Planning: Editing Techniques

1. Jump Cuts
 We will be using jump cuts throughout the video and a lot of the jumps will be hitting the beat of the music, this is simply used for effect. The shots will jump from character to character especially in the opening and the ending of the video. This will be used to introduce the different characters in the beginning and to show their different narratives at the end. This will help the audience to keep track of each storyline and have a better understanding of the video.

2. Slow paced editing
We will be using slow paced editing when the music is moving at a slower pace so the editing can match the pace of the music. For example in the first verse the artist is singing calmly and slowing so the editing will be calm as it makes more sense to the video and doesn't confuse the audience.

3.Rewind
We will be using rewind on our female star whilst she is preforming. For example there will be parts where she may stroke her hair behind her ear and the editing might rewind it. This is to create an abstract effect keeping the audience excited and engaged.

4. Fast paced editing
This will be used when the pace of the music speeds up in order for the editing to match the music. This is mostly when the Kendrick starts to rap and the couple start to become violent. This is to excite the audience and make the situation look more dramatic.

Planning: cinematography (shotlist)

Planning: cinematography (shotlist)

Planning: Final idea

Artist: SZA ft Kendrick Lamar
Song Title: Babylon
Genre: Hip Hop/ Soul

I have chosen the artist SZA as she is a diverse artist. We chose the version of the song that features Kendrick Lamar as he is quite a mainstream artist, This allows us to appeal to both a mainstream audience and a more diverse audience.
We have chosen this song in particular as it tackles themes such as suicide, trusting people and feeling alone. These are themes our target audience being teenage girls and young women can relate to.
We have chosen this genre as it falls between the hip hop and soul genre. This makes it appeal to more than one group of people.

Video Content:
Our video will contain  3 different scenarios. One of them showing a young couple having relationship problems. One showing a girl at prom being bullied.  And one showing a teenager who is a young carer.
We have been inspired by Destiny's Child' video for the song "Emotions"  where they tell 3 different narratives thought using different editing techniques such as split screens.

Video Structure:
We have decided to make our narrative and performance based as we want to tell a story as well as showcase star image.

Planning: Storyboard

 

Planning: Lighting and Colour

As a group we have decided on two videos to match our lighting and two videos to match our colour.


Lighting = Jhene Aiko

We will be using lighting similar to this on our star. She will be in a dark room with a torch light above her creating shadows.


Lighting =

For our collage girl we will be filming her walking on the street at night. We will be using lighting from street lamps and natural lighting.


Colour = We found love

 

For our scenes with our couple we will be using lighting that you would find in a house at night such as lamps, tv lighting ect.

  

 

Colour =   Rihanna ft Justin Timerlake - Rehab

 

 

Some of our shots will freeze and the colour will turn to black and white, for example in Kendrick Lamars verse when the couple are fighting.

Planning: Production roles

Camera Operator: Jordan
We chose Jordan to be camera operator as he had this role last year plus experience prior to that and he is very confident in operating the camera.

 Producer: Lashane
We have chosen Lashane for the role as he had this role last year and kept us organised and did a good job of making sure we were always on task.

Director: Chardelle
I am going to take on the role of director again this year as I developed my leadership skills and I am able to carry the team and make sure all the best ideas will be used effectively.

Lighting Manager: Jordan
Jordan was chosen as lighting manager this time as both me and lashane are acting in our production and Jordan will be controlling the camera, so it would be more convenient for Jordan to be the lighting manager. Plus he does have relevant skills and experience dealing with lighting in productions.

Location Manager: Lashane
Lashane will be the location manager as the locations will be at his house or in the area that he lives in so he has the most knowledge of the locations we will be using.

Costume, Hair and Make up: Chardelle
I will be taking on this role as I have the most knowledge and experience with costume, hair and make up so I would be most suitable.

Storyboarding: Chardelle
I will also be taking on the role as story boarder since I am the director it is most appropriate for me to be in charge of the storyboard and make sure we follow it.

Editor: Jordan
Jordan will be the editor as he has the most skills and experience in editing out of the group and he did a good job last year so we think its best for him to take on this role again.

Photographer: Lashane
Lashane will be the photographer is he has the most experience in photography and would be the most comfortable fulfilling the role.

Print Designer: Lashane
Lashane will be the print designer as he is also the photographer so it makes him most appropriate as he has a clearer vision on how best it would look.


We all have equal amounts on roles and we all have 2 big roles each to make sure we have equal amounts of work loads and that everyone is focusing on different roles so everything is in place and runs smoothly.

Planning: Characters

Character 1:

Name: College Girl
Age: 17
Ethnicity: White
Gender Stereotype of role: Vulnerable, innocent,
Costume: Scarf, white jumper, skirt
Hair and make up: Ponytail. natural make up
Body Language: Low self esteem, closed posture
Represented as: someone who cannot stand up for themselves and feels alone.
Role with music video: college girl that gets bullied and results in suicide.

 

Name: Male (couple)
Age: 18
Ethnicity: Black Caribbean
Gender stereotype of role: Masculine, controlling, quick tempered. assertive
Costume: Shirtless, jeans
Hair and make up: None
Body Language: Touchy, Good Posture
Represented as: A controlling boyfriend, he loves her but has a bad temper and cant control it so he becomes abusive to her.
Role with music video: Part of a couple who are in love and intimate but then begins to argue and turn violent.


























Name: Female (couple)
Age: 18
Ethnicity: Black
Gender stereotype of role: Vulnerable, Emotional, weak, naïve.
Costume: Tight vest top, boys boxers/shorts
Hair and make up: long hair, natural make up but red lipstick, bruises
Body language: vulnerable, attitude
Represented as: A young naïve girl who is in love with her boyfriend she will forgive him no matter what.
Role with music video: Part of a couple who are in love and intimate but then begin to argue and turn violent.

Planning: Post production paperwork

Location release form

This is important as permission can be needed to
film in certain areas. For example, we needed the councils permission to film in the park.

 

Client Release agreement

 This is important because we needed each person who starred in our production to be sure of what it was we were asking them to do and to have their consent to be filmed.

 

 

 



 

 

Risk Assessment

 

This is important because it allowed us to identify any risk that may have occurred and allowed us to find ways to prevent them from happening. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Production Schedule

 This is the overall timetable of all filming. This is needed to ensure all cast and crew know where they are supposed to be and when.

 

 

Location Recce 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Planning: Artist image

My music video falls into genre of both Hip hop and Soul music.

A hip hop artist has different traits to a soul artist. Our male artist will have more hip hop traits as he is raping and our female artist will have more traits of a soul artist.

Traits of a hip hop artist:
- Confident
- Laid back
- Street Wise
- Boyish

Traits of a soul artist:
- Humble
- Niche
- Relaxed

Female artist morals and values:

• Speaks about equal rights
• voice of the young people
• Represents reality
• controversial lyrics

Male artist morals and values:

• Voice of the ghetto
• Wants to inspire people
• Wants to be wealthy
• Wants to educate

Female artist media perception:

• Young fresh
• Media perception based off her lifestyle
• Social media - instragram pictures/videos, relatable
• Relatable

Male artist media perception:

• Chilled out image
• Iconic
• Relatable

Similar artist:
Female - Jhene Aiko

• Stripped back
• nude make up
• loose clothing
• young
• looks innocent

Female - Corinne Bailey Rae

• Big messy hair
• Looks innocent
• Neutral colours (costume)

Male - Eminem

•  Looks very ordinary
• Not dressed up
• Looks humble

Male - J. Cole

• Sunglass
• Simple clothing
• Dark colours

 My female artist is a young girl between the age of 16-18. She looks quite plane and stripped back only wearing nude make up, if any. We want her to be presented as innocent and vulnerable in order for the audience to sympathy with her.













My male artist is a young boy aged around 18. He isn't over dressed and comes across cool and humble. He dances in the video as well as rapping.


















Using Goodwin's theory of star image both of my stars will be shot using close ups, extreme close ups and mid shots.
We will not be using Mulvey's male gaze theory on our female star as we want her to be presented as vulnerable and innocent.

Our male star will be following the popular culture theory as he will be more mainstream than our female artist and will be street dancing which is a part of popular culture.

Will we not be following hebdige's theory as our artist do not represent one subculture, however our female artist will be quite niche.

Planning: Location

Dark, isolated room

 Here we will have our star perform throughout the duration of the music video and there will be a dim spotlight on the star.

• This is relevant to the lyrics as she says " I cant recall the last time I took advice from anyone". This is relevant because she is alone in this dark room showing that she trusts no one and only counts on herself.
• This is relevant to the soul genre as soul music is often about real life issues and being in this dark, empty room alone is allowing the star to reflect on life and herself.
• This is relevant to the target audience as it is common for young people to feel alone when they are going through stress.
• Advantages of this location:

- There should be no disruptions
- Should be easy to direct the actor
- There is not much needed to create the shot.

• Disadvantages of this location:

- It may be hard to film as there is going to be low lighting in the room
- Low lighting can cause bad quality footage

• Jhene Aiko - The Pressure, influenced us with this idea.

Empty Streets





Here we will have our 'Prom girl' character getting laughed at and bullied by her peers and then running away. The streets should be empty, dark and isolated.

• This is relevant to the hip hop genre as it is an urban setting and hip hop is a very urban genre.
• It is relevant to the target audience as young people often want to just run away in times of stress. In this case the stress of being bullied is something a lot of young people, especially teenagers, can relate to.
• Advantages of this location:

- Lots of options as there are so many streets we can use
- Realism
- Can film locally

• Disadvantages of this location:

- May be traffic
- May be people in the shot

• Ludacris ft Mary J Blige - run away love, has influenced this idea

 House

 

Here we will be using a house and portraying it to be our 'couple' character's house which they live together in. We will mainly be filming in the living room, kitchen and bedroom.

 

 

 

• This is relevant to the lyrics when she says " I can't recall the last time I took love from anyone, I called daddy, Who's got one anyway?". This is relevant because a home is supposed to be somewhere you feel loved as you are often living with family, however in this case she doesn't feel loved and her boyfriend being her family makes her feel unloved in her own home.
• This is relevant to the genre because soul music is intimate and a house is a closed intimate space.
• The target audience would be able to relate to this as it is sometimes the case that young people don't feel happy in their own homes and feel like they just can't get away and like they're trapped.
• Advantages of this location:



- Easy to find a house to use

- Easy to use in the narrative

• Disadvantages of this location:

-The house we're able to use may not be spacious enough

- The lighting may not be good

• Eminem ft Rihanna - Love the way you lie, influence this idea.

 

Train Station

This location will be used in one of the final scenes where our 'Prom girl' character may or may not be about to commit suicide.

 

 

• This is relevant to the lyrics as the artist is saying "crucify me" meaning she wants to die.
• This is relevant to the target audience as there are many cases of teenagers and young people wanting to commit suicide and they often use train stations.
• Advantages:

- Many train stations near by

• Disadvantages:

- People may think its real and someone is really trying to commit suicide.

Planning: Analysing similar videos

Jhene Aiko - The pressure (structure)

Structure -

The video is structured how we want to structure ours. Throughout the video it switches between the different narratives and the star image. This is done through a pan and fade in and outs where as we are going to do this using straight cuts. 

As the song goes on we start to see the problems the characters are going through in each narrative and by the end all they narratives are negative, this is how we want out video to play out. 

Narratives-

The narratives in this video are similar to our narratives/themes, e.g relationship problems, feeling alone. In the end the character is left all alone in each narrative which is how our characters will be left except our characters will commit suicide. 

Performance-

The star is sitting in a dark room with a light over her making her look quite shadowy. This is very similar to how we want our star to perform as we want her sitting on the floor in a dark room surrounded by nothing.



Five Finger Death Punch - Coming Down (Content)

Narrative-
Shows two teenagers who are victims of bullying and are now wanting to commit suicide. The narrative tells the story of their struggles and how one people giving them the support they need saves them from taking their own lives.

Performance-
The video is completely narrative based and so there is no star image. The band is heard and not seen.

Concept-
The video is completely narrative based and features no concept.

Mise En Scene-

Setting = School, Streets, House.

Props = Gun, Pills, Phone, Laptop and Make up.

Costume: Female character = Black dress, loose shirt.
Male character = Jeans. shirt, back pack, hoodie.

Facial Expression: Female character =  scared, angry, emotionless, nervous, painful and worried.
Male character = Distraught, angry, nervous, emotionless.


Rihanna - Stay (Artist)

The artist portrays how we want our artist to be. Her facial expressions are emotionless even when she's crying whilst lip syncing. The camera is often close up on her face or extremely close up on her eyes showing how emotionally drained she is.
She its in the bath through the song and she is hugging herself in a ball and sinking lower into the bath, this body language shows how ,much she trust wants to be alone and not let anyone in.
She doesn't have any costume as she is naked in the bath, however, she doesn't reveal any body parts and is able to come across and vulnerable  and innocent. Her make up is very nude and looks as if she isn't wearing any. Although we want our star to be clothed this is a perfect example of how we want her to come across to the audience. Also, her looking so stripped back allows her to look more realistic and for the audience to be able to relate to her.

Planning: Outline of of narrative

I personal really like the song we have chosen as it talks about themes that a lot of teenagers and young people (especially females ) go throught , such as ; suicide , problems fitting in , parental problems and not liking their appearance.

My music video will be mostly performance and narrative based with a little bit of concept. We have decided to plan our video like this as we want to be able to tell a story and raise awareness of some of the struggles people go through such as suicide , abusing relationships and bullying; in order to do this we need to make sure it is very narrative based. However, we also want to make sure the audience is able to make a connection with the artist and so we have to make sure there is some star image by making the video part performances based. lastly, we want to make the video relevant to young people and so we are using some concept and having street dancers in small sections of the video.

Theories: 

Goodwin-

We are following some of this theory as we will be including editing that matches the pace of the song and the visuals will make sense to the lyrics. 

Dyer-

We will be following this theory as we are using star image with our 2 main characters by using lip syncing. 

Mulvey-

We will not be using this theory as we do not want our female characters to be represented as sexy and instead we want them to be represented as vulnerable and innocent in order for the audience to understand their struggles. 

Hebdige:

We are not going to use this theory as although our visuals and themes are not mainstream they do not resist mainstream and do not fall into a subculture.

Adorno:

We are not following this idea as we are not trying to manipulate put audience and turn them into masses with out video.

Planning: My audience

Intro : It is important to know about audiences when creating a music video because you need to know who your target audience is and how you are going to appeal to them.

Age:
The target age for my video is 16 - 25. This is because I feel the themes such as, relationship problems and bullying are relatable  to this age group.
Gender:
My video is targeted towards females as the song is sung by a girl with a small male featuring. My star image will focus on the female character and most of my characters will be female.
Race:
My characters will be from different race groups in order to make it relatable to girls from all different races.
Audience Category:
The audience category I am aiming my video towards is category E as this age group falls into the unemployed and student category.
Income/ Bracket/Status:
I am targeting my video towards people with a low to medium income as most of them will be unemployed, have a low paid job or be a student.
Hobbies and interests:
Skateboarding, Listening to music, Partying

Audience Reaction:
I want my audience to be able to react in all the ways offered to them.

Audience engagement:
I understand that audiences are active and I want them to be able to interact with my video in whichever way they see fit. To make this happen, I have chosen to represent various themes and characters.

Audience expectations:
I want my audience to be able to expect certain things from my genre and artists as it is a genre that has a clear set of codes of conventions. I will make sure I include themes that the audience can develop expectations from.

Audience Foreknowledge:
I want my audience to be able to enjoy the music as well as relate to it and feel as if the artist made the song for them.

Audience Identification:
I want my audience to be able to relate to an artist and think of them as someone that understands them. I want them to relate to the life experience the artist is talking about.

Audience Placement:
I want my audience to feel that they can relate to the song and like it was made personally for them. In this case I will make my artist and characters fit the age group and gender of my target audience and make sure my costumes are the type of clothing my audience can relate to.



In conclusion I want my audience to relate well to the artist and the song. I want the song to tackle issues that my target audience have to deal with in life, such as; bullying, relationship problems and suicide. I want my audience to have a strong connection with my artist and feel as if the artist understands them and the things they go through in life.

Planning: Graphs

planning : copyright letter

Oasis Academy Hadley

                                                                                                                                                                                           South St, Enfield

En3 4PX

TEL: 0208 804 6946

Friday 7^th November, 2014

RE: Single SZA ft. Kendrick Lamar- Babylon

 

Dear Top Dog Entertainment (TDE), Interscope Records

We are ‘Notorious Productions’ A production group created by 3 AS media students in sixth form from Oasis Academy Hadley. We are writing to request your permission to use a song by two artist signed to your record label. The track we wish to use is Babylon by SZA featuring Kendrick Lamar.

With your permission we would like to use this song and create a music video for our A2 Media project which contributes 50% to our coursework final grade. Our task involves filming and editing footage to match the meaningful words of the song targeting a similar audience that you produced the song for.

With this music video a Digi pack album and magazine advert will also be created to insure that our coursework is complete with the full package.

 If we received your permission, this track would only be used for educational purposes and for no other commercial purpose and will also be used for the OCR exam board moderator. The music video however may be shown on some social networks such as Facebook, YouTube and twitter in order for us to receive feedback to help us evaluate our production process. 

The artist and your company would of course be credited and acknowledged on our blog page showing our appreciation of you letting us use the song. A copyright notice with wording supplied by you can be included in the records of the project. If this is required, please send the full details within this notice.

Thank you very much for reading this letter, we look forward to hearing from you.  

Yours sincerely

From ‘Notorious Production’

 Lashane Williams

 Chardelle Willer

Jordan Cleveland

 

Planning: Ouestionnaire