3 Initial Music Video Ideas

(1) Coming Over - Dillon Francis & Kygo 

Original Video

My concept for this video is based around two different apartments with two different people living in them. 

 

A dull, bored and poor young man lives in his apartment which is dirty, boring, lifeless, grey and messy. He does not enjoy his life. He spends all his time staring through his window into a window in the opposite building. 





This window leads to the incredibly colourful, eccentric, vibrant and modern apartment, where a young, happy, clean, attractive and rich girl lives. He can just about see her dancing around to music and is mesmerised by the vibrance of life in that flat. The girl catches him peeking all the time and just ignores him and continues with her life, but one day she feels lonely and decides to call him over. 

When he arrives at the door, she lets him in and he becomes lost in the colour and vibrance of the flat (similar to when people enter "Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory). 
But after a few minutes of taking it all in, he realises that even in a place filled with what looks like happiness, the girl struggles to stay positive, and that what she needed was somebody to connect with despite having every material thing she could ask for.

• Dillon Francis is a very playful and childish electron dance music artist. He loves to mess around and poke fun at other people, while creating very energetic music. Kygo has a clean and romantic image who creates melodic tropical music.
• The performance would be the young man lip-syncing the lyrics of the song in a very monotonous and emotionless way.
• Stylistic elements include the use of video effects to distort the colourful scene to look like a wonderland, dingy colour grade for the scenes in the man's flat.
• Some of the lyrics from the song ("all I can think about is coming over") indirectly link to the idea of the man craving to come over to the girl's flat. Originally written to express his craving for the girl (and sexual interaction with the girl), but my concept presents the idea the man purely wanting to discover what it's like inside the girl's apartment.
• The concept is quite romantic at first glance, but has a deeper meaning in that the grass may not always be greener on the other side (despite it seeming that way).

(2) MYSTYFARI - Jonty Harrison 



or

Recess - Skrillex



My concept for this video revolves around a group of girls taking over a school by starting various anarchic activities. For example, a large food/pillow fight, spray painting walls/trees/etc, and dancing on cars. "Mystyfari" is a track I personally made a year ago and it has this very obvious jungle vibe to it. I felt that the best way to present a jungle (without actually doing so) would be to use an energetic school situation, which led to the idea of a recess situation - "Recess". During the food fight, a tall rigid man in a suit holding a briefcase would be walking through the middle of this food fight in slow motion. 

Over time he would become more and more dirty, and gradually his angry face turned to a smiley expression. The girls would be in ripped uniforms and covered in paint while holding megaphones. 

There would also be a car (the headmaster's) that the girls climb onto and perform an aggressive dance routine on.

As an artist, I am a mixture of emotions and situations conveyed. I don't have a definitive style. Skrillex, however, is very playful and childish while being incredibly loud and aggressive - his main goal is to get people to have fun (similar to Dillon Francis).

Stylistic elements include lots of colour, childish (prep school) things, and anarchy.

(3) Dungeon - Jonty Harrison

(https://soundcloud.com/genranon/dungeondemo/s-hC6wP)

My final idea uses this drum and bass track I produced over the summer. This is an example of when my image as an artist has a darker energy to it. The concept consists of a young man, dirty and rotting, dancing like he is mad, behind rusty bars in an abandoned prison. He is raging and foaming at the mouth and is shaking the bars trying to get out, while smiling. His rags are torn and bloody, and flow as he dances. He also has chains attached to him that ripple and spark against the bars.

Shot idea: Place the small cage (with the man in it) in the middle of the studio with chiaroscuro lighting and circle the the cage with the camera on tracks/dolly.






There is also a little girl in Sunday dress playing the piano outside in the dingy woods. You could use really wide shots of this scene, and extreme close ups of the fingers on the keys.




Finally, there are are facial close ups of an old man in old army uniform, saying the phrase "... or expire". He also shows expressions of aggression and victory on his face.

Inspired by...

Evaluation of Lip Sync Task

My Group's Final Edit:

WHAT WE LEARNT
"Lip Syncing": to synchronize lip movements with recorded sound (vocal), as an actor/singer.

This task helped us to practice lip-syncing, as we attempted to produce the most realistic looking vocal performance in front of a camera, while the song plays, and sync it up with the song in editing software (Adobe Premier). This was important to experience so that we can now think about which person would suit certain vocal sounds, and know how to perfectly sync up video clips to the Timecode.

TimeCode: "In video production and filmmaking, SMPTE timecode is used extensively for synchronisation, and for logging and identifying material in recorded media. During filmmaking or video production/shoot, the camera assistant will typically log the start and end timecodes of shots, and the data generated will be sent on to the editorial department for use in referencing those shots. This shot-logging process was traditionally done by hand using pen and paper, but is now typically done using shot-logging software running on a laptop computer that is connected to the time code generator or the camera itself.

"The SMPTE family of timecodes are almost universally used in film, video and audio production."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timecode#Video_and_film_timecode

Floor Manager: A floor manager is the person assigned to make sure that sets, props and technical equipment are safe, ready to use and in the right position prior to filming. They have a liaising and coordinating role, acting as the link between the director and the many people involved in a production on the studio floor. It is the floor manager's responsibility to pass on cues to presenters and guests to ensure timings are met and the broadcast goes smoothly. They make sure that events go according to a set plan and that people taking part know their particular roles and how it fits in with whatever else is happening.

Madonna - "Like A Prayer" Music Video Analysis

Video:




Theme 1: Religion/Christianity

These shots show Madonna's arrival at a church after her witnessing the murder of the woman. She is feeling guilty for the sin of not attempting to prevent the murder, or the misaccusation of the black on-looker. The lights in the church are on, even at night, presenting it as a welcoming place. Once Madonna enters, she is positioned in various shots showing a golden ray of light shining onto her head. This connotes that the spirit of God/Jesus is upon her and she is being looked down on and cleansed from above. Madonna's outfit is very controversial in this situation, but I will discuss this later.

In these shots, you can see Madonna involved in multiple actions that refer to Christianity. Firstly, she kisses the feet of the statue of Jesus in the church. This shows Madonna trying to gain forgiveness from God. Note that the statue is of black ethnicity (I will discuss this later). Secondly, Madonna cuts her hands on a blade in the church. The cuts shown are an example of sigmata, similar to those received by Jesus when he was crucified. This connotes her being punished for her sins. The crucifix on the wall and the gospel choir are symbols for the spirit of God and Jesus living throughout the church.

These shots feature Jesus and a female figure (similar to Mary) that both accept Madonna for what she did and for who she is. At first, Jesus is upset (crying in left picture), but then Madonna begins to redeem herself, and Jesus forgives her.

Theme 2: KKK

Theme 3: Black vs. White

Theme 4: Men vs. Women

Theme 5: Promiscuous Behaviour

Learning how to use Adobe Photoshop CC

INTRODUCTION

Tools
Photoshop has all the standard tools of an image editor (like the Move, Text and Shape tools), but also includes all these specialist tools that we learnt how to use.

• Marquee: Selecting rectangular sections of a layer.
• Lasso: Cutting out random shaped sections of a layer.
• Quick Selection: selecting areas of a certain colour/texture that is recognised by the software.
• Blur (etc.): smudges, blends and adds texture to layers.
• Eyedropper: selecting specific colours featured in a layer.
• Gradient/PaintBucket: fills a selected area with a colour or colour gradient.

We also learnt about how layers work within a project and how to see/un-see layers (click the eye icon on & off) and the key fact of having to select the specific area that you want to edit.

It was important for us to understand the basics of opening, saving and copy & pasting files within Photoshop. As well as this, the simple manipulation of images is a key part to the general photoshop process. For example, to change a picture's size - Edit > Transform > Scale - or to change the picture's colour parameters - Image > Adjustments.

CONSTRUCTING AN ALBUM COVER

Concept

I decided to make an album cover for a track I had made with a Grime rapper, called "3 Strokes". My concept revolved around three thick paints smudges/strokes that I searched on google images for. After a few minutes of searching I decided on this single pain stroke graphic that had no background (which was a bonus as I didn't have to cut the smudge out of the image). I imported the large jpeg file into photoshop and changed the hue to turn the originally pink paint stroke to turquoise just because it was the best looking colour for this graphic. I then duplicated this layer two other times, and arranged the strokes like below.

\/ \/ \/ \/ \/ 

Then I used the online Adobe Colour wheel (https://color.adobe.com/create/color-wheel/) to choose a colour scheme...

I decided that pink/magenta would be the best colour to compliment the turquoise strokes.

I then used the Text tool to write the three phrases "3 Strokes", "Genranon" and "feat. ETI" as separate layers. I selected a script-like font and a magenta colour for the text. I then stretched the text using the text arc tool to make it look more random and flowing with the stroke. I then rasterised the text layers so that I could smudge the to look like they had been painted over.

Then I searched for a paper like texture on google images, to use as a background, and found a high resolution image of old paper. I darkened the image to almost black using the image adjustment settings.

I wanted to add some sort of lighter border to this as a background. To do this I selected a square, slightly smaller than the layer, using the marquee tool. I then filled this area with a circular gradient of black at the edges to transparent in the centre. Using a large radius smudge tool, I then smudged the edges of this section into the lighter border, leaving this effect...

Finally, I organised all the layers...

... to produce this final product...

ANALYSIS OF FINAL PROCESS & PRODUCT

What I have learnt:

• Using a well calculated colour scheme throughout the digi-pack keeps everything related and in unison which further engrains the artwork into the listener's mind.
• Featuring common themes and fonts, throughout the digi-pack, creates an entire combined product that resonates better with the audience.
• I good idea for future constructions would be to create brainstorm diagrams and draft sketches to develop the idea as much as possible before starting the construction process.
• Featuring conventions of the genre of the music will spark the idea of the genre in the viewer's head, allowing the artwork to advertise more appropriately and resonate with the listener.
• This artwork is for an electronic dance music collaboration between a DJ and a grime rapper, and I feel that it would be a good idea to create a digi-pack that maybe features the artists featured.
• Addressing the target audience (of 16-25 in this case) is very important.
• It is also important to clearly present the artist(s) as either synthetic or organic. (My artwork is too much of a mixture of both).

I think that my design was very successful for a first try. I like the colour scheme I used and the feature of paint stroke graphics, but I would prefer the design if it was of a higher quality as my inexperience really shows through.

Artist Case Study: Craig David

CRAIG DAVID : PROFILE
 - Genre: UKG/RnB/Pop
 - Target Audience: 90s and 00's born (mostly female)
 - USP: raps and sings, unique vocal UKG sound of early 00's

WEBSITE

Craig David's Website is very clean and modern. A crisp white, silver and red colour scheme is used throughout. It features professional photos of him performing, latest news on releases, videos and tour dates, along with his full discography - a collection of all albums he has released with links to download sites.

UPCOMING ALBUM

'Follow My Intuition'
 - He addresses it's release to many blogs/magazines/etc...

"I'm not going to be the guy who says it because I've had so many fans say, 'You told me 2013 and it's still not here!' Even I thought it was coming out then. 2016, though, the album - it's called 'Following My Intuition' - it'll definitely be dropping and hopefully the early side of the year as well. I'm very thankful and glad to see such love come at this point in my career."
He said said to Complex magazine: "There's Kaytranada as well, who I did some wicked stuff with out in Canada. He's about to drop his project which is going to be fire, because he's still on that futuristic R&B thing and he's taken it electronic. Working with him was dope. Diplo too; we've actually got a few things coming up. That's going to be big. Oh, and GoldLink. He's got his new record dropping soon, but we have a few bits dropping together next year... Who am I forgetting? Oh! I've also done some stuff with Chase & Status. Pure flames, man." 

This type of exclusive conversational/interview advertisement from the people involved in the music (i.e: Craig David) is very quickly shared virally through social media and is what fans constantly crave to hear about.


LATEST SINGLES 

'When The Bassline Drops' (Feat. Big Narstie)
 - 1st single off forthcoming album, "Follow My Intuition"




'One More Time'
 - 2nd single off forthcoming album.



MUSIC CAMPAIGN
 - a marketing campaign organised and paid for by the record label, the artist is signed to. It often costs a large amount of money invested by the label, that will then be at least tripled by the revenue produced by the release. A music campaign is designed to promote a song/album using multiple platforms and types of media - for example, releasing music videos for singles released before the album release, or the selling of merchandise (clothing/souvenirs), or the announcement of tour dates and tickets.

 - All three of these products (website, albums, music videos) link together. They are all very clean and polished products, while focusing hugely on the image (face) of the artist. Despite the colour scheme not flowing through all products, Craig David's fashion, performance style and party vibes are similarly featured in every product. The artist also comes across as very self aware, and despite having a playful image, his lyrics, album title and website composition are all mature - his experience and long-running career has resulted in him becoming a wiser artist.

 - There a very few other differences between the products. Craig David's products are so formulaic that there are very few differences between his and the rest of the commercial pop products released these days. The only difference between each product would be the slight differences in mood. For example, 'When The Bassline Drops' is a slightly darker/aggressive song compared to 'One More Time', and this is also shown stylistically in the videos for the two songs.

 - The ideology promoted through his products focuses on the enjoyment of life - through partying, girls and drinking - and living life to the full while you're still young. There is also a huge feature of lessons to be learnt about relationships and women. Therefore, despite Craig David now being a heavily synthesised artist, most of the messages put across through his products promote positive energy.

STAR THEORY
 - Richard Dyer's Star Theory explains the formation of a star (popular artist) as a construction, a commodity and an ideology.
 - Craig David is presented as a sexually active, attractive, young, welcoming, confident, party boy through his products. However, in the privacy of his own home/life, this is not his true personality (as far as the assumption can go). He is most likely a very greedy, selfish, narcissistic and tired person that wastes a lot of money on girls, drugs and alcohol. Therefore, his star image has been constructed to be a commodity and promote that specific ideology that he may or may not even believe in.

SYNTHETIC vs ORGANIC
 - Craig David is blatantly a synthetically constructed artist who is heavily guided by his record label in his music creation process and his marketing. This is proven by his polished and mainstream style of music (that follows a formula used and copied in every song), website, and music videos (as seen above).

CONCLUSION
 - Stylistically, the campaign comes across as very attractive and caters for a very wide audience of male and female of ages 8 - 50. Overall, the campaign is very successful and promotes the products as efficiently as possible. 

Introduction to A2 Year

Part 1
This year I will be looking at how the Music Industry functions. In accordance to this, I will be producing a Pop Music Video, paired with a CD Digipack and a Website for an unknown artist/band (possibly myself). 
During the process of writing last years blog, I discovered that I needed to be more creative and interesting in my posts, and that maybe it isn't as important to write a huge amount of posts. I'm very happy with the quality of my evaluation tasks, but I think I could have done with more creative resources (like Pinterest and Soundcloud) to feature in my posts earlier on in the year.
I hope to be more successful in producing the three media texts in a high quality - this will require me to be more creative and think further outside the box, while building better relationships with the other team members.

Part 2
My favourite Genre of music is Electronic Dance Music (EDM) - this includes Garage, House, Future Bass, Trap, Dubstep, Jungle and Drum n Bass. These styles purely focus on generating energy and euphoria within your mind and body, resulting in happiness and the need to dance. This style is massively orientated by the hugely popular festival culture of today...

Despite this love for originally an underground culture, I still enjoy listening to almost every other style of music, including Hip-Hop, Jazz-Swing and Acoustic.

My favourite artist would have to be Skrillex (Sonny Moore) - he started as one of the most talented young producers of underground 'Brostep' and has now become one of the highest paid DJs and most wanted Producers of all time, while remaining so humble and always staying close to his musical roots. The man has been my idol since I was 11 and he is by far the most inspirational and influential member of the EDM community. He is so successful alongside his partner, DIPLO, that they played on the main stage of the largest festival in the world, Coachella, in May of 2016...

These two superpowers together can conjure unbelievable amounts of energy within a crowd of over 50,000 people - listen...

Some of my other favourite artists include DIPLO, Kanye West, Flava D, Chance the Rapper, Flume, Mura Masa and many more.

Almost all EDM artists are US based, and because the culture isn't as popular here in the UK, the artists rarely come here to play. However, this year, Skrillex and DIPLO (as Jack U), are playing at the UK's biggest EDM festival, Creamfields (promo video above) - when the festival published the lineup, featuring them, I instantly bought a ticket with a friend of mine. 

His fun-loving, care-free character shows in his website http://main.skrillex.com/ , and any of his Music Videos.