Our Group

This is the group we will be working in for our coursework. It consists of Emma(left), Amy(centre) and Sophie(right).


Amy and I have been good friends for years, but neither of us know Sophie very well at all so we're going to get to know her better so that we can work well as a group.

Filming session cancelled

We've filmed nearly all our scenes and have edited them in to place. We are now waiting to to film our final scenes for the narrative which we planned to do last Tuesday however due to rain it was cancelled.

Our plans were to film the final scene where Emma was scene leaving in a taxi and leaving her house in a complete mess, which is contrasted with Amy by using match cuts in the video as one scene will be Amy walking made up down the stairs, then cut to Emma also walking down the stairs however she's stumbling from being drunk and her make up and costume is all out of place, and then followed by Emma leaving in a taxi.

Our preferred viewing of this is for the audience to realise that both characters are going to the same event, the cuts in between the characters are to create tension for the audience as the audience has seen Emma increasingly get more angry, upset and drunk through out the narrative. Showing similar activities between them suggest they're going to the same place which inevitably will lead to a climax.

We planned to film outside of our school where students are going in to a prom-like event, Emma will see the couple and we would film the reactions and expressions of all the characters which will me remorse and regret from the couple, and fear from Amy, Emma will be shown as really aggressive. Emma also will be shown shouting and provoking an attack from Amy. We have decided to film two possible endings as we cannot decided which one will be best.

One ending is that the final cut for the scene will show the three in a silent awkwardness showing the signs of their emotions as we wern't sure whether its suitable to show  a proper revenge as our style model for the artist is Taylor Swift its rather unconventional for her to show such aggressive acts as she is a role model. However this song differs from her typical songs and shows a darker side to her which we've already explored through the drinking of alcohol which is absent from her other videos. In which case we would end of a climax of her lunging at Amy, but not progress it further to see the actual revenge.

Showcase Evaluation

Yesterday, our teacher arranged for our class to showcase our music videos so far, to each other and some extra peers who happened to have a free period at the time. During period two we compressed and transferred our video so that our teacher could access it on her computer. Most of our class conversely, didn't manage to do this in time for period three, so our showcase began about half an hour late, causing it to run into our lunch hour. This didn't affect the quality of our discussions and evaluations though.


Although our teacher had been keeping an eye on the progression of our music video throughout the editing process, this was an opportunity for her to summarise her opinions and advice for us. Her comments, in her exact words, were:


- Love the baseball reaction
- Not sure about "fight"
- The syncing was mostly perfect
- Matches the style
- It's INTERESTING - you keep the variety going
- Seems that the style matches Taylor Swift
- Performance is really good and convincing
- Lighting on the dart board is perfect!
- The spinning looks like perfect space
- Did people get your narrative?
- Emma does evil/disgust well.. !
- Like the red lighting when singing into the camera


It was good listening to other people's reactions to parts of our video, that hadn't been watching the progression in composing it. This gave us an insight into how our targeted audience would perceive it, which we no longer have ourselves. Personally, I had been worried that outsiders wouldn't be able to follow the narrative, perhaps at all, due to the heavy number of locations featured throughout. The showcase fotunately, disproved this as everybody followed it "easily" and knew exactly what the narrative was.


The evaluation sheets involved completing a bipolar chart to begin:

Followed by the questions:
-What was especially GOOD about the music video?
- Would you watch this again? If yes, why? If no, why not? and,
- Did you notice any serious issues such as continuity errors, strange edits, did anything not make sense to you?


The bipolar results convey that generally our audience enjoyed each aspect of our music video, though perhaps we need to fine-tune our synchronising and camerawork a little.


Having read through the other questions on my own, the main aspects that people liked, involved:
- The lighting
- The performance itself
- The close-ups
- The mixture of performance and narrative
- The pace - "doesn't get boring"
- Funny at some points
- Believable miming and acting
- Strong narrative
- Story made sense
- Very much like a real music video
- The ending - lights out
- "Fantabulous" edits and effects!
- Seemed professional
- Variety in costume


Every person that took the time to evaluate said they'd like/love to watch our music video again. The recurring reason was that it's "entertaining"/"interesting".


There was some constructive criticism, which is arguably more helpful than anything else. Here are all of the issues from our pilot audience's perspectives: 
- Some parts were out of sync
- "A form of revenge would be nice to see"
- "Didn't really get the fight"
- Amy laughs when I push her face in the dirt
- Brief black flashes
- Emma's face is a bit too comical at times!
- "wuh-ooh" - cut a bit shorter?
- Emma coming out of the car is odd
- Use more effects

A lot of this comes from our video still being incomplete. (Every other group's incomplete too, not just ours.) Some parts being out of sync, the black flashes and lacking a bit in effects is down to this.

HOWEVER,

The fight scene seems to have been highlighted as being too friendly and not fitting in with the video. A few people also stated that Amy laughs whilst I'm pushing her face into the dirt. I know Amy really well, so I know that when she's scared, she does look like she's laughing. Our audience of course don't know her, so it looks like we will have to refilm this part. Whether we scrap the original material completely or just add in another camera angle on the laughing part to cover it up - we'll have to see.

The "wuh-ooh" being too long with the suggestion of 'cutting it shorter' can't really be done as that would involve making actual changes to the audio track itself which wouldn't be right. We've taken this onboard though and might try to involve another camera angle to give the illusion of cutting down the length of this part.

"Emma coming out of the car is odd" we don't agree with. Every consumer is different, so although we don't agree with this opinion we have respected it and taken it into consideration, but seeing as only one person has said this, we're going to put the thought to one side.


OVERALL,

We've found that showcasing our work has not only reassured us that our video is of good quality, it has also highlighted aspects that could potentially be issues that we had overlooked. Being able to watch and reflect off of other groups' videos also helped for us to compare and contrast and feel more comfortable with our video."Emma's face is a bit too comical at times!". There is one part I could understand that my face looks comical, but it does still fit in with the overall video and genre. Also, multiple people complimented the fact that there are funny parts throughout the video, so we plan to keep it.

Update

It's academic review day tomorrow so previously as a group we'd agreed that we couldn't easily film all together until next Wednesday during our double lesson. However, as I went into yesterday's lesson my teacher announced that our first draft deadline is next Friday. Our group would be physically unable to film everything in one day so we're going to have to film before this, and probably even use the double lesson on Wednesday for editing the new footage in time for Friday's deadline.


This does probably mean that we won't all be able to record together, though I'll do everything I can to make sure that we can all make the final sessions. We also have to bare in mind that the closer we get to the deadline, the more booked up the cameras will be, and as we've been using the new cameras, there are only two to choose from.


I planned to talk to Amy and Sophie today about it in our theory lesson assuming they were both in, however our theory lesson was cancelled and Sophie was absent again so this wasn't possible. I saw Amy briefly though so I told her all I'd thought about, and we agreed to discuss it all during Thursday's lesson with Sophie to arrange our next filming sessions for either the weekend or Monday, possibly both.

'Aggyness' Technique

A term we are constantly using for Emma to portray whilst we are filming is 'aggyness'.  As it is quite a slang term of today's youth and you may not know what this means, it is how we feel she should embrace the anger and hatred for the 'bitch' character (played by Amy).

As the song goes a long Emma's character is getting more and more angry about the fact that she has lost the boy of the video.  To show this we use alcohol constantly which is also creating a depressing feeling with her character.  When filming we often feel as though Emma might not like us this isn't me talking badly of her but in fact positively, and we might feel like it because of how well she is portraying the character which she has to play.  When she is infront of the camera she is very focussed and knows what is wanted for her from what we have planned as a group.  When we ask her to give an 'aggy' look she knows exactly what we mean, and the looks are often to help us fill some of the instrumental parts of the song which we need to fill but, it is also helping to show how the character is moving emotionally throughout the music video.

Filming Session: Field Scenes

In 'Better Than Revenge' we have a part of the song where Emma as the lead character is going to be in a field reading through a diary as if she is telling a story.  This is because of the line "The story starts when it was hot and it was summer and".

During the day we had already been filming for our live performance part of the music video.  We were originally going to be doing a lot more of the field part during the day, however we didn't feel that it was appropriate to be filming it in as it needs to look like summer.  After we had finished school though we realised that the weather had picked up and the weather would now portray the appropriate atmosphere for which we needed in our video.

As me and Emma live near each other and a big field and we still had the camera on us, we thought we should take advantage of the weather for as long as we had it.  The scene which we were creating needed to look summery, and so had to have the right lighting etc to fit perfectly with how we had planned it all.

Emma got into costume which was how we had planned as a group, this consisted of a white dress and leggings.  The white dress was to symbolise how she was the 'good' and 'pure' character and the victim of the music video apposed to the comparison of the 'bitch' character of whom I play. In music videos hair styles are always changing, to show different parts of the story of the video so it was appropriate that we kept up with that so for Emma to make her hair look different she decided on doing a different style,  this was because for quite a lot of the video it is the same, down and curly.

For props we took a long a diary, as it would be what she is reading from as well as a country straw hat.

During the filming we didn't encounter any problems, except the occasional person walking behind the shot.  Although that would have added a sense realism, it wasn't going to make it look like a professional musical video to the standard of which we want to obtain.  Therefore every now and then there was a lot of waiting around for people to move but all in all the footage which we got was what we wanted.

For the filming of this part, as well as quite a lot of the other filming I was responsible for.

On top of what we had wanted to get and planned on getting, we realised that there is a lot of instrumental parts within the song and so to help fill those up we just filmed random parts of the field and walking round.  A term we are constantly using for Emma to do is 'aggyness' and although you might not know what this means, it is how we feel she should portray her anger and hatred for the 'bitch' character.  So we tried to show this in the fields but improv of angry jumping, and looks and just spinning with the camera in the field.

"Live" Performance

For our "live" performance Amy and I had arranged an allocated time with the drama teachers to use the drama studio prior to turning up, and a quick lesson with the lights as neither of us have ever studied drama or performing arts at this school.

We arrived for this hour on time and fully costumed, propped and prepared. I even brought my own microphone from home so that we didn't have to bug the drama teachers further.

Amy went upstairs for a couple of minutes tutorial on how to use the lights whilst I judged where would make the best location in the studio to make the most convincing stage. I figured that standing in front of a black curtain would be good for medium closeups/close ups - intimate camera work as Amy could get up close to me. There was a black backdrop as a background for the stage, however using the other curtain would allow Amy to stand on the stage herself and get more high-angled shots of me - more unusual and showbizz.

As Amy was trying out the lights I was shouting up to her about trying the red lights out for anger/revenge/passion/etc, and then green for jealousy to see what that looked like. She called down to me saying where the mist lit up positions around the studio were so I memorised these. In front of the curtain on the floor (see above picture) wasn't very well lit, but I said that this could be a good thing, having my face partly in shaddows increases our desired effect of plotting and mysteriousness, and of course the darker, hurt side to my character, remembering of course that it is supposed to be a live performance and not designed for the music video itself.

I mimed the song through for the duration roughly five times, whilst listening to the track on my ipod to make sure it was all in time, as well as recording random stage-like body language to  possible feature as fillers if needed in instrumental parts of our video.

Amy used a variety of different camera angles, including one from the perspective of a fan in the front row of the audience. As the camera is directed upwards with me singing "to the fan", the red lighting and spotlight is visible behind my head, giving the frame a unique look suitable for the music video genre.

Overall, the "live" performance we all feel, looks extremely genuine and professional.

Taylor Swift Album designs

Here are three different Taylor Swift Albums designs. For our completed video we will need an albums cover to represent our work, to promote the video. Therefore one of the steps to promoting this is analyzing her previous album art.
One of the main things to notice is that she is the main focus in all of her album art. None of the albums artworks are particularly unrealistic. To make her the main focus there is nothing in the background that particularly draws the audience's eye, for example in the 1st and 4th album cover the background is a plain light colour to keep the attraction on the artist. To draw attention to the Artist she is dressed in an eye catching purple (album cover 4) or in (album cover 1) her golden hair catches the audiences attention from the particular way its displayed and the vibrance of the gold. In album cover 3 this is the only one that varies from the others as its the only one with a bright, different background. This may be because its trying to appeal and attract the target demographic, young girls. Her songs are about natural and realistic experiences, growing up, so the representation of nature, the blue for sea, the dark grassy greens for forests and the little picture of the butterfly that represents metamorphosis in people from girl to women.
In all the album covers to show the importance of the audience the artist is either snapped at a close up ( album cover 2) or a medium shot, again to keep the main focus on the artist.
The demographic is mainly for girls so the graphology is all pretty similar between them she used a classic swirly design for her name, the same style is repeated in all so therefore its become the signature of her name, this is to promote a recognizable signature for her and in turn her fans will be able to recognize her merchandise/work universally which creates a strong fan base as she will become familiar.
All her album artwork are bright and light, the beige and white colours represent her innocence and wisdom, and as her music is aimed at young girls this turns her in to the perfect role model agreeable for both the parents of the listener and agreeable with the young girls. The colour scheme also infers the tone of the majority of her work, light and happy, nothing dark and sinister. She's being represented as Americas sweetheart, the girl next door figure.
In conclusion to create our own album artwork key ideas, which are remarkably easily, the most important being including our artist in our artwork as the main focus, using either a close up or medium shot.
Another is to dress our artist in light colours like white or beige or even bright colours like purple but nothing that could be considered as "edgy" or "dark", however our song is one of Taylor's more edgier songs which shows an aggressive attitude of herself so that may be open to change.
We will most likely decide on a plain,light background to not draw the audiences attention of our artist and off course copying her Taylor swift signature so she is easily recognized.

Filming Session: 3

Yesterday, we had our third filming session.

Period 1, me and Amy:

• Period one, me and Amy:
• Collected the camera and tripod and check that it was all good to go
• Got Amy's bag of clothes for filming from her car in a nearby road
• Got Amy changed into her first costume as she'd travelled to school in uniform
• Did her heavy makeup (to suit her character)
• I shared my plans of what we could fit into the time and contextual factors and should therefore do that day
• Made sure that we were fully prepared for the start of period two to make full use of our time
• Filmed a section on the bench that didn't need anyone but us involved in.

Periods 2+3:

• We were supposed to meet Sophie and Rhys in the common room. 
• Rhys showed up first so we explained the rough outline of the storyline and locations we'd be using today.
• Then he went off to get changed into his first costume - he'd brought jeans, converses and an american-style t-shirt which was suitable for his part.
• He phoned me after almost ten minutes saying that there were younger students in the changing rooms so he couldn't get changed, so I said to just get changed in the boys toilets as we didn't have time to wait. 
• Sophie still wasn't in or around the common room, and after asking around, nobody had seen her in school at all. 
• Rhys came out in his costume, and with Kelsie who also had the same frees and wanted to take part in our media piece. We said yes as we could use an extra anyway, and she would fit in the car. 
• Amy said that Sophie wasn't answering her mobile, but perhaps she'd forgotten we were filming and would be in our media class, so we went up there. 
• She was there, so we got her and explained what we wanted to film and where, and said that we'd film random things as extra footage along the way. 
• Sophie then took the camera and filmed me and Rhys walking down the stairs together in case we could use that for something. (From watching the footage after, it was obvious that this part had been spontaneous, as the lighting was terrible.)
• As we were leaving the school grounds to walk to a local side road where Amy's car was parked, Amy and Sophie took turns in filming random footage of me and Rhys with the intention of converying a 'harmoneous' relationship. 
• We talked through possible editing techniques and effects we could use to enhance our work - jump cuts to add to the post-modern feel, and increasing the saturation to provoke a warm, summer/love code.
• As we got to the car Amy and Rhys got in whilst me and Sophie found a suitable lampost for me to walk into, which allowed Amy's car able to also be visible in the shot.
• We then filmed me miming words walking towards the camera with the lampost in the foreground coming from one direction, closely followed by Amy and Rhys driving past, however it wasn't ideal. 
• Amy and Sophie said that we could approach it from a different angle, so as Amy reversed back up the road, I switched to the other side of the lampost and we re-filmed that line. 
• Sophie filmed a bit through the passenger window with Rhys having been told to "look uncomfortable" by me, in the foreground and Amy looking pleased with herself behind him; driving. 
• Sophie then filmed from Amy's window and then from infront - through the windscreen, for a wide variety of shots we could choose the best from.
• Finally, Sophie recorded me walking into the lamppost. After doing this a few times it wasn't looking right, because I was looking in the wrong direction. We then did it a few more times with me looking in the right direction.
• Next, Amy drove us to Ray Park, about 5 minutes from our school. 
• To get to the park itself we had to walk down a long path, so along here we filmed random shots of the greenery and eachother to have as back-up material. 
• When we got to the park there were a few children in it, so to avoid complications we stayed outside of the park and filmed in the opposite direction, clips of me and Rhys playing "it", etc.
• After a short while, all but one child left, so as the park was large we could easily record in one corner of the park without affecting anybody else at all. 
• We managed to record on some outside gym equipment, baby swings and a sea-saw. 
• Then we saw a roundabout and swings that would be ideal to use, but two more children and their guardians arrived, so we felt it would be necessary to ask their permission to film in the park, highlighting the fact that their children wouldn't  be in our recordings at all. The first parent was 100% fine with it, however the second one didn't speak English, and kept saying "no". Although she explained she didn't know what I was saying, I couldn't get the message through to her so we had to accept "no" as her answer, and left the park.
• When we got back to school we filmed a piece on an abandoned armchair, left outdoors at our school, surrounded by rubbish and a giant mound of dirt. This we thought would make interesting mise-en-scene and suit the main character's state of mind - a mess basically. 
• We recorded me sat on the chair, jumping on the chair in anger and then grabbing Amy and going to shove her face in the giant pile of dirt (but stopping just in time).

Planning Better Than Revenge

Better than Revenge

Lyrics:
Now go stand in the corner and think about what you did
Ha, Time for a little revenge
Verse:
The story starts when it was hot and it was summer
And, I had it all; I had him right there where I wanted him
She came along, got him along, and let's hear the applause
She took him faster than you can say sabotage
I never saw it coming, nor did I suspected it
I underestimated just who I was dealing with
She had to know the pain was beating on me like a drum
She underestimated just who she was stealing from


[Chorus]
She's not a saint and she's not what you think
She's an actress, Whoa
She's better known for the things that she does
On the mattress, Whoa
Soon she's gonna find
Stealing other people's toys on the playground
Won't make you many friends
She should keep in mind,
She should keep in mind
There is nothing I do better than revenge, Ha


[Verse]
She lives her life like it's a party and she's on the list
She looks at me like I'm a trend and she's so over it
I think her ever present frown is a little troubling
And, she thinks I'm psycho
Cause I like to rhyme her name with things, but
Sophistication isn't what you wear, or who you know
Or pushing people down to get you where you wanna go
Oh they didn't teach you that in prep school
So it's up to me
But no amount of vintage dresses gives you dignity


[Chorus]
She's not a saint and she's not what you think
She's an actress, Whoa
She's better known for the things that she does
On the mattress, Whoa
Soon she's gonna find
Stealing other people's toys on the playground
Won't make you many friends
She should keep in mind,
She should keep in mind
There is nothing I do better than revenge, Ha ha




[Bridge]
I'm just another thing for you to roll your eyes at honey
You might have him, but haven't you heard
I'm just another thing for you to roll your eyes at honey
You might have him, but I always get the last word
Whoa


[Chorus]
She's not a saint and she's not what you think
She's an actress, Whoa
She's better known for the things that she does
On the mattress, Whoa
Soon she's gonna find
Stealing other people's toys on the playground
Won't make you many friends
She should keep in mind,
She should keep in mind
There is nothing I do better than revenge,


And do you still feel like you know what you're doing,
Cause I don't think you do, Oh
Do you still feel like you know what you're doing
I don't think you do, I don't think you do
Let's hear the applause
C'mon show me how much better you are
See you deserve some applause
Cause you're so much better
She took him faster than you can say sabotage

One of the first steps we took in starting the new process for brainstorming new ideas for our new video was to listen to the video together and annotating the lyrics, we did this separately and individually to gather more ideas, and then select what idea we thought was the best.

This started to build up the background of our mise en scene and particular themes. Like in Taylor Swift videos we would use the artist as the Protagonist (Emma), and as the theme of the video is revenge we would use an antagonist (Amy) to aim the revenge at to base our narrative on.
From this we decided on a short simple story line. Girl meets boy, another girl steals boy, heartbroken girls plans revenge. Themes we will portray in our video will be love, hate and jealousy.

We would also have realistic settings for example, bedrooms, school environment and some outside natural environments.  For example we thought Amy's bedroom would be good to set the Protagonist bedroom in.

The bedroom has a large spacey centre ideal for being able to use for filming, it has all the things commonly found in a typical girls bedroom, wardrobes, clothes, dresser. Another setting we decided on was using our drama room. We have a tiny budget therefore we dont have the equipment to manipulate lighting, however in the drama room they do have this equipment. In this setting we would use the artist as herself performing, and whilst she performs we can play with the red and green lights as these colours represent anger and jealousy.

Another smaller idea we had was darts hitting a dartboard with the antagonists picture on. This represents the theme of hate and we could use the darts hitting the board in time with the  drum beat at the start that counts the song in.

'Taylor Swift - Better Than Revenge' - Our Ideas

Taylor Swift Conventions

Narrative reflects lyrics
One key feature that we've noticed in Taylor swift music videos is that the lyrics typically reflect the lyrics for example in "back to december" the setting is placed in a winter season which the audience will link to with the snow. In "you belong with me" the narrative is based around the lyrics "she's cheer captain and i'm on the bleachers", which shown above Taylor is dressed in a bleachers uniform performing with them.

"Decemeber"

Artist included in narrative

Taylor swift is usually always included in the narrative particularly as the protagonist except for in fifteen, where she seems to travel through the narrative and interact with it rather than being apart of      the story line, show in You belong with me below, and particularly always plays the part of the love interest or victim, however in this she is both protagonist and the antagonist . She also always lip-syncs in her video

 "You belong with me"

Pathetic Fallacy
Another method she uses is pathetic fallacy to signal to the audience the mood of the song. For example in Mine the season is clearly summer or spring inferred by the bright sunny blue sky, the green tree's, Taylor's sun kissed lighting on her skin and her outfit. This could be connoted by the audience as a happy song

"Mine"

In her song White horse the song reflects sadness and the weather and lightning dictate this to the audience, The camera focuses on the dark gray rain at the beginning of the video signaling to the audience the mood of the song and carried through out the song with the dark lighting. This could be something we can consider and would like to be however we can't manipulate the weather.

 "White horse"

Mise en scene
Another thing to focus on is the mise en scene. Taylor swift is usually always in a realistic setting apart from the exception of her video 15. Typical settings are school themed like an American football pitch, hallway or a school prom. Other settings are homes, particular the bedroom or the garden and pretty scenery like forests or lakes. These are typical example of what is shown in  "you belong with me" , "tear drops of my guitar" and "mine". This is something that our group will definitely decide on to be similar, it also works to our advantage as we do not t he resources to make our own unique sets. We can easily use our own school and local parks to film our video.

Change of Plan!

Amy and I got talking about Deja Vu, and I expressed doubts in how I wasn't sure about whether or not our planned music video would be as successful as we'd previously hoped. I was relieved to find that Amy had the same concerns and we decided that perhaps we should change the song.

In our next lesson we shared our views with Sophie, and although she wasn't worried about Deja Vu, she did agree that we should change the song if we weren't all happy and decided on the song. We recognised that we all had to be one hundred per cent content with our song selection before planning in detail. One major concern was that 3OH!3 is male, and our group is solely female. If we relied on a lead and they pulled out part way through, it could dramatically affect our music video and waste valuable, crucial time. By choosing a song with a female lead, one of the three of us could be the focus of the video and there is no way any of us would pull out.

As Amy revised, me and Sophie searched YouTube for songs lead by female vocalists. We searched: Ke$ha, Amy Studt, Pink, Avril Lavigne, Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift. We knew that we should pick a song without much (preferably any) publicity, and without a current music video so that we wouldn't be subconsciously influenced.

After listening to a few tracks by Taylor Swift, we realised that she was the artist for us. All that we had to do was choose a track that followed our criteria we'd drawn up prior to choosing Deja Vu. One track that did this is: Better Than Revenge by Taylor Swift. Instantly, we both knew that this was the one we wanted to work on. The tempo, pace and story line through the lyrics were ideal for a "live" performance and was open to a strong and satisfying narrative. We called Amy over, and she agreed with us.
For the rest of the lesson, me and Sophie then began discussing possible story lines for narratives. We had very different ideas, but they all were related to a main female character plotting revenge on another female character, ultimately for 'stealing' her boyfriend. As we kept disagreeing on underdeveloped ideas, we decided that it would be best for all three of us to go away and get to know the track, and form ideas of our own ready to discuss, compare and hopefully to combine. By the next lesson, I was the only one to have started due to the others having to focus more on other subjects, so I printed off sheets with lyrics and space to write and gave them to the others to save them having to take time to organise things. I then got cracking with my own decoding of the lyrics and transforming my subjective interpretation to realistic and creative ideas.

After sleeping on it, I reached the conclusion that no matter how we did it, it would be far too confusing for our targeted audience, especially as it is all our our first attempt at a music video. I told the others how I felt and they agreed and said that it would probably be best to keep things simple to start with, and then build in professionalism through editing and swapping footage for new more advanced footage if we felt we were capable and it would improve our work.

For the rest of the lesson, I got another sheet with lyrics ready to write down all of our ideas combined to form our first proper draft.

The opening is what I'd planned, as the others hadn't got around to producing their own ideas for the introduction yet. The instrumental then, I'd figured out the timings. I said that we should introduce the "live" performance somewhere here so that everybody important is introduced early on, like in a film. They agreed, and Sophie suggested that we should have a narrative introduction too, setting the scene. Me and Amy thought that it was a good idea too, and said that we should produce a montage of footage conveying a harmonious relationship between the main female and her boyfriend. The editing should be in sync.

During the next lesson, we shared ideas. Amy had formed the idea that instead of there being one female plotting revenge on another, it would be one female angry at her split personality. Sometimes she is kind to her boyfriend and completely normal, the next minute she's like another person. I said I needed a while to get my head around this idea in relation to the entire song, so we said we'd continue next lesson.

In my free periods I planned and jotted down my ideas whilst listening to the track on my ipod. I worked out the exact timing of the introductory instrumental part, and planned an general story line. I then began thinking about how to get suitable editing and camera angles in, and focused in on locations, mise-en-scene, costuming and colour choice.

Song Research

Yesterday we got together with the intention of choosing a track for our music video. We discussed artists that we believed could be suitable, and eventually we decided that 3oh!3 would be suitable and meet the requirements we thought of prior to searching. 

We watched as many of 3oh!3's music videos as we could, to get a feel for their style, then began listening to their songs - without videos. We knew that we wanted to choose one without a video so we wouldn't be subliminally influenced.

We considered I'm Not Your Boyfriend Baby amongst others, but came to the conclusion that the song; Deja Vu had the strongest lyrics for a narrative, and had no expletive language unlike the majority of other tracks. We researched 3oh!3 and discovered their iconic image which we now know we need to incorporate into the video.

Today we got together again to focus on our new choice. We decided to plan a rough idea of what to do for the video. Initially we came to the conclusion that we would like:

• A narrative with the storyline linked to the lyrics, featuring the artist miming
• A plain, empty room solely for the artist
• Fast, varied cuts
• At least one section with sped up photographed stills

Next, knowing what we were setting out to achieve we listened to the song the whole way through, each mentally forming ideas of what we could do. The second time through we paused after each line and exchanged ideas. Most of the time they were actually quite similar, other times; one idea would outshine the others so we went with those, and a few times we disagreed so we kept talking until we reached a unanimous decision.

Some of Sophie's ideas stood out:

• Filming out of a car window at night, then speeding up the footage in order to create a blur of lights which should create a preferred reading of the main character travelling between locations.
• When the main character emerges from a females house after a one night stand, his clothes should be on back-to-front/inside out, etc for a comical effect.

Amy's:

• Thought through the practicalities of our intended plan of having our main character jumping out of a second storey window.
• She also said that she could borrow some real police equipment and clothing from a policeman she knows for our 'officer officer' scene.

Mine:

• Suggested the idea of involving a seperate room for the artist, aside from the narrative in order to make the video more conventional and busy.
• Focused on the camera angles and movement in each frame.
• Organised the group during our discussion in order to make our ideas merge rather than clash.
• Am taking on the responsibility of gaining the use of a taxi for our 'cab driver cab driver' scene.
• I'm also looking into venues available for our useage that have a bar.

The rest of the planning stage was a combination of all of our ideas put together. Sophie has the written copy of the notes we made which she should scan to our group blog.

3OH!3

We've decided to study an artist called 3oh!3, they are a reasonably new electro pop group. They would be an ideal artist to make a video for as they're up beat music have clear beats to cut to and they're fun lyrics inspire a lot of creativity so we can explore ideas for what we can produce for our music video.

Another good thing about this band as because they are reasonably new we practically have free reign on what we want to choose, and we have a  broad selection as they have 2 albums "Want" and "Streets of Gold".

Their lyrics are very creative and fun which would make the process of making the video enjoyable and again a wide selection for ideas. Their videos are very creative and unique which also enables us to be free with our video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdB3Oyd5HtU - Don't trust me. This video is really fun, the artists play on the stereotypes of rocks stars and women in music videos. They over exaggerate the stereotypes to draw attention to this, by over exaggerating "sexy cool moves" and over emphasizing the careless destructive actions of rock stars by diving over a table full of food, or destroying the instruments/sound speakers. The women's are stereotypically shown, again their actions over emphasized, dressed in make up and skimpy outfits, mauling the men.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iWxD0GZVVk - Double vision.
Double vision is  particularly interesting and post modern as it imitates a computer screen which is obvious to the audience because it's not made to look realistic. The "computer screen" is made out of cardboard pieces and art and the artists and actors in the video make movements as if they were standing, but laying down.