ALL- Week 7 Podcast 1- Idea

ALL- Evaluating Research & Planning of 2011 blog

Marking Emmie Bryett's A2 Blog - BackStreet Boys

Me and Ellie worked together to do this, we decided on Emmie Bryett's blog as we are planning on working on a Boy band for our A2 Coursework. 


Research & Planning : 


Excellent research into similar products and potential target audience. 
The posts done between July and September mainly focus on the metal genre with specific focus on the sub-genre Heavy Metal. The 10 deconstruction on music videos are good as there wide spread across genres, however lack few bits if detail. 
The case studies on bands such as Queen and Guns and Roses show in depth research towards different bands from different genres. 
Up until January the main focus seemed to be rock, this research seemed to be good.
Clear evidence of changed ideas were blogged on from January onwards, when they changed their idea to Boy Bands, the research and planning they showed was well thought out, clearly stating their change in ideas. - For this we give Excellent


Excellent organisation of actors, locations, costumes or props. 
The post done were detailed and not just written they used things like vodcast's and interviews, for the casting to identify who was going to be in the music vid, showing they have clearly thought this through.  
For the target audience they did a video and uploaded that to blog, interviewing potential target audiences. 
Detailed posts on costume, they highlighted and posted blogs on the difficulties they faced during filming. - We marked this as Proficient. 


Excellent work on shot lists, layouts, drafting, scripting or story board. 
Call sheets were used in order to indentify shot types, these were put on the blog using scripted, and they also have posts on story boards and call sheets, which are detailed. 
For this we give Proficient. 


Time Management. 
Judging by their rough cuts they didn't start filming until February, they had a set back when cast members couldn't be in it, but apart from that we give this excellent. 


Level of care in presentation and presentation on research and planning. 
Overall we think the presentation is good, the information is correct and accurate and involves references and links to You Tube. They have a various range of multimedia in posts. They included pictures of everything they have done, especially when they were introducing the digi pack, which was a good form of evidence. The only bad thing we had a bad thing was how small the side bar was. They included vodcast's, podcast in posts instead of just writing, this is a good form of digital use and multimedia.  - We gave this Excellent. 


Communication.
The communication skills were good as the blog was easy to read and navigate, also their blog was direct and too the point. 


Overall Mark- 17/20

MA- Pitch- Coursework

I did my pitch on a my coursework idea. I chose to do a powerpoint to go with my pitch so that there was something for the class to look at. 
My idea was Alicia Keys- Fallin.
A brief overview of my idea was to have a couple who are going through a heated relationship. 


My reason for choosing this song was firstly I like the song a lot but also the song did very well in the charts when it was first released in 2001.  Alicia Key won Best Song,  Best R&B Vocal Performance and Song of the Year for 'Fallin'. 
The song is 3:28 and the lyrics are quite short. The lyrics work really well with my idea. The lyrics are clearly about love; the first line of the song is 'I keep on fallin and out of love with you'. This is what gave me the idea to do a dysfunctional relationship. 
The idea is to show the couple arguing and making up and to have a accident happen at the end. I was to finish with the man an woman having a big fight and  then to have the man shaking the woman and her falling fown the stairs. This is a good way to end as it uses narrative enigma- you don't know if she's dead or not. But also it clearly ties into the title on the song being 'Fallin'.  I want to show the bad side to love and how a loving relationship may not always be 'loving'.


Shot Types:

Beginning: Start with CU of couple clearly showing they are in love. Mid-shots and LS of the couple holding hands walking in the park and being sat on the sofa watching telly.

Middle: Shots of couple arguing in their house. Both shouting at each other. The woman walks out and there are shots of her in their bedroom. Shortly after the man walks in and you see him asking for forgiveness. They then make up and repeat shots of them being loving towards each other.

End: They have another argument which takes place at the top of the stairs where she throws picture frame. CU on broken glass. The man then starts shaking her. Finishing with a shot of the woman at the bottom of the stairs- LS then fade to black.

Mise-en-scene and Location:

I plan to use the location of Ilkley for the outside shots of the couple being happy, places such as the town centre of Brooke Street and also Ilkley park as i think this could be good for getting shot variation. For this inside shots i want to use a living room and bedroom and the stairs for the last shots.

Possible Problems:

There are obvious problems i could face with this idea, these are the same for almost all coursework. 

1.    The first problem would be cast- with this idea i only need 2 main actors to play the by and the girl. I would be wanting some extras for the outside shots but i could try to use as many of the people who are there.
2.    The weather could be a big problem, as its winter its likely to rain and that would affect us being able to film the outside shots.
3.    As the TA for this would be 15-24 the worry is that the video might get a bit boring as there are not performance to break it up. If i feel this may make a significant decrease in my grade i may put performance shots in. This would be one female lip-syncing. I would have her in the shots for example have her sat on a bench in the park etc.

 

MA- Deconstructing and Comparing Sean Kingston

We spent one lesson looking at 2 music videos from current artists. Sean Kingston and Professor Green we looked at the different aspects of there videos.

Artist: Sean Kingston

Song: Party All Night (Sleep All Day)

Genre: Pop

Year: 2010
TA: 15-24

(3:52)

Sean Kingston  was born in 1990 he is a Jamaican American R&B Pop singer. He began his music career in 2007 with his debut album titled after his own name like many first albums " Sean Kingston". Then in 2009 he released his album " Tomorrow" which featured hits " Face Drop" and "Fire Burning". Kingston is still working on his third album which features "Party All Night" which was released in the USA on December the 21st 2010- Wiki

Shots- This video is typical of the pop genre. The majority of the shots in this were medium close ups and mis-shots. One of the main things we noticed was that there was very little shot variation in this video. There is a little more variation in the party scenes, but not much. When thinking of our own coursework we want to have as much shot variation as possible to get good marks. 

Effects- As you can see from the group of pictures on the left a glow effect has been put over the video. This is done so that something different is going on as the poor shot variation make the video a little dull. A similar thing could be done using the software we have on the macs.

Another effect you can see a example of the layering in this video. Another aspect to keep interest in the video. This is done on FinalCut and it is likely I will use this effect in my own product.



One of the reasons for this lack in shot variation could be due to Sean's size. He is a reather large man and this could be why the director decided to stick to mostly mid shots.

One other effect used in this video is the use of 3d type effect. This is used to keep interest with the TA (15-24). This as well as they layering are needed to keep the video interesting.

MA- Deconstructing and Comparing Pro Green

Artist: Professor Green ft Emeli Sande
Song: Read all about it
Year: 2011
Genre: Pop/Rap
TA: 15-24

This video features both performance and narrative. It is mainly narrative but has a few perforamce shots of both Pro Green and Emeli. There are a lot of different shot types and there is a lot of shot variation. When we compare this to the Sean Kingston video you can see how this one aspect makes such a difference when looking for a good video.

Other shot types used we close-up of both vocalists as well as many long shots. The location of the narrative parts of the video is shot in a house and its back garden. The narrative is a meant to be Professor Green when he is a young boy. The lyrics do tie into the video he talks about no being able to see his father and how he resents his mother and in the video he gets shouted at by a man.

Outside location

The location for the performance parts are in a very large aircraft hanger as well as a tunnel and a large outside area. Having access to these areas and the house is what makes me think the budget for this video is very high. This is something that we may not be able to achieve in our own videos.

Ligth is used in the video for framing and to creat shadow. A lot of the performance parts are filmed at night so the light shows up and looks good. Lense flare is also used with the lgiths directly behind the artist.

Overall this video seems a lot better than the Sean Kingston video as it used many more of the traditional conventions of a music video.

Coursework idea- Alicia Keys

Alicia Keys- Fallin Idea

Another idea i have been looking at is the artist Alicia Keys. She is an R&B artist from Manhattan New York whos career was classical based. Her first single fallin was at number 1 for six weeks.

The song fallin is Alicia singing about a man she loves. The lyrics show the relationships is on and off. She says 'Sometimes i love ya, sometimes you make me blue'. This signifies disfunctional relationship. In the original video Alicia starts playing the piano (showing her classical background) and then the video shows her relationship with a man who ends up in jail and she doesnt know wether to stick by him or not.

My idea is to a narrative video. I will show a couple. I will show them being cute and in love and i will then show them arguing and fighting. I could possibly end with the man walking out or the man hitting the woman and they might not know if shes dead or alive.
I would also have some narrative for shot variaition. I would need to use a house which would be owned by the couple and then I would also use locations such as the highstreet and the park.

Coursework Idea- Destiny's Child

Initial Ideas


We need to pitch our coursework idea. It has to be over 10 years old or not have a video. We are also looking for a video that is no longer then 4 minutes because after that it becomes very long to soot and edit. So there is a very large amount of choice. Which i think is why im finding it hard to come up with an idea.

A group i have been looking at is Destiny's Child. They have released 4 studio albums before 2001; 

1998: Destiny's Child
1999: The Writing on the Wall
2001:Survivor
2001: 8 Days of Christmas


The album i have been looking at is Survivor, it has many possible tracks and i now just need to pick one that i think will make good coursework.

I am pretty sure that the genre i want to do is R/B or Pop. Many artists these days are taking influences from both genres. I want to do this genre mainly because it is the genre i as interersted in and i am familiar with a lot of the artists. So i should already have a little knowledge of the conventions ect.

A brief outline of the Destiny's Child video is that the 3 women are stranded on an island, they start out washed up on the shore. They are trying to find their way out. They show the ladies in a life raft, their also is a dance scene and it ends up with a helicopter flying over head.
For obvious reason I wouldnt be able to fly to a private island to film my video.


I know that i would want to have 3 young females to play the 3 members of destiny's child. I would also want them to all be of a similar age. I would want to combine both narrative and performance to keep interest of the audience. As the song is about moving on when a relationship is over i would want to have each girl with showing their relationship with a man. It could all possibly be the same man or not. Then show how the relationship broke down and how they have moved on.


I would use 3 separate houses accompanied by some outside locations. I would also have the ladies in different outfits for the performance to give it some variety.