'I bleed' - Johnny Hants

'I bleed' - Johnny Hants

Saturday, 12 December 2009

Theoretical Evidence



We decided to base our music video on a story-based narrative of a dog that has run away from the owner. We decided to show both sides of the story and this meant that in editing we had to include roughly the same ammount of attention on both the dog running away and the owner looking for the dog.


To make the story more interpretable for the viewer, we decided to use Ferdinand de Saussure's concept of 'Course on General Linguistics' (1916). In this, Saussure describes the science of signs as semiology, that is, the deconstruction of the significance of images and words, the meanings of images and thus the associates the audience brings to the symbol. Thus, we decided to use this idea with a lost dog sign which would mean that the audience were away of the narrative.

As well as this, we also wanted to use Rolan Barthes focus on 'Mythologies' (1973) who further discussed the semiology of images. Like Saussure, he breaks down the myth as a type of speech into three components:

1. The signigifier- the associations
2. The Signified- the meaning behind the associations
3. The sign- the Signifier and the Signified are interwoven in the shape you see.


Early Soviet Cinema

Feature-length agitation films in 1918-21 were important in the development of the film industry. Innovation in Russian filmmaking was expressed particularly in the work of Eisenstein. The "Battleship Potemkin" was noteworthy for its innovative montage and metaphorical quality of its film language


Monday, 30 November 2009

Post Filming

After filming we thought we had achieved our aim of mixing comedy and thriller and we thought this accomidated our aims. Thus, our music video is Pastice as well as Parody.


This was the costume that we used in our music video. We thought it was similar to that of 'Deadmau5' who are a band who use a mouse costume as their symbol in the song; "Ghosts and stuff". In that video, a human is placed in a ghost costume playing pranks and running around town aimlessly, which could change the mood but keep it serious and this was something which we wanted to renact.

How to analyse a music video...

Andrew Goodwin writing in ‘Dancing in the Distraction Factory’ (Routledge 1992)




Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics (e.g. stage performance in metal video, dance routine for boy/girl band).

There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals (either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting).

There is a relationship between music and visuals (either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting).

The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work (a visual style).

There is frequently reference to notion of looking (screens within screens, telescopes, etc) and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body.

There is often intertextual reference (to films, tv programmes, other music videos etc).


Editing Process

Once we had succesfully filmed, we had to enter the editing process.




Adobe Premiere is a video editing software package suitable for both amateur enthusiasts and professionals. It can be purchased and used alone, or alongside other applications such as Adobe Photoshop & After Effects. Premiere has been around for a long time and enjoys a very stable user base. It is a solid, professional-level application which will be more than adequate for most editing situations

Logging and Capturing the Video


Before being able to start the editing you must first batch capture the video footage, to do this you first need to place the mini-DV tape in the camera and connect it up to the camera before turning on premiere pro. There are a few settings which you need to change before starting the capturing for instance the files locations, the reason for doing this is the fact that you want all your files to be appropriately placed.To begin playing your tape, you can use the Play, Stop, Pause, Fast Forward and Rewind buttons below the Viewer window.


To capture the footage it is a simple process of setting in and outputs on the tape, which is done by is to first go through your tape and log the clips you want to capture by creating in and out points.Then when you're done selecting all the clips you want, you can do a Batch capture to capture them all at once. On the keyboard there are a selcetion of shortcuts to help create the project easier. Such as the i key which will create an in point to begin logging the clip,when the clip has reached the point where you want to stop capturing it, on your keyboard click on the o key, which will create an out point to stop logging the clip.Then click on the button for Log In/Out and then create a name for the file. Once this is completed throughout the video click the bacth capture record button and all the clips will be put in order and downloaded from the tape to the computer.






Transitions


A transition is the way one shot changes to the next. By default, if two clips are placed next to each other in the timeline, the transition is a cut.To make more interesting transitions such as dissolves, wipes and effects, use the transitions available in the Effects window.








Thankfully, due to the advanced equipement at school, we were able to use the technology to use things such as the 'razor' tool that would enable us to cut certain shots, replicate them and undoubtedly improve our music video.



The image to the left is how we utilised the cross dissolve effect, the effect of overlapping two images at once. What we had done was overlap a long shot with a close-up but at different angles. This helps to give the viewer a good idea of what is going, what we found good about the effect was that it was not only a second long whereas it last about three seconds so giving the viewer enough time to consume the images placed on the screenWith the programme you can also make straight cuts, for that fast and sharp effect which we were looking for, for instance creating cuts between the music. The best way for fast cuts was to pause as the beat was about to change and use the razor tool to chop the clip in two too make that fast cut.


Whilst editing we decided to experiment on certain shots, it was simple to experiment as every effect which was placed onto a clip can easily be removed. The reason for experimenting was that we wanted too see a lot of different effects and see which ones suited our video best. Some of the effects that we played around with were ghosting, Motion blur which creates action lines of image, leaving a blurry image which changes from brightness and then contrasts and we played around with the Speed and duration of the video clip which increases as well as decreases the speed of the shot.







































































CD Cover- Practice

As part of our Media Studies course, we have to make a CD cover. To do this, we were helped by specified teachers who helped us through the proccess. We practiced using 'Corel Draw 11' which would enable us to make the CD cover.

Our teacher gave us examples and wanted us to get used to the system. We looked at Snow Patrol's 'Eyes Open' and our teacher gave us three separate images and asked us to re-create the image below.


Thursday, 26 November 2009

Change in Song

Due to the changing in idea, resulting from problems with the weather, we decided to change our song. Our original song had no lyrics and as a group we felt it was a bit boring.

As a group, we decided to opt out of the 'Final Encounter' song. So, we chose to go out there and search for a music song that would suit our music video.

I decided to email a couple of artists and found a perfect song for our media music video. I contacted the man, called Jonny Langsdale, and he was very optimistic about us using his music and gave us full permission to use his songs. Thus, we were able to change songs successfully.

Changes in Idea

Due to the bad weather experienced and a few little problems that occurred, we were forced to simplify our idea. Instead of the story-based narrative of our main character recalling his life. As a result of this, we changed our idea. We still kept the idea of having a story based narrative, but this time we made the storyline so that their was a character in a dog outfit who escaping from his owner.

We thought the use of the dog outfit meant that it was add a different aspect to our music video and add uniqueness. As well as this, we believed that the use of the costume could mean that we had potential to use the dog on our CD covers and mean that it could be a recognized symbol for our band.

Problems With Filming

We planned to film on Sunday the 15th, however, due to bad weather we were unable to meet this target. As a result, we re-organised ourselves and filmed on Sunday 22nd.

Unfortunately, we were hit with yet more bad luck as when we turned out to the editing suite, we found out that there had been a problem with the cameras and we were unable to batch-capture half the footage we have filmed.

This proved not be a problem for us and our determination as well as motivation equated to us filming yet again on Monday the 23rd. Although the sun set early, resulting in it being dark, we were still able to film the essential shots needed.

Wednesday, 4 November 2009

Planning To Film - Pre-filming story board


























Above was our pre-filming storyboard. Inevitably, we did not stick to everything. However, we had this with us on the day of filming and tried to stick to the main ideas.
We planned to film on the 1st of November but due to the weather the filming had to be postponed. Luckily enough we were able to meet the following week and film on the 8th. As of above, we allocated each other different roles and this helped us to prepare for our filming. We believed that organisation was essential and thus, we took every precaution to make sure we were equipped and ready to film.



































Pre-Filming Story board
























Roles Chart


Other Inspirations

We had to look into our genre of music and after research we found out that a very popular and influential band were Kraftwerk. they are from Germany and the group's simplified lyrics are at times sung through a vocoder or generated by computer-speech software. Their songs are chiefly in a mix of German and English, with some French and other languages. Several of their albums are available as separate English and German language editions, whereas others intentionally present a mix of languages.
In the early to late 1970s and the early 1980s, Kraftwerk's distinctive sound was revolutionary for its time, and it has had a lasting impact across many genres of modern
popular music.
'Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn. They teach you there’s a boundary line to music. But, man, there’s no boundary line to art.'

Author: Charlie Parker

Tuesday, 3 November 2009

Inspiration




We decided to look into this video and felt that the video was very entertaining and engaging. We believed that this was something we wished to replicate and the use of the ghost was especially entertaining.
Through the concept of synaesthesia (a model developed by V.N Volosinov in 'Marxism and the Philosophy of Language' 1926/86) we were able to come up with our idea and thought that this idea could enable us to progress.

Our Artist


We have now found an artist which we are happy with and the style of music. The style of music is "Electronic" which works well with our fast paced action, gritty music video. We got our artist through a connection to a friend who showed us Rickwaldo's music and we thought that his music was very good and suitable to our intended video. He had told us about an artist which he thought we would work well with our idea. The artists name is "Rickwaldo" who is based in South East London. Hes a producer as well as a DJ. . Some of his influences such as artists like Daft Punk, Crookers, Stevie Wonder, Fatback Band, Sly and the Family Stone, MSTRKRFT, Herve, Hoxton Whores, Eric Prydz, Chris Lake, Sebatien leger and many more. He is currentyly unsigned at the moment and is still trying to get his music arcross to the public by doing and organising club nights.

Tuesday, 13 October 2009

Theoretical Evidence

As mentioned earlier, we wanted our piece to have a modern, contemporary feel to it which addressed issues within today’s society. We had to look into social groups and discover whether it was possible to give a set group of people a label based on collective characteristics or traits. Furthermore, we believed that our music video could be from what Dan Gillmor refers to as looking specifically at ‘citizen journalism’ and we, as ordinary people are participating in politics and news by producing our own accounts of real events and commenting ‘immediately (and loudly) on ‘official’ journalism’.

Monday, 5 October 2009

Further Developments

To start of with, we had to look into genres and think about which genre we would like to use for our music video. From the offset, we had decided that we wanted a unique genre which was different and less known to the public. As a group, we also agreed that the less lyrics the better. In terms of narrative structure, we wanted ours to be disjuncture. We believed that the visuals should be capturing and engage the audience and through this we wanted to use a number of symbolic meanings, for example the use of blood inferring pain.

We also wanted to bring in a modern, political feature. Thus, as a group we had decided that either gun crime or knife crime should be addressed. We thought that knife crime was a key issue in today’s society and thus chose to address this issue in our music video.

Our Genre: Electro Music

From its origins, the definition of the electro sound is the use of drum machines as the rhythmic base of a track; however as the style has evolved, and with the advent of computer usage in electronic music, the use of drum machines has become less and less practical and widespread. Electro drum patterns tend to be electronic emulations of breakbeats, with kick drums, and usually a snare or clap accenting the downbeat. The difference between electro drumbeats and breakbeats (or breaks) is that electro tends to be more mechanical, while breakbeats tend to have more of a human-like feel, like that of a live drummer. The definition however is somewhat ambiguous in nature due to the various use of the term.

(Information provided by www.wikipedia.com)

Thursday, 1 October 2009


1. What age group do you fit into?

The results from this showed that the majority of people who filled out the questionnaire were aged 13-14.The second largest age group was 17-18.

2. What genre of music do you listen to?

This conveys that a small majority of the people who completed the questionnaire prefer ‘Dance’ genre. The second largest preferable genre was R&B.

3. What do you like to see in a music video?

The results from this showed that the slight majority like seeing women in music videos. As well as this, it also shows that dancing is liked by many.

4. Do you like a political message to be addressed in a music video?

The results from this conveyed that the vast majority of people who completed the questionnaire do not like a political message to be addressed in a music video.

5. Do you think global issues should be addressed in a music video?

The results from this showed that the vast majority of people think global issues should be addressed in a music video.

6. Does the cover of the CD affect your choice of purchase?

This shows that there is a slight majority of people who feel that the cover of the CD does affect your choice of purhase.

7. Do you like animation in the music video?

This shows that there is a slight majority of people who prefer animation in a music video.





Questionnaire and Analysis

1. What age group do you fit into?

2. What genre of music do you listen to?

3. What do you like to see in a music video?

4. Do you like a political message to be addressed in a music video?

5. Do you think global issues should be addressed in a music video?

6. Does the cover of the CD affect your choice of purchase?

7. Do you like animation in the music video?

Tuesday, 29 September 2009

Media Production

We wanted to create a story-based narrative that was both interesting and kept the audience interested. Whilst discussing ideas we came up with an idea of recreating 2pac’s ‘ghetto gospel’. We wanted to bring in the storyline of a man going back on his life and transform this into a more modern outlook whilst making sure that the audience could identify with the narrative. As a group, we believed that we should keep to the British genre and perhaps keep it in black and white.










For inspiration we also looked at Just Jack’s ‘The Day I Died’ which also told the story of the main character going back on his life through a narrative based storyline. From this we saw that our idea could be accomplished and their direct stance was something that we were keen to recreate. As well as this, we liked the irony used in this video with the boy playing with the ambulance at the begining as well as the man reading the book; 'The Day I Died'. This has direct irony and this irony is something that I would like to establish in the production.







Tuesday, 22 September 2009

5262- Oliver Sonenfield- A2 Media Studies Blog


Today I set up my blog to enable me to record and evaluate the progress of my work.