Video for Theatre

We did some filming for Theatre Studies, so I took the clips, edited them and created a montage to a piece of music I sourced online (there are loads of cinematic sounding, full length sounds available to download!). It's for a play called 4:48 Pyschosis, so it's a bit mental and doesn't make a lot of sense. So I've tried to use editing like slow and fast motion, backwards, zooms and cuts to recreate the madness and loss of control needed for the play. Here is the video:

Lip Sync: 1st Attempt

I've been testing out a few things for the music video task. Here, I got Henry Hall to sing to the song "A Little Piece Of Heaven" by Avenged Sevenfold. It's a bit of a sick (bad version) song, but once you see the humourous side, it's pure genius. It takes a while for the actual lip sync to begin, as I wanted to keep the last line is to set the tone, then it waits for Henry to start singing. Here's the video:

Website Ideas

With both the music video and the film trailer, one of the subsiduary (sp?) tasks is to make a website homepage. I have made several websites for various things in the past that I will upload and consider aspects of them to use for my real one.

I'm yet to purchase web-design software for my new laptop (I have one for my old laptop but its fairly out-of-date) so I've been trialling a few ideas on a free online flash website generator. Unfortunately I can't link it to here, as I'd have to upload it as it is (I want to work on it some more first) so I'm going to post some screenshots of it. Annoyingly, the whole page wouldn't fit in the screen, as the generator isn't affected by the percentage you view the browser in, so it's mostly in sections:

This is the idea I first had when I thought of this; to have a main image slideshow with the links below which using flash, would replace the images into a seamless website. However, I'm not sure basic web packages will include such features, so unfortunately I may have to create a static website until I can afford better software.

Conventions of Music Videos

There are certain conventions typical of music videos. Not all follow conventions, but most do. Here's a list:

• MTV Cutting
• Editing matches beat
• Tropes and Memes - challenging
• Multiple locations
• Multiple situations
• Multiple costumes
• Choreography
• Purpose: promote song/band
• Purpose: Sell product (shifting units)
• Purpose: iTunes (£2 videos)
• Symbolism
• Montage, anchored by music
• Lip sync
• In concert - live footage (more naturalistic)
• Intertextuality
• Narrative/mini-movie approach - compressed narrative
• Interpretive abstract approach - surrealist
• Artificial performance (non-naturalistic) like musicals - pre-planned, spontaneous bursts of song
• Direct address by performer - breaking the fourth wall
• Act out story of the song
• Genre affects style

Pastiche - copy but not exact - style thieves

Parody - mocking copy

Homage - tribute

Film Update & Link

I am still making my film, its all on a new blog I've made http://www.beckytye-iona.blogspot.com.
Please have a look if you like :)

Music Videos: Tropes & Memes

The style of music videos differ greatly across music genres. A particularly clear example of this dichotomy is between rock and RnB. Here are 2 videos that show this perfectly:
My Chemical Romance - I Don't Love You:

Rock videos are very focused on the music. The music is at the heart of the band, wheras for some other genres, it is more about image and popularity. Although Gerard etc (MCR) all are dressed to impress and looking gooooood, you can tell through their emotion what really matters. Rock has progressed from being all about the music and not caring so much about the appearance and promotion; to still being 100% about the music, however now with added emphasis on appearance. Most rock bands still prefer their music to be favoured over themselves, which is not the case with all genres.

Nicki Manaj - Super Bass:

RnB videos are predominantly sexually orientated and of a more show-off nature. Rock videos tend to have more of a structure, and can be a full story. Call me a cynic but in my opinion the music - rather than being the heart of the performance - is more of an excuse to act sexually as the performers, for example in clubs etc. It seems to be more of a tool to attract, with the actual music being forgotten; and therefore much simpler and similar sounding. Following on from my theory, most contempory RnB videos don't really have a story, and focus a lot on dancing and movement. However Chase & Status' videos are quite deep and have real meaning behind them. This is a rare commodity in modern chart music. Here is their video "Time":

Chosen A2 Brief

There are 3 briefs for the A2 coursework:

• Promo Package: Music Video - Website Homepage, Cover of Digipack, Magazine Advert for Digipack
• Promo Package: Short Film - Film Magazine review page, Radio Trailer, Poster
• Promo Package: Film Trailer - Website Homepage, Film Magazine OFC, Film Poster

I had a lot of trouble choosing from the 3 main briefs, but I've eventually decided to make a music video. I've got a few ideas in mind for some actual videos, the main one being the song "Cancer" by My Chemical Romance. I'm going to try out a variety of video styles, which will probably all be to rock/indie songs. Before I do that I'm going to do some research into certain aspects of music videos, especially conventions.

I'm going to research into the other briefs as I may decide I like another more. I think I'll stick with the music videos, but I'm still going to look at the others (which will also help me with my actual film).