A2 Media Studies

To ensure when Grace and I film our music video, it goes well without any injuries or accidents we decided to create a risk assessment. By doing this we are now prepared for any risks that may come and can effectively deal with. 

Grace and I have decided on this location as it is not only a clear open space, where our actor/performer has a lot of space to dance and move, but also the glass almost creates a mirror effect when in the dark, which creates quite a sinister effect like in the original 'What Now'. Other than this setting we will also use a large green screen at school, where we can incorporate ideas that we used in our preliminary task- 'four, five seconds', which included a large number of close up and mid shots as well as groovy editing techniques. 

Today Grace and I discovered how to use a split screen which is used in many music videos including Beyonce's - Countdown which we admire. We thought that because we wanted to replicate this editing technique in our music video, we should try and do it before we film and get to the editing stage so that we know what we are doing.  We first had to film the shot against a green screen and then upload it to Final Cut. We then applied the 'keyer' effect which allowed us to add a coloured background on top of the green screen.  Once we had applied the background to our green screen, we had to 'transform' our clip, which  effectively meant we were cropping the clip and then placing it on a area on the screen of our choice .   We then had to repeat this step, twice with different background colours applied to our green screen and positioning the cropped clips in different angles and export this in .mp4 format. This then allowed us to reinsert i...

Grace and I have decided to do a 'recce' and survey our location on the 12th November. On this day we will be photographing the surroundings, the mirrors and glass to see if you can see the cameras reflection and what angles we will need to use. We have decided on a rough filming date of Thursday 23rd November and Sunday 26th November as we would like to film in the evening as it will be dark outside. We have also made some vague decisions on what we would like our performer - Isadora to wear. Ideally for the dance scenes we would like her to be dressed in a black leotard with black tights and nude ballet pumps and for the scenes without any dancing, preferably a dress i.e. a pastel coloured maxi dress.

Grace and I have watched a youtube tutorial on speed ramping. Speed ramping includes speeding up and slowing down a video consecutively to make the filming effective. I would definately like to use this effect where possible in our music video as I think it fits in with the darkness of our song.

Grace and I were thinking about colour-grading some of our shots in our music video to make them more greyscale, therefore I have watched a youtube video, teaching us how to colour grade our shots, which we can go away and practice, to make sure it is perfect when we come to edit our music video.

Over the past week, Grace and I have created a storyboard for our music video. We decided to do this so that we have a clear vision of what we need to be filming and to give us ideas for our location. Now we have planned our shots for our music video, we will begin to plan the location, performers, costumes & props. (excuse the awful drawings)

To make Grace's and I music video more interesting and groovy, we have been looking at effects to put over out shots. We found this particular edit, which adds a light glare to the shot. This is an edit we would really like to use- it fits perfectly with a number of our shots but also the aesthetic's we are aiming to create. 

Another effect which we found was called the 'twitch effect'. Although this effect may commonly be used in a horror or thriller films, we think it would work well in our music video. The lyrics in the music video 'What now' are quite sinister and dramatic at times, so we think the glitch/ twitch effect would amplify the lyrics.

Recently I have watched multiple music videos to give me inspiration for my own music video. There are particular shots and mise en scene I would like to try and replicate. From Rihanna's music video 'What Now',  there are multiple overlaying shots which I found particularly effective and would therefore like to use. There are also parts of the mise en scene I liked. This included the simple and colours of the costume Rihanna wears. They are not bright or bold however reflect the tone of the song. There are many aspects of Beyonce's music video 'Halo' that I really liked. This included the colour grading of the video which effectively reflected the lyrics and tone of the song.  Another aspect I liked was the the water scene. When looking at Beyonce's music videos she nearly always incorporates a scene in water and I especially found this effective. In the scene she is wearing a white dress which is made use of with the slow motion.  I espec...

We began looking at student videos, to get ideas on opening shots for our music video. We found this student video on 'Blow your mind' and really like a lot of aspects of it. We really like the opening shot in this video, as it established the setting and location of the video. Another aspect we particularly liked was the idea of using paint. She used a different coloured paint according to the changing colour on the green screen, which we found very effective and would therefore like to do something similar.   Grace and I also really liked the idea of using stop motion to create images going round the performers body or in the background. 

After looking at multiple music videos on Rihanna, both Lauren and I became curious about Rihanna's views on women's body and image. We found this short video on youtube where she discusses how she feels about her own body.

Our Performer: We began to research costumes and outfits for our performers to wear in our music video. surprisingly we found this more difficult than expected as most performes were dressed provocatively. especially Rihanna and Beyonce who we have taken most of our inspiration from. When we come to filming our own music video, we have decided our performer will be dressed in fashionable, attractive clothing, but in a way that does not objectify or sexualise her. However, we did find a few outfits that we would like to recreate in our own video. After watching the music videos (above) we have found several ideas for costumes that we would like to use in our video: For the dancing aspect our music video we would like our performer to be dressed in a leotard, similarly to Beyonce, however we would prefer it to be white.  For our water scene. we would like our performer to be dressed in a 'flowy' dress like Beyonce was as it creates a more dramatic effect in slow-m...

Typically, music artists like to use magazine adverts to promote their new music album or their tour. As well as creating a website, Lauren and I would like to create a magazine advert for our performers album and decided to do some research to help us. Beyonces magazine advert is of course, visually attractive and appealing however as a result of the dull colours., the advert fails to grab the audiences attention. Although this is not a magazine advert but for a tour, Rita Ora's advert is definitely one of our favourites. This is due to the bold, bright colours and sizing of the font which immediately grabbed our attention. Rita Ora is the focal point, placed in the middle of the advert which makes sure that it is known it is her tour. The MTV logo is placed at the top of the screen so that the target audience knows who her record label and can easily identify her genre of music.  Taylor Swifts album advert was not particularly eye-catching. Although it uses t...

Today, Grace and I practiced a shot used in Rihanna's video 'What now'. We attempted to replicate the overlaying shots which she uses a lot in her video. We didn't overlap the images as many times, however we created a similar effect, which we really liked. However when we film this again we will make sure the dancer is placed in different positions within the frame. https://www.youtube.com/embed/1RlY--0PR6k

For our preliminary task of 'Four, Five Seconds' we needed to create a silhouette to try and replicate the actual video. Firstly, we inserted our clip, we then added the 'keyer' from the effects list on Final Cut and applied it to our clip and added the 'matte view'. We then inverted the colours to make it black and white. We watched the youtube video below to help our understanding of creating a silhouette.  adding the 'matte view':  inverting the colours: Finished product:

As part of my research and planning, I am going to look into the history of music videos. I will look at 5 artists music videos and compare their most recent and successful music videos with thier eldest ones. Whilst doing this I will evaluate how the music videos have developed and changed but also, whether there are key features and motifs which are still used in old and new music videos. Rihanna- Unfaithful 2006 and Wild thoughts 2017 Immediately, you can see a clear change in Rihanna's music videos and how they have developed in the past 11 years. The location is probably the most dramatic initial change which shapes your view on the rest of the video. 'Unfaithful' begins with a much longer introduction setting the scene for the narrative, which is to take place in what looks like a dressing room where she remembers flashbacks of a boyfriend. This scene is also much more simple, and although it has changing locations it presents a much more realistic lifest...

1. Beyonce - Countdown The first shot in our 9-frame analysis of Beyoncé’s’ Countdown is a close up shot of Beyoncé singing. We would like to incorporate many close-up shots into our music video as it gives a personal and emotional element and as our song choice is emotional and powerful – close up shots would be perfect. The second shot is a mid-shot featuring a green screen with black and white stripes. In our music video, we will be using a green screen to add various backgrounds to our music video. A mid shot will be very useful in our video as our performers will be dancing and singing and a mid-shot will be able to show our performer fully. The third shot in our 9-frame analysis is a split screen with Beyoncé singing / dancing in every section. This shot is very busy and Grace and I wanted to do something similar around the chorus of our music video when the song is more upbeat rather than an emotional part. The fourth shot is again, another collage. This shot ...