. This posses as a problem for media ownerships as it is a vast majority of the audience. However, 41% of that 61% download with an intent of buying. Meaning that the t would download those tracks and then go and buy those albums and or singles. That same study showed that illegal downloaders spent more than legal downloaders, with illegal downloads spending about £77 a year, and illegal downloaders £44 a year. Nevertheless, media ownerships still face issues as most of those buyers buy online on iTunes, so artists and their companies see little of that money.

iTunes is under the company of Apple…

Vernails's Theory.......

Carol Vernallis Theory

Carol Vernallis believes that music videos are edited in a different way to films. She argues that in music videos there is a lot more editing involved and that the editing is closely based to the song (editing to the beat).

Examples of music videos:
The camera moves in time with the music: Eg The Saturdays ‘All fired up’ - when the pace of the music slows down the camera movement is also slow and sometimes there is and obvious edit of slow motion. 

A master shot:  Don’t Go- Eg. Josh walking towards the camera and Rech sitting on the staircase are the main shots giving the video a structure.

jump cuts: Mark Robson/The Saturday’s ‘All fired up’- Eg. While he’s singing there are a lot of jump cuts which moves to the pace of the music. There are usually these jump cuts when the pace of the music is fast. Also in these two videos a motif of the colour can be seen. The Saturdays use black and white as their motif while Mark Robson has different colours but still manges to create a motif. Eg: boy wearing red has a girlfriend wearing red and owns a red bicycle.

Andrew Goodwins Theory......

Andrew Goodwins theory on music videos is 'traditional narrative analyses don't really apply to pop video', there are three reasons for this: 

   Firstly, he believes pop videos are built without conventional narrative structures (normality, then the problem, then the resolution

1.   Secondly, in pop videos the artists’ role is both the narrator and the character.
2.    Thirdly, the artist directly addresses the audience by looking straight at the camera (also known as ‘breaking the 4^th wall) as an attempt to involve the viewer with the performance.

There are 3 types of relations between songs and videos:

1.       Illustration

When the link between the lyrics and the music video is very clear, the music video almost acts

out the lyrics.

2.      Amplification

When the video add new meanings that do not conflict with the lyrics. Metaphorical objects are used in videos to symbolize certain words in the lyrics. 

3.       Disjuncture

When there is little/no connection between the music video and the lyrics. 

Andrew Goodwin discusses ‘Dancing in the Distraction Factory’. His main concepts are the way the music videos may be structured in order for the viewers to perceive the video in a particular way. He says that there are different narrative structures such as pop videos are built around songs, pop videos uses the singer as both the narrator and the character and thirdly the singer often looks directly at the camera, commonly big close up’s are used for this. Images throughout the video are usually repeated, this is known as repetition a good example of this type of music video is Outcast-Hey Ya where there were over 23 shots repeated from different angles.

The repetition of music videos can also appeal through listening to the song on the radio, watching the video on Youtube or TV and sometimes there may be advertising for films or TV tie-ins which make the song even more familiar to the listeners or viewers. All music videos have a form of closure where the song comes to an end. They only just last for at least three minutes but it must end and it is therefore sometimes reflected through the structure of the music.