Tuesday, 27 December 2011

Finding Our Actors And Actress!

Firstly we had some difficulties finding our actors and actresses however with a little bit of effort and research we used people who matched the characteristics of our video theme, we used 4 actresses and 3 actors. 


In the first scene we used Fatiat, she had to play crazy in the first shot then become a drug addict. Second scene we used Daniel and Makeda who were a disturbed couple at breaking point, lastly we used Memunatu and Faidat who acted as the lesbian couple breaking up. Overall the actors and actresses did a great work!

Saturday, 24 December 2011

Shooting Schedule..


This is our shooting schedule for our filming, we used this time table to follow a routine so we can get everything done fairly quickly. 

Wednesday, 7 December 2011

Questionaire/Survey..!!



We carried out a survey to find out more relevant information for our music video using survey monkey, we asked people from facebook and twitter to fill in the questions as the majority of our audience are from facebook and twitter.


Tuesday, 1 November 2011

Audience Research..!


Wednesday, 19 October 2011

Research & Ideas!



My group have used ideas from various of music videos we want to use these ideas and combine this with our own music video, however we will use each music video for different aspects of our music video, for example we will use drake-'headlines' for the very fast cut in shots for our edits, also we will use JoJo-'marvins room' for the phone conversation with the boy and girl, to show a realistic phone conversation between the actors.




Tuesday, 18 October 2011

Change of Chorus!!

Original Chorus:

'Even though im on my own                    
I still have the seat to my throne
this world is a game, aint that a shame
and am I the one to blame'


Originally our chorus was based around the fact that our charcters are all alone and this idea inspired us to create this chorus, i still have the seat to my throne protrays that the characters are alone howver they still have their pride, world is a game shows the difficulties that all the charcaters have had to face, ain that a shame shows that the characters are prepared for life ahead. Overall the chorus is refering back to the moral of the song.

New Chorus

Even though I'm on my own,
I am not alone
I still have the seat to my throne
Own, own, own...

We have changed the wordings of the lyrics due to the fact that our main singer was not able to match her  voice melody with the rythm therefore we have kept the same concept, but just changed the words and length of the chorus.

finally with statisfaction of the chorus, as a group we discussed how to make the chorus appealing to our audience therefore we used an example from All of the lights by Kayne West, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAfFfqiYLp0&ob=av3e, we were very interested with the flashing colour of the words for the chorus, we were then sure that we wanted our chorus to be similar to that,





By all these effects of the writing and colour scheme made us influenced to include this style for our own chorus in our music video.

Inspirations For Our Video!!

- Drake 'Headlines' -We used this video for an idea because of the effects of the quick flashing shots and transitions, therefore we would like to use this effect in our video as we believe the effect of this transition will make the flow of our video very good.  



  -JoJo "Marvins Room"- We used this as an inspiration for the phone conversation between the guy and girl, this gives a better effect for the song as it adds more realism into the video. 


As a group we chose to use 'Someone Like You' by Adele for our track, this is because the track itself is slow and can be relatable to a emotional music video, our video will portray alot of emotions and therefore we wanted a track that will be calm and have a slow beat to match the convention. 



'The A team' by Ed Sheeran was also an idea because we wanted the black and white effects throughout the first scene, this gives a more simplistic effect and also portrays the message of the song.





                                              

                                    

Monday, 17 October 2011

Lyrics for 1st verse

The first time I laid eyes on you I didn’t know what to expect. But you became the remedy to make the pain less. I thought you were cool but then I heard you weren’t the best, so I took myself out not hearing the rest. I searched, I found now look at me I’m a wreck you turned me into a mess. I love what you do the way you make me feel that perfect hit on the deck. Yet I’m digging deeper looking for better feeling weaker in search of that feeling again. I should have listened to the rest they were warning me about you saying you cheat and will destroy me. Now I’m sitting here wanting to know why you was the only person to love me now I see it was because you was out to kill me. I looked at the half dying trees looked up into the sky and asked god do that represent me.
This is our first verse, the lyrics to this is very ambigious as it makes the reader think of a girl talking about her realtionship, however in reality she is talking about her addiction to drugs, therefore this verse fits in with the chorus and the other 2 verses which makes the flow of all the verses better, and it will allow the music video to run accordingly.

Lyrics for 3rd verse

Lies, Lies,
How many lies?
We try and we try
wait, I try and I try,
I dont have to spy with an eye
You cut one already
Blind me with deciet,
You disgust me get off me
Go to the bedrins you pick over me
Its all good though
Im a big girl, imma go solo
They say not untill you lose it
You wont know
Its too late to back track now
Im moving forward coz its all about me now..

Thid verse is refering to also a couple breaking up, it matches the chorus and shows emotions of anger and pride in the lyrics, which at the end sums up the moral of our music video.

Lyrics for 2nd verse

Baby we keep trying and trying, 
But nothing seems to stop me crying, 
Everyday and night Im living in an illusion, 
Giving myself fake hopes that your still my baby, 


Even though you say Im all yours I can see through them deceiving eyes, 
All I can do is move from these lies
Dont you dare come back to me, coz I have me pride,  
I know what Im worth I don't need your comfort, 


"Baby I love you"


You say the three words with such emotions,
Yes I heard you say I love you a billon times,
Our love it use to flow like an ocean, your heart pounding like the heart of a chime, 


"I was always there by your side holding your hand with such pride"


I've heard it all before don't even try it, its been weeks now and you're still crying. What we had wasn't love! Im sorry to break it but I hate it. I was just a rebound. 




Chorus: 


Even though Im on my own 
I am not alone
I still have the seat to my throne,
own, own, own....

This lyric refers to a couple breaking up, they show emotions and feelings through words, this helps the audience understand the story behind the music video. Also the moral of the music video will portray 'no matter how alone you are, you will still be a winner' this refers throughout the whole scene of the three stories,however we have made additional changes to the lyrics to make the flow of the music better and this saves time from changiing the track as a whole.

Sunday, 16 October 2011

Screen Shots Of Our Sound Track In Process!





















In our Media Lesson We have been using Garage Band to create our track, we have taken screen shots of the process...
The first screen shot shows the intro of our music video, then we start doing the main track and chorus then we end with the outro  

Saturday, 15 October 2011

Making Of The Sound Track...

In media me and my group have been creating a beat using Garage band on the Mac  for our music video, we have tried and tested a various of different sound tracks about 3 times, finally we agreed and made a track suitable for our music video theme.

The 1st sound track was very basic and had a very fast tempo which made it very hard to create lyrics for, therefore we tried an additional soundtrack using ideas from Adele-'someone like you' this gave us an inspiration and a building body to create a track with a smooth and soft tempo. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLQl3WQQoQ0&ob=av3n

The soundtrack 'Someone Like you' has a very simple intro and outro, and the music usually repeats itself, therefore we realised that in order to make a track work for a music video, we have to keep it simple and realistic however we did expect to build and elaborate a sound track that has more rhythm.

And additional inspiration for our soundtrack was from Jojo-' Marvin's room' this is where they have a phone conversation and the beat remains slow and allows enough time to make a realistic phone conversation work. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUDbSL-5GHQ

Friday, 14 October 2011

Music Video Conventions and style

In our media lesson we have learnt about three different types of music video conventions which are:


 1-Performance, 2- Conceptual Narrative, 3-Conceptual Non-narrative


 1-Performance-
 This is an example of music videos that present the musical instrument played in the video or the singer dancing or acting with the song with other dancers. An example will be by 'Ciara-Like a Boy'









2-Conceptual Narrative -
This is an example of music videos that show images or clips that relate to the song to tell a story, making sure the use of images explains the message of the song. An example would be by 'Ludacris and Mary J Blige- Runaway Love'









3-Conceptual Non-Narrative-
This music video is completely random, it does not show any meanings to the story of the song, the scenes are differential from the song.  An example is by ' Jay Z - On to the Next One'




Thursday, 13 October 2011

Hip Hop Negative OR Positive?

Hip Hop music promotes materialism, misogyny and criminal activity. It is responsible for perpetuating negative stereotypes of young black men and women.


Introduction

Hip Hop culture is an American musical genre originated from the Bronx, New York City; it began in the 1970s where originally the music was created from improvisations made from existing music, hip hop mainly took place in the streets which was very popular with African-Americans and the Latino youths.  Hip Hop consists of four pillars which are MC'ing, DJ'ing, breaking and graffiti writing, also beat boxing is also seen as another element to Hip Hop. The relationship between graffiti and hip hop culture is seen as an increasingly elaborate form of art, in today’s society graffiti remains a part of hip hop.

I believe hip hop in today’s society is portrayed negatively; hip hop is increasingly becoming dominated by gang culture. Many artists see hip hop to portray wealth, sexual interests and drug use. Youths are
highly influenced with the negative message the artists portray, an example will be 50cents ‘Get Rich Or Die Tryin’ the title is ironic, it is referring to quick easy money that can be earned through selling drugs on the other hand it is saying take the longest option which is education and die trying, therefore this is displaying the negativity in society. Hip Hop is promoting materialism through album covers that advertise artists ‘Bling’ ‘Sports car’ ‘Designer Clothes’ and many more.



















 This is showing a bad example of Black men and women in society.  Furthermore women are dressed half naked and wear lots of make up in music videos this is degrading women as sex objects and a hobby for men.  In music videos they use misogyny and criminal activity which shows negativity and portrays violence.






An example video that portrays misogyny will be Fat Joe's - Make it rain, in this music video they degrade women, and express them as sexual desires, this shows how women are seen in the hip hop culture. Therefore this shows a bad example for our youth as women will be seen as sexual desires.

However Hip Hop was not always negative, an example video will be Nas's 'I Can' this song portrays children ( girls and boys) that they can be successful in anything they want, e.g. doctor, lawyer, singer and musician. An example of what Nas says is:


[Nas]"Be, B-Boys and girls, listen up
You can be anything in the world, in God we trust
An architect, doctor, maybe an actress
But nothing comes easy it takes much practice
Like, I met a woman who's becoming a star
She was very beautiful, leaving people in awe
Singing songs, Lina Horn, but the younger version
Hung with the wrong person
Got her strung on that
Heroin, cocaine, sniffin up drugs all in her nose...
Coulda died, so young, now looks ugly and old
No fun cause now when she reaches for hugs people hold they breath
Cause she smells of corrosion and death
Watch the company you keep and the crowd you bring
Cause they came to do drugs and you came to sing
So if you gonna be the best, I'ma tell you how,
Put your hands in the air, and take a bow"

Nas's lyrics influence young teens and children to be successful, he also adds in the end :


"Save the music y'all, save the music y'all
Save the music y'all, save the music y'all
Save the music."

This could be him being ironic and referring to how Hip Hop should not be portrayed negatively, and music should be displayed as a positive message to peop
le.