studio lighting workshop

 

In todays lesson we focused on lighting and creating an effective studio set up. Using equipment we had not been introduced to yet which we will go on to use and will be a big part of our music video. The first bit of equipment we were taught which we will use the most is this screen which you can easily move around, the screen displays what the camera is filming therefore it helps us see the picture clearer and can make adjustments to the light and screen looking through the screen. For our music videos this will be very useful for our whole group to look at and we can all input ideas for how to make it better. In the workshop we placed a student as the subject to clearly display which lights do what and how they effect the shot. Using a subject showed us the shadows it creates and the intensity of the light on a model which we will use in our videos. 

We were introduced to various lights and other equipment these included: Red head light this light had a very intense brightness which also created harsh shadows. A scrim this is used as a layer of protection against the glass, as typically the bulb will blow and smash the glass so the scrim prevents this from happening. Both Gels spun and frosting is all used to soften the lights it is very effective with getting rid of the harsh shadows created. Blonde light which we will often use as it is very powerful and the brightest light, you tend to place it behind the subject this helps separate the subject from the background. 

We also learnt about the idea of bouncing light back to reduce the shadows, this is instead of adding more light. Matt showed us the many things you can use to do this including this polyester sheet. This was very effective as it bounced the light back into her face. We also used other people using their hands and backs to a also bounce the light back. Then we explored the different effects you can create with coloured lights, we used the fluorescent tube lights. These are very fragile and break easily when moving around. These lights make the scene more interesting as it adds colour and you can use more than one, you can also stick the lights in the scene as a prop, they are useful for constructing a scene. However when using these lights you still need a key light and back light to achieve the correct lighting. 

re searching set ups

I have been re searching further into set ups for our music video. To help achieve a better understanding of what we need I looked at music videos with a similar style and song to ours. I found this video by Zolita called explosion, this caught my eye as it uses two girls instead of a female and male which is what we would like to use. It also is all shot in a studio which is helpful and a key element we need to look for. When I watched this through I really liked elements of the video which I took screenshots of, these elements include a scene in which the two girls are in bed which we could easily achieve and would add more context. I also think the movement of the two girls in how they communicate with their body language to each other is very effective and intriguing, as it is very symbolic with this minimalistic outlook. Overall the video uses a very minimal style to it which I find enhances the emotions they are portraying and puts emphasis on the singer from the lack of decoration and colour. This is something my group will take into account but originally we wanted a very colourful colour palette with vibrant bold tones. However seeing this has shifted my thoughts and showed me how using toney colours can be done successfully. In the video the other female does not lip sync which shows that we can use another female and not need her to sing anything just be present in the video, helping convey meaning.

brainstorming ideas

 As we were working on the treatment my group and I brainstormed ideas for set ups as we have been struggling to agree on a set up which relates to the music. We liked the idea of including another person in the video as this gives something else to watch. When thinking about this idea of using a love interest in the video we liked the idea of using a girl instead of a male as this isn't the typical generic idea of love particularly seen in a music video. 

We came across this video by Kehlani in which it shows the idea we had, as it uses a love interest which is a girl and the girl does not sing she is just placed in scenes. This idea of the other girl being th

Camera workshop

 

Today we focused on lenses and learnt about a range of different lenses and how they are effective when shooting. We were introduced to shutter, in photography I knew it as shutter speed but in media it is refereed to as shutter. When filming to get a normal day to day camera quality 180 would be best suited. Whereas if you changed it higher to 460 for example this would create a more toned brighter quality. This setting is typically used in indie music videos, as it gives of a warmer vibe more comforting.

We were also introduced into some new zoom lenses from the brand DZO. It has a focus range of 25-50mm it also has 16 aperture blades. 

To help us get an idea of setting up scenes for our music video we placed four people in front of the

camera and arranged them in non typical positions with a singer, two guitarists and a drummer. We learnt the importance of guiding people and giving clear directions. It showed how difficult it can be if we all have different ideas on what we want. This also showed me how many different set ups my group will need. As doing this exercise showed me that we will need a lot more for the video to be engaging and interesting to watch. We also were shown how to get the right setting for the camera the best way to do it is measure with a tape measure from the camera to the subject. When we did it the subject was 5 foot away therefore we dialled on the camera 5 foot. This allows the camera to focus 5 feet away. Creating a good quality picture.

Social media timeline

Using Instagram and twitter I took screenshots of an upcoming female artist from 2020, who has similar music and style to the artist we are using for out video. Using her I looked on her social media when 4 weeks prior to releasing her albumin, and 4 weeks following the release. From doing this I learnt about how active she is on social media, what she posts about, the style she uses, what kind of personality she has, and impression she wants to create for her audience. 

 https://prezi.com/i/gc1g0dnhatiz/

starting the treatment

 Over the past few days I had been making a treatment this is to represent how my group in visions are music video, including the art choreography, wardrobe, makeup, set up and. emotions. When we did this I took on both the set up and wardrobe.

These are the two mood boards I made for the wardrobe and set ups. The wardrobe is meant to represent a strong powerful women as I used a suit which is typically male, showing how she does not stick to boundraies. I then want the suit or other closing to be bold vibrant colours this is to put emphasis on the singer and show how she is fun and cool. 

In the set ups, we are still deciding but it will be purely shot in the studio and we have two different vibes the first will be soft calm moody as the music is slow, then when the music speeds up around halfway we had this idea of flipping the set up to a vibrant fun colourful set up, using colours and lots of abstract almost scenery. 

making a treatment

 Carol Vernallis is a media theorist, she is the author of experiencing music video. In this she compares music video to Russian formalist films, both very limited media forms. 

Media forms simply is newspapers, magazines, and various kind of softwares on the internet.

Carols has become well known for her theory, her idea behind manufacturing a music video states that there is only four concepts to a video those are, narrative, diegesis, camera movement and editing.

what is limited about a music video:

- dominated by a performance, this is so they can sell the artist

- short duration

- Mostly fixed soundtrack - the music 

Because of these limitations music videos could be very boring and very similar therefore videos represent an artist in an expressive way, in both the visuals, camera angles, editing, costumes etc. 

what is a treatment?

In todays class we learnt about preparing a treatment this is something all directors do, it is simply a pitch to the label by the directors. In the industry this process is key as a video for an artist is an advert in a sense for the artist to sell themselves. It also opens up opportunities for artists to sell other products eg tickets, tours potentially merchandise. 

When we create a treatment it is to clarify what kind of music video we want, and what we will need. To help us do this we are going to browse through similar artists and their first music videos, to create a visual idea for what we should make.

As a class we looked at previous directors treatments for music videos. This gave us an idea of what we need to achieve and what kind of layout we should follow. In all of the three I looked at they all included the idea, the choreography, art direction, wardrobe, the look and the emotion. Through out the document print out there is bold clear images on what they want. 

starting to cast

 In the lesson we thought about who would suit our role the best and we came to the conclusion that Laura suits the face and looks like the role. However I have not audited her so it might change when I film her. As we need a performer and someone who is sassy and confident, therefore it really depends on wether Laura will be able to do this role. 

I have also found backups one girl I have not met and another girl who I know would be able to do this role as she is sassy confident and on top of that she is a dancer. However she does not look as similar as Laura does to the artist we are using. I am going to audition both of them and compare which is better. They have both agreed to be in the video and are very keen so it is just the issue on who would be the best for this. 

Grace vanderwall- I don't like you

This is a video we found similar to the one we are keen on creating this is because we are doing a female solo act and focusing on the performance. Which in this video the performance carries the whole video. She dances but it isn't a typical music video generic dance it is unusual which stands out and keeps the audience interested. I really enjoy this style and the costumes, makeup, background I all think is very effective and something I would want to incorporate into our video.

Researching music video setups

Today I looked into upcoming rhythmic blues singers of 2021, as this can relate to the singer we are using. I discovered Lauren Faith and Celeste, I watched their first music video and took screenshots for each setup in the video. This is so I can see what other artist film for this style of music. The screenshots is of new set ups which is simply a new scene not necessarily new location but people or action. 

Celeste- Love Is Blind

The first video I looked at is Celeste's video to her song "love is blind" she has a very similar style to my artist as she has a similar gentle voice but portrays this sassy independent woman. In the video she is the main focus of the video, this is done by the bold clothes, makeup and camera angles. In this video there is lots going on however she stays still in these scenes which creates the attention on her. The use of colours helps highlight her presence using contrasting and bold vibrant colours. Especially using a bright red lipstick as this focuses on her lips and that she is singing. Celeste is always positioned in the centre of the frame with multiple close ups of her. There is also lots of elements of symmetry being used through out. There is also a use of quite a dark colour palette.

Lauren Faith- It's all a blur

This is Lauren Faith's song its all a blur this video has vey soft lighting and a soft gentle atmosphere. It also uses a very dark colour palette which relates to the tone. Similar to the celeste video she is the main focus of the video and this is mostly done by close up shots of her, however in this video there is no other characters she is the only person. Which allows you to focus on just her. In doing this it helps allow you to listen to the music. Through out the video there is a big theme of silhouettes which I think is very effective for this style, as they are very soft and hold this gentle calming feeling about them.

This is all the artists my group found we did this in order to compare the setups from each video. In all the pictures we took it is clear that they all use a dark colour palette with low lighting. They also all focus on the singer and do not have much going on. However in the videos most of them are shooting on a location not in a studio which limits our options as we are shooting in a studio. 

From this exercise I have learnt the importance of casting a good confident main character as she will be seen through out therefore she needs to be able to work with us. I now know that low light and a dark colour palette is needed to create a similar style to these videos. The characters also have not overly dressed suggesting quite casual wear and not to over the top.

Chosen song

 

This lesson we agreed on a song and presented it to our teachers in which they agreed to. After doing this we looked into first music videos of similar artists.

This is Amy Winhouse's first music video, this is a good example to what kind of vibe and video should inspire us. As the music is very similar to the song we are using. This video focuses on Amy, on her beauty, style and suggests this sassy attitude. It is incredibly female directed, in this particular video it shows that men are being stupid and she stands out and suggests this a indapendent strong woman. This is made for girls to relate to her and back her. The video also matches what the emotional tone of the track, not necessarily the lyrics. 

Then we found another famous singer similar to our track, Nora Jones and watched her first music video to show us as an example what kind of video we should create. This really helped and showed us how gentle ands slow the video needs to be to create a succesful video.

From these two videos we learnt that we can purely focus on a solo artist and forget about backing singers and a band, as displayed on these two videos. We also need to base the video on what the singers personality is like as this shows through in the visuals. In a sense an expression on who she is. Therefore we need to find someone who is mature looking and has womanly vocals as this will connect to Amy winhouse and Nora Jones.

Finding a band

 In todays lesson we carried on looking for music to use in our video, our group decided that we want to find a band. From our previous lesson we learnt that using a band is a lot easier and creates a more successful video. Therefore we are going to find a band I want to go down the more pop route as I want to create a fun vibrant video however Alexa and pandora want to do a more high concept emotional video.

I then found a song using instagram, which I hadn't tried until this lesson and worked very well. I simply did this by searching up a genre and scrolling through hashtags were I found multiple artists. I found this artist poster child who I really like and think could be very effective. However our teacher says it has strong 70's elements in it which are so strong it does not sound modern enough. Now knowing about using instagram I am going to look further and find a band similar to this but less of a 70's feel to it.
 

The industry

 In todays lesson we learnt about the music industry more specifically the differences with working with a band or solo artist.

When looking for artists with few fans I learnt that the music is okay it isn't great but the majority of the music is solo acts, and today I learnt with Matt that this is the case as there has been an up in solo acts due to lockdown. Lockdown meant that people had all this time to produce write and create music. It has also become a lot easier for artists to create their own music due to the accessible new developing technology. It also plays a part that as the acts are working by themselves they are less likely to create something to a better standard like a band would as a band will work together, as people tend to do better when working in a group. 

However even though it is easier for bands to create better music than solo acts, more solo acts have higher streams. Solo acts do better 

The music industry are very slow to react to things, as bands are dying out as the majority of the bands people listen to are old and they will pass away. And as shown on the line up to a couple of festivals here, bands tend to headline and there are more bands playing than solo acts. This is simply because bands are more entertaining to watch than a solo act, and for a live performance you want to watch people who can play instruments as well as sing as it seems authentic and there is lots to look at keeping the audience entertained. Bands are key at festivals as the audience want to see them and festivals are bringing in lots of money.

To really understand the difference between artists and bands we looked at their first music videos, as a first music video displays how you want to be seen as an artist and what kind of music you will create. The best example of this is Lady Gaga, she is a very succesful solo artist. In her first video you can tell what kind of personality she has it is made clear she is vibrant, fun, unique and bold from her body langue, what she wears, facial expressions and the lyrics to the song. Lady Gaga is succesful as she carries all this personality and can rely on this weird fun personality she has to entertain people and that be what the artist she is. She stands out from the rest of the artists, compared to new developing artists I was looking at she is interesting and confident. There is also lots going on with lots of different set ups, of her in different scenes. 

Then Coldplay the bands first music video is a completely different vibe it has all the artists sitting facing each other whilst playing instruments. The idea of the band facing each other suggests the friendship they have, having this close bound. Audienecs want that from a band that is why they created this video instead of one like Lady Gaga's. The video represents what kind of band Coldplay are, it shows they are relaxed from their outfits. If you look closely there is a empty mug on the floor this just shows they are authentic and real. With bands huge amounts of revenue comes from their live performances so in videos they need to do this as it shows their essence, showing them playing the instruments so when fans see them live they will see this, and for fans it is entertaining as they are being authentic playing instruments live.

funk jam

 

After spending a couple of lessons browsing for songs I found a song under the genre funk jam which is not what any of us had in mind initially for our music video. However after listening to this song we came up with loads of different ideas in what we could do in this video using this song. However we showed the song to our teacher and he suggested that we keep looking as the voices sound to old and they have a strong American accent which would be hard to film. Even though we cannot use this song we are going to find a song similar to this funk jam song. As we all agreed this would make the perfect fun vibrant colourful video which we would want to make. 

Presenting songs

We have shortlisted songs however we had to cancel multiple songs out from the list due to multiple different reasons such as, having a strong American accent, looking and sounding older then 17/18, and the music being to slow meaning it would be hard to create a video off.

As a group we collectively have shortlisted some songs from our list, these are songs which have under 10,000 streams. However the songs we have chosen could be a challenge when creating the video as they are quite slow paced and potentially could be boring, so we are still looking for songs. We have been looking in the genre rap and hip hop currently as we all enjoy listening to this style of music, however it has not been successful for us so we are going to move genres and hopefully find a song which would be easier to create a video out of.

When we were browsing for new music we came across these bands which have very low numbers in fans which is what we need. We aren't to keen on any of these bands they are all quite similar but if we cannot find anything better we will use one of these songs. We now know how to find music with low numbers which we didn't know before so it will make the process easier for my group.

presenting songs in groups

 In todays lesson we were split into groups in which we will produce our music video in, I am in a group with Alexa and Pandora who I have never worked with before. 

I presented three songs and collectively we took notes on the songs how we feel they sound if we could work with it. My song I presented which my close friends had sung in we decided was to rhythmic and not enough vocals therefore we cancelled that out, and my other song by Ax and the hatchet men we found that he has over 50,000 streams on Spotify therefore he is to big to use. Because of this I have been doing more re search for songs with under 10,000 streams to potentially use.

I am using sound cloud to browse for songs however I am struggling to find any lowkey artists therefore I have moved to band camp which was suggested to me in the lesson. This website is there to allow viewers to explore through genres and find new music.

In using band camp you can browse through genres very Cleary, this is very helpful when picking and artist. I tend to look through indie as this is typically easy to film as indie tends to be bands which I can easily cast through the school. I have also looked under the genre pop although I am not to keen on the music this genre would help create a successful music video as the lyrics tend to tell a story.

Choosing songs

Todays lesson:

We were introduced to Keith Negus who is the author of pop and popular music theory, which is were we learnt new terminology this being organic ideology and synthetic ideology. This is what Keith referred to as the two distinct groups of upcoming potential artists from within the music industry. He states that artists either fall into organic or synthetic ideology.

Organic ideology:

This is purely centred around the voice and music the artist creates. The artist will then show growth but keep the same down to earth natural feeling, these artists are often sold as authentic and a real person which fans can relate to in ways. Examples of artists which are organic and became famous through their music is Ed Sheehan, Taylor swift.

Synthetic ideology:

This is the opposite to organic in that it bases it off the look of the artist instead of their talent, these artists are often aimed at younger audiences. They are meant to be idealistic and what younger girls and boys want to be like, a role model in a sense. Some examples of these kind of artists are spice girls as they were formed on what they look like, as the manager had a clear idea of what each girl should look like and represent then found them on that.

Conclusion:

In knowing this helps us decide what we want to do with our artists wether we want to focus on the music or the looks. This will then go on to represent how we want our artist to be seen as and what kind of audience they will have.  

My songs and info

Ax and the Hatchetmen 

they are an alternative/modern/indie/jazz/blues band from America

Group or solo: Group

If group what different roles: drummer, guitarists, trombone, trumpet

What is the ethnicity of original artists? white

Is there a national accent? American 

What age is the original artist? they are all 17-18

Effectively cast them? yes

Tobi the freak

He is a friend of mine who sings and creates this rhythmic music 

Group or solo: Solo

What is the ethnicity of original artists? black

Is there a national accent? English  

What age is the original artist? seventeen years old 

Effectively cast them: yes 

Ella Frank

Is a London based soul and jazz singer

Group or solo: Solo

What is the ethnicity of original artists? white

Is there a national accent? British

What age is the original artist? 20 years old

Effectively cast them? yes