Equipment and Technologies

In order to produce our music video we will be using the following equipment and technology.

• Motion Camera (possibly also a Tripod)
• Final Cut Express (for editing purposes)
• possible use of Green Screen and Chroma Key

Considering the basis of our music video is a party I thought it may be a good idea to use some professional party lights and possibly a smoke machine in order to make our party scene look more authentic. we figured this wouldn't be a problem as we knew where we could get our hands on this equipment. Lucky for us I happen to know someone very closely who owns this equipment and is generous enough and willing to let us use this equipment. We are aware of the safety precautions we'd have to take that are involved with the usage of this equipment and we all acknowledge that we would have to be careful so that neither of us get hurt nor our actors when maneuvering around the set. As a team we sat and discussed the prospect of us using these aforementioned equipment and together we decided the smoke machine would be too much and wouldn't give our scene the ambience and atmosphere we want it to have. we came to this as when we thought about it we realised that if we'd have used it it would make it difficult to film our footage as visibility would be poor even on the lowest setting. I know this from experience as i have seen first hand how poor visibility is despite the smoke machine being on the lowest setting and not generating as much as it would on the medium or even high setting. Taking all this on board we have decided not to use the smoke machine however we still hope to use the lights.

We feel that by using the above equipment and technology we can achieve our goal of creating a good music video which be-fits our genre and entertains our audience. We agree that from using this equipment and technologies we will be able maximise our performance and our work.

by using the green screen we hope to create a scene in which our leading male (Imtiaz) gets what he wants and finally reaches our leading lady (Saliah). We feel Final Cut Express is the best editing software for the job of editing our footage as it is better in all aspects in comparison to iMovie as it has better tools and also there's a lot more which we can do with it.  Though we may not use them, there are much more SFX available to us for use. also we feel Final Cut Express is better to use due to it being more sophisticated than iMovie also I personally feel it is easier to use despite it being the more "complicated" piece of software.

Filming - schedules, roles and responsibilities

Schedules

Our set date was Sunday 21st and Monday 22nd to film our party scene, however due to illness and a family problem with the others in the group we were only able to use the Monday, which unfortunately didn't go to plan. Due to updating a status on Sunday 21st saying that the party was cancelled, extras believed that 22nd would also be cancelled and therefore nobody turned up.
We learnt that by informing everyone to their faces and getting confirmation, it would make it easier to see who we need to expect to turn up. We informed 15-20 people who all agreed that Thursday the 26th at 4 o'clock was an ideal time, it helped because we could all walk down together and so nobody would have any excuses. Although we were planned and focused about this date and time, last minute Zaibaa realised that we would only have 45 minutes to use the location and shoot the footage as she had a doctor's appointment. This then had to be again informed to the extras and we then decided that Monday the 29th at 4 o'clock would be our last and final date and chance. We have about  20-25 people wanting to or definitely attending this party and so we know that there will be enough extras.

Roles and Responsibilities


Camera - Zaibaa
Location - Zaibaa
Extras - Saliah
Green Screen - Saliah, Imtiaz (main character), Jess and Zaibaa
Editing - Zaibaa, Saliah and jess

Zaibaa - make sure that the location, her aunties house, will be free and if her uncle will set up his DJ decks, lights and smoke machine. Also needs to book green screen for a suitable time where we will be able to attend without lessons getting in the way.

Jess - Read through the storyboard and take a look at the kind of shots we need for the party scene, e.g. caned angle, close ups, mid shots, long shots, etc.

Saliah - make a note of the people who want to attend and get them to sign next to their name if they have attended. Also to make sure that the extras know what they will be doing in the scene and for how long. Giving them a job and a timing. Need to inform them about any changes or delays.

Green Screen

In our video we are using green screen at the end of the video. We have done the green screen, training so we are aware of how the lighting works and safety use of the Green green and the lighting sets. During the practise we did struggle with the placing of the background, however, we have figured out the use of the background and we have learned how to change the colour of the subject. This could be used to make the artist and love interest pink to symbolise 'falling in love,' maybe using the background to change to a love heart or having them appear on the background to ensure the audience knows that the artist and the interest is suppose to be falling in love in the end scene.

Planning of Costume, Make-Up and Shots

We decided to make the main character wear dark jeans, a smart yet stylish hoody and trainers. The main girl in the video, being me is going to be wearing a sparkly tiger-print dress, leggings, boots and will have her hair out. At the moment we have not decided whether she will be wearing make up or not as we don't know about the lighting and whether it will be visible. However we will have make-up with us on the day in case the lighting turns out brighter than expected. Other guests will be wearing plain dresses, jeans, plain hoodies, tops, shirts, jackets, flat shoes, not much or no make-up, etc. This is in order to make sure that our audience will see that our main characters stand out not only because they will be seen a lot but because they look a lot dressed up and better looking than the others.

We aren't having a particular dress code at our party scene, as we believe that it will look more realistic if we didn't do fancy dress or so over the top that it will be in contrast to the crazy, wild party we will be having. Also we need to fit the scene with the music and so if we were all dressed up smartly ( i.e - suits), it would look a little odd and out of place.

The shots we need in this video are;
Long shots - to show the party, the main characters and the people around them.
Mid-shots - to show how busy the party is and to show people distracting our main character.
Extreme/Close ups - of main characters - reactions and emotions.
Canted angle - showing the craziness of the party. (will be done in slow motion to add effect)

Progression..

Unfortunately for us luck hasn't been on our side so far. We aimed to film the majority of our footage over the weekend just gone, as we thought this would be more than enough time to get our footage as we had a 3 day weekend due to monday being a study day for us also we figured it would be a practical, productive and effective way for us to use our study day. (20th Nov - 22nd Nov).  however we were faced with a set back from the very beginning as on the sunday neither Jess nor Saliah or I were able to film on Saturday due to prior commitments which we did not see as a problem as we still had Sunday and Monday. However we were set back once more as on the sunday Jess and I were not well. By monday Jess had not recovered however I had and so me and Saliah were prepared to continue as planned but we were unable to as our actors did not turn up therefore we could not film anything. however we didn't waste our day, we sat and thought of our back up plan. We plan to get our footage this coming thursday and monday as those are the days when we are all available at the same time to get our footage.. and thats is pretty much it for now.

Music Videos of Different Genres

When we think about music videos, we think about the story lines that link to the genre. We also think about the artist being involved in the video, being the main character, having plenty of shots of them.
Most of all we think about how the song relates to to the lyrics and sound of music.

Dance genres, for example, are always linked with having parties/clubbing and having a good time. It relates to the sound and therefore this is our typical response to this genre. They are always shown as being a lot of fun and just enjoying yourself. They are never shown as being stressful or angry, only about haven a good night out. At times they are shown as being tricky when the story line shows a boy looking for the right girl but its always shown as working out right. Many dance songs are to do with love and are only shown in music videos, as they don't have many lyrics but you can get an idea about the video from the sound given e.g being slow yet has base or the title of the song.




On the other hand, R&B is a very hard genre to figure out, it's mainly love songs but with a hint of dance. When people think of R&B they think about the artist rather than the video. For example, when people listen to Rihanna's songs they think about her as a person because a lot of her videos are based on her personality. She has a quirky yet dark edge which is shown in her videos, therefore we find it typical for her to do something different/random and out of the box. Her song "Take a Bow" was very emotional as it was a slow love song, however because it was about breaking up she made the video about leaving a guy.



This linked to the video, however in her other songs such as "Rude Boy" and "Only Girl", we see her relating to the lyrics, however, she has her personality added in, as she is the main character in all of her videos.

Camera Angles & other

I am going to look at the camera angles and how the camera is used to gain a clearly idea of how to make the artist to look like a real r'n'b/hip hop artist. So I am looking at Eminem and Rihanna.





Eminem - The Way I Am



We see a lot of close up's to Eminem and medium shots to him. But we get the high angle were we look weaker then Eminem for a bit. The fact we get a close up of him in different places we can see he is the important one and we should listen to what he says. We get the camera shot of the building passing as it appears he is falling out of the window. At the start the Camera appears to flicker through his life though a cut transition to them. We get the pan shot of him sitting down with the dust flying which shows that he is wanting to be on his own and left, which is the theme of the song.






Rihanna - Russian Roulette


With the camera, we see the medium shot of Rihanna, from being in a room with police to her being on the floor. We get an over the shoulder look of her sat in the chair, she has the most lighting on her which shows she is the artist in the video. With the video we see the jagged effect of her hiding in the corner showing the disturbing sight she had seen which is the fact she saw someone shoot themselves in head. We get a fading effect of her holding his hand to her being on her own in a room.

Brief
As it is expected we see the typical close ups and medium shots, and hardly any of the long shots, so we are definitely getting a closeness with the artists and are aware of the artists emotions and who they are. We are definitely using this method in our video, as the brief effects used to match the artists feelings this could be used on the music video.

Appearance of the artist

For the artist we are hoping to achieve the typical r'n'b/hip hop artist. To get Ideal option i am looking at the  appearances of known artists Jay Sean and Eminem.

Jay Sean 

From this picture we see that he is an important person because he is in a darker colour to the white background. With the dark out sunglasses he appears to look 'cool' and with the fact he is wearing a top which means we can see his muscles we can see that he is 'powerful.'  The chain appears to be a repeat use for the r'n'b artists, to wear.

Eminem

Eminem is a famous Hip Hop artist which has got a reputation of being full of attitude by the way he looks and moves, the movement of an artist is important as well as the appearance as it makes the artist who he is. Eminem wears the chains and has tattoos and in his older videos he would wear caps/hats and would wear baggy clothes. 

Combining R'n'B and Hip Hop to create our artist

Looking at both artist ideally we would like to use the R'n'B style of clothing as it looks a lot better for the music we are using which is a song about trying to get the girl. However, with the attitude Eminem has we could have it so our artist appears to be stronger and more attractive as he is acting 'hardcore.'  So using the style of R'n'B artists and the attitude of the Hip Hop artist we can get the tough smooth talking and looking artist which is what we was aiming to have with the chosen artist.

Our filming location...

In regards to choosing a location for our video, as simple as a task it is, it's not been easy for us to actually get one. Since we chose our song we have brainstormed all our possible ideas and we've narrowed it down to one. When finding our location we had a specific idea in mind of what we want out location to be like, what we want the atmosphere of our location to be like etc. this made it easy to come up with ideas of where we'd like to shoot our videos for. Initially we thought of filming our video in the main hall of a local community centre however when inquiring about whether it was possible for us to do so, our luck ran out as it was unavailable till january. Fortunately we had a back up location in mind and so I asked a family member if we could shoot our video in her house. It pays to be the favourite as now we have our location! Hurrah! (pictures to come)

Progress Of Location

We have talked to people about the location shots of the music video, talking to the drama teacher about the using of the theatre room, we have discovered it would be impossible to get enough shots for the video. We have planned to look at different locations for the green screen section of the video, it has been decided that we would use a house for the main part of the video. This has actually worked out for the better because we can use the theme of the house party that we analysed from the Lady Gaga and Black Eyed Peas video and it would look overall better at the end. We have discovered that using the house would mean we can use less people in the video and have more of a crammed full party feel.

Currently doing:
To ensure that we have a good idea on the location we are hopefully using, we have borrowed a camera and tripod so we can get shots of each room. Hopefully this will show a clear indication of the set out of the party from the placing of the artist and love interest to the DJ and DJ equipment. We are also in the process of finding an appropriate location for the last shot were we will be using green screen.   

Planning of Location

We have planned for our video to be based in the drama theatre room, we are hoping to get the light effects and the open space for the dancing, and the narrative plan, we are in process of asking the drama teacher and the drama technician about the use of the rooms. We are hoping to use the room because it's spacious and we will be able to move the camera and artist in more places. We also planned to do use a hall near a church but due to prises and the space that would be left over we decided to try and use the drama theatre because it is smaller and free.

Feedback

You have made some progress on the research front but still need to add to this. Work through past posts and ensure they reflect on what you have learnt and how it affects your product - Jess's last two posts have got the hang of this and are much better! There is, as yet, no evidence of planning and I need to see some of this for next week. Work through the tick lists in your booklet and ensure that everything is included.

Album Covers

For our auxiliary tasks we are doing digi packs. I have decided to look at a typical album cover for the Hip Hop/R'n'B/Dance genre, in hope to get a good idea of how to design our album cover. I have decided to look at a Basshunter album cover for Dance, N Dubz Album cover for Hip Hop and Rihanna album cover for R'n'b.

Basshunter

Looking at this album it appears to have a green screen effect of a tempo effect background we get a CGI of yellow lines surrounding the artist. We get a direct address of the artist and he is in the centre of the album. we get a theme of Yellow gold/ brown and white. The Writing is block and distinctive, this could be good to use as it would be noticeable on shelves and be noticed by our target age group.

N Dubz

We get a richer colour album cover with this, as we are getting Black, gold and purple. We can see that the background is green screened in and we can see the bands symbol 'N Dubz' graffiti writing. We get the same direct address from the artists. This design could be used for our album cover as the colours are inviting and powerfully rich.


Rihanna 

With this R'n'B cover we see a strong red colour from her hair and lips which makes her stand out. The basic layout is of just her face, however we do not get anything else. Rihanna's eyes are shut in this picture so we do not get a direct address, however we see the typical 'beautiful' woman on the album cover. We see ever aspect of her and feel closer to her. However this couldn't be used as an idea for our artist as we want to be able to show that he is important in the video, even though this shows she is we don't get the same attitude showing look.

Brief On Album Covers
Each Cover had the artist on the front in a direct address we get colours which stand out from the rest and we can see that they are the important people from the CD. Whether from a simple being present to the close up of the artist and only them. We could use the Basshunter and N Dubz style, however the Rihanna Album cover is more for artists that are already well known in music business and have a steady fan base, rather then a new artist on the market.

Branding ~ Music Brand

A brand is the particular make of a product. It works for an artist as well as products. H.I.M is an alternative metal 'love metal' which as the branding of the Heartagram, [heart and pentagram joined together. Brand defines an artist and there meaning, from graffiti writing for 'N Dubz' to the Heartagram from 'H.I.M.' Branding leaves an artist signature on an album, song, video.

Heartagram

 The heartagram, is a symbol which is used to represent H.I.M. It is frequently used on their, merchandise, videos, albums, concerts and website. Heartagram is developed from the faith Wiccan's symbol the pentagram. Can be linked with 'Satanism.'  The symbol is shown on the album cover 'Dark Light' and the song 'Wings From A Butterfly.'

The way the words H.I.M is written is part of the symbolism and branding of the band, fans instantly know that this is H.I.M by the writing of the words. We always see this type of writing, in the albums, videos and on the website. With the bands symbol being a 'religious' and a 'love' symbol mashed together we get a feel that the band is dark but has love aspects in their music.With the corners being a love heart it shows the band is more towards love. The songs have a dark aspect but has the romance aspect. So audiences know they are going to get a romantic lyric filled album but with it being dark as well as romantic. Which can be seen as 'gothic'

Hip Hop Style Branding

N Dubz branding is a Graffiti style writing, which shows the Hip Hop attitude. with it being in gold it makes the band appear to be like royalty as gold is seen as a rich colour, which shows the band is of high importance. 

 A symbol which has become linked with the band is one of the band members 'Dappy' constant wearing of hats.Even though this may not been intended the band is known for the fact of the hat, which has got the band noticed and known by the people who listen to music. This shows that the simply wearing something distinctive can make a band/or artists known by people audience targeted or not.    

R'n'B Style Branding
R'n'B is always known for having a sexy model, whether it's the love interest or the artist singing. We always know an R'n'B music by the video and by the lyrics, which are always about love. The location is always very beautiful such as LA, or New York city The man are always covered in chains, where as the girls are usually wearing hardly anything and are dancing. The album covers are always in blocked capitals, which shows they want to be noticed from the rest.

Dance Style Branding

There isn't a single person who hasn't heard of Lady GaGa. She makes herself known with her outrageous clothes and her music videos which are different to any of the music genre Dance videos. Which shows, that being different, standing out and showing a repeated symbol makes the band stand out uniquely from the rest.

What I Have Learned About Branding 

Bands and artists, use branding whether it's symbols, being completely different from the rest or a simple repeat of wearing an item. This makes the band stand out completely, this suggests that to make our artist different we could possibly use a certain font to introduce the artist in each music video like H.I.M and N Dubz.   

Target Audience...

The audience is from the ages of 15 to the early 20s, we would want the video to be appropriate so we won't be having sexual suggesting scenes, but we are using a love interest so we can  have the realism theme of an r'n'b/dance/hip hop genre.

G - the typical main audience is mixed, however the female audience are more likely to be appealed to the artist as the artist is male.
R - this is for every kind of race as the music genre is popular around the audience age, which means there would be a large amount of people who would be attracted to the artists music.
A - to the ages of 15 to early 20s as these are the typical ages of people who like to party and be social so are more likely to hear this music at clubs or other places of entertainment such as bowling, ice skating etc..
S - people who are socially active and will more likely be out partying, however may not be drinking a lot so the music video doesn't have influences of drink.
S - will more likely be still in education whether it's college or university they may have Saturday jobs to pay for a social life at night.

Research on Institution

Our chosen genre will be enjoyed and familiar with people/fans who enjoy music from Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Usher, Black Eyed Peas, etc.
We believe our chosen song sounds something on the lines of what Usher would do, a fast paced love song. We plan to make a video along the lines of what Usher would do.
e.g. - DJ Got Us Falling In Love Again was shot in a club, surrounded by beautiful girls, having fun partying and finding that special someone there.



His label, La Face (owned and operated by Sony Music Entertainment) was founded in 1989 by Antonio Reid and Kenneth Williams. They are based in the US and they work with many artists with varying genres. Such as Pink, Outcast, Cee-lo, Ciara and many more
      

Our chosen song has a very r&b, dance/party-like tune/genre which is the genre Usher is linked with at the moment. I believe that his record label would work with and distribute our song, as well as us having a similar style video to Usher's.

Music and Lyrics...

In regards to choosing a song to which we wanted to do create a music video for at first we found it a little difficult for us to fins a song which all of us liked and were willing to create a music video for as at first we all had quite deifferent ideas and we each liked a different song. However our luck changed when we came across a website called Jamendo. Jamendo is a website on which you can find the songs of a vast number of different and unsigned artists. When browsing the websit we had the option to browse songs through genre tags, and so we seacrhed songs by clicking on the tabs which applied to us. When doing this we came across many songs, some of which did not belong to our genre however those which did when we listened to them a few were quite different and were quite good however we found one which did appeal to us all. The song was called Sex Light by Marcc Gregory.

When we first listened to this song we all liked it and thought we could make our music video for this song. We all felt that the artist had a nice voice and that the song fit with our genre.However it then ocurred to us that we would not be able to create a music video suitable for the song as we felt the song was a little too "out-there" and we didn't feel quite comfortable making a music video for this particular song. After much thought we decided to change our song but sticking to the same artist (Marcc Gregory) in order to get the same sort of sound, as he specialises in our fusion genre. We went back on to Jamendo to see what other songs Marcc Gregory has and after what felt like a long long time we finally found a song which all 3 of us agreed on as a group.The new song which we have chosen to create our music video for is "I know - Marcc Gregory". this song is fairly similar in regards to the genre of music, we feel it fits in better with our chosen genre as it has more of a R&B sound to it.

And here are the lyrics:

oh oh oh

oh oh oh

ohh ohh

I know

that you want me babe

that you want me babe

CHORUS 

I know that you want me babe,

you want me babe,

I know,

cuz I feel you babe.

I see you talking to your friends

looking

at me, then

I know, cuz i see you babe

see you babe.

VERSE 1

Lady i see you looking at me over ther,

in my mind tellin myself that i want you,

to come over her.

you giving me the eye, let me know that i'm

that guy that you're looking for,

so why dont we get on the dance floor, no need to waste no time no more.

BRIDGE

the night is young and i'm up for some one on one

you knoow, when i sing baby.

ther'es only just once for me and you, this has

just begun.

we can take the night so slow yeeah

CHORUS X2

VERSE 2

So i came right in yes i got mad money to spend,

and some for me to just offer you,

So what you wanna do?

cuz baby cool I ain't got a prob buy drinks for two,

we linked up tonight just the way i want to, me you,

loving your style cuz lady, you,

on the dancefloor looking so beautiful.

BRIDGE X1

CHORUS

I know that you want me babe,

(I know)

you want me babe,

(cuz you want me baby)

I know,

cuz I feel you babe.

I see you talking to your friends

(I see youu talking)

looking

at me, then

I know, cuz i see you babe

see you babe.

(see you babe)

I know that you want me babe,

(iiii...)

you want me babe,

I know,

cuz I feel you babe.

I see you talking to your friends

looking

at me, then

(i see you baby)

I know, cuz i see you babe

see you babe.

Come over here, I wanna know you better,

we, can work it out, oh

I know that you want me

(I know)

I know that you want me

cuz i want you too

and i want you too

I really really do baybay

I know that you want me

(I know)

I know that you want me

cuz i want you too

and i want you too

I really really do baybay

oh oh oh

heyye-ey

What do people look for in R&B and Dance Genre?

When we hear about R&B, we link Artists such as Rihanna, Ne-Yo, Usher, etc.
Dance on the other hand being artists such as Cascada, Tiesto, Inna, Katy B, etc.
However, when we look at artists who make both genres of music, together, being dancehall/r&b/, they named artists such as Usher, Rihanna, Black Eyed Peas, Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, Loick Essien, etc.

Target Audience & Listener Profile

Before choosing our target audience we took a look at chart activity of the past month or so as this gave us an indication of first of all, whether songs of the genre we've chosen to focus on chart or not and second to see what age group listens to music of the genre we've chosen to study. Thankfully we found that songs of our genre do chart.
I then went onto looking closely at the lyrics of a handful of songs in order to get a look at what age group is likely to listen to this genre of music as the lyrics of the songs would give us more or less a clear indication of which age group. From doing this I found that the age group which is most likely to listen to our music is people between the ages of  15 - early 20s.

We decided that this would be the best target audience for us as our song as our song more or less runs along similar lines to these songs i.e the story line is familiar, as is the actual music. 


In order for me to define our target audience I have crated our Listner Profile. I've done this so that it's easier for me to show our idea of our ideal audience members. We feel it is universal universal therefore applies to all members of our audience.


Listener Profile:

Gender: Male & Female

Age: 15 - early 20s

Musical Preferences: Listens to namely R&B and Dance but also Soul and New Jack Swing. Likes artists such as: Usher, Lady Gaga, Black Eyed Peas, Tiesto, Armand Van Helden, 112, Benny Benassi, Ginuwine, ATB, Shai, Jagged Egde.

Dress Sense (Female): Cool and casual; bagg/skinny jeans, long/short t-shirts, Boyfriend cardi/ zippy hoodies, trainers/flat ballerina shoes, stylish but one-of-a-kind coat. Always carries something to listen to music on but  not always listening to it.

Dress Sense (Male): Cool and casual; bagg/skinny jeans,  T-Shirts, cardi/ hoodies, trainers/ pumps, stylish but one-of-a-kind coat. Always carries something to listen to music on but  not always listening to it.

Interests: Music(durh!), reading, going to concerts (but only on the odd occasion), Video games, Comedy TV & films.

And there you have it our Listener Profile! It may seem a little specific but that's becasue in order to make it easier for me to build our listener profile, i've looked at those around me who, besides myself, enjoy music from our fusion genre. I noticed that most actually do dress in this way and do have these interests therefore that is how and where i derived our Listener profile...

Feedback

You appear to have added very little to what was here before, although I know Jess has added some excellent material to her post on Hip Hop/ RnB and I know you have been planning a bit in class. However, you need to get the rest of this done as a matter of urgency.

Research - still nothing on your Target Audience or Institution or Branding or the Ancillary Tasks - split these tasks up and get them done this week please.

Planning - you need to get this on your blog, as well as your music and lyrics.