In order to show the transformation of Eboni to the character in the narrative/music video, I will be creating a character profile on Eboni and her likes and dislikes etc as herself and then also as her character. This will make it a lot easier to see exactly how we have changed Eboni and her identity to Tavongas girlfriend in the video.
We will be looking at changing her costumes, fashion, make-up etc and more identity forming aspects to allow her to fit the character that we are creating for the music video.
I decided to look at an example of this and thought Beyonce was the most influential style icon and is often seen with different styles in her music videos than in her daily life.
As a group, we have decided that Eboni will play the part of the girl in the music video. To further
my research, I will be looking at Eboni and her identity which will be portrayed in the video.
Name: Eboni Helena Illiana Birchall - Ferryman
Age: 17
Location: Manchester
Education: Year 13 Sixth form student
Likes: Beyonce, Textiles and Art, Cats, Fashion, Justin Bieber, Parties, Socialising and going on holiday
We are then altering Eboni to a new character of the female lead role that will feature in the music video (as explained in the next post)
Name:
Age: 20
Loation: London Education: Currently working/ at Uni
Likes: Going out into town, partying, drinking ( all three are shown in the video ) money, socialising, high class
In today's lesson, after Adam had informed us that he had the song on the memory stick, I thought it would be a good idea to upload the material to the macs. Adam and I then went to the macs and created a new project on Final Cut Pro X - "So Sick Music Video".
The reason why I suggested we upload it to the macs today is so that when we do have our footage, we can upload it and cut it straight away to match with the music and lyrics timing.
When we start filming, we will then be able to start matching the narrative with the lyrics
After looking at other A2 media productions, we saw the idea of using a symbol throughout the video to help the narrative flow.
Here, we see the heart necklace being used to mirror her emotions which helps the audience be carried through the narrative of the music and lyrics.
Within the story line, The idea of a rose was brought into it as it is a love song and so after looking at other music videos, I suggested that we could make this a reoccurring motif throughout the video to mirror their relationship. The rose will appear at the following times:
1.) At the start when looking back on good memories and the rose is being handed over, this shows the freshness and purity of the new relationship.
2.) In the middle when it is waiting on the side and doesn't look as new anymore.
3.) At the end along with the smashed glass. Here, it will be dead along with the passion in their relationship marking the end to the love.
After analysing the lyrics and completing the story board, I decided to match up our image ideas (green ink) with the lyrics and analyse the decisions we have made (pink ink).
In today's lesson, myself, Eboni and Adam completed the story board for the music, the video will be narrative based and start with the male and female arguing with no music to set the scene and inform the viewers of what's going on. The music video then goes on to explain why they are arguing.
The video is a story of the couple and how they started off in a good place and in love and then shows the relationship slowly dying as she is becoming unfaithful.
I put forward the idea of split screen to show the two differing perspectives of the two characters and another idea was to use time lapse to create a sense of passing time hlping the story move along. We tried our hardest to differ our music video from Ne-Yo's original 'So Sick'.
Due to the fact that we cannot find anyone to fill the role of the female in the video, we have decided that Eboni will feature as the female. This will mean that Adam and I will shoot the shots that Eboni features in and then she will be able to do the others that she will not be in, for example: the establishing shots and the ones of Tavonga on his own.
The narrative idea for our video is a break-up scene. This is what we will be focusing our storyboard on when we are planning our music video. The reason for this being that the song So Sick is about heartbreak.
Because the song is about heartbreak and love we thought that we would express this through a break-up and to do this more easily for the audience, I proposed the idea of having and we decided as a group that we would have a story before the song actually starts so that the audience know what's happening and why the song is being sung, this is common in many R&B music videos and I will do some further research into them.
'So Sick' by Ne-yo is the song that we will be doing for our chosen task of music production. The record label for this song is Def Jam. The institution focuses primarily on the genres of RnB, Hip Hop and other sorts of Urban Music. It is also owned by Universal Music Group.
Ne-Yo's track ‘So Sick’ was produced by company Stargate which is a Norwegian production team that produced his debut album 'In My Own Words' and this then went on to be released as his second single following the album.
‘So Sick’ featured in the charts worldwide where it was also number 1 in the United Kingdom as well as the United States.
Ne-Yo met with Stargate and Def Jam in New York to write tracks for his album, one of these was 'So Sick.' Once finished, Ne-Yo had great success with the song he released with Def Jam recordings and Stargate
We have been working as a group to create the first section of our music video visually on a storyboard. The first scene which we have completed will be completely silent and set the story off for the audience as it will be completely narrative and the break-up scene with no music.
1.) Kitchen scene, will be set in the kitchen and they will both have a glass of wine on the side, the first shot will be a close-up of the glass on the surface.
2.) The second shot will be the two arguing, there will still be no music and it gets physical when arguing, shoving and pushing. The girl will be pushed against the surface and then she'll lean back.
3.) The girl picks up the glass and smashes it on the floor.
4.) A close up of the glass smashing on the floor ( two cameras will be needed here to capture both her throwing it and also it smashing on the floor). This will then be turned into slow motion on the video to capture the smashing and mirror the heartbreak felt for the couple and the end of their relationship.
5.) The girl runs out the house.
6.) Start of music. New setting of Tavonga stood in the plain room where the shot will be revisited throughout the song, mainly for the verses. It will start at the back of him and then the camera will pan around slowly to the front of him singing to the camera.
7.) Return to the house scene where they are on either side of the door, this will be then presented as a split screen in the music video to show the two sides of the break-up.
As part of the process for the music video, we have had to request permission to use the song in our production. The reason for this being that to use any song you must request rights or you will be taking credit for that material without permission.
First, we decided that we would look at an existing email that was sent to a production company by a girl who is in the year above us and also produced a music video in her A2 studies last year. We looked at this template which we were given to ensure that we complete all the relevant information and do not miss anything out. Also using this as a template allowed us to ensure that it sounded professional and clear in our intentions of using the song and who would see it.
Although we probably won't get a reply, it is still important we send off for permission.
We started by researching our song. 'So Sick' by Ne-Yo. We found here that the rights of the song belong to and are produced by the production company who has worked with the likes of Justin Bieber, Rihanna, Drake and many more big artists. We then went on their website and couldn't find an email address where we could contact them and so we had to do some research of what bigger company they are under and who owned them so maybe we could find a contact address to email them directly.
We found that Deaf Jam records are under Universal Music Production and so from here, we went on the frequent FAQ's where someone had previously asked how we go about contacting them about using the track, here they provided a link which led to the page shown on the left, however this was for people who were located in the US and so it redirected us to the UK site where we found the head of the responsibility of music rights and there we found the right email address we would need to request permission to use the song 'So Sick' in our video.
Narrative : A song with a narrative based music video the song includes a narrative story of the lyrics/ words being acted out in some way. This style relies heavily on imagery to produce a story for the audience to follow and some narrative videos include clips from films that the song has been featured in. Fr example: Flashlight by Jessie J. This seems to be used a lot in slower songs, and often are most likely used for the love genre.
And example of a narrative based video is Taylor Swift - Everything Has Changed Featuring Ed Sheeran. It is a simple video and tells the story of two close school children who at the end, turn out to be the children of Taylor and Ed where we feel there might be some history with at the end of the video.
Key concepts: Narrative: With narrative videos, it is easy to tell a story. The song tells the story of two children, a girl and a boy and how they met to become best friends. The song is a love song and so the use of children in it adds a sense of innocence which Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift have tried to convey through the storyline. The use of a narrative video adds meaning to a song and here they have shown the story of a boy and girl who became extremely close throughout the day just to part at the end. Audience: The song uses the narrative video, as it is featuring children, this attracts a large audience as it uses both a male and female role. It is also a song which features Ed Sheeran and so his fans will also be watching the video as the small children in it are used to look like the singers themselves which will attract their fans to watch the video. Representations: The representations in the video are of the two children. These two represent males and females when it comes to love. However, the use of children adds a sense of playfulness and innocence to the story and therefore tells the audience of this romance Taylor and Ed are singing about and how this represents what they had. Entertainment: This song differs from many other romance songs. This is because they don't tell the story of the song lyrics using realistic people. They use children which is intriguing to an audience. This will provide entertainment for whoever watches the music video whether they have heard the song prior or not. It is unexpected and unlike any other romance videos which use older typical characters.
Performance : A performance video focuses on showing footage of the artist or band either in a casual environment, like socialising with friends, but mostly they choose to feature the artist performing, live performance or staged performance. This style of video uses the artist throughout the majority of the production and the artists are often miming the words to the song. The genre of music where performance videos are pop videos and other mainstream music. The costing on this type of production are also most likely to be high budget. To do a performance based video, you usually include some live footage, however this means that the band will need to be relatively established to pull off the video.
An example of a performance video is Taylor Swift - Shake It Off where there are a lot of close up shots of her singing and she has back up dancers etc. These videos often require more people and a lot of money.
I think that because we don't have a big budget or much equipment/props, a performance video will be hard to pull off to a good standard, also the song which we have chosen (So Sick, Ne-Yo) is a love song about heartbreak which tend to be more narrative videos so the audience can follow the story. It is because of this that we will be doing a narrative based video.
Due to the fact that we have a lot of work to complete, I decided to produce a plan on what we need to do and when we will do the. This will maximise our productivity and ensure that all the tasks we need to do are completed. This will keep us organised and I drew it out so we can fill it in when we need to.
The first theory which we will be considering when producing our music video is the Uses and Gratifications Theory (Blumer and Katz).
Blumer and Katz say that the audience have social and psychological needs and that they use the media to satisfy those needs and to gain gratification. I decided that this theory sees the audience as active and making motivated choices. The approach focuses on why people use particular media rather than the content. We decided that this was a theory which we would try and apply to our film idea. Our audience will have to pay close attention to the narrative of the music video to enhance the full effect that we will try to achieve from our film. There are two ways in which our audience will be able to use our video, these being- Entertainment and Social interaction/integration. Entertainment- Our target audience will watch our film to escape from everyday problems such as stress and the video will provide them with the entertainment that they seek. They will also be able to fill their time by watching the video and escaping day-to-day worries. Social Interaction/integration- Due to the fact that our song choice and video is quite relatable in regards to the storyline and characters, this will cause a topic of conversation for family and friends who had also decided to watch the video, this will allow family and friends to connect with each other.
Once we had decided on our three song choices, we consulted Tavonga and asked if he was happy with all of them and gave him the opportunity to contribute to the decision of which song he would like to do the most and obviously which he would be most comfortable doing.
Tavonga said that he wanted to do "So Sick" by Ne-Yo.
This is the song which we will be doing for our music video:
In yesterday's lesson, we decided that we would discuss our initial ideas as it was really one of the only times that we would be able to have a conversation with the three of us this week due to other commitments. We sat down for the lesson and all contributed to ideas which we thought would be effective in the making of our music video.
Costume: For the costume, there were multiple different ideas. One idea was to get Tavonga to wear a suit, this style is inspired by Chris Brown which he often appears to be wearing in his music video.
Here are some examples of Chris Browns music videos where he is wearing a suit:
The outfit would be smart and would fit with some other successful R&B music videos such as 'Fine China' and 'Turn Up The Music'.
Tavonga would be able to follow this look as he has a few suits which he could wear for the music video. It is easily achievable and can be pulled off for a more gentlemanly look and a classic mood would be created within the music video.
However, something to consider would be that it might give off the wrong impression as Tavonga is young, he would usually be seen in something more fashionable and causal as many artists are in modern R&B.
Another idea which we thought about for costume was another Chris Brown inspired look which was the bomber/leather jacket and also checkered shirts which he seems to wear a lot in his music videos:
In Chris Brown's music video 'Loyal', he set of the trend of the shirt around waist look. This set off a whole new fashion statement when the video was released and many other celebrities as well as non celebrities copied his look.
The look is causal, yet fashionable and something like this would be perfect for our music video. It is also achievable as this is the sort of outfit which Tavonga would usually wear and would suit.
I think that this style would suit the music video as it will be a love song and the lead role will be young and wealthy and therefore we could aim to achieve a style just like this.
One last costume idea we considered was the idea of perhaps using a hat in the music video. Ne-Yo uses many hats in his everyday fashion and is featured wearing one in every single one of his music videos and other celebrities are frequently seen wearing them in their music videos.
Setting: For the setting, we discussed shooting the music video in Urban areas outside. Most R&B music videos are set in the 'streets' or in outside locations, mostly urban areas. This is easy for us to do as we live just a short distance from Manchester City Centre and know multiple locations where we could shoot the music video. Also, if we decided at any point we wanted a more rural location, we know many areas in Dunham and Knutsford etc.
Manchester is the perfect place to use as the location of our video, especially when it's a bit darker to set the mood of the song.
We also discussed the likes of famous buildings in and around Manchester such as Affelcks Palace and the roads which surround the area of the Northern Quarter.
Another idea would be to use the bedroom as part of the song as it fits well with the genre of the break up and love which the song "So sick" is all about. This may be an ideal location to use in the intro of the music video.
Intro: For the intro, I thought, like many other music videos do, that we would use the idea of the narrative based video to its full potential by instead of going straight into the song, we would give the audience a bit of a story to what is going on before the song starts.
Many successful music videos do this such as Sam Smith - I'm Not The Only One
At the beginning of the music video, there is a clear narrative going on which carries on throughout the music video of the trouble in their relationship and how he has no time for his wife. This is what we aim to do but probably with no dialogue.
Another idea which I proposed to the group was to use the intro to our advantage and show off our editing skills creating a split screen. This will exaggerate the theme of heartbreak in the song as the song is about love. I gave this idea as i thought it would add an idea of professionalism. Two ways which we could do this would be by them slamming the door and then sitting either side of it back to back, or we could have them both sat on the bed with their head in their hands doing the exact same position to show that they are upset.
An effective music video which I have found that has done this is Joe Brooks 'Til my heart stops beating'. The split screens in this video represent two different sides of the story whilst he is on tour and she is waiting at home. It works effectively as split screens are often used about love and this is a song about how they are struggling through their relationship.
We can use this in our video to show how they are both coping with the break up differently,
Flashbacks:
Lastly, we discussed the use of flashbacks in our music video as memories.
This is done in most love songs and I put forward the idea of maybe portraying these in black and white. We haven't yet decided whether these will be good or bad memories, however they could be a mix of both.
One music video which is inspiring is Beyonce - Halo
The video is looking back on her relationship, from moments in bed, to on the sofa and even them brushing their teeth, intimate moments is what she is remembering. Something like this would be good to carry the audience of our music video through the narrative of the break up.
Due to the fact that we felt that we got a lot of information from the first focus group we conducted and felt like we we would get the same response from another sixth form focus group, we have decided to make a change to the focus groups we will be conducting.
As we feel that we would have similar findings from a year 12 class due to the little difference in age, we decided that we would only do one other focus group but with an upper school group so that it had enough of an age gap and different interests to benefit us in our research.
This will be both save time and be more productive in our research and concise findings.
After doing much research into R&B, between the three of us, we have decided to start narrowing down the song choices. After conducting our first focus group, it became apparent that the year 13 group said that their favourite artist out of the six we showed them was Justin Timberlake and his style, however we showed them other artists such as Trey Songz, Drake, Usher, Chris Brown and Ne-yo and they all seemed to really like the song Miss Independent by Ne-yo and knowing Tavonga personally, all said that this would really suit Tavonga and think that it would allow us to make the most of Tavonga as a character and his style.
After talking about which types of songs we thought we may like to do, we finally settled on three choices: Ne-Yo : So Sick, Ne-Yo : Miss Independent, Chris Brown : With You. All three of these songs by the two artists are based on love, these are the chorus':
Ne-Yo : So Sick - And I'm so sick of love songs So tired of tears So done with wishing you were still here Said I'm so sick of love songs so sad and slow So why can't I turn off the radio? Ne-Yo : Miss Independent - She got her own thing that's why I love her Miss Independent Won't you come and spend a little time She got her own thing that's why I love her Miss Independent ooh the way you shine Miss Independent Chris Brown : With You - Oh! I'm into you, And girl, No one else would do. 'Cause with every kiss and every hug You make me fall in love. And now I know I can't be the only one, I bet there heart's all over the world tonight, With the love of their life who feels What I feel when I'm... With you [x5] Girl. With you [x5]
From the chorus' alone, it is clear to see that all three of these songs are about love and are singing about/to women. With this comes flexibility and that is why we chose these three songs to choose from because there are so many different narratives that we could use for the music video.
Also, we thought it would be good to consider getting a female to play a part in the music video, her part wouldn't be as big as Tavonga's but it would add to the narrative.
Ne-Yo - So Sick
Within our group, we decided that to get the most productive research, we would assign specific roles so that we could all concentrate on two areas of research in detail.
The roles were all decided and confirmed and this means that we can now all individually carry out the research into our own areas.
Beth: Lighting and location
Eboni: Costume and editing
Adam: Camera shots and props
The role that I have been assigned is to research lighting and location. The main way in which I will carry out this is by looking at existing music videos and then look at how we could perhaps challenge or conform to conventions of the R&B Genre.
As we have chosen to include some of the upper school in our focus group, we have to ensure that we aren't crossing any school guidelines as we will be filming the discussion and posting it on our blogs meaning that they will be online. Therefore, we have had to write a letter to send home to the parents of the year 10's and 11's as they are under 16 so parental consent will have to be gained.
We wrote out the letter and then gave it to the school office so that they would print it on the official school paper.
In the letter, we wrote about:
-What we are doing and why
-That their children would be taking part if they consent
-That the focus group will be recorded and so their children will be featured in a video being posted online
-Asking for their permission and for them to sign
Here is the completed letter we will be sending home to the parents:
Due to the fact that the pupils who will participate in our focus group will be being filmed, this means that they must be aware of this. I did some research to find out the age of filming consent and found:
Before anything takes place (filming, questions etc) we will give them a consent form to which they must sign, printing their name and giving a signature to say that they understand the focus group and that it will be filmed and that it will be put online.
This shouldn't be a problem as we are hoping to use all media students for the sixth form focus groups, so they should understand what it's for and there shouldn't be any issues with consent or the filming as they are doing similar things themselves.
Here is the focus group consent form for year 13:
It has recently been brought to our attention after showing our questions to our teacher that they are a bit too general/broad now that we have decided what genre we are doing.
We have decided to make them more specific to the genre as now we know what we are doing we can craft the questions to the focus group to allow us to get as much knowledge as we can for our music video and make the most of the opportunity of the focus groups.
The original questions were general in the sense that they were just asking their favourite artists and why etc, however this would be no help to us in the making of our music video as we had already decided the genre and who will be in it etc.
There will now be R&B music videos featured on the powerpoint made and so the focus group participants who perhaps hadn't seen many, if any music R&B music videos. This will allow them to see a variety of different videos and layouts and therefore the participants in the focus group can tell us what they think of them and then give us feedback which we can use to help us craft our own music video.
Here is the planning of the questions (updated):
I decided to make a mind map of all my initial ideas, I split it into four sections:
Mise - en - scene
Character / lead role
Genre / music conventions
Narrative of R&B music videos
I found that this was a more organised and visual way of presenting the initial ideas I had for the music video and when we decide as a group what to do, I will put some of these ideas forward.
