Music Video

Risk Assessment and Production Meeting Agenda – Performance Shoot

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Departmental Risk Assessment

Preproduction Essential Documents

These are 2 documents that you must complete and upload to your blog.

You will need to consider the risks of being on location and discuss them with your teacher and your peers to ensure your own and others’ safety.

If you intend to leave school during ‘frees’, your parents/guardians have to have signed and returned your risk assessment document.

You cannot take non-Media students out unless we have permission from their parents/guardians too.

Check: is the location you have opted for the right one for your performance. Think carefully.

Production Meeting

This is vital so that everyone knows what they are expected to bring for the shoot – costumes, make up, props etc.

You must include photos for costumes and props. Order on amazon, ebay now. Don’t wait until next week. Visit charity shops. Ask Mrs Cobb as Media have a good collection of costumes and props and so does she.  The devil is in the detail – no wrong socks, hairbands on wrists, irrelevant necklaces or earrings!  Make every detail count.

Check the background too – is there a random car, rubbish  bags, your own camera bags?  Remind yourselves of these essential checks on the PMA.

Star Image – the performer

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IT’S ALL ABOUT THE STAR IMAGE!

How the star/band/performer is represented in your video and on the digipak and social media page is crucial in constructing the values, attitudes and beliefs of the artist in the mind of the target audience.

REPRESENTATION, AUDIENCE AND OWNERSHIP ARE COMPLETELY INTERTWINED CONCEPTS!

WHAT IS THE INSTITUTIONAL PURPOSE OF A MUSIC VIDEO?

Music videos are made primarily to promote the star, in order to sell their music, in order to make money…well mostly!

They are also constructed to construct a set of desires in the target audience to be like them, think like them, love what they love, be involved in their lives & buy what they suggest.

There are huge synergies between marketing and star image! We don’t just buy a product we also buy into the values of the star image and in purchasing their product emulate them. Media representations of the star image is crucial in terms of raising an audience awareness.

STARS SHOULD BE STUDIED AND ANALYSED LIKE ANY OTHER TEXT!

They are essentially walking talking brands, who use their branding to advertise, publicise and sell to fans. Stars have to remain constantly interesting to keep the fans intrigued – the star image evolves and is constantly reinvented by media companies! In fact Stars could be seen as its own special kind of ‘species’.

RICHARD DYER
Richard Dyer Handout

Richard Dyer is a theorist you need to learn about. He came up with some concepts about how ‘star image’ works in the media. The link to the concepts booklet is in the menu at the top of the blog. Find it, add it to your drive, print it, LEARN IT!

TASK

CREATE A ONLINE CONCEPT BOARD IN CANVA STAR IMAGE.

Your task is to take the ‘star’ (performer, duet, band, group…) you analysed when you did the genre analysis and create a ‘concept board’ on how they are ‘represented‘.

Find examples of news stories, incidents, events, digipak covers, music videos, articles, blogs, tweets that all contribute to their ‘star image’. The way they are represented is called their ‘metanarrative‘ (over arching story about them).

Image result for pinterest

And remember, just as you do in your TV drama analysis – you must add ADJECTIVES to how they appear through that particular event, story, picture etc. You can do this task as a group but must all equally contribute to the page.

This is a link to an excellent example. You should have at least 15 – 20 images and comments.

Visual Shot List – padlet

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Instead of a written list of shots we want you to create a visual shotlist of the kind of shots you want to include in your performance shoot.  This is a group effort so share a PADLET.com board amongst you.

However, certain genres (types) of music rely specifically on certain shots as part of the repertoire of elements (conventions, ingredients).  For example:

  • Heavy rock might have canted, hand held camera shots with whip pans a plenty, which helps convey a genre that is energetic, anarchic and rebellious.
  • Indie acoustic might include smoother, longer, pull focus shots that represent the artist as sincere, laid back and unhurried.

You should study other bands of a similar genre and YOUR OWN and then collate @ 9 screen shots and make some GIFS (FOR MOVEMENT) of conventional shots, frames, angles they use in their performances. This way you can begin to learn what is conventional to your genre – remember you have to please your audience so need to make sure your video conforms to their expectations so that it is ultimately, THE SAME BUT DIFFERENT so that it will follow conventions but be different and new and unique enough not to be boring.

You should look at at least 3 – 4 other music videos and use shots from these. You will then title the shots with an explanation of the shot i.e.

  • close up of guitarist’s instrumental mastery represents his skill and talent
  • whip pans between band members looking at each other underlines their close team work and energy
  • master long shot of band performing as a unit portrays their oneness
  • mid shot pan of band members makes them appear approachable and ordinary to the audience
  • extreme close up of lead singer’s expressive face and vocals etc represents him as extraordinary and intense

Always add in some textual analysis….how does that shot help represent, connote, convey, portray the star and ultimately, the genre?  YOU NEED 9 DIFFERENT TYPES OF SHOT; distance, angle, framing, movement, special.

Made with Padlet

 

Some analysis shots in a different format.

 

Final Pitch to the teacher and Reflection

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This week you will:

  • Meet your group and thrash it out!  Whose idea will you go with?  One or the other or a combination?  If it is a combination, then you will need to create a new presentation using slides from both individual pitches.
  • Complete the Perfect Production Group agreement. Print, sign and embed.
  • Embed all the pitches with summaries in your blog.
  • Meet your teacher and impress them with your pitch. Film it. Top and tail it and embed it and reflect on it.

Remember, to include the following in your slideshare presentation/pitch.

  • Embed the MP3/lyric video
  • Embed the lyrics
  • Complete a word cloud with @ 20 descriptive words, adjectives, adverbs, nouns that come to mind when you listen to the song – synesthesia
  • Complete a very brief 2 sentence description of the narrative – themes and action, location, actors etc
  • Complete a very brief 2 sentence description of the performance – where, MES, who?
  • Be prepared to share your vision with your teacher.

Once you have filmed your pitch. Top and Tail it and put it on your blog via youtube.

Then give yourself:

  • @ 6 x positives that you came away with
  • @ 6 x targets, aspects to consider

 

Perfect Production Group

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Important Advice

This is a really great article about how to be successful in A level production projects. The advice comes straight from the chief examiner and so it is well worth spending time on.

Group Contract

Please spend time this lesson working on your Production Group Agreement. Think about the general (transferable) skills your team will need: diplomacy, organisation, compromise, creativity… as well as the technical skills like choreography editing, costume design & lighting…

Think back to the preliminary video tasks: What technical and personal qualities did people possess that helped you deliver the product and on reflection, where were the problems and what did you lack as a group?

Upload it to you blog and remember to use a thumbnail to attach the link to. Also, please include a brief commentary on:

  1. What is the document that you have uploaded?
  2. In what ways will this discussion help you manage the project?

Remember to use pdfs and jpegs – NOT LINKS to GOOGLE FILES!

Simple narratives & well filmed = Success!

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Some Early Advice

Remember, if you want a narrative as in a naturalistic one in your video, then try and steer clear of relationships and break ups.

Think of a short story (could be disjunctive to the lyrics or more likely amplified); it doesn’t need to be complicated –  great MES and variety of nicely composed shots and great editing with a simple narrative can often be the best!

Examples of Effective Videos

These are some examples of previous music videos with narratives that are simple but work well:

Man in a Coma – Life in flashback, does he live?
Man hates getting up at 7 am!
Kidnapped victim escapes but is recaptured!
Mad dictator, greedy, decadent and dangerous. does he eventually press the Red button?
A film star who is a puppet, pulled, manipulated, dressed up and eventually broken or does she break free?
Tribal man – have we come very far?
Mid life crisis – man goes on a journey and then walks into the sea! But is it the end?
Young girl rebels against her staid, traditional upbringing and leaves!

Congratulations and exciting news

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Well done!

You have now completed 2 of the 5 modules for your Year 13 exams – TV Drama and Music Industry, which together make up Component 1 Exam (Texts and Contexts).

We will revisit these areas as we go but if you are missing any of the key essays, and key case study indexes for Music Industry you should make sure you complete these in independent study.

Change of Direction

We will be starting the Music Video Component 3 now!  As social distancing is about to leave our lives for the time being, we want to focus on getting you out and about and filming the Performance section of your videos before the summer holidays.

This weekend – revisit your pitch – have a look at it again and think about the ‘do-ability’ of it – do you have the performers, the instruments, a location, the MES?  Please also catch up on any outstanding Music Video posts from before lockdown. There are some examples in the following two posts of ‘doable’ music videos that have well filmed performances and simple narratives or more complex narratives.

Home School – Day 1 and Day 2

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Before we start the Music Industry, you have two days to complete the blog. Ensure all the posts are done and the blog league is updated by Wednesday morning.

On Wednesday we will start the Music Industry.

If you are up to date, then revisit guernseymedia on youtube and watch as many of our previous videos as possible and watch professional videos of your preferred genre.

Also, don’t forget to think of ‘symbolic’ ways to tell a story. Many of you are opting for naturalistic and illustrative narratives – think of visual metaphors.

Good luck and keep us posted.