Brief History

The following slide share is giving a brief history of the music videos. It is giving us advice and tips for our music video, including the digital pack, giving us examples of images over the years for major bands and solo artists. We are soon to be creating the digi-pack for ours after practicing it.

Mv history from petefrasers

Album Cover Generator

So this week chief Pete has set us a job to create an album cover from a random generator. The following steps are whats needed to follow:

1. Get a band name:Use the title of a randomly-generated Wikipedia article. You HAVE to use the title of the page you land upon!
2. Get an album title: Use the last four or five words from the last quote on this page of random quotations.
3. Get your image:Use the random images generator from Flickr's last seven days you HAVE to use the third image, whatever it is
4. Drop image and words into Photoshop:Adjust your band name and album title by changing the font, colour and size and maybe putting a bit of layer effect on. Resize your image so that it is the right size for the front of an album. If you want, you can turn colour into black and white, but you can’t add anything else to the image!
5. Upload it to one of the random generated CD cover sites Here is my outcome with proof to the project:

Step 1- After clicking on the link, it appears my band name will be Thomas Restout. He is a french painter, bit of an odd one but i think it will suffice.

Step 2 - I now need an album title, so after clicking on the randomly generated quotes page, it turns out the album is now called: Not Quite Clear To Him.

Step 3 - So after clicking the flickr page for the latest pictures in seven days I ended up with this for my album cover. I do like it, it is very adgy:

... and here is the proof to show that it was the third picture along that I chose:



Stage 4 - Now it is time to edit my album cover, putting all the pieces together to look authentic. It was indeed a very fun task. Due to not having photoshop at home I have decided to use an online resource called picmonkey, this is what my album looklike:

 I did find it quite fun to edit my album cover. It was amusing using the random generator to get an outcome, too which i am satisfied. The tools were easy to use and it is quite a cool picture to use. Now we understand how to make an album cover for our actual song, which I hope will come out as well as this one.

Where we are at

Currently we have started to film a few shots for our music video. I convinved my brother to lip sync in our song so we have practiced the shots but will need to get them in final however we will post a snipit of what we have. Moreover sussed out our filming location and gotten a main character to record. Now what is essential is to get all the footage before christmas and ready to edit.

Maroon 5 - One More Night

Below is a video Maroon 5' song One more night. In this video there are several boxing/fighting scenes which uses a variety of angles and slow motion similar to what we want within our music video. It is useful source for inspiration if needed when filming, with a variety of techniques used to emphasise the emotion and lead up to the fight. Moreover showing a contradiction between the fight and his family life. It is a great source to look back to when filming as we could re-create a few shots also.

Boxing Shots

As you now know our concept is following a beer on his lead up to a fight so we have been planning to get several shots of him training. We came across this video on youtube with a combinations of boxing shots that we really like. We like the simplicity of the shots, which we would like to re-make for our video including slow motion. We believe this adds effect to the video for shots of his face so we can see the different emotions also when he his going to punch the 'punch bag' so we can get a feel for his dedication.

Update

Here is a first vlog updating you at where we are at. It explains our new concept with we hope to stick to after changing it numerous times:

Mood Board

Here is our mood board giving explanations on our concept, including pictures to allow you to see what we are planning to do, hopefully.

Permission

Here is the email sent to Polydor Records asking for permission to use the song 'Save the World' for our A2 media project. It outlines the fact that it will not be sold on and is being used solely for education purposes, moreover stating any copyright issues.

Song choice including Lyrics

After struggling to find a song that would suit our concept, we have finally agreed to use 'Save the World' by Swedish House Mafia. It is perfect for us and our whole idea.

Into the streets, we're coming down

We never sleep, Never get tired

Through urban fields, and suburban life

Turn the crowd up now, We'll never back down

Shoot down a skyline, watch it in primetime

Turn up the love now, listen up now, turn up the love

Who's gonna save the world tonight?

Who's gonna bring you back to life?

We're gonna make it, you and I

We're gonna Save The World tonight

Ohoh oh oh, oh oh ohoh oh [x9]

We're far from home, it's for the better

What we dream, it's all that matters

We're on our way, united

Turn the crowd up now, We'll never back down

Shoot down a skyline, watch it in primetime

Turn up the love now, listen up now, turn up the love

Who's gonna save the world tonight?

Who's gonna bring you back to life?

We're gonna make it, you and I

We're gonna Save The World tonight

 Ohoh oh oh, oh oh ohoh oh [repeated til end]

Further Changes

Choosing a song to create a music video to is proving more difficult then realised for our group. As you have seen we have explored several ideas and songs, taking several angles to the song. Our first option was Kate Nash - Foundations where we were to use  a split screen and just follow the story of several people (probably using us to film). We then moved away from that idea, changing it to Together in an Electric Dream where we would take the 80s theme and go crazy with it, creating dance moves however as a whole we were not so keen on the idea as it could turn out quite cheesy and not how we expected. Furthermore we explored several other ideas including: Gossip - Heavy Cross which we looked into most detail coming up with a whole idea of a 'chase' where the boy was mesmerised over this girl so tried everywhere to find her whilst she was teasing her. One by one we went off the idea, not liking the concept as we felt it was too cliche. Moreover went on to look at Florence and the Machine - Shake it out, after becoming very unsuccessful in our ideas we all sat and discussed what to do with this song, wanting it to be final. We then conjured up an idea to do a modern take on a fairy tale, like little red ridding hood giving us an interesting narrative, all agreeing the audience would find the idea interesting but then we faced the difficulty of what would represent the wolf or the grandma without the video turning out horribly wrong. After loosing faith on that idea we all went out, cleared our head - stripped everything back to basics and began to story board again. It took a while but after much thinking we thought we would revert back to our initial idea. We are wanting to have fun so we have decided to take a more humorous take to a music video, jotting down several ideas of how we could create this idea. However, we now face the problem that the video will not turn out how expected, with people not finding the video funny. Also we have no narrative to the video, just a montage of humorous clips. All that is left to be done now is pick a song we all want, with a possible contender being Metro Station - Shake it. 

Star Image Research Project

"A star is an image constructed (as any other aspect of fiction is) from a range of materials - e.g. advertising and magazines, as well as films and music." - Richard Dyer

          
          PINK

Alecia Beth Moore, otherwise known as P!nk is an American Singer, who began in the group 'Choice' before breaking away to venture on a solo career in 2000. Pink is famously known for her mischievous behavior and outrageous attitude, which is partly why she has become so huge in the industry. Pink started her music career in 1995 - in the band 'Choice' but chose to go solo in 2000 with her first hit 'There You Go' and has continued to be very successful in the music industry already with six albums after, allowing her to go on touring the world due to her huge fan base. Moreover gaining huge recognition with the big stars she has worked with. I do believe Pink gained huge promotion when she, alongside 'Lil Kim', 'Christina Aguilera' and 'Mya' covered 'Lady Marmalade' for the 'Mouline Rouge' sound track in 2001, creating an image for herself as she kicked off her career, winning her first grammy award.

Winning her first grammy award

Pink appeals to such a wide audience of people, categorizing into several genres including: Pop Rock, R&B and Pop. Furthermore becoming the of the most successful artists of her generation having sold an average of 110 million records worldwide as of 2013. As mentioned previously, Pink has released 6 studio albums, including: Cant take me home, Missundaztood, Try This, Im not Dead, Fun house and The Truth About Love. Alog with 4 compilation albums including Missundaztood/ Cant Take Me Home, Pink Box, Greatest Hits... So Far and The Album Collection. Throughout the years, we have seen huge change in Pink, still continuing to favour the 'Punk' look. The first  studio album Pink released was mainly R&B creating a worldwide gross of $4'000'000, available digitally and on CD. However, Pink's second album 'Misundaztood' was her most successful album creating an overall gross of $13'000'000.

Here is Pinks debut album in comparison to her most current album. It is evident she is still conveying the punk look, with limited clothing although her full body is shown in the latest as she has grown as an artist, becoming more significant in comparison to her first where she is wearing sun glasses as she is 'cool' and to 'R&B' to not.

From the start Pink has had this 'Rock Star' image about her allowing her to act crazy at times and portray a wild life style. The video above is of her first single where we see her with bright pink hair, maybe to play as a pun to her name. She is quite outrageous at times creating a huge fan base due to her originality to music and quirkiness essence about her. Her video to the single 'So what' shows her upholding the image of a 'rock star' not caring about anything and breaking rules. Her fans love to see this and still enjoy her upbeat music. Another key feature to pink is her hair, she has explored several styles from peroxide blonde to bright pink encouraging others to take a brave step in their imagine, granted she has rocked every look, mainly keeping it short. 

Over the years we have began to see a maturity in P!nk. She began to sing more serious songs such as 'Just Give Me a Reason', this may be due to her becoming a mother so she has grown up. Although we still see the mischievous side to Pink, which will probably never disappear. She begins to please her fan base, releasing albums and continuous touring, which in her most resent came out on a zip wire, impressing fans and getting them to want to come too see more. Pink has stated in a previous article how she is 'electric tomboy but kind of hippi kind of gangsta, i don't know if that is a good thing but it is my thing' giving out the message that you don't have to be like everyone else. Moreover is known for her constant charity support, stopping animal cruelty furthermore stating how she is a vegan, reflecting her positively so the audience appeal more so to her. Pink has also been in the media a lot due to her up and down relationship with Joe Hart. They are a true representation of married life, although they have their struggles they work it out in the end and as announced on 'The Ellen Show' have a beautiful daughter, Willow. more over we have seen Pinks life become very family orientated with her family staring in many of her music videos like 'So what', 'jusst give me a reason' and 'True Love'. Overall there is a noticeable change in Pink as we have seen her become maturer although still conveying a 'rock star' lifestyle. Her record label have stayed loyal to her, helping promote her by allowing her to tour and get her music heard. With the colour 'pink' symbolic to her, we've seen several styles all original to her. P!nk is a true star image.

Background Research

Currently, the song we have decided to create a music video for is Gossip - Heavy Cross. After researching the song we discovered it was in the genre of: Dance:Punk and Dance:Rock. This allows us to be flexible with the music video, furthermore become creative with the video too so we can have fun with it but also look professional. Whilst researching into the song, we discovered other songs similar to 'Heavy Cross' to gather inspiration to gather information, these included; Chase and Status- Time ft Delilah and Kate Nash -Foundations. These are not all of the same genre but have similar beat which we could work with:

 

          GOSSIP:

Gossip is an American indie-rock band. Further research was carried out to find information on the band. I looked at their record label to which they were signed, finding out there were in fact five, including:

• Back Yard Recordings - Back Yard recordings is a UK independent record label based in  London, which was set up by Gil Goldberg. Back Yard recordings was initially a promotion company to allow bands to get started but then slowly evolved into a record label in 2006 after there was an increasing number of chart hits including gossips third album 'Standing in the way of control' all over Europe and Japan.
• Kill Rock Stars - Kill rock stars is another independent record label based in Olympia Washington, where the band Gossip was formed, which has been seen to show a commitment to underground punk bands, much like Gossip. This record label was founded by Slim Moon who states he started the label 'to put out his friends music because no other would'. After researching into it, it became clear the label has no specific genre to release nor underground music movement.
• K Records - K records is another independent record label founded in Olympia, Washington. This record was founded by Calvin Johnson who again states he wants to get his friends records seen to the world but in time developed greatly. K records motto is: 'exploding the teenage underground into passionate revolt against the corporate ogre since 1982'.
• Dim Mak Records - Dim Mak records is an American label founded by Steve Aoki. It is a very minor record label, which is why Gossip chose to go under a new label, with very minor recognition.
• Columbia Records - Columbia Records is a to recording company owned by Sony Music entertainment, located in New York with various genres on the label. Columbia records began in 1888 and still remains a premier subsidiary label of sony music entertainment, with Rob Stringer as the head chairman. Currently, this is Gossips main record label, helping promote them, with Columbia Records being known around the world, therefore a good source for Gossips music to be heard, especially with the sister label being Sony. Columbia Records is a major company

Through the different distributers, Gossip have released 5 albums, the first being That;s Not What I heard released in 2000 - Movement 2003 - Standing in The Way of Control 2006 - Music for Men 2009 and their current album being A Joyful Noise 2012.

This is Gossips first album compared to their current album. It is a lot more colourful which could be due to more budget as the have become bigger in the industry

Gossip appeal to more underground fans, with a small fan group. This however allows then to perform in small venues around Europe, with major fans watching their performances. Some of their singles have been played on the radio, like heavy cross although not as many as other artists. The song heavy cross also appears in an advert as it was a very popular song, mainly why we have chosen to create a music video for it.

Story Boarding

After getting together, we have started to story board a few ideas for our music video. Once listening to the song, our initial idea was a story between a boy and girl with the boy so mesmorised over the girl that he begins to follow her, wanting to find her, with her knowing giving him looks. We planned to use Hannah as the girl actor and Billy (my brother) for the boy. However, i feel it is a bit similar to last years project with the following of the person o we may still get together and storyboard another idea. Although we are expanding this idea and beginning to like it.

Changing

After a group chat, we have been struggling to find a suitable song to create a video to. Our initial idea was to create a video to Kate Nash - Foundations however we do not feel it suits us. We have been exploring several other options like: Together in electric Dreams with an idea of creating a parody video to it allowing us to have fun in filming although we may have some issues creating it as it may seem like we have not put much effort into it, although it could look brilliant at the same time. Moreover we have explored several other options to create a more serious video and become inventive with several ideas, without making it to cliché. Currently we have a song idea but are still considering others.

Possible Songs

During the long summers break I have been gathering several thoughts for possible music video ideas. The group and I have several contenders for songs to crete a video too. We each put our thoughts together and came up with some songs including: Gwen Stefani - Sweet Escape, Pink - Fun House, Avril Lavigne - Girlfriend and Kate Nash - Foundations. There is a theme in the songs we chose which is female artists allowing us to star in the video making lip syncing easier. The most popular song in the group at the moment is 'Kate Nash - Foundations' - we all have different visuals to what could be a possible music video therefore if we put our ideas together could make a great video.

Preliminary Task - Sinead O'Connor 'Nothing Compares To You'

Here is the preliminary task we recorded allowing us to practice lip syncing before we start our final music video. We used the song 'Nothing Compares To You - Sinead O'Connor' as it allowed us to imitate the video which was a still of the artist face making it easier for us to practice lip syncing. The video is added to the preliminary so we can compare clips.