Thursday, 21 June 2012

PAST STUDENT WORK ANALYSIS


CHRIS BROWN - SHOULD'VE KISSED YOU

This music video has followed a narrative/performance structure. The video evidently follows Andrew Goodwin's theory of relationship between lyrics. I think that this music video is a strong level 3 as the candidate demonstrated proficiency in the creative use of technical skills. I think that the mise en scene could have been improved but overall this is an excellent piece of work.

The music video begins with silence which therefore allows the cinematography to do the singing and create the narrative. A long shot displays a female and a male walking past a shop. Lighting is extremely low key connoting that it is night time. Also, the shop they are passing is closed and there are no other people on the street also connoting that it is night time.
This is an over the shoulder shot. The male appears to be composed in the center of the frame which proves that the candidate paid close attention to framing. The lighting is low key and needed a little more lighting to make the shot clearer. The low use of lighting and relying on natural lighting had caused the shot to be unclear.
This mid shot is the first aspect of performance the audience see. The male is slightly stiff with his performance and did not mime the words clearly. He seems nervous and lacks confident within himself. The costume of a blue jacket stands out in the night time. The colour blue has connotations of strength which juxtaposes his performance. He is composed in the rule of thirds reinforcing that the candidate thought about shot composition.
This mid shot is shot during day time making it clear. The song itself is slow and has an RNB feel to it and therefore this is the perfect kind of lighting reflecting the song. The female is wearing a red jacket and the colour red has connotations of love which is what the song is about. She is wearing a white scarf suggesting that it is cold. The colour white connotes purity.
This close up is a high angle of the two characters hands. The space between their hands represents that they are not a couple. In this part of the narrative, it is clear that the male likes the female however they are not together. This allows audience who are in the boys shoes to sympathise with him. The high angle makes him seem inferior.
This close up displays the male looking at a photo booth print. The print is composed directly in the center connoting its importance. I think to improve this shot, the background should've been in shallow focus reinforcing the important of the prop of the photo booth print. The use of the shallow focus could also represent the male's confused, distorted thoughts.
This scene in the narrative music video is interesting as the candidate has used silence to convey emotion. The song cuts out and a mid shot of the boy composed in the center shows him holding paper reading his emotions. He also has a radio with him. He hits play and the song continues where it left off. On the wall there is a shadow. This shadow was not there in the beginning of the music video which represents bad continuity. 
This is an example of Andrew Goodwin's relationship with lyrics theory. The song chorus is written on the prop of the paper the male is holding up and it synchronises with the lyrics as they appear in the song. This encourages the narrative of the music video and the theme of love.
The candidate has used excellent editing techniques here. A split screen displays the reaction shots of each character. The boy is looking distressed and the girl is too. The girl has a larger screen space which connotes her superiority over the boy. She is wearing a white jumper which signifies her innocence. 
This mid shot displays the two actors kissing signifying that they are in love. Camera movement is interestingly used here as the camera spins around them signifying that they are facing the world together. Lighting is low key however to show the importance of this shot, the two characters are composed in the center making them eye catching.




ADELE - ROLLING IN THE DEEP

This music video is also performance/narrative. I think that this music video is a strong level 4. The miming is off key at times however the music video has been thought about and it produced a good outcome.

The candidate used excellent editing techniques throughout the entire video to portray thoughts, feelings and emotions. In this mid shot, the female is framed in the rule of thirds connoting her importance. Footage of her performing is overlapped on this footage displayed them both together.

The music video runs a black and white theme throughout it. The female is continuously composed in the rule of thirds empowering her. The background is black making her stand out in the shot. Editing brings a smokey effect throughout the music video.

This is a mid shot of the love interest. He is objectified in this video. The setting and the props of plants and flowers and him being composed behind them brings a voyeuristic feel to the shot. He is wearing white costume connoting purity and innocence.

This mid shot represents the two actors as a couple. Their performance shows them in love. The smokey effect surrounding them reinforces the strength of their love. Both actors are wearing white connoting purity and innocence.
This mid shot displays the female performing and singing along to the song. Her miming is not always accurate. The song is a passionately sung song and she has not pulled it off. The acting on the other hand is immaculate. Editing adds a rain effect making it look like it is raining heavily. The actors are already soaked. The male is composed behind the female making him objectified and the female is composed in the center making her empowered.

This close up displays the female trashing her room. I don't quite understand the narrative and therefore don't know the reason to why she is trashing her room. The acting is excellent. She is composed in the rule of thirds connoting her importance. This shot cross cuts with the previous screen shot and the pace of the cross cutting builds up as the song builds up. This is an effective technique which really developed the climax of the narrative.

This birds eye view close up denotes the female drowning herself. The angle of the shot is upside down connoting the females distorted feelings and emotions.




OWL CITY - FIRE FLIES

I think that this music video was not creative concept wise, however technical elements wise this music video was outstanding. I think that it is a level 4. 

This is a high angle of a close up of the couples hands. The high angles makes them seem vulnerable but the close up reinforces the strength of their love for each other.
This close up appears when the song lyric "you would not believe your eyes" is sung. This is an example of the visuals being synchronised with the lyrics. The sun is shining on the face making the eye most noticable and causing it to stand out. The eye is a sky blue colour which represents the Earth.
This is a point of view shot. This appears when the song lyric goes "that planet Earth turns slowly." Editing uses special effects to slow down the camera movement making the visuals be synchronised with the lyrics. The use of a point of view shot is extremely effective as the audience feel that they are in the characters shoes.
This shot represents fire flies. This conforms to a conceptual music video. The bright colours on the black background makes it interesting to look at and eye catching.

This shot is where the candidate used stop motion. The effect of this made it seem that the skittles box is magnetic and the skittles had magnets inside them which attracted to the box. The high angle allowed the skittles to be in shot at all times.

DIGIPAK ANALYSIS

NICKI MINAJ - PINK FRIDAY

This is the platinum selling debut studio album released by Young Money signed artist Nicki Minaj. This was released 19th November 2010. 

The announcement in revealing that Nicki was working on an album was revealed through her Twitter page. She tweeted that if she was to reach 1 million followers she will Ustream (a live web stream) for her fans. On the 3rd of August, Nicki reached her target of 1 million followers and did as she stated and went on Ustream where she revealed that she is working on an album called Pink Friday.
Her tweet was “WOW #TeamMinaj we did it!!! We really did it?!?!?! *pops champagne* 1 MILLION followers!!! Thank u to every single million of u!” which was followed by a second tweet being “Ok u guyz. A promise is a promise. Ustream tomorrow. I’ll be announcing the name of the album and much more. Not sure of the time but it’ll be late in the day. I’ll keep u posted! I’m thinking maybe 8pm EST.”


Nicki Minaj calls herself a barbie. This is her star persona and influenced the album art work for 'Pink Friday'. She also calls her fan base "barbz" which is a shortened term for "barbies". She is also well known for her bright pink hair which is her signature trademark.






The album art work conventionally features the artist, Nicki Minaj. The audience can relate to the visual motifs in which conforms to the artist herself. These being the colour pink, pink hair and pink lipstick. In fact, pink is a common theme throughout the album ranging from the album name to the album typography colour. This colour is associated with Nicki Minaj. I think that the album powerfully portrays her star persona.  In the album art work, she is portrayed as a barbie which is what she calls herself. Her legs have been extended to be extra long just like a barbie doll. She is also wearing a barbie doll outfit. This outfit is crazy and wild which connotes her persona. She raps in different crazy voices and wild accents which is a sound motif for her, and her crazy outfits are a visual motif. Editing has airbrushed her skin and made it look plastic like making her look like a real life barbie doll. Make-up has also been carefully thought about as her eyes look realistic like a barbie dolls eyes. Given this, she still has her trademark pink theme which reinforces her star persona. The barbie doll look makes her body and skin appear perfect and the pink theme makes her girly. This attracts the male gaze. Nicki Minaj's target audience are mainly young females ranging from 10-25 years old. Males are a secondary audience which have been promoted to by using Laura Mulvey's theory "the male gaze" through Nicki Minaj's body and looks which objectifies her. Reinforcing the idea of objectification is that she is a barbie doll which is a prop.

The front cover of this digipak for 'Pink Friday' is quite simple. The artist is framed in the rule of thirds signifying her importance and making her empowered. The wacky part of the dress is also framed in the rule of thirds. As her star persona is quite crazy and wacky, the dress being framed their reinforces her star persona being important. Mise en scene denotes a variety of different shades/tones of pink. Conventionally, matching her star persona, her pink hair is the brightest shade of pink and is very saturated compared to the rest of the pastel pinks being seen within the album cover.

The typography is also a visual motif. It is the same in everything. The font is the same and the colours are the same. Pink and grey are two colours that match well with one another and bring out the other colour more making it appear more brighter and eye catching. The typography is simple which juxtaposes her star persona as she is wild and crazy. This also goes back to the idea of the male gaze as the typography being simple draws more attention to the image.






This is the spine and back cover of the digipak. Conventionally, the back cover lists in chronological order all the songs on the album. Usually they are listed on the left or the right as psychologists propose that naturally a humans eye will automatically look to the left or the right of something rather than the center. Regardless of where the track list is, albums always have a second image on the back cover too. On 'Pink Friday' the audience can see Nicki still dressed in her barbie outfit sitting down. Her right leg acts as an arrow pointing towards the track list giving it more attention. This idea is objectifying her.

The back cover is split into thirds horizontally. The bottom third is white which has been faded into the pink above it. This highlights the importance of her costume (the heels). It also reinforces the importance of the logos at the bottom of the cover. These are the logos of Nicki's label, production company and distribution company. All albums include this on their back cover rather than anywhere else.

The spine of the digipak is being shown on both the left and the right of the back cover. It displays a darker shade of pink background which matches the colour of Nicki's extremely high heels.  The typography matches the track list typography and the album front cover typography. There is no pink text this time as the white text stands out more over the pink background. 

Here are some other examples of album back covers:


NICKI MINAJ - MOMENT FOR LIFE

This music video clearly displays Nicki's star persona of a barbie. The frequent costume changes of extravagant barbie dresses are displayed in this music video. Also, her pink hair is in the video too.

The music video begins with a close up of a typical fairy tale book beginning with "Once upon a time there lived a king named Nicki." The fact that Nicki is referring to herself as a king connotes her as empowered. Nicki's star persona as Barbie is fiction. Fairy tales are fiction too. The use of the prop of a fairy tale book reinforces her fictional star persona.
This long shot displays Nicki acting as a fairy God mother. Fairy God mothers are also fictional characters. Nicki is dressed in an extravagant, puffy, dusky pink barbie dress connoting her star persona. The background is of an ostentatious bed room which reinforces the fairy tale idea.
 This mid shot shows Nicki Minaj wearing her signature pink wig. The background is in shallow focus making the focus be on her as her star persona.
This close up displays Nicki. The background is in shallow focus allowing the audience to identify with her. The pink wig and bright pink lipstick is a part of her visual motifs. Make up denotes her wearing long thick false eye lashes which also conforms to her star persona. This is also a convention of a pop music artist.


PERMISSION FROM CHIP


EXAMPLE - KICKSTARTS



This is a task in which me and three other friends participated in during class. We practiced the use of miming and i-stop. I feel that given the short amount of time. We managed to cover the 30 second task really well however if we did have more time, it could have been better. I hope to use some of these learned skills in my final coursework of a music video.

RECREATE MUSIC VIDEO


CHIPMUNK - OOPSY DAISY

Rapper Chipmunk (who has now changed his stage name to 'Chip') made this song whilst signed to Sony Music. It was the first song he released when signing a contract with the major music label. The video is a narrative/performance music video. The narrative shows Chip returning home from being on tour to a letter from his girlfriend breaking up with him. He then continues his life and sees things in which remind him of his ex-girlfriend and has flashbacks.

I have sorted out locations for this and below are photographs of the locations I will use:






 I have looked carefully at props and costume. I am trying my hardest to make everything match. I have spoken with the actors and we've discussed which costume they have which is most similar to those of which the actors in the music video wear. The only thing in which I will find difficult is the fire ring in the screen capture above. In the music video, it is an actual ring of fire in which rapper Chip is standing in. This scene was done in a professional studio. I am going to film this scene exactly as it is, however just with no ring of fire. I will then attempt to edit a ring of fire in. I have no experience with Adobe After Effects but I will attempt to learn to use it for this one scene.



In this, I am starting up the TV to play the music video for my actors so they have a grasp of how they need to act and what they need to do.

In this I am just about to begin filming. I am making sure my actor knows what she is doing and is comfortable in the framing.

Here I have begun filming. You can see my actor holding a prop of an envelope which is a key prop in the music video as it builds the narrative.

Rapper Chip has Believe & Achieve tattoos. One on each hand. These tattoos are significant in certain shots throughout the video, so before filming, I drew the tattoos onto my male actor.

This is one of my actors practicing her acting and me starting up the music so she knows what to sing along to.

This is my actor acting.

Me filming.

Here is me checking the camera angle is correct.

This is me directing my actor where to stand and how to act.

This is me filming my actor.

This is my actor acting.

Above are some photographs that were taken during the first day of filming (Monday 6th August 2012). The female actor had to leave early so not much got done. But I have edited the footage in which we managed to do. I have completed the first verse of editing. Unfortunately it was raining therefore no outdoor footage could be done. We have all planned to meet again this Sunday and film more. Hopefully, on Sunday I manage to film every shot I need and can focus on the editing only.


Sunday 12th August I managed to film some more. Unfortunately one of my actors was going on holiday after this date and therefore I couldn't film anything else. However, I am happy with the pace I managed to work at with my actors and really enjoyed recreating the music video. Below are some photographs from the day second day of filming.

This is me displaying the original video to my actors so that they are aware of how to perform.

This is me directing my actors in to position.

This is again directing my actors in to position so that they are ready and comfortable for their performance.

This is my actors watching me as I show them how to perform.

These are my actors warming up and getting ready to film.

This is a close up of one of my actors in which you can see the drawn on tattoo.

Here is the final piece. I only managed to get through to the second verse however there are some random shots from the second verse onwards. I am pleased with the final piece however I would have preferred to have more time with my actors to film it all and also more time to edit it properly. I did attempt to use after effects however not for this as the footage I needed never managed to get filmed.