Monday 20 October 2014

1st Textual Analysis



Ella Hederson - Ghost
  • This song was written by Ella Henderson, Kenan Williams, Ryan Tedder, Noel Zancanella and Michael Daley. It was prduuced by Ryan Tedder and Zancanella.
  • The genre of the song is Teen Pop.
The song was released in 2014 when it was ade avaliable to download and reached number one on the UK's Singles chart in June 2014. Ella first became known for competing on the ninth series of the X Factor, but finished in sixth place, depsite being the favourite to win. Ghost is Henderson's first single to have been released from her first album, which was produced though the subsidary label SyCo to the conglomerate of Sony Music Entertianment.

The video immediatley starts with the asnchronous music of the song and are immedialtey introduced to a medium close up of a male character with the shallow depth of field establishing the setting of him being in the woods. A series of montage editing takes place with four different shots with different camera angles, showing the male characters panicked emotion and enticing the audience to wonder why he in this setting and what has happened, persuading them to continue watching the video. Then a cross cut takes place to a close up shot of the artist - Ella Henderson - lip-synching, showing a full connection to the narrative of the lyrics as it provides synchronous sound.During this a jump cut changes to a medium shot of the artist, showing Ella as an attractive, well dressed girl stood at a fair ground, which is a prime example of Richard Dyer's star theory; as she has a certain ideology to meet the audience's needs and expectatios of a female pop arist. This is a steroypical way to solutionise a problem in the female gender.

We then see a change of setting again as a cross cut connected with an action, then navigates back to the male character in the woods. The use of editing is very conventional as it matches the pace of the song, which creates the video to appear organised and well structured. The shot only lasts for 2 seconds and features a pan across, allowing to show the character walking forward mysteriously, developing the narrative, as well as showing in the background the bright blue light, contrasting with the dark mise-en-scene and setting, inferring it has connotations of police or someone looking for the character, developing the narrative. 

A jump cut then takes us back to Ella Henderson in a variety of different shots, showing the use of different locations featuring in a shot reverse shot of the different locations, including the fairground and a bedroom in a motel which you can infer from the iconography in the room. The locations where Ella is situated juxtaposes with the dark, eerie setting where the male character is. For example, with the use of depth of field showing the bright lights in the background, compared to the dark scenery of the woods. This also connotes that there is a juxtaposition between the characters, as Ella is portrayed as a protagonist, compared to the antagonistic character of the male. Furthermore, these shots establish Ella's protagonistic character through the use of costume. Such as when she is in a medium shot, she takes up one third of the screen and you almost the whole of her body is visible, showing that she is wearing a long black dress which has connotations of her having a bad side, but also with the white shirt over the top, connotes that she is attempting to hide this side to her, as white has connotations of pure and innocent. However as the majority of her outfit is black, this could suggest that she maybe has something to do with the male character and is developing the narrative. The use of the medium shot also establishes the iconography featured throughout shot, showing that she is in a motel and could also suggest that perhaps she is on the run. 

Then a series of shot reverse shots takes place contrasting the shots with Ela henderson which mainly consist of close-ups and medium close-ups of the artist, showing the artist lip-synching which is a stereotypical convention of music videos. This compares to the establishing and long shots that take place in the shots with the male character; which contain a variety of camera pans and zooms, as it features several jump cuts to the male character and the police that are now apparently chasing him. This creates the music video to be entertaining for the audience as it appears very action packed as it comes across chaotic. 

Friday 10 October 2014

Treatment


A psychological portrayel of someone having a breakdown, with performance (instrumental and lip-synching) and narrative which shows the internal struggle the protagonist is undergoing. This will be shown through special effects and editing.

Sunday 5 October 2014

YouTube Tutorials





I found these YouTube video tutorials very helpful and inspirational, in capturing a high quality and effective music video. By focusing my research down to the camera and equipment which I will be using, this allow me to fully understand and achieve maximum effects.

Saturday 4 October 2014

What Camera I Will Use

I carried out research into what camera I should use to film my music video with.
I had the option to choose from the video camera's provided by college or to use my own Camera - the Canon dslr 550D, which has the video option available.


I weighed up the pros and cons of each camera, to see which would give me the highest quality for my msuic video, and which would be most effective to film with.

In the end, I decided to use my own camera, and below are some of the reasons which influenced my decision:
  • It is avaiable for me whenever I need, as the video camera's provided by college are limited and therefore I would struggle to gain access to camera all of the time.
  • It has a higher resolution and produced better quality pixels.
  • The zoom available is more diverse and therefore I could produce a wider range of cinematography .
  • With my own SD card, the memory is alot bigger and therefore I can film alot more on my camera than I could on the video camera's.
  • There are many tutorials on YouTube, demonstating how I could use my camera to the best ability.
  • I have the option of filming in manuel mode, so that I can manipulate my video to excatly how I envision it.

Thursday 2 October 2014

Genre Conventions

I created a GoAnimate on the music genre Alternative Rock as my chosen song; 'Fix You' is of the sub-genre Britpop.

Alternative Rock genre conventions by rubymoore08x on GoAnimate


Alternative Rock:
  • Originates from Rock genre and emerged around the 1970/80s
  • Developed a number of sub-genres including Britpop, Indie Rock, Grunge, Colllege Rock, Paisley underground and others.
  • It has gathered a lot of history due to its rejection of teh Commercialisation of Mianstream Cultures, depsite the fact that more recently, a lot of Alternative Rock artists have achieved mass mainstream success, such as Coldplay.

Wednesday 1 October 2014

History of Medium


Over time it is evident how music videos have progressed and how different they used to be, compared to how advanced they are in more recent years. Time and technology has played a very important role in the progression of music videos, allowing them to continually improve.

Originally before music videos were created, artists could only promote themselves and their music through songs via radio. However, it was not until portable radios were invented and became affordable that music became very popular, as it allowed a lot of people to gain access to listen to music that they had never heard before.

The earliest music videos and promos were produced in the mid 1950's, mainly by The Warner Brothers. They were conventionally what they are today. Such as, they were and are today, a conglomerate encouraging the target audience through a range of different mediums to purchase their material.