Exterior location scouting- Final music video

Exterior Location Shots Music Video by Slidely Slideshow

These are some photos that Elsie went and took near her house. We plan on using this area in our music video when the main female protagonist, played by Elsie, goes looking for the boy as well as in the chorus.

Character profiles- Final music video

Final music video- Props

Hi everybody, today my group and I thought we should make a post on some of the props that we are planning on using in our music video. Here they are:

First there's a globe, which we will be using in the chorus of the song, when the lyrics "ugly is the world were on" are used, demonstrating how we are matching the visuals to the lyrics (Goodwin's Theory). We also thought that this was a good globe to use as it is more 'vintage' looking than other ones we had seen therefore, we though that it would go better with the 'spooky' element to our music video, rather than a brightly coloured globe.

Secondly, this is the top that we are planning to use to be the clothing of the male character, after he has been killed and the female protagonist finds it in the woods. We chose a flannel shirt because it might make it easier for the audience to understand that it is supposed to be the shirt of the male character (It looks more masculine).

Hope you enjoyed, stay around for updates...

Mood board- Final music video

Hi everyone, so my group and I basically thought that it would be a good idea to create a 'mood board', by adding pictures of some of our most iconic ideas for our final music video. This helped us get more to grips with how we want the music video to look and how we want to portray the 'spooky' feeling to it along with the 'typical teenage girl sleepover' style at the beginning.

Here is a look at what we have created:

As you can see, we've added things such as the candles that we plan to show first in the music video and possibly them being blown out at the end of the music video. We've also shown a picture of a handwritten note which is something that is left by the girl. Another thing that we added was a picture of a torch (which adds to the 'spooky' feel with regards to the lighting) as well as an outdoor location where there are trees (where the girl finds the boys shirt on the floor).

Final music video- Storyboard

Hi everyone, so my group and I have been working n our storyboard for a while now to make sure that it's detailed and so as we know what we are doing when it comes to filming. Today however, we finally finished all of it... here's a look!

We decided to make our storyboard into a video, as it allows us to see how the music/sound and the visuals will work together better:

Lip Syncing Practice

Hi everyone, so the other day Elsie filmed some lip syncing at home and filmed Tammy and I at school. We did this for practice before it comes to filming for the real video, as we wanted to make sure that it looked convincing that the girls were having a conversation with each other. Obviously, in this video we are in different locations which changes the fact that we are talking to each other however, this won't be the case in our final music video.

We did this for the part of the song where we were planning on making it look like the girls are talking to each other at the sleepover. Here is how it turned out...

John Hartley 1994 Theory

Robert Hodge and Gunther Kress 1988 Theory

John Fiske 1987 Theory

Rick Altman Theory

Uses of Gratifications theory- Blumler and Katz

Audience consumption habits- Uses and Gratification from LauraKN

Personally, with regards to our own music video, we intend for our audience in a way to literally just enjoy it (in an entertainment way), or even for diversion, if they want to watch it to escape from everyday life. However, we don't really intend to give our audience any information that may be useful to them (surveillance).

Finding our audience- Mindmap

Here is a mind-map on audience we made as a group:

Costumes- Final music video

Today, me and my group decided that Elsie should play the lead role in the music video, as she is the one who we decided would be doing the 'story telling' within the verses of the song. 

When regards to the costumes during the sleepover part of the narrative, we decided that we are going to go for the more stereotypical approach and are going to be wearing a more informal and comfy dress code. Therefore, we came to the agreement that we will be wearing Onesies, as shown below:

However, we decided that for the serious narrative Elsie should wear something more formal, so she decided upon this black and white dress. We wanted to do this so as the audience are able to recognize that there is a contrast between the different narratives within our music video.

Thanks for reading...

The 'Male Gaze' theory- applied to textual analysis

A look at the music video that I talked about in this post:

The development of our band logo:

Today our group completed our band logo which I started by drawing a falcon in Paint (again we got some inspiration from this off of Google images and used a template to get the overall shape of the falcon). 

The reason that we chose to include a falcon as the logos main focus is because as you know, it is a key part of the band name that we chose: 'Firelight Falcons'.

When it came to the colouring that we put into the bird, I first added the natural colours of the bird, but then suggested that we should add oranges, yellows and reds within it, as it fits into the theme of fire (reflecting our bands name and the colour scheme that we have been going with so far.

Here is the complete drawing that I did:

We decided to make it like this as when I first tested out the look of it yesterday, we all said that we liked the look of it (as it looked like a drawn/sketched kind of image).

I then sent this to the rest of my group, and Elsie put her idea onto it, by making it look more like a logo with a red background. She then made this into a circle shape with a yellow outline. 

Here are Elsie's developments:

Finally, we then had to think of the typography that we wanted to put onto our band's logo. To help us get some ideas, Tammy went online and looked for some different fonts, and then sent us ideas of what we could use. Here were some of our options/ones that we were considering:

Choice 1

Choice 2

Choice 3

Choice 4

We all decided that we liked font choice 3 the best (as it fit with our 'drawing style' that we put into the logo, this font fit with this as it looked like writing). Therefore, as we were doing this in paint, Elsie tried to find a font most like what we wanted, and chose Kristen ITC in font size 36. However, then we had to decide on its placement.

Here are all the places we considered putting 'Firelight Falcons' onto our image:
Option 1:

Option 2:

Option 3:


We came to an agreement that we like the look of the placement when the band name was inside the main red circle at the bottom.
 Finally, here is our final logo:

Developing our merchandise 1

Hi everyone, so as you know, we changed our band name from our previous one 'Firelight Foxes', and our band name is now 'Firelight Falcons'. So, as we have changed our name, we decided that we needed to get going with some new merchandise ideas for our website. Today, we came up with 2 rough draft t-shirt designs that we will later develop and make more professional if we stick with that idea. Here are the 2 t-shirts (They both will be made available in black and white).

Click on the images to make them larger:

 

Today, i also did a quick sketch from some inspiration off of Google Images. We also decided that this might come in handy later on with more merch ideas etc.

Here is a brief look at the sketch I did:

Thanks for reading...

Ancillaries

Today in class, we were talking about what we think we need to show to demonstrate how we develop our ideas for our whole music video/website/band package. 

Here is what we came up with and why:

A change in our band name

Hi everyone, basically today we realised that someone out of our class has already used a fox as their band logo as well was within their band name. 

Therefore, as we want to be more original, Tammy, Elsie, and myself have decided to come up with a new name. However, we are still going to keep 'Firelight' within our name. For our new band name, we have decided to use the name 'Firelight Falcons', instead of 'Firelight Foxes' to make sure that we are different to the other group using a fox as their logo/name.

Therefore, we will also start to develop a logo, some merchandise, and other things for our new band name.

We have already found some inspiration for our logo, as well as some of our merchandise (we found these on Google images):

Here is a bit of inspiration for what sort of thing we might like to use for our band logo. We like how it is simple, yet effective, and also relates to our bands name.

Here are a couple images that we found which we think would look good on a bracelet, which can be something that we sell on our website. The shape of the falcon on these images will also be a good fit horizontally on a bracelet.

We will now be working on maybe sketching some things up from what has inspired us, and we'll also keep updating and developing our ideas.

Being the examiner

Finding a band name and thinking about merchandise

Hi, so today, Elsie, Tammy, and I have been thinking about a band name (as we have decided not to use McFly to make it more of our own) and we decided to settle on the name 'Lightfire Foxes'. We chose this as we believe that it represents the band's genre well and also believe that we could use an intertextual reference to a fox maybe in our final music video (making it more personal to the band that we are creating, as well as their style). As at points in our music video, settings will be more gloomy and dark, therefore, we decided that it would be a good idea to maybe include a fox here).

As I said, we have also been trying to gather some ideas for some merchandise that our band would sell (That we can add onto our website). We also tried to make these so as they would fit with our band's name and the overall concept. 

These are the colours which we have decided to sell the wristbands in:

We decided no to make the colour range to vast as then some colours may not be liked by some audience members. However, we decided we really wanted/needed to add the oranges and the red as it fits in with the idea of the fox.

Here's a look at 3 of the ideas we have so far for our wristbands. As these are rough drafts, they shall later be made to look more professional and more variations should be released (along with other pieces of merchandise).

Thanks for reading, we hope that you enjoyed some of our ideas so far...

Production company/Record Company logo

Hi everyone, so my group and I thought that it would be a good idea to make a production company/record label logo to help make up our overall package. 

We decided to go with the name 'LET Studios', firstly because it's the letters of our first names (Laura, Elsie, Tammy), and because we generally liked how the word 'Let' sounded in the title (it makes us sound productive). 

So here is what we came up with. To make this logo we used https://www.graphicsprings.com/start-your-logo

Hope you enjoy...

Band/Artist website analysis

Hi everyone, as we are later going to make a website for our own band, I have been looking at various artists and bands websites to see what they are like and how they make it good for the audience. This should help us later on when we are in the process of making our own.

I decided to look at Ed Sheeran's website, as he is an artist who is similar to our band (McFly). Because of this, it should help us with what style we want to go for later on in the process.

Making a band website- Why is it needed? What is needed on one?

Hi everyone, as later on me and my group will be making a band website as part of our final production, we will be looking at some ourselves and hopefully be getting some ideas. This post is basically about why it is important for a band or artist to have a website, and what is needed to make a good website. (This will help us when we come to making one ourselves).

Band website tips from LauraKN

Final Music video- Pitch

Hi all, as you know, me and my group have been working on editing our pitch for the ideas that we've had for our final music video and we've finally finished. Here it is, hope you enjoy!

Bandcamp case study

Vevo: Case study- Changing music industry

Update on music video pitch:

Hi everyone, 
Today me and my group (Me, Tammy, and Elsie) filmed the pitch for our music video ideas that we have at the moment. We are soon going working on editing it so as everyone can see what our ideas are so far (as obviously, some bits might change late on in the filming or editing of our video). 
We will make sure to keep you up to date and let you know when it is finished,
thanks for reading :)

Music video- Copyright permission

Hi people, basically we were asked to email the band (in our case Mcfly) or artist who made the song that we are choosing to use for our final music video, asking for consent to use their song. We used Tammy's email to send them a message, here is what we sent:

Music video pitch

Hi everyone, so basically this is what me, Tammy, and Elsie have come up with so far with regards to ideas for our final music video. We will later be filming the actual pitch and be posting it at a later date.

Music video song choice

Hi everyone, basically me, Tammy, and Elsie have decided what song we want to do for our final music video that we will be making later on.

We chose the song 'Transylvania' by Mcfly, which was released in 2006

We decided that we want to do this song because we liked the spooky, Halloween kind of feel that was in it and thought that it would just be a really fun song to play with.

Although we have already decided that we want to add some spookiness to our own video (so as what is seen on the screen matches the sounds), we are still going to try our best to make it as different from the actual music video as possible. For example, the official video for this song is not serious and is kind of the band dressing up and having a laugh. However, we decided that we wanted our own version to be a bit more serious, as well as have a story line that matches with the lyrics and what we think of when we hear the song.

Here's a look at the official video for the song:

We will soon be uploading our pitch for our music video, and will later be filming it.

Music video analysis- Out of the black

Andrew Goodwin's Theory

In a book that Goodwin wrote, named 'Dancing in the distraction factory', Goodwin points out that there are certain characteristics and features that can be picked out in music videos. These 6 key features are:

Stuart Hall: Reception Theory- applied to music videos

Banned music videos

Hi everyone, this is a follow-up post of my last post 'Music video regulation'. Basically, this is a post where I talk about four different music videos that have been banned and why they were, as well as some of my opinions on how music videos have changed over time with regards to what is and isn't allowed to be shown in them.

The information about the first three music videos that I talked about in this post are from: http://www.clipd.com/tv/5751/12-music-videos-so-extreme-they-were-banned/

The information about the last music video that I talked about was from the website: http://www.therichest.com/expensive-lifestyle/entertainment/10-music-videos-banned-for-excessive-sex-and-violence/

This infographic was created using www.easel.ly

Hope you enjoy... 

Music videos- regulation

Music video regulation from LauraKN

The star theory applied to some artists

Richard Dyers- Star theory

Hi everyone, today I'm going to be talking about Richard Dyers star theory. Richard Dyers is someone who has written about the roles of stars in film, TV, and music whilst also saying that 'stars' all have common key features. The theory that Richard came up with can be split into 3 area's, these are:

1. The star as a construction
2. The star as a commodity
3. The star as an ideology

Construction: Richard states that 'stars' are constructed and that they are not really real people. He says that they are constructed through things such as music videos, magazines, and advertising etc. He believes that the actual person and the star are 2 completely different things. For example, some people think that what Miley Cyrus does now is just an act and that it is just to make her more famous (e.g. wearing not much clothing and dancing more controversially than she would have before).

Commodity: He believes that stars are produced to basically create money (for example by selling perfume, t-shirts and other pieces of merchandise). He also states that record labels make their 'stars' have some similar characteristics so there will be trends that come about, therefore making the record label more money. (an example of this are boy bands such as One Direction and The Wanted who are quite similar with the way they act and perform.

Ideology: He states that stars will represent certain social groups/views so will therefore create certain ideologies. For example, he says that fans of the star will usually want to copy their style and be more like them.

He says that stars have a certain 'star quality'

Lady gaga for example is someone who a lot of people would refer to as a star, or a pop star. She basically is thought to have the 'full package which makes up a star. For example she wears different outfits, she sings, she can act and she is generally just a great performer.
Some common values of music stars include being youthful, rebellious, sexual magnetism, originality, being creative and talented, sometimes aggression, drugs, sex, and bad behaviour, and finally success against all of the odds...

However, someone like Alex Turner from the Arctic Monkeys would be someone to e less likely looked at as a 'star'. This is because he seems to be more of a reserved person and doesn't perform and act in a way in which some other artists considered 'stars' do.

The term 'star' refers to a semi-mythological set of meaning constructed around music performers in order to sell the performer to a large and loyal audience.

There are 2 Paradox's of a star, these are:

Paradox 1- The star must be simultaneously ordinary and extraordinary for the consumer (for example, ordinary in a way in which they can relate to the star, but extraordinary so that the audience sees something different in them which makes them a 'star'.

Paradox 2- The star must be simultaneously present and absent for the consumer (meaning that the star is present in the fans lives such as on social media platforms, but absent as they are still out of reach and people still want to know more about them).

The star image:

The 'star image' makes the audience constantly strive to 'complete' or 'make sense' of the image this is achieved by the continued consumption of the star. This means that fans of the star will go away and be determined to continue consuming the star, this is in order to carry on attempting to complete their image.

The star image can be used to position the consumer in relation to the dominant social values, which is called 'hegemony'.

My view on democracy:

Democracy is a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives. Everyone has different views on democracy and how it is effected by the media, the theorist Andrew Keen believes that ‘We Media’ is bad and has previously described people who pay attention to it to be like “monkeys, dancing to the world of the internet”. Personally, I disagree to the most extent with this as I believe that ‘We Media’ opens new windows for people to be able to share what the main news companies can usually miss. By this I mean that with the technology people have now (mobile phones cameras), they can usually capture events in real time, before big news companies get to the scene. An example of this is the 9/11 attacks as witnesses could capture the event on phones/cameras which allowed people to know what was happening, and also gave different perspectives of the event.  The theorist John Stewart Mill believes that people should have the right to express themselves (being self-regarding) but  limits to freedom of speech should be there when it comes ‘other-regarding’ (being hateful/abusive). I agree with this so therefore lean more towards the left wing with my thoughts on democracy as I think that there has to be some power there to keep order.

Rihanna- 'Bitch betta have my money'

Today in lesson we got given a sheet which had an article on it about Rihanna's music video to 'Bitch betta have my money'. The article discussed what the music video included such as Rihanna kidnapping someone's an accountant's wife who stole her money, then proceeds to "stuff her into a trunk, strips her half naked, hangs her upside down, gets her drunk, half drowns her and then stabs the accountant. The article then carries on talking about the controversy of the music video by saying that Rihanna "finally has a relaxing smoke in a bath while naked and covered in blood. It states how the internet "unpacked the sexual and racial politics of the video" and the fact that they ignored that the video was what like pop stars will do at some point in their careers. In my opinion, a lot of pop stars do sometimes come out with some quite 'controversial' videos in their career however, I think that Rihanna's video for 'BBHMM' would easily shock any viewer watching due to the extent of the 'explicit' content within the narrative of the music video. An example of another artist's music video that was considered to be 'controversial' at the time of it's release is Miley Cyrus' 'Wrecking ball' which was released in 2013 as part of her album 'Bangers and mash'. This music video contains scenes of Miley swinging about on a wrecking ball whilst only wearing boots, however, it doesn't 'reveal' anything or I believe show anything as 'controversial' as Rihanna's music video for BBHMM.

Here are some screen grabs that portray this music video to be 'controversial' (obviously I can't add a lot of things because they're 'too explicit'):

The article then goes on to talk about viewers expectations and how most music videos will 'ponder' to them, the characteristics being "glamour, success, and fun" which is a completely different case with this music video. It also states how an "event video is designed to project power and money but usually ends up revealing an artists fatal flaw before it swallows them". It states that artists such as Guns N roses, Jackson and Oasis subconsciously telling the audience 'have lost the plot. Please send help', suggesting they are basically saying this if they are "deluded, demented, drug-addicted or just a bit dim'. In my opinion, this is a bit exaggerated and artists that usually use drugs in their music videos are talking about money or just having fun. However, I think that some artists do do it to get more attention and to make people think that they are in a way pretty 'bad-ass'. For example, 'feelin myself' by William featuring other artists talks about drugs and money at the same time, suggesting they are just showing the audience how rich they are and basically that they can do what they want to do. Relating with this, the article then states that "Rihanna wants to be seen as a no-f**k-giving badass but comes off as somewhat desperate", which i think can sometimes apply (it sometimes feels like artists who do this just want attention however, not always).

The article goes on to talk about the artist Taylor Swift, saying that she "wants to cement her status as an A-list celebrity and every famous woman's dream BFF" with reference to her music video for her song 'Bad Blood'. In my opinion, I think that this could definitely be the case as I don't see why else she would have had all of her 'famous friends' involved in a video where she wants to try and put out a message.


The article also states that in 2013, the Billboard hot 100 added YouTube and Vevo news to it's calculations meaning that it makes the songs/music videos go up in the charts the more they are viewed on these platforms. From reading the article I therefore learnt that although the music video for Rihanna's BBHMM was not exactly viewed a lot when there was no video to show for it, however 'Bad blood' was because of the music video contents. The article here states that songs only get listened to and do well in the charts due to their music video views instead of how good the song really is. Quoting the article, It says that "Bad blood, probably the worst song on parent LP 1989, only topped the Billboard charts for a week because of the video views". "A day before Rihanna launched her video, Kendrick Lamar released his clip for 'Alright' (which gives ambitious mini-movies a good name)". The article states that this was "more original, beautiful, moving and thought-provoking than Rihanna's, with a better song boot" however, this received approximately only a quarter of the views and a fraction of the fuss surrounding it. In my opinion, I think that songs will mainly do better and become more successful when there is a music video to it that is either controversial or 'stands out from the crowd' as something that people will look at and remember.

Here's a look at the article that we were given:

As a short conclusion, I really think that this article really points out the importance of music videos in today's generation and about how they can easily make the songs more popular, even if the song itself isn't particularly that good. This therefore also shows the importance of how artists and bands decide to portray themselves in their music videos as how they want people to see them I think is a big part of the music industry (meaning it can effect the success of their songs and them as people).