Pitch Video

Our pitch, we presented to 'Frank Moloney Moloney Jr.' (aka Mr Welch).
We presented our ideas for our music video to 'Control' By Halsey.

Starting to build our Website

On the run up to start filming, I have decided to start looking at designs for the website, obviously a lot of the work cant be done until after filming, like adding pictures and the finished music video, but information such as Tour Dates, Pre-Ordering the album, Merchandise ect, can be started.

To start I have chosen a design which I can change later if I want to, also the picture in the back will be change to one of our own to make it original. I picked this design because I  like the simplistic font. I think it looks professional and will help with the marketing and selling of the product, also its easy to read and clear that it is the single, the audience will not get confused. If we don't get any good photos whilst shooting the music video then the picture of the clouds will do as they represent her mind set in a way.

Next I chose the layout of the website and started to edit the text. The finished video will be where the video slot is. Information about Halsey is next to it, a box where you can enter your email and subscribe and get all information about Halsey before anyone else. In the recent news box I will add tour dates, album release date and the single release date. I will also add social media links so fans can access her directly and follow her and see what she's up to.

 

 

Identifying our audience.

For our music video we have decided to do 'Control' by HALSEY. This is a song about mental illness and running from your inner demons which try to overcome you.
Her audience is mainly teenagers with a female dominance. Although her songs are gender friendly, she attracts more of a female attention because of her sound and image, whereas males tend to prefer a more masculine sound, and relating to the 'Male Gaze Theory' males tend to like her because of her image and they way she looks.

But for our music video we want to attract all types of people, fans of HALSEY and especially those who suffer with a mental illness because we feel that they would really understand the song, its meaning and the video to go with it.
HALSEY suffers with bipolar and she wrote the song to express how she is coping and dealing with and how it has suffocated her, her whole life.
She wants to raise awareness for people and say that its okay to have a mental disorder and her song 'control' is about taking control of her body after her mental illness has made her life hell.

As fans of her music, we respect her and we want to support her ideas and with this song we want to help raise awareness about mental health as we believe it is a major issue. We want to portray her feelings within the music video accurately and we will do this through the use of colour and editing, the colours show her feelings, for example black will represent her feeling trapped in this mental state, and white will represent her feeling false to everyone else as they don't see what she sees in her mind. Editing will show the ghostly and trippy effect the mental illness has on her and we want to use this to our advantage.

Richard Dyer's 'Star theory' applied to HALSEY

The star theory suggests that, as the audience we only see the performers as their stage personas. For example 'HALSEY' is a stage name for Ashley Frangipane, a normal 21 year old singer from Washington, New Jersey. She created HALSEY as an alter ego for performing, which is common with most stars.

"Stars are constructed, artificial images, even if they are represented as being "real people", experiencing real emotions etc." meaning that we don't see celebrities as themselves, we only see this image that they have created for the media, stage and television.

"A star is an image not a real person that is constructed (as any other aspect of fiction is) out of a range of materials (eg advertising, magazines etc as well as films [music])."

This is HALSEY's star image and this how we identify her now that she has become a star, where as before she had long dark curly hair, and didn't wear a lot of make up. this shows that stardom creates a different character and distracts you from your heritage.

This is an original picture that Ashley Frangipane took of herself before her career took off.

Planning for our Music Video.

Our music video will be to Halsey's control, which is a new song from her debut album BADLANDS, which came out 28th august 2015. the song portrays Halsey's struggle with mental illness which is what we are planning to show in the video. Our idea is to have a dark, dirty workshop setting to show the inside of the characters mind which is where she is dealing with her mental illness, but to then have another setting of a pure white background to show her outside, which is what everyone else see's. it shows the contrast between what we see and what she see's.



The costumes we have decided to have is a black, baggy t shirt that comes to her knees, it will be covered in dirt and ripped in several places to show the fights and battles she has been through in her mind.
The other costume will be a white t shirt to show that no one realises her struggles and she just seems normal and innocent to everyone else, this shows her outside in comparison to her inside.

Our locations are the dirty workshop which shows her inside and her mind where are of her demons are, and where she is fighting her mental illness.
The other location is a white background which will be simply used for lip syncing, but this also represents her outside and how she appears to everyone else.
Also we have decided to film on a road, we haven't decided whether to film in daytime or night time but we want to use this show her trying to escape.

Textual Analysis of the Male Gaze Theory

The male gaze theory is a theory that suggests that the representation of women in music video is as a sexual fantasy from a heterosexual male's point of view. Women are seen as an image and men are the controlling subjects, aka men do the looking and women are there to be looked at. But in a feminists point of view this would be seen as unfair, because that's not women serve as their purpose. But in most music videos women are sexualised and made to look vulnerable and sexy.

A few examples of music videos that sexualise women are listed below.

 

Robin thicke's 'Blurred lines' this is the clean version, although the unrated version is far worse.

 

Miley cyrus 's 'We can't stop' & 'Wrecking ball'

 

Eric Prydz' 'call on me'

 

All of these music videos contain women dancing or in minimal clothing which supports the idea of the male gaze theory.

Most famous music videos and CD covers of all time.

According to the website NME.com the best music video of all time is 'Hurt' by Johnny Cash released in 2002. It says 'the montage shots of Cash served a poignant purpose at the time; after Johnny 's death seven months later it became even more powerful. A fitting audiovisual epitaph.'

 

A music video that got into the top 20 at #17 was Lady Gaga and Beyonce 's infamous music video for 'telephone' which was a weird and wonderful music video with Lady Gaga 's strange tape outfit and cigarette sunglasses. Released in 2010, and directed by Jonas Åkerlund.

A music video that got the #31 spot was a strange music video, the verve 's 'Bittersweet symphony' released in 1997, even though it just one long shot of Richard Ashcroft walking down a busy street, ignoring everything he sees, still in the top 40 for best music videos.

According to ranker.com 'Dark Side of the Moon' by Pink Floyd is the greatest CD cover,

 #2 is 'Abbey Road' by the Beatles

 #3 is another by the Beatles, 'Sgt. Peppers lonely hearts club band'.

 

Hannah Lux-Davis and her style of music videos.

Maintaining such fresh ideas within pop music videos is no small task, but Hannah Lux-Davis, one of the pop music industries biggest music video director manages to accomplish time and time again. She has worked with many famous pop artists such as Jessie J, Nicki Minaj, Miley Cyrus, Lil Wayne and many more. She has created videos that act as vibrant, conceptual mission statements for some of the most famous artists in the industry today.

She likes to create the music videos around the artist and their personalities, I found watching 'Bang Bang' by Jessie J, Ariana Grande and Nicki Minaj.

Summary of Q magazines 'VIDEO GAMES' article.

In September of 2015, Q magazine created an article on the controversy of Rihanna 's 'Bitch better have my money' music video and how it wasn't much of a music video but more of a mini - movie.
The article states that Rihanna created the video to get attention, she hadn't been getting much press time recently and her controversial video got her just the amount of attention she needed to make a good comeback. The article states that in the video 'Rihanna want to be seen as a no - fuck - giving badass but comes off as somewhat desperate' which I completely agree with. The idea of having a mini movie as a video can also be a good idea as we saw in Kendrick Lamar's video for 'alright' which contained brilliant camera shots and a relatable video. Rihanna 's video, contained a lot of nudity and drug use, also related to the song but she could've come off with a different idea than kidnapping and humiliating an innocent woman.

Applying genre theories to a music video. (textual analysis)

I have chosen to analyse 5 Seconds of Summer's 'She's kinda hot' music video.


The genre I would associate this music video with is a hybrid genre of 'punk pop'. The band started out with more of a pop/boy band image when they released their first single 'She looks so perfect' in 2014, whereas now their sound has matured along with them, now a year later they have released more of a rockier, punk sound, along with a great video.


The video shows the four boys with their instruments on a float roaming the streets of a quiet neighbourhood singing lyrics such as 'We are the Kings and the Queens of the New Broken Scene' which suggests their new rebellion as a band, showing their transition from pop to punk pop.


The Mis-en-scene shows their style and their genre which they are representing, wearing darker colours and punk brands such as 'Drop Dead Clothing' and other punk band t-shirts showing their alternative look which is influenced by other bands, showing their desire to be different from their old image of being a 'boy band' to their new, mature image.
The scenes on the float show the rebellion and revolution of the New Broken Scene with the contrast of the darkness of the night time and the bright lights on the float which suggests that they're the light for the revolution.


Hodge and Kress (1988) tell us that genres 'control the behaviour of producers of such texts, and the expectations of potential consumers' I don't believe that this applies to this video as this their revolution for their new sound, they have changed their image to get rid of their reputation in the 'pop/boy band' genre which goes against what Hodge and Kress suggest.

http://www.hypnoticmedialr.weebly.com/


This is our finished 1 minute practice music video, the link to the website we made for it is also above along with the finished video!

Hypnotic // Story board

Textual Analysis of a CD cover // TRXYE

The CD cover I have chosen to analyse is Troye Sivan's EP - TRXYE.

The colours chosen for the CD cover, reflect his style and personality. Troye is also a YouTuber and Actor aswell as a singer appearing as young wolverine in X-Men and also as 'Spud' in the trilogy 'Spud; The movies'.

The pink paint stripe over his face was explained by him in an interview. He said he didn't want people to judge his music on his looks, but more on the sound of his voice, so by covering his eyes people wont judge him. This also goes against how we see the 'gender norms' as pink is not seen as a manly colour, but this is his way of showing how he is different and denies the idea of 'gender norms' as an openly gay man.

Also the 'X' in TRXYE stands for 'more to come' so this wont be his only EP or album.


His CD cover reflects his music style which is pop, but it also has a relaxing feel to it, so he chose colours that stand out but are simple and reflect his relaxed personality.

Preliminary task // Zella Day - Hypnotic

TEXTUAL ANALYSIS

For our 1 minute practice video, I have teamed up with Rachael to create this video.
We have chosen the song 'Hypnotic' by Zella Day because it is a song we both really like and also I have linked the official music video below, so you can see what elements she uses and how she brought the song to life.


For our idea we have decided to go with a Bohemian/Hippie theme, which is very similar to hers, as we wanted to keep some of the themes within the song, as you can see the song is very alternative and that's how we want to keep it.


We are not going to copy everything completely, as we are choosing different kinds of locations such as a field near a dam, outside of a train station where there is a water feature that lights up at night, an old hall that has become ruins, and a black background.


W have decided on these sets because they are different to what she has got in hers, also she has many animals such as a horse and a snake. We contemplated using animals but decided against it because we didn't want to copy her ideas. The locations we picked are close to home and easy to access.


We start filming on Monday 13th July.

Zella Day // Hypnotic

Shake it Off // Practice Music Video

Our practice music video was to re-create the music video for 'Happy' by Pharell Williams. But Rachael and I decided that we didn't want to dot hat song, so instead we decided to do 'Shake it Off' by Taylor Swift.


We asked our fellow classmates and teachers to be in the video and just dance and the outcome was really funny.
With our editing skills we cut from shot to shot of people dancing and lip syncing to the words and created a great 1 minute video.

Shake it Off // Practice Video

Textual Analysis of Taylor Swifts 'Shake it Off'

The context of the song is just to let go of everything and ignore what everyone is saying to you.


We chose this because it shows how different cliques and styles can accept you no matter what background or talent you have and no one can bring you down or say anything to make you feel bad beause all you have to do is 'Shake it Off'.

Shake it Off shows Taylor dancing to different styles of dance and messing around as a bit of fun and eventually people al around are dancing with her showing the message which is 'shake it off', metaphorically and physically.

The mise-en-scene is a plain background showing us that the different styles of dance embrace people from all different backgrounds and not one specific backgrounds. Also the clothing the entourage wears for each different style has something different which represents that style, for example the Ballerina's wear tutu's and the cheerleaders wear a cheerleader outfit.

Halls Reception Theory

Stuart Hall is a cultural theorist born in Jamaica, who worked in the UK from 1951 whilst theorising the encoding and decoding model. Hall often focused on perception and also theorised the Audience Reception theory, which identified 3 different models of reading media texts. I want to link this to Pharrell Williams' 'Happy'..

The three types of reading were named

states that all texts are polysemic (can have multiple meanings)

texts can be read in different ways depending on the audience 

can be read in 3 different ways

1. preferred reading 
- audience responds the way the media producers want them to. So the audience would react happily because the video shows people dancing and singing along to the song, and as a result of having such a happy effect, people recreated the video from diiferent countries around the world.

2 negotiated reading
- the audience partly agrees withe the message but may disagree. The audience can enjoy the video for a short period of time before getting completely annoyed with it and refusing to watch the video or listen to the song at all, whch is what happened with 'happy' because it was so over played.

3. oppositional reading 
- completely disagrees. The audience do not agree with the songs video or message and see it as annoying or wrong. 'Happy' was used for the movie 'Dispicable Me 2' but was not written for the film so they believe the song has no meaning.

Story Boarding!

This the story board to our 30 second Music video for 'Shake it Off'.

These ideas we thought of by Rachael and I when talking about being happy.

Textual analysis of recommended music videos!

Rat Boy - Sign on. This song is bascally an indie band singing about signing on to the dole, the video is the band having fun in a car showing how they act around other people. There are a few edited shots of a bouncy castle which shows their childish side, and how they're not grown up enough, which makes them sign on the dole because they're not mature enough to get a job. the video reflects the song in a metaphorical way.
Olly Murs ft. Demi Lovato - Up. This song is a duet about love between two people. The video shows two people on each side of a brick wall, smashing everything in their path. The man picks up a guitar and smashes it against the wall, causing it to break for them to see each other face to face, which could suggest that music brings them both together.
Demi Lovato - Neon Lights. The music video is very literal and uses a lot neon lighting within the video. The video is set to show a club and the night life style, which reflects the songs style. This song is different to other ones that she has released as she normally goes for simple videos with simple colours so this showed a different side of her.

A textual analysis of music videos.

In our class we watched a few music videos recommended by fellow students.

The first video we watched was 'Up' by Olly Mura feat. Demi Lovato, this video is very effective as it shows two people fighting for love. There is a brick wall between them, separating their love. But Olly picks up a guitar and starts to break down the wall between them, suggesting that music brings them together and they share their love of music with each other, which keeps them together.

The second music video we watched was 'neon lights' by Demi Lovato. This video was suggested because of how unique it was with the colours and how it had never been done before, but there were a few moments in the video that mimicked Kylie Monogues 'spinning around' video, where she lays on a table in a skin tight clothes.

The last video we watched was a video by a band called 5 seconds of summer, and the song called 'Good Girls'. The  video starts off with girls being taken into a reform girls school for 'bad girls' and the band (5sos) are called on because of their classic music vibe to 'sooth' the girls, but as the punk pop song kicks in it sends the girls bad again and the video shows how the music causes the girls to rebel.

I'll Be // Edwin McCain

Textual analysis of a music video.

The music video I have chosen in Edwin McCain - I'll be, which was as featured in the movie 'a Cinderella story' in 2004, the song was released in 1997. 

This song shows evidence of Goodwin's theories as in the beginning of the video, each strum of the guitar signals a new establishing shot of New York City. 

As soon as McCain starts singing, it's cuts to a shot of him in sync with the lyrics.

The lyrics 'emeralds from mountains' signals the shot of a woman standing in front of a patterned glass window which makes it look like diamonds, which supports Goodwin's theory of lyrics matching video.

Also, on certain beats of the song, the shot changes to a different shot completely, which also supports his theory of music matching video. 

Introduction

Hi, I'm Lois and this is my media blog for A2 Media studies 2015.


So far I have completed my first year, creating a thriller video.
This year I plan to make a great music, with the help of my partner, Rachael.


I hope you enjoy reading this blog.