Research into Music Videos - Dance Scenes

After looking at our ballet dance scene footage we got, as a group we looked in to other recent music videos that our mainly based around dance. We found two music videos from the same artist, 'Sia' the cinematography and more specifically the way the camera follows them dancing, the dance scenes with the music video work so well with creating emotions and an atmosphere relating to the song. Ideas have been created from looking at these two music videos, a few of these are:

• follow the young girl when she is dancing in a circular motion
• wide shots of her dancing
• when editing make it more fast pace

 

 

Experimenting with Camera Lens

In today's lesson due to both Poppy and Grace being busy we had nothing planned to do, so with this in mind we decided to play around and look at different camera lenses. We did this so we could have ideas for what to use for our music video, more specifically for the dance scenes. The main focus for when using the lenses was using it for the, 'depth of field' (DOF). By using DOF when we are filming we can create a focus on an object and making it the main subject to be looked at because the background would be blurred and the other way around. The lens that works best for the shallow focus was the 50mm lens on the 1200 DSLR Canon camera, as a group we made the decision that for the dance scenes we would going to specifically use the 50mm lens on the camera . We made this choice because the focus would be on movements on whatever parts of her body making it more intense and visual appealing for the viewer.

These 2 videos are of us experimenting with the 50mm lens to see what the footage would look like:

• pull in and out of focus
• movement
• keeping in focus

When looking at focus in cinematography we found inspiration from the newly released film, 'Whiplash' in parts. The focus on the boys hand when he is playing the drums create an intense of close feel to his actions, also it is professional and works well, this has given us something to basis the dance scene around.

Typography for Album

As a group we began to look and think about the typography for the title of the album, 'Uncovered'.  When first looking at other Pop album's from female artists we found they mostly all had simple and non fancy font for their album titles.This was also supported by our own personal research into digipak analysis at the start of the project. We all believed that by using a simple and basic font for the cover it would amplify the focus of the artist which is a genre characteristic of the Pop. 

To start off the research for the album title typography we used the online website, 'DaFont' again which we had previously used for the typography of the artists name. We chose a range of simple and sophisticated types of font and end up choosing 7 different types. We also asked a sample of fellow media students to chose their favourite aswell us individuals in the group. From this doing chart and answering it in a tally we found that a certain font in particular was the most popular out of all the rest.

We concluded that, Roboto was the most popular and would fit in best with the Pop genre characteristics for our digipak. Me and Hayley decided to stick with this font for our digiapaks, however Laxmi and Aaron decided to go with, Futurist fixed-width for the digipak design. This makes no difference to our digipaks because they are all individual.


Also when thinking about digipaks I had a design idea that would make the album title stand out a bit more by having a capital, 'U' and 'C' - UnCovered, and Laxmi tried this idea on DaFont and we all decided it did not fit in very well once it had been made. So with that idea seen and it didnt feel right to us that it would present our artist perfectly we disregarded this idea.

Digipak Photo Shoot Ideas

For my digipak when thinking out how i am going to create it, i have been influenced by, Pixie Lott's front cover image.It is a extreme close up of her face showing emotion which i want my digipak to amplify because of the music video being an showing emotion and the album is about Isabel's story . In addition the black and white edit of the image of Pixie is also how i want to edit my front cover image to also relate to the music video, however i am not going to relate it ballet. Also the use of colour in Pixie's album cover is done by a cross going in turquoise going across it, where as i am going to our artist name in colour, at the moment the colour i think will be pink to keep with the girly theme that is a genre convention of Pop. I want to shoot these extreme close up shots in a studio style room such as the gallery we have in our school building which is all white walls.

Furthermore i am also going to include inside the digipak on one panel is a wide shot of the artist standing in front of a row of multicoloured pastel houses which are located in Notting Hill we are going to set up a shoot there also. I will keep this image in colour to add a more fun and young feel to the digipak inside to also abide to the genre conventions of Pop, which will appeal to Isabel's target audience of 12-25 year olds. Also there will be 2 CDs within the digipak, one of these will be the album CD which will include all the tracks from the album and also the other will be a 'Day in the Life of Isabel Beau'. This is so her fans can get a real life personal one to one view of her life which will appeal to her young target audience, so she can connect with her fans more. The CDs i want to be plain white with light pink typography to relate to the pink typography on the album cover , they will have on them her name and the album title.

The other 2 panels will be the track list for the album and a lyric booklet for the songs on the album CD. Also the track list will be in pink typography to keep the theme going but the i want to include an image relating to the music video battle and the back cover so i am going get a high shot of a ballet dancer draped over holding her feet relating to the music video. The background will be black so the lyrics can then be positioned on the blank part of the image. In addition the lyric booklet for the album i want to have is an over the shoulder shot of our artist but i am not sure in what location. The lyric booklet will appeal to the target audience of Isabel because, the young girls can sing and learn the lyrics to her songs so they can be more like their idol. Also when they go to her concerts they can sing along and wont be left out. 

Mood Board

We began to create our mood board for our Pop artist, Izabel Beau. 

As individuals we got images from google that related to our artist such as her:appearance,interests and theme for the music video. We chose to do this because it is  visual brainstorm of our artist and instead of explaining through words, we decided through pictures and creating a theme it would be more interesting to look at and understand.

Furthermore after printing and sorting through the range of images we all collected we selected the ones we all agreed would work for the mood board. After making this decision we got an A2 piece of black sugar to stick the images on, we also printed off flowers to use as another background to show girly stereotypical Pop style. We included many ballet images such as the costume and poses that we are going to include in our music video, also the theatre scene we are going to use for our music video. The track list for the album is on the mood board so we can easily access it.

Ideas for Music Video - Black Swan and Pixie Lott

With a rough plan of the narrative for the music video planned out, we began looking for similar films and music videos that could help us with ideas and inspiring us.The two we found was firstly the opening dance from the award winning film, 'Black Swan'. This was chosen because of the ballet theme and storyline and also the cinematography of parts of the film when the ballet dancing is taking place. Also the second music video for the song, 'Broken Arrow' by Pixie Lott this includes contemporary dancing which shows emotion and fits in with the narrative.                                         
In the opening dance at the very beginning it is a black screen then a spotlight appears and focuses on a ballerina all dressed in white, this could be highlighting she is in a dark place and is trying to get out through the light. This could relate to our narrative for the music video where the young girl is trying to escape from the troubles of her homelike through ballet. I believe using this spotlight will be symbolic to her emotions and trying to get through it and will also relate with the lyrics of the song, 'Battlefield'. 

In addition the extreme close up focused shots of her feet when she is dancing is something also we want to include in our music video to show her technique and advancement as she grows up.The miss en scene for the dance, is a white ballet outfit which connotes purity and innocence which the girl in the video will have as being vulnerable.

Furthermore, Pixie Lott's music video, 'Broken Arrow' is partly based around a contempaory dance routine which is showing her emotions and creating a relationship between the lyrics and visuals, Goodwin's theory. The video also like, 'Black Swan Opening Dance' is dark and has minimal lighting to create a emotional atmosphere.However she is dressed in a black floaty dress in, 'Broken Arrow' which connotes pain. For our music video using dark tones for the style of the video could be affective and supports our decision to video it in black and white.

  

Typography of Artist Title and Name Change

In Monday's lesson me and my group decided to begin to design our typography for our artist, one of the reasons for doing this was for it to be included on the mood board and also for the digipak. We went on to a font website called, 'DaFont' and the decision was made to choose 4 font types and see what they look like with our artists name, Izabel Beau. The category of font we chose was romantic but we wanted something girly and sweet to fit in with the Pop genre and we created a tally chart on powerpoint to hand out to fellow media students to chose their favourite.                                                                   

As the tally chart shows the first option of typography was their favourite with it getting 3/8 but however we got additional feedback to the name of our artist. A few of the participants believed that her first name, Izabel should be spelt with a,'s' not a 'z' we decided on this originally to make it different.However believe we can do this in other ways with our artist and we are going to change it to, 'Isabel Beau'.

Also we got feedback from our media teacher, Sinead that all 4 typography's from knowing what our artist is and about she didn't get the feel when looking at any of the texts that they suited. With a new name to work with and new fonts to search for on the website we yet again chose another 4 fonts with the name, Isabel Beau and did the tally chart with the same group of media students but also a few extra filled it out.

As seen from the tally chart the second time around the top font got the most votes with 8/15 and we have decided to use this font to be included on our digipak and on our mood board, this will also support us in our pitch for our artist and music video in the coming weeks.

Analysing Digipaks

In today's lesson I looked at 4 digipaks, 3 of them where from a Pop Genre which is the genre me and my group have choose to look at for are artist, and the other one is from the Rock Genre. I have done this so i can see what features are included in digipaks and why and how it is done to promote the artist.

History of the Music Video

The definition of what a music video is : A music video is short film integrating a song and imagery,produced for promotional or artistic purposes.
Modern music videos are mainly made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings.

History of the Music Video

The earliest  piece referring to a music video was a 'sound film', which started out in the 1920's which were motion pictures with synchronized songs playing at certain images this was an advancement from the silent film, they were being produced which featured bands in them etc.

In 1929 one of the earliest examples of a music video was created it was, 'St Louis Blues' by Bessie Smith it was included in a short film called, 'Saint Louis Blues' which showed a performance of the popular hit at the time. 

In addition just after this in the 1930's, 'screen songs' were introduced they were animated cartoons which encouraged the audience to sing along to the lyrics at the bottom by following the 'bouncing ball'. At the same time as this the, 'musical film' was being released which is a film genre whereby songs were sung by the characters which related to the narrative yet, such as: 42nd Street, The Wizard of Oz and Singin' in the Rain.
Moreover in the early 1950's Tony Bennett, (American singer of traditional pop, show tunes, and jazz) claimed to have made the first ever music video in Hyde Park when he was filmed walking along the Serpentine in 1956. Also in 1957 the second music video from the American musical film, 'Jailhouse Rock' starring Elvis Presley was another.

 Furthermore in 1964,The Beatles started a new age for the modern music video with the motion picture, 'A Hard Days Night'. In 1981 the TV channel, 'MTV' aired it was and still is a 24 hour broadcaster which meant that music videos were being played around the clock and became a massive role in marketing music. In the 1990's directors of music videos began to rise because of new sound and with this a new form of music videos which more artistic and experimental, directors such as Spike Jonze, Jake Scot and Mary Lambert were credited.The most expensive music video ever made was, Michael Jackson's 'Scream', which cost £7 million to produce in 1995.

In 2005 the two most influential technological creations in the music industry were founded, iTunes firstly allowed people to downloaded music from the internet and YouTube, which has allowed people to watch videos online and has increased the popularity of watching music videos on the internet.

I looked into what the music industry believes what could be in hold in the future for music videos and when researching into this I found an article that was called, ' MTV and the Future of Music Media'. It sad in the article that,'MTV will likely be making music videos that reflect exactly what they've become: A conglomerate-era corporate brand with big pockets,advertising power and star-making potential'. Also another quote i thought was interesting about the future of the music video was, ' they will combine song,celebrity,spectacle, and cross promotion in efforts to produce "super videos" '.

Major vs Independent Record Label

In today's lesson we looked at Record Labels.This is a PowerPoint identifying what a record label is and the difference between a major and independent label.

Moreover when thinking about our female pop artist, i believe they would be signed to a Major Record Label such as, Universal or Sony Music. I believe this because the music they will produce will be mainstream and this is the type of music major record labels produce and support. More specifically i think they would be signed to a division within Universal Music Group which is, 'Interscope Records' because the type of female artist we are aiming for is similar to Pixie Lott and EllieGoulding which are both signed to this label.