Inspiration/ typical synopsis 4

I think this video is quite unique and involves some relatable locations and scenarios which in itself can grab the audiences attention. I like how the video gives the audience a background and allows them to build up a picture of what his life is meant to be like and then creates a parallel with how it is changing. I think that this is one of the most interesting things that we could perhaps take to use for our video as there is initially a clear link in the slow motion of him going to the microphone and him walking down the stairs and leaving so the audience see the link between the two and maybe see how it was a gradual change which is then emphasised by the performance shots that are then matching the speed of the song which seems to show where he is now and where he wants to be.

Actors

We are currently searching for male actors/musicians to perform as the lead singer, although mainly hoping for some willing musicians as they will have a basis in playing and performing music. The main place we have been looking through is youtube but we also have realised we know a few people who may be willing (particularly Mossy who participates in national competitions). So far, this was who we have found and liked:

Sam Mayo - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSZWGS2Zsl0

Nick Wilson- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueCwuYr_YRA

Ginger Brown- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9T6BejfGtk

Loveable Rogues- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9ain9HBJCM

Mossy Mckenna- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jy8dhCqM4gA&list=PLWHLu_B04sdX0wvMAuh2s-lRDkc4Mdp1P&index=1

Inspiration/ typical synopsis 3

I really like this music video as it succinctly goes through 3 or 4 different locations each containing very different content to the one before. It also contains some really interesting camera shots where the camera even goes up side down, I think these fluid shots allows for the content of the shots to be different whilst still making sense to the audience and adds another interest to the video. As well as this the lighting was very effective as it emphasised the changes that happened in the song and created different tones in the video. Both the shots and lights are definitely something I think we should take on board to use in our video.

I also noticed that he wears different costumes in each shot, each being suitable for the locations and the change in the songs tempo. I thought that this was a subtle element that again added more interest and emphasised the different changes in the song, connecting the visuals with the song.

Possibilities for 'Counting Stars' music video

General message of the song: follow dreams give up money and do what you love “I don’t think the world is sold, I’m just doing what we’re told” “I feel something so right doing the wrong thing” “I could lie” “everything that kills me makes me feel alive”

-After the intro, when he has stop singing, on every beat change to a different location (there are around 4 beats until another instrumental is added)

-On the 5th beat when another instrumental is added go to a shot where actor is in the location we plan to use the most.

-The singer lengthen/places emphasis on the lyrics life, vine, heart, line, signs, find.

-“I see this life like a swinging vine, Swing my heart across the line”- exciting, take a chance so the content in the video could be faster paced (but to flow with the music) showing more fun activities (I.e the bonfire party/ fireworks) rather than the walking

-Flashing signs- literally having flashing signs of different streets or places or of the things he is trying to achieve

-“I could lie, could lie, could lie” maybe go back to shots of the job he hated? on the slow “everything that kills me makes me feel alive” as it builds up film firework going up? Basically just the correspondence between the tune going down and then building back up again into something better.

-If we do repeat shots of previous work it needs to look grey/dull/monotonous- everyone in similar clothes looking miserable.

-Dreaming/Praying/we’ll be..Nothing has happened yet its still all aspirations reaching dreaming trying to achieve. Faith. 

-In the verse starting “I feel the love and I feel it burn” passion, song as a faster pace (?) happier, “down this river every turn” movement, moving forward, progression 

Possibilities for “I don’t think the world is sold” -is it that they aren’t sold on the band or that they aren’t sold on this idealistic view of everyone following the same path/ aiming to make the most money? 

Research-

 ‘Tedder's song ended up being much different than the original, taking on a soulful, gospel sound. "It kept the spirit of what I was looking for the whole time," he said. The track basically wrote itself, and includes some of the frontman's favorite lines from the album, like, "Everything that kills me makes me feel alive." He wrote the chorus — another one of his favorite lines — for anyone who loses sleep wondering how they're going to be able to afford their rent or provide for their family”

“He adds, "Our jobs as musicians is not only to reflect what we think and how we perceive the world, but also to reflect the world. A lot of our fans love EDM right now."
 http://www.arjanwrites.com/arjanwrites/2013/02/interview-ryan-tedder-onerepublic-native.html#m0vxGk23BoDHI6wE.99

“Tedder points out that "Native" spotlights a more raw and authentic vocal delivery”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gp7nxC1R8ow#t=188 - behind the scenes of the official Counting Stars music video

Counting stars lyrics and Official Music Video

Lately, I've been, I've been losing sleep
Dreaming about the things that we could be
But baby, I've been, I've been praying hard,
Said, no more counting dollars
We'll be counting stars, yeah we'll be counting stars

I see this life like a swinging vine
Swing my heart across the line
And my face is flashing signs
Seek it out and you shall find
Old, but I'm not that old
Young, but I'm not that bold
I don't think the world is sold
I'm just doing what we're told
I feel something so right
Doing the wrong thing
I feel something so wrong
Doing the right thing
I could lie, coudn't I, could lie
Everything that kills me makes me feel alive

Lately, I've been, I've been losing sleep
Dreaming about the things that we could be
But baby, I've been, I've been praying hard,
Said, no more counting dollars
We'll be counting stars

Lately, I've been, I've been losing sleep
Dreaming about the things that we could be
But baby, I've been, I've been praying hard,
Said, no more counting dollars
We'll be, we'll be counting stars

I feel the love and I feel it burn
Down this river, every turn
Hope is a four-letter word
Make that money, watch it burn
Old, but I'm not that old
Young, but I'm not that bold
I don't think the world is sold
I'm just doing what we're told
I feel something so wrong
Doing the right thing
I could lie, could lie, could lie
Everything that drowns me makes me wanna fly

Lately, I've been, I've been losing sleep
Dreaming about the things that we could be
But baby, I've been, I've been praying hard,
Said, no more counting dollars
We'll be counting stars

Lately, I've been, I've been losing sleep
Dreaming about the things that we could be
But baby, I've been, I've been praying hard,
Said, no more counting dollars
We'll be, we'll be counting stars

Take that money
Watch it burn
Sink in the river
The lessons are learnt

Take that money
Watch it burn
Sink in the river
The lessons are learnt

Take that money
Watch it burn
Sink in the river
The lessons are learnt

Take that money
Watch it burn
Sink in the river
The lessons are learnt

Everything that kills me makes feel alive

Lately, I've been, I've been losing sleep
Dreaming about the things that we could be
But baby, I've been, I've been praying hard,
Said, no more counting dollars
We'll be counting stars

Lately, I've been, I've been losing sleep
Dreaming about the things that we could be
But baby, I've been, I've been praying hard,
Said, no more counting dollars
We'll be, we'll be, counting stars

Take that money
Watch it burn
Sink in the river
The lessons are learnt

Take that money
Watch it burn
Sink in the river
The lessons are learnt

Take that money
Watch it burn
Sink in the river
The lessons are learnt

Take that money
Watch it burn
Sink in the river
The lessons are learnt

Song decision!

Finally, after much discussion, we have decided to use the song "Counting Stars' by One Republic. I am excited to use this song as I think it will be a lot of fun to use!

We chose this song because the song itself was a firm favourite amongst the group but also because we liked the meaning behind the lyrics that we felt gave a lot of depth to quite a fun and unique song, because of this we feel that it gives us a wide scope in what we could do for the video. Hopefully being able to bring in a story line with more of a plot rather than a video based in dance/performance.

Music Video Conventions

Different styles of music videos:

Performance- videos where the band/artist is playing the song.

Narrative- There is a story line in the video.

Mixture- A video containing both performance and narrative features.

Cameo- similar to narrative except the band features rather than actors.

Camera shots of a music video:

Most videos will use a variety of Long shots, close ups and mid shots, including such shots allows emphasis to be placed on instruments and shots of the band if its a performance video but may also help to show emotion.

The lyrics and the visuals presented in the song tend to have a connection. Normally for pop videos the lyrics and music are about love and relationships and so will show this in the video.

Sometimes the visuals may also match the beat of the song through editing, so perhaps the shiy changes by each beat of the drum or something similar.

The length of a music video ranges from around 3-5 minutes

Andrew Goodwin identified key features of music videos:

1. Music videos demonstrate certain characteristics for different genres.

2. There is a relationship between music and visuals.

3. There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals.

4.The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close-ups of the artist

5. the artist may develop motifs or iconography that recur across their work

6. There is frequent reference to the notion of 'looking' (screens within screens, filming, cameras) and particularly voyeuristic (pleasure through looking) treatment of the female body.

7. There are often intertextual references- mostly to film, television and popular culture.

I think that these key features will be particularly useful for our video, particularly features 1, 2, 3 and 4 as with 2 and 3 this should keep the song and video linked and will help us to make sure we accurately emphasise the meaning of the song whilst also making sure it fits with the tone of the song. I think we should bear in mind feature 1 when planning to make sure we do not stray from the audiences expectations, as we want the video to be a natural extension of the song not something that is random or particularly stands apart from the song. I feel the same towards feature 4 as it must also be remembered that a music video is mainly there to sell the band and song and so arguably one of the most important things to maintain is showing the audience the band.

inspiration/Typical Synopsis 2

This is Lawsons official music video for their song 'Standing in the dark' has shots that are quite similar to the shots in the official counting stars music video, I particularly like how the shots are continually moving because I think it adds interest to quite a simple shot. I also like how it really shows the emotions of the lead singer through the close up shots and pace and lighting of the video. The visuals match the lyrics well as the the number of shots increase as the pace and beat get faster in the song, this with addition of flashing lights is very effective and something I think we could use throughout our own music video.

Inspiration/ typical synopsis

As we are trying to figure out what content to have in the video and how we could shoot and edit it, we have looked around for some music videos to give us inspiration. Here is Scroobius Pip's official music video for Stunner, which we felt was very useful:

I think this music video is very clever and very well done. The shots move cleanly and keep a continuity throughout the video that may not have achieved before, I definitely think this something we could use in our video. I also think the lighting is very effective as it is quite dimly lit and so adds a sense of mystery and intrigue to the video. 

Research

In our media lesson today we continued to discuss which song we shall use for our coursework, we have narrowed it down to these three songs:

We really like how up beat this song is and think the meaning behind the lyrics is something we could do a lot with for ideas for a video. The main problem we have with this song is finding a male actor for the lip syncing section of the video, so we spent time discussing how we could find a male actor that would be suitable as well as considering if we cant find a male actor how we could get round it, so perhaps having a story line that would allow for a female singer.

This song is again up beat but a bit more electronic and dance, which we think makes it fun which will translate to the video. The only problem with this particular song is avoiding the cliched love story type video.

This is the third song we looked at, we all really liked this song and thought that again and we liked the lyrics and felt that we could visually emphasise their meaning whilst also making it a fun video because of the up beat tone of the song.

Research

Here are some other songs we found as possibilities for our music video:

We felt that this group have a lot of talent and we liked that they are unsigned artists and that the song is completely theirs, as it means we would just need their permission to use it and it may be more likely for us to be able to use the song.

This song is quite popular amongst the group as it is quite a fun song that has a fast beat to it. The downside to this song is that it is quite repetitive.

Research

As a group we are trying to find the song we would like to create a music video for. We are considering pop as our genre but are unsure as to wether to find slightly different songs that people may not have heard as much. Still pop but slightly less well known, or to use a very mainstream song.

So here are some of the songs we have looked at so far:

This was not particularly popular among the group but we did think that some of the shots were interesting in the video. Such as, the opening shot where it zooms out. We felt that this song may be too much of the typical boy/girl romance, and may not give us many opportunities to be more creative.

We felt this song was unique, and some liked the contrast between the quite harsh lyrics and the soft acoustic melody but it was decided that overall the song was too slow and not everyone liked the vocals of the song.

Again this song was quite popular, but was just slightly too slow. This has though helped us realise that we want a more up beat song perhaps that a faster beat.

Lip Syncing Task

Here is our Lip Syncing Video! We chose Avril Lavigne Girlfriend because it is a fun and up beat song that as a group of five we all knew. It is also quite a catchy song, so we knew that even if our actors did not know the song they would be able to pick it up easily. We did struggle with the precision of the lip syncing but feel that this was because of editing and something we will rectify for our main coursework through multiple practise shots.


Here is the original Music video:

Essay on Lip Syncing exercise

In deciding what song we were going to do for our Lip- Syncing task we first decided that we wanted to choose a light and up beat song, something  in the Pop genre.  We chose this because we felt this genre would be quite fun to do and we knew it would be more likely that we would all know the song. After much research looking at different songs and music video's, we chose Girlfriend by Avril Lavigne because it fit the criteria we had set and had comedic elements.

 We also chose this song because we decided we could use our school setting as a good location to shoot and with this match the shots accurately. To help plan exactly what we were going to have in each shot we watched the video multiple times and did a storyboard pausing the video every time the shot changed and also, for more accuracy, did a screen shot of every shot in the music video.

For the actors in our video we used friends and volunteers from our sixth form, because it then meant we could create large groups of people for the shoot in which they walk in and we could use the same people for the main characters as we could fit when we shoot around times best for them.

During the production of this exercise we played the original video to all the actors to help them understand what they are aiming to recreate, we also broke it down in to the specific shots we would be shooting at that time and then whilst actually filming played the song so we could exactly time the actor mouthing the words to the singing of Avril on the recording.

To accurately match the content our shots to the shots of the video we varied camera angles and shots particularly in the fifth shot where the camera follows them round a corner but is at the same level as the previous shots. So we had to keep this in consideration and attempt some practise shots to get the accurate position of the camera that meant we could turn all the way round. For the same reason we created similar outfits to the outfits worn in the videos as well as finding wigs and using make up to make them as similar as possible.

To finish the task we used Imovie to import the clips from the camera onto the computer and then into Final Cut express which we used to precisely edit to form the final product we also unlinked and linked the audio to have the actual song with the clips. I feel this skill will be of particularly value when we  come to actually editing our coursework because we will be able to match the music and visuals very accurately. This is also the case with using final cut express as it meant we could change the speed of some clips and precisely cut clips to exactly match the singing.