Chvrches- Gun Soundtrack

Plan for extra footage

Carmen and I realised we needed a little more footage to fill the full length of the soundtrack so we brainstormed some possible ideas which we hope to add to the music video. Alongside making sure everyone is free Friday 12th December.  

Editing Process

Here, Carmen and I tried to match the sound of the track with the lip syncing.
We also placed the clips in order and put effects over our footage so the video flows nicely. Alongside this, we often zoomed in to the footage so we can see the artist's face or to focus on her, instead of her surroundings.

Editing our video so far has been a success, despite having small sound waves on our clips, we overcame this problem by zooming in to the waves and listening carefully to the song and we matched both the lip syncing and the soundtrack.
   





As part of our editing, we had to arrange our footage in order so that when we wanted to find the clips we needed we could easily drag them.

Lip syncing tutorial

Carmen and I practised matching the song lyrics with the lip syncing and we found that it was quite challenging, however we successfully completed the task and now we are ready to match the song with our music video. I learnt how to use all the tools effectively so that I could apply my skills onto my music video project. I have successfully been able to play with the sound waves, in order to match the lyrics of the song with the lip syncing of the singers. Alongside this, I was able to cut scenes on the beat of the music so that it fits with the song.

How did filming go? Reaction to footage

How did filming go?

Filming our music video was fun yet challenging. On Wednesday the weather was grey and rainy which made us worried about how it might effect our music video and our cast, luckily we had umbrellas so we kept them all dry. The grey clouds made our footage slightly dull, however we successfully made our film work using lots of dancing and singing. We received helpful feedback from one of our cast members (Alan) who also does media, he offered us some ideas about some shots we could include. One of our favorite moments was when we filmed Alessia through the balloons creating a more pop- like genre.

Reaction to footage?

Carmen and I imported our footage onto final cut express where we briefly viewed our filming and became pleased with the results. We believe that during the course of editing, we will be able to successfully piece the bits together to create an upbeat and interesting music video. With all our footage, we are pleased and excited to work on them as we feel we have employed a variety of shots with various costumes/ makeup options. 

Treatment

Risk assessment

It is important for the cast to be aware of the possible risks when filming for the music video so that no possible injuries can occur.

Locations for filming

Carmen and I have chosen to film at my dad's restaurant for the performance part as it is easy and accessible. 
We decided to use the park where the singer pops the balloon and sees her ex boyfriend with the other girl. 
Finally we chose Starbucks to reveal the singer's reaction to her 'boyfriend' with another girl. 
Carmen and I decided to choose these locations as they are cheap and practical for the music video. The locations are also easy to get to and in my dad's restaurant there is an empty dance floor with coloured lights which I thought would be a great place to film as the lights add the pop theme.

Story board and shot list

Here are some of mine and Carmen's ideas for our music video which we thought would help inspire and guide us through our filming process. I prefer the shot list as it provides more information on what to film in chronological order. It also gives directs us more in terms of giving us our detailed ideas which it provided.

Post-it note planning

These are a few ideas I had for the music video. In terms of narrative, I thought perhaps our artist could be seeking for revenge on her ex as she spots him with another girl. Carmen and I also thought it would be clever to use a bubble gun as a metaphor for the title of the song 'Gun', symbolising her revenge in an innocent way. We decided to embed kaleidoscopes in our music video to add bright colours, advertising that synthpop genre. 

Booking Equipment

Carmen and I have booked our equipment so we are ready to film on Friday 12th December.

Filming Schedule

I decided to plan the scenes and shots Carmen and I want to film over those two days on paper so we will be more organised and prepared on the day.

Cast

We have picked Iman Sheikh to be the girl who dates the singer's ex boyfriend and Alan Goodman plays the role of the DJ and the boyfriend. We decided they were best for the roles as they are very reliable and helpful. 

We selected Alessia Marquez to be the lead role as Kiana has a busy schedule. However Alessia is perfect for the role as she is physically flexible and has great dancing skills. 

Georgia is playing the role of a ballet dancer as she does dance out of school and we thought she would be perfect, especially because she is very reliable. 

Star Image

Carmen and I have looked at various outfit choices for our artist on Polyvore and we have come up with some bright and pastel colours that we think is appropriate for our artist in our music video. We were inspired by the feminine colours to liven up our video. These colourful images have influenced us to embed the pop element into our music video and to attract our target audience who are young. In addition, the winged eye-liner and sun hat enhances a sense of cheekiness and elegance. We thought adding bold coloured lipstick would also give our artist a stronger brand image.

Genre conventions of Synthpop

I have been researching various artists who employ synthpop genres so I can be inspired by them. All the videos utilise bold and bright colours with techno effects. The music videos often have both narrative and performance base to create a link with the lyrics. Every video has a backdrop or follows a theme for instance, Mariana and the Diamonds 'Oh No' follows a pop art theme. Some of the music videos may be filmed in the streets or a garage where the band may perform.
All the music videos below share a common techno beat, enhancing the snythpop genre and advertising the energetic aspect of the song. Alongside this, most of the videos include dancing and some instruments, making the music more realistic. 
Marina and the Diamonds= Oh No














Ellie Goulding= Goodness Gracious














 Sky Ferreira= Lost In My Bedroom

Lights= Toes

Lyric mood board

These are a few ideas that link with the lyrics which we thought would be a good idea to incorporate within the music video. The most symbolic part of the lyrics was the metaphor of a gun, along with the underlying love in which the artist seeks to kill. 

Focus Group Feedback

For the past 2 lessons, our group had to show our soundtrack to each other. Carmen and I received feedback from the group and we have all agreed that the genre is electric pop. Our class thought our soundtrack was girly and upbeat.

The target audience is aimed at young teenage girls, and the story line involves a performance based video with perhaps the girl getting revenge on her ex-boyfriend with lots of close ups as well as dancers in the background. It was important for us to give feedback to each other as it gives us ideas on what we can do with our videos including possible narrative ideas based on the genres. For our video we thought that we needed to highlight an item of the singer to make her stand out, we came up with either a bowler hat, a bright coloured skirt or perhaps a ribbon. Another idea we were given was to film the artist and her band in a circular motion to create unity and match the fast paste music.

In the end, Carmen and I decided we like the idea of the camera circling around the band as it is different to other music videos. In addition we were inspired by the kaleidoscope effect from an old music video created by someone in the previous years, using this effect would fit well with the pop genre. 

Auteur Theory- Hype Williams

What is the auteur theory?
In 1954, The auteur theory was created by Francois Truffaut and it was intended to show a director's film to reflect the personal creative visions. An example of this is Alfred Hitchcock's movie 'Psycho', as he stars in his film and addresses mental health awareness. Hitchcock's visual was to use a black and white theme but chooses a photo with bold colours to present the good and bad characters.

How can this theory be applied to music videos?
We can apply the theory to music videos as we can easily look for:

• Themes
• Borders
• Colours
• Symbolism
• Storyline
• Quick editing 
• Choreographed dances 

Discuss an auteur in the music video industry.
This theory applies to Hype William's  music videos as we can see themes of pop. The director embeded symbols within his videos to depict the light-hearted genre, an example of these repeated symbols are the bright eye-popping colours and borders to focus on the artist. William's also admires womens' assets by using a low angled shot and close ups, he utilises a green-screen to illustrate the setting the song may relate to. One of Hype William's videos is Beyonce's 'Check on it' where he includes these key elements of pop.
There's a quick cross- cut between these two frames on the beat.

Hype William's uses different shades of pink, highlighting the feminine side of the video. However he sticks with the bright theme by using a bright shade of red which is the equivalent of a masculine colour.

Beyonce's border is a silky material, where as the rapper's border has his face split in two to represent  femininity and wealth verses vanity.

Andrew Goodwin's theory

1) What were his 6 key aspects of music videos?

• A relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the lyrics.
• A relationship between the music and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the music.
• Genre- related style and iconography present.
• Star image, multiple close-up shots of the main artist or vocalist.
• Voyeurism often plays a major part, especially in relation to females.
• Intertexual references to other media texts maybe present.

2) Complete a case that illustrates this using a screen-grab of a video.

Britney Spears 'You Drive Me Crazy' music video includes all the elements from Andrew Goodwin's theory as it has all the dancers which displays typical pop features. There's a relationship between the dance and the upbeat music 

Melissa from 'Sabrina' appears in the music video to show that the video is targeting teenagers.  

There's a close up of her face which shows that the lyrics match her singing.The lyrics 'you drive me crazy' is also portrayed when we see the girl who plays Sabrina and a male companion who we see she has a crush on.

The lyrics 'Tell me that I'm the one you would see' is sung just before 'Sabrina' is with her crush.









The video shows that women wear revealing clothes to attract male attention in order to display rnb/ pop genre music.

Searching for our artist

This term, we have been set a task to produce a music video using any songs as long as we ask for permission from the artist. I have decided to work with Carmen Katema and we were thinking of using our friend Kaitlyn Haggis or my sister Kiana Lanjani to star in our music video. In order for this to happen, we will need to contact them and ask whether they are available to participate. 

Kiana agreed to take part in our music video shown in the text below.

Carmen and I also decided to contact a friend of mine, Alessia in case our original choice for our artist cannot do it.

3 elements of a music video

A performance based music video shows the band or artists mostly performing their song possibly in a gig or audio setting, such as The 1975 'Girls'. 


A narrative based music video tends to follow a storyline throughout the whole video, for example The Killers 'Shot At The Night'. It is about a maid who works at a hotel and feels lonely, but she bumps into a rich man in the hotel. She meets his friends and another lady gives her a pretty dress to wear for the night. She goes out with the rich man and they hang out all night, then she runs back to the hotel as she is late for her job. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4YK-DEkvcw



A concept based music video- consists of simple ideas but the video has no relation to the music or lyrics, an example of this is MGMT 'Electric Feel'. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmZexg8sxyk#t=16 

Music Video Timeline

A Hard Day's Night:

• The third studio album released 1964, with one side containing songs from their film.
• First Beatles album to be recorded on 4-track tape, allowing for good stereo mixes.

Concert Films:

• A type of documentary film which is an extended live performance or concert by a musician or comedian.
• From 1964 onwards. 

MTV:

• An American programme launched 1981.
• Used to aim at young adults but it's not targeted at adolescents and teenagers.
• The original purpose was to play music videos guided by tv personalities know as 'video jockeys' (announcer).  

Musicals:

• Performances that combine: songs, dialogue, acting and dance.
• Other theatrical forms include opera and dance without dialogue.
• Introduced 1886, The Black Crook was considered the first musical. 

Nickeldeons:

• First indoor space dedicated to showing motion pictures.
• Simple theatres charged 5 cents for admission and flourished from 1905-1915.
• Mechanical musical instrument for example, piano or orchestra.

Scopitone:

• Type of jukebox containing 16mm film component.
• Developed during WW2, colour 16mm film clips with a magnetic soundtrack were designed and shown in a jukebox.  

Soundies:  

• 3 minute musical films.
• Often include short dance sequences.
• 1940s.
• Released on the Panoram, which is a coin-operated film jukebox.

Top Of The Pops:

• British music chart TV programme made by the BBC 1964 and 2006.
• Each weekly programme consisted of performances from popular music artists, with a rundown of that week's single chart.

Youtube: 

• During the 80s and 90s, big for music videos and directors.
• Video sharing website
• Owned by Paypal but now owned by Google (2006)
• People now use it for educational purposes, career starters and tutorials.
  

Britney Spears Reflection

1) What was the task set?
We were asked to film our own version of the first 30 seconds of Britney's music video 'Hit Me Baby One More Time'. We had to watch the music video and list the every shot and how long each lasted for.

2) What process did you go through to complete the task? (Upload a pic of your shotlist for planning evidence)
At the beginning we had to analyse and jot down every move Britney did on a shotlist, then we asked to borrow a camera and the other equipment to begin filming our own parody of it. Georgia, Carmen and I starred in the music video with our teacher Ms Lawson filming. In order to make our version accurate, we needed to rearrange the tables and chair so we could all be seen on camera. We followed every action to the precise amount of seconds and recreated parts of the dance moves to make our version as close to Britney's video as we could. In the end, we completed all of the shots successfully ready to be edited.

3) What did you learn from the experience?
I learnt that it takes a lot of time to re-create a music video accurately as you need to pay attention to the detail of costumes, actions, lighting, set etc. Even editing the video can be quite tricky as you have to make sure all the shots are in the correct order as Britney's music video and the singing is in sync with the person's mouth. During the process of editing, we had to cut shots to 1-2 seconds as we needed to continue the quick pace of the video. It was important for us to feel confident in front of the  camera and recieving a lot of encouragement was very helpful as it made the video come together. Luckily for us, the mise en scene was a school which was easy for us as we filmed in our own.

Favourite Music Video

Ariana Grande's 'Problem' music video is one of my favourites, as it has a lot of colour and various visual effects. This has inspired us to employ some of these effects into our video as this song and our soundtrack are both fast pace. We adored the beauty shots the artist showed as it expresses the girly aspect of the video as both artists 'attempt to get over their ex- boyfriend'. 

Reply from the manager of Chvrches

Luckily, Carmen and I have managed to receive a reply from one of our favorite artist's manager. We are now excited to start brainstorming ideas for our music video.

Contacting the manager of various artists

My partner Carmen and I have contacted the manager or agent of the artists asking for permission to use their song.

Mr. Willis is the manager of Yuna, he hasn't replied yet. However Carmen has made an attempt to contact the manager of Charli XCX and sent another email to Yuna's other manager.

Music Options

Yuna- 'I wanna go' is an indie-pop song which diverts attention from the mainstream music. It's a lovely relaxing and girly song which helps to give us ideas for our music video. 

Charli XCX- has a darker and edgy side which generates a unique style our music video.   

Haim- This band ranges from upbeat sounds to soothing tunes.

Lana del rey- has a more dark and mysterious edge in her music and we thought it would be a nice change from the mainstream pop sounds heard on the radio.



 Chvrches 'Gun'- This song has a techno/ pop genre which makes it a lively song.