GROUP: Feedback from pitch

We presented a pitch concerning every aspect of our entire production to our peers, to recieve feedback which would inform us as to which aspects of our production were stronger, which needed development, and which ideas perhaps should be disregarded. These aspects included: narrative, characters, costume, props (and other mise en scene issues), technical aspects, logistical issues and demographic aspects, as well as a number of other issues which we did not think of:

Positive aspects:

• The idea of a sketch at before the track begins displaying the protagonist of the music video to have no balance in his bank account, and his 'chilled-out' reaction to this, displays the 'cool' reaction to this event, which conveys the chilled out surfer persona that the band are known to have.
• Many of our peers, praised the way that we intend to convey a retrospective pastiche revivial through our production, whicn also relates to American culture, and the globalisation of this culture into others, such as ours.

Aspects to develop:

• Firstly, someone mentioned that a convention of original VHS tapes and the content that those tapes feature, rarely contain a fast cutting rate, so to create the illusion that our music video was shot on VHS, we will avoid having a fast cutting rate, and instead, will include a number of long-duration shots for the entirety of our music video.
• Many people pointed out that it was clear that we are trying to create the illusion that our music video takes place in Los Angeles as such a location is clearly associated with the music artist whom we are creating a music video for (FIDLAR) as conveyed in many of their music videos. This illusion will be hard to achieve, as some of the locations that we have chosen to shoot at such as Brighton, do have aspects of the surf culture we want to convey, but they are also iconically British, and clearly contradict the illusion of the music video being shot in Los Angles or the USA. This is something that is hard to tackle, but what we can do, is attempt to minimise the shots which involve iconic aspects of British culture, and attempt to reinforce the idea of Americanism in our production, by incorporating easily recognisable American features such as the iconic American diner. Other peers said that our music video could simply be paying homage to the recent rapid Americanisation of British culture (postmodernism).
• A number of peers mentioned that videos which utilise the idea of conveying their production as a VHS format, often do not use this concept when it comes to the performance scenes of the music video, as we want to properly convey the band in a postive and professional way, which helps to construct a postive brand image for the band.
• As we may be using the bedroom of one of our group members for the performance scenes, where we will create the illusion that the bedroom is actually a music venue, we need to be careful here, as a lack of care, could result in a lack of continutity, and if the room still looks like a bedroom, it may look unprofessional. We also need to be careful of items like mirrors, which will require us to be careful around, as a lack of care, could result in the audience being able to see the crew, camera and equipment in the mirror, their could also be other similar items which may require us to be apprehensive. Their are also a number of health and safety hazards which we need to require, which will be displayed on our call sheet and risk assessment.

New ideas:

• It was suggested that their could also be a sketch at the end of the music video, where the audience discover that the VHS effect was simply due to how a man is simply watching this music video on a VHS tape, this will be very enigmatic, as some of the audience may infer that the man shown to be watching the video, was originally one of the characters that are shown within the music video, and his is simply reminisicing about his former years.
• This idea will also help us to use up time within our 3 minute duration, as the track does not last 3 minutes, so we are relying on the use of sketches before and after the actual track visuals, to allow us to fill out time until our production lasts at least 3 minutes.

Group: Schedule of shooting

Date	Location	Crew and Cast	Equipment
Tuesday 30th October	Tonbridge ATM + JC House	Connor + Jake	Tripod + Canon 550d + Longboard/skateboard

GROUP: Concept Development

24th October

• Concept of one/whole band member(s) watching the footage on a VHS tape at an older age
• Music video will highlight pastiche to British Americanised culture rather than being set in the country (and era).
• We also recieved suggestions to
• We brainstormed Digipack ideas, to uphold brand image. For example, a skateboard wheel is placed where th CD is situated, as well as nuts, bolts and bearings (components of the skateboard)

Group: Survey monkey results (demographic)

Audience research feedback analysis; Survey monkey

Our online research was conducted using a website called survey monkey, we setup a questionnaire asking about demographic topics such as age, preference of genre, awareness of the artist who we are producing a track for, performance in music videos, narrative, location, VFX, intertextuality, and relationship between lyrics/music and visuals. We then sent this out using social media (face book and twitter) and received a sample group of 14 responses, which may not be as many as we wanted, but is enough for us to draw conclusions, and expose any anomalies within these results. We feel that the following results were very helpful, and although we will listen to and abide by the results on most aspects, but on certain aspects, we may improvise for the benefit of our production, which will hopefully enhance our final product.

The first question asked the person filling out the questionnaire about their age, and asked them to tick which of the age ranges was theirs, 13 of the 14 responses (92.9%) said that their age was between 13-17, which is the age we believe to be the main consumer of our music video which we are producing, this means that the rest of the results have a higher validity than what they would have had if the questionnaire was only filled out by people of other age ranges. The only other age range selected was the ‘over 40’ option.

The second question asked users their preference of genres of music from 1-5, with 1 being their favourite, and 5 being their least favourite. Rock music was clearly the most favoured, receiving the rating of 1.79, with indie coming second with 2.71. This was a pleasing result, as the track that we have chosen to produce a music video for, is associated with both of these genres. The other results would suggest that other genres are definitely not as favoured as rock and indie, and are as follows:
Pop    3.14
R&B  3.86
Other 3.50

The third question simply asked if they have heard of the band (Fidlar) whose track (Got no money), we will be making a music video for. 21.4% of the recipients of the questionnaire had heard of the band, while 78.6% had not. This shows that the artist are still quite un-established, meaning that we would have more leeway with how creative we could be with our ideas for our production.

The fourth question was an open ended question, asking recipients whether they thought it was suitable for a music video to feature the performers in the music video, to be skating while performing. Five of the answers approved, two said they shouldn’t, one answer was random and an anomalie, and the rest said that it depends on the music video itself; one answer said “It depends on the genre of music; indie seems to fit it most” and someone else said that “it depends on the song/genre. Lyrics could also make a difference”. From these answers, we can conclude that it probably is suitable to include the performers in the music video to be performing while skating, but other answers suggest that we should possibly look into this topic further.

The fifth question asked recipients how important it is, for a music video to feature certain aspects of a production, these included performance scenes, narrative, appropriate locations, indoor scenes and use of special effects. The recipients had to say whether each of these were not important, of reasonable importance, important or essential. Based on the most common answer for each aspect, here are the results:
-Performance scene(s) were voted to be of reasonable importance/important, this was because these two options received the same amount of votes.
-Narrative is of reasonable importance (46.2% voted for this option).
-Appropriate locations are essential (54.5% voted for this option).
-Indoor scenes are not important (53.8% voted for this option).
-Use of special effects are of reasonable importance (50.0% voted for this option).

For question six, we asked recipients on a scale of 1-5, how much they would like to see intertextuality in our music video (references to popular culture), with 1 being the most important and 5 being the least important. 42.9% (6 responses) said 2, and 14.3% (2 responses) said 1, from this we conclude that it would be favoured by the audience for us to incorporate interstitial references into our music video production.

For question seven, we asked how important it is for a music video to convey a relationship between the lyrics/music and the visuals, with 1 being essential, and 5 being unnecessary. Much like question six, 42.9% said 2,14.3% said 1, 28.6% said 3, and 1 respondent of the 14 (7.1%) said 4, and 1 said 5. From this, it is clear that their should be at least a mild relationship between music/lyrics and the visuals, this may relate to question six, as the results of questions 6 and 7, have given us (as a group) the idea to incorporate an interstitial reference which relates to both the music and visuals.

Question eight asked recipients about the suitability of certain locations for a music video of the indie punk genre, the results show the following conclusions:
-The beach was voted to be an ‘average’ location for our production.
-The pier/boardwalk also was voted to be an ‘average’ location.
-A car park rooftop received the highest rating of the locations we suggested, it was deemed ‘good’ by the results.
-A field was voted to be a ‘bad’ location.
-Finally, an indoor venue was voted to be ‘Average/Good’.

CF: Music festival poster + Reflection

Music festival poster reflection

1.  

2. Reflect on your use of Photoshop. How does it enable creativity? What were the challenges? How did you overcome them?

Photoshop enables creativity in a countless amount of ways. The features of the software which most allow the user to be completely original and creative is the use of layers, which allow the user to mix already existing images or forms of media, or create news ones such as text or pictures.
One aspect of the software that I had difficulty with was being able to cut away the background from images I imported onto the background that I wanted. I overcame this by using Photoshop’s troubleshooting feature, which led me to the magic wand, which was completely effective at selecting the background of the imported images, without selecting any of the part of the image that I wanted, this saved me a great deal of time, and resulted in the images I modified, looking original and professional.

3. List techniques used in Photoshop. To what effect?

The tool I used the most when creating my music festival poster was the magic wand tool, which as I previously mentioned, was extremely effective in allowing me to remove excess/unwanted bits of the images that I imported.
I also used the lasso tool on a number of occasions when creating my music festival poster, which was useful for me to manually select bits of images or text that I did not want, when the magic wand tool would fail (by also selecting pieces of the image that I did want, as well as the bits that I did not).
The use of a text feature within the software was extremely useful, as it meant that I did not have to create the text using another piece of software, this is useful as it saves time as I did not have to spend time trying to find the correct formats to put the text into before importing into Photoshop.
The use the colour picker (and the pencil and brush) was very efficacious  in allow me to select colours from certain parts of my poster, then use that colour in other tools like the brush and pencil, which were also effective for making simple modifications to the poster.
The zoom was useful in allowing me to see selected parts of the poster on a large scale, which allowed my use of the other tools, must more specific and particular.
Finally, the move and crop tools were useful for cropping, rotating and moving images and pieces of text.
The hand tool was good for simply navigating around the poster, this was useful when wanting to look at more specific physical areas of the poster.

4. Evaluate your finished product in terms of the brief. How successful were you?

The finished product of my music festival poster is very successful in some aspects, but lacking in others. Firstly, my music festival poster does meet some of the basic criteria such as being recognised as a festival poster, as it uses conventional features of such posters, but does not plagiarise from other music festival posters. In the aspect of providing information, I believe that my poster is very successful, as it provides the typical information that other posters would provide, plus more such as the price and providers of the tickets. I believe that the fonts I used and the way in which I used different fonts for each artist’s name looked extremely professional, apart from a few fonts which looked very basic and do stand out from the rest, in a negative way, as they looked more amateur than the others. I believe that I have been successful in creating a look and theme for the poster, which relates to the genre of the music of the artists that are listed on the poster. The clear contrast between the dark and the source of light on the poster, may remind many consumers of the nightclub scene, which is clearly related to electronic and house music, and it is such themes of music that the artists listed are iconic for. I believe that the poster also successfully and effectively used conventions such as the incorporation of sponsors into the poster, which made it look more professional and official.

5. Moving on to print production for the digital and advert. What advice would you give yourself?

I think that the best thing to remember from this task is that you shouldn’t try to utilise every single tool and feature of Photoshop and try to cram what you create from these tools into your media product, you should remember the effectiveness of simplicity, but to ensure that you do include enough into your media text. I would also tell my self to remember the full potential of Photoshop and how creative it allows me and other users to be.

MC: Print Analysis - Advert

JC: Print Analysis - Advert

CF: Print analysis - Advert

Advert deconstruction

This is a poster-style advertisement for the greatest hits album from the iconic American alternative rock band, the foo fighters.

Genre

How is the genre of the track/artist evident?

The genre of this artist is alternative rock. This advertisement is quite subtle in conveying this genre, but does have implications as to the fact that the genre of this artist is alternative rock. Rock is known for having a more aggressive sound than that of many other genres such as pop or R&B. This poster conveys this aggression through the use of colours. The colour red is known for being belligerent, as it is iconically the colour of blood, which is strongly associated with aggressive behaviour and violence. Secondly, another reference to the aggressive persona of this advertisement is the background which is clearly meant to resemble metal from possibly a trailer which performers often have to prepare for their live performances in. The actual look of the metal here appears to be rather rough and beaten, which further ties in with the bellicose look of the poster.

Language

What visual techniques are used and how is meaning generated through these techniques?

The rule of thirds is obsolete in this advertisement, as the content of the poster itself is not a photograph, which is the median of media text where the rule of thirds applies (as well as film/video). The use of texture is evident in this video as I have previously mentioned, such as the rough texture and composition of the metal looking material in the majority of the poster. This creates more depth to the image, which gives it a more 3D and life like feel, which may implore the consumer of the poster to visualise one of their performances or such, which in turn, is a clear method of promoting the artist. Mise-en-scene is evident in this advertisement through the use of the artists logo which is the most dominant item in the poster, this is clearly to gain the consumer’s attention to the artist, which again, is another method of promoting and advertising the artist, as it helps build a brand, by making the logo very recognisable. The overall tone of this advert creates a very dark and moody persona, this is to achieve emphasis on, and put the consumer’s attention to the logo in the middle of the poster, which as I have previously mentioned, is to help establish a brand for the artist. The fact that the logo of the artist is very central to the page, which result in prevalence in terms of what the consumers look at when they view this poster.

What linguistic devices have been used?

There is very little use of linguistic devices such as emotive language or quotations in this advert, as it is clear the designer of this poster is try to keep the amount of written information on this advert, to a minimum. The information included is the name of the artist, the name of the album that the poster is advertising, the release date, the formats of which the album is available on and some of the best known tracks from the album. This is probably because the designer is trying not to draw the consumers attention to aspects of the poster, other than the logo in the centre.

Is there use of intertextuality / references to popular culture?

There is one minor use of intertextuality in this advert as I previously mentioned. The use of the background has a slight resemblance to the use of the iconic trailer, which has become known for artists/actors and other performers to have to prepare in before performing. This is clearly highlighting the fact that the artists that this poster advertises are already established, and are very famous within their genre. This is a form of pastiche, as the designer is clearly honouring the iconic image of a performer’s trailer, rather than using it for comical purposes. As this advert is from a quite recent album release from the foo fighters, the use of intertextuality is an expression of post-modernism.

Representation

How are the band/artist represented?
The Foo Fighters have become very famous for their iconic lively shows, and this is what they have become iconic for within the genre of rock music. This energy and livliness is conveyed in the poster through the repetitive use of symbols which resemble lightning bolts, and these are clearly associated with energy. These bolts are used throughout the poster, and are seen, a total of five times. The use of repetition of this technique is simply to cement and reinforce this idea of enery relating to the energetic ethos of this band.

Institution and audience

How might this print text be consumed?

This poster has clearly be designed for general use of be displayed out amongst the general public. However, a post like this, for an artist whose following may be slightly more cult-like, means that the poster would have a greater effect in promoting the artist and the album/tracks if it was displayed at places where people who favour this music or follow this band will be, such as music festival, live performances, or high street music shops. This advert may also be used on the internet, but in the same way as the poster will be distributed, when online, this advert will have a greater effect on the artist’s website, music festival’s/concert’s websites, or other online site that are associated with this genre of music.

GROUP: Planned Brighton Reccie

Brighton Reccie

• We were given 2 hours in the seaside town of Brighton to find the following practice shots:
• Exterior locations + Interior locations
• MLS narrative/performance (arches + pier + walkway)
• High and low angle shots (fun palace)
• Footage for sped up shot of character in crowd (pier + walkway )
• POV handicam shot (fun palace)
• 360 pan (arches)
• Tracking shot with character / performer in first person mode of address (walkway)
• A variety of CUs (various)
• 2 shots of your own design (narrative tracking shots)

• By referring to the map of Brighton town, we determined the location of each of the shots were they would be filmed at, prior to the trip.
• The ‘Fun Palace’ featured significantly in the reccie, and various shots at different angles were taken. In this interior location, we obtained low angle, and POV shots of characters playing on various games, knowing that a reasonable proportion of these shots could contend for use in our final media production.
• Secondly, the pier and the arches were used for the various shots with narrative purposes. Using a combination (in turn) of a small amp and headphones from a phone, the music video track ‘Got No Money’ was played (at half speed) in order to be mimed to by the lead vocalist and main protagonist (Jake).
• The promenade was used as it is an iconic seaside landmark. As well as the walkway along the sea-front parallel to the sea – which is easily visible in the shots. Despite Brighton being a UK location, we still have a strong meta-narrative of the band’s surf-punk image.
• It is at least sunny, and near the beach, therefore a more Americanized image was upheld. (The band is from LA). 

CF: Are music videos art, porn or commercial?

Are music videos commercials, porn or art?

Music videos in recent years have become part of an on-going debate, “what purpose do they actually serve?”, the three common classifications from this argument are porn, art and commercials. Laura Mulvey’s theory of the male gaze would suggest that a voyeuristic and pornographic persona of music videos are used in order to attract viewers to increase popularity and opportunities to generate money, while Musical auteur Adam Levite suggests that involvement from the music industry results in “mediocrity”, which would suggest that music videos are commercial and are only existent to generate profit. However, many music video directors and musicians and other creative groups have managed to retain their artistic integrity and express their music through their music videos, often with strong links between what is happening on screen and the lyrics/music of the track.

                  In modern society, it has become the norm for a single from most genres of music, especially pop music, to release a music video with the single, to essentially advocate the track and artist. But many argue that these music videos are simply using voyeuristic treatment of the both the male and female body to attract viewers and ultimately generate profit. Barthes’ theory of stereotyped action codes may lead people to interpreting many of the character’s actions within music videos as sexual acts.  Laura Mulvey’s essay of “visual pleasure and Narrative cinema” would further support this idea, as she discusses the use of scopophilia and identification in order to attract male (and possibly female) attention. However, Tim O’Sullivan’s argument that all media texts tell the viewer some kind of story, does counter the idea of music videos as porn, as it suggests that there is a deeper meaning. The music video for Kylie Minogue’s ’All The Lovers’ (Joseph Kahn, 2010) consists mainly of males and females simply partaking in sexual and intimate activities, this reinforces the meta-narrative of the Kylie Minogue ‘brand’ who often tries to establish herself as a sexually attractive person. However, the video does translate the lyrical meaning of the song, as the term ‘lover’ is often used in contemporary society when talking not only about the emotion between two individuals, but also when referring to the physical act of love.


                           However, Sven Carlsson’s theory that music videos fall into two groups’ either performance clips or conceptual clips, which may suggest that music videos are neither commercial nor pornographic, and instead are simply for artistic purposes, or perhaps they simply reinforce the meaning that the lyrics and music put across. But many critics may dispose of this argument, as many believe a clip to only be purely artistic, if it contains no perceptible visual narrative and contains no lip synchronized singing, an iconic example of this is ‘Here it goes again’ by OK go (choreographed by Trish Sie). This music video simply consists of a complex dance carried out by the band members on a number of treadmills, and contains no performance or narrative. However, many others will argue that a music video can contain narrative or performance and still be deemed as a artistic music video, (in terms of this argument), as long as it does not contain any material which may be deemed pornographic, or any commercial aspects (such as synergistic promotional activity).

                   Thirdly, possibly the most controversial of the three classifications of music videos in this argument is the idea that music videos are purely commercial. The most notable point in terms of music videos being commercial, is actually their purpose. The purpose of music videos (whether they are porn, commercial or art) is essentially to promote the music artist and the track, which is in turn, to make money. Music videos force the audience to consume the track, which may lead to them downloading or purchasing the single, or some of the artists other work. Synergistic promotional activity has become increasingly popular in music videos, where the a fee is paid to those who own the rights to the music video, and what has become quite popular is that the party who pay the fee, will have their product/brand advertised. ‘Call me maybe’ by Carly Ray Jepsen (directed by Knechtel, 2012) where the camera techniques clearly create an emphasis on the car that the protagonist (Jepsen) is shown to be driving. Many have began to argue that it is the genres of music with more involvement from the music companies such as R&B and Pop, which will contain more signs of being commercial. Possibly the most crucial piece of evidence to music videos being commercial, is how they are seamlessly integrated with adverts on music television.
     Overall,

CF: Auteur analysis

Auteur analysis

Spike Jonze is a music video and film director/producer and occasionally is an actor in his own work. He started his career by directing commercials for large companies such as Ikea and Adidas. He then began to direct and produce music videos for artists such as ‘Beastie boys’ and ‘Weezer’. He then began to direct short and feature length films such as “Being John Malkovich” (1999) and “Adaption” (2002) with both earning Oscar nominations and the latter winning one. In more recent times, he has directed music videos for artists such as Jay-Z, Kanye West, Bjork and Tenacious D. He is known for his quirky approach to all his work, with the likes of Christopher Walken in the video he directed for ‘Fatboy Slim’ where his erratic dance moves became recognisable. He is known for his use of different eras and themes being incorporated into his works.

Weezer - Buddy Holly

• The use of the iconic 1950’s theme is recognisable and vintage and will be enjoyed by the younger audience, due to the way in which it portrays this era in a comical way. At times, due to the exaggerated manner of this theme, it comes across as a form of parody, while at other times, it seems to be closer to pastiche.
• A number of medium close-ups are used in order to both bring prevalence to the musicians skills with their instruments, and attempt to maybe build their brand, by making their faces more recognisable, it also emplores the audience to recgonise the artists skill with their instruments.
• This video in specific is one of the few performance-based music videos that Spike Jonze has directed; it used the 1950’s period as a source of entertainment and puts a twist onto this video, this era was also made very in conic from the musical film ‘Grease’ (Kleiser, 1978).
• The era portrayed may be a reference to the man in the title of the song- Buddy Holly whose career was at its peak in the 1950’s shortly before his death in 1959. 

Sabotage – Beastie Boys

• The entire production is full of high-paced camera techniques are shots to fit in with the energetic theme of the car chase and the iconic 80’s American cop chasing criminals. Examples of these shots are the 360 degree pans which only endure for about 1 second. Almost all shots last for a maximum of 2 seconds, and many of these include extremely fast zooms and pans to tie in with the energetic theme.
• Intertextuality and references to popular media are almost the basis for the entire music video. The characters in this video generally resemble characters from the easily recognisable American cop shows of the 1980’s, the over emphasised and extreme characteristics of these shows used in this music video, such as the use of aviators and moustaches create comic value, almost making the music video a parody. Other popular references include the use of the bright red siren light, and the idea of cops eating doughnuts which is a stereotype amongst the theme of American cop shows.
• Another example of parody in this music video is the very common use of pans and zooms, which are overused to the extent that it also provides comic value, while reinforcing the idea of the video being a form of parody, rather than paying homage to the concept of iconic 80's cop shows.
  

Arcade fire – The suburbs

• This music video, like many of Jonze’s other work, conveys a youthful lifestyle. This video does so by conveying different activities such as cycling, pestering people of the public and defacing public property.
• The video generally conveys a major contrast between the lifestyle of a young person and that of an adult who will have more responsibility; firstly, the younger people are shown to not have jobs and instead are simply finding ways to kill time, while almost every adult in this music video is uniformed. This shows that they have responsibility and have to work, example are the police officers, the restaurant workers and the soldiers.
• Tracking shots are used in this video in the scenes when the characters are cycling, the use of tracking enables the director to exaggerate the length of road that the characters are cycling down, which cements the idea that the young people have no responsibility, as to cycle down such a long road would clearly be time consuming.
• Enigma is used in this music video, a wide shot towards the end of the video shows a helicopter going towards a war explosion, this scene resembles a war zone, but whether or not these characters are living near a war zone remains uncertain.

Sonic youth – 100%

• This entire music video is comprised of two separate narratives, this are separated through the use of cross cutting.
• One of these videos shows a boy going to a party, it is told from a subjective point of view, as it follows his journey along the street then shows where he goes when within the party, this helps develop character exposition.
• The second narrative that is told also shows a large aspect of the youthful lifestyle, as it shows a group of skateboards skating through a city, a rather rebellious persona is conveyed from this second narrative. Unlike the party scenes, the skateboarding scenes are shot in black and white, which simply creates a major contrast between these two separate scenes.
• This music video is also performance based, as within the party scenes, the band performing is Sonic Youth themselves performing the track. This enables the audience who will generally be comprised of younger people to relate to the track, as it is likely that many of the viewers will regularly or sometimes attend live performances, so viewing the track being performed like this may help them to relate to it.

Goodwin writing frame; Y control - Yeah Yeah Yeahs

When considering the key features of a music video, Andrew Goodwin, dancing in the distraction factory (1992) identified a number of conventions which can be applied to the music video ‘Y control’ by Yeah Yeah Yeahs directed by Spike Jonze in 2004.
Firstly, he stated that music videos demonstrate genre characters. This video could be categorised as being in the indie genre. It is conventional in that its narrative conveys characters and scenes which do not comply with social norms, and instead, go against these norms. The narrative of this music video shows a party/gathering taking place in what appears to be an abandoned warehouse/room. Excluding the artists who do appear in this video, the almost all of the characters are young children. When children feature in music videos, the norm is to show them as innocent, alternatively, in this music video, we see children who have lost their innocence, and partake in a number of loathing activities, such as small girls wielding weapons like hammers and bats, and a small boy is shown to be wrestling with a dog to the death. These scenes resemble the shock-horror genre of movies, where things which are appalling to see are used to simply grip the audience, as an interest may be sparked due to it’s uniqueness.
             
           Secondly, iconography is also a conventional aspect of this music video. The appearance created by various aspects of mise en scene (predominantly costume) allows the audience to recognise the director’s intention to portray ‘disturbed children’ in this video. A very typical image of what such a child would appear like has become dominant over recent decades, with film productions such as the psychological feature, ‘The Shining’ (Kubrick, 1980) where the two small twin girls who have a paranormal existence are first seen. The children in this music video have a similar appearance, in that they are pale, show no emotion, and are wearing clothes from periods of the past. This is a form of intertexuality, and allows the audience to relate to the music video with references to horror films. This is conventional of a music video in the indie genre, as music videos from this genre often contain intertextuality, as the term indie is an abbreviation of independent. The actual concept of indie music, is for the audience to be able to relate to the musicians, and one way for the artist’s to do this is to find a common ground or mutual interest, in this video, it is horror movies. It is very rare to find the same method in other genres of music, the artists of which may be more corporate, and will less commonly write their own songs.
             
             Thirdly, the camera techniques in this music video are absolutely conventional of camera techniques used in music videos within the indie genre as a whole.  Indie music video productions often have less budget than corporate artists, and as a result, their music  videos may often result looking like this one (Y control - Yeah Yeah Yeahs. The first example of this is the way in which  this music video is shot in a lower resolution than you would find in most contemporary music videos, this is done to achieve a DIY look on the music video which may imply lower production values and a lower budget. A second example of an aspect relating to camera techniques which is conventional of an indie music video, is that most of the shots in this video are handicam shots which again, imply that this music video has been made with lower production values, a music video from a more mainstream genre of music, would be less likely to consist of handicam shots, as a higher budget would mean that equipment such as tripods or tracks and dollies. However, the director may purposely be using these more amateur techniques to emphasize the point, that this song is from the indie genre.
                   
         Lastly, the cutting rate of this song is customary of music videos, of which the song originates from the indie genre. The cutting rate of this song is noticeably slower than the majority of songs from other genres like pop and rock. In many indie songs with a slow cutting rate, there is often a purpose of the use of not cutting to different shots very often. In this video, it may been to allow the audience to properly see the shocking images that this music video projects, and let these rather traumatic pictures be absorbed by their minds.

          This video employs an artistic/creative approach to the conventions it contains, in that at times within the video (predominately the chorus), these conventions are reversed. An example of this is the use of the small cadaverous children, who during the chorus of the track, are shown to be celebrating and appear to be more energetic than what the typical corpselike children are conveyed to be like in many popular media texts such as films. Another example of the reversal of these techniques, is the cutting rate being significantly increased at the chorus where the track and the artists themselves are shown to be more energetic, rather than resembling the corpselike children. The purpose of the reversal of the these techniques and conventions is to simply create a clear juxtaposition between the verses of the track which are idle and lethargic.
   
            Goodwin discussed the relationship between lyrics and visuals. In relation to ‘Y control’ by Yeah Yeah Yeahs, it is clear that there is a relationship between these two aspects. Throughout the duration of the track, a number of references to age are made. Examples of these references include “Well I’m just a poor little baby” and “while your growing old”, these two references do contrast, in that one is about adolescence and the other is about growing old, these lyrics are reinforced by the use of the children in the video who at times exhibit more cynical adult behaviour (such as NV language like putting up their middle fingers to the camera), and at other times, appear more like children. However, during the sequence during the final lines of the track, one of the lyrics is “out of control”, there is clearly a direct link between this line and the what goes on in the music video at this point, for when this line is sang, the zombie like children are visible, and a common ideology concerning zombies is that they lose ascendancy of their bodies, this is simply a personification of the lyrics, which just cements the ideas that the audience are likely to have during this sequence from listening to the track.
   
          Goodwin made references to the notion of looking. In ‘Y control’ by Yeah Yeah Yeahs, at times, visible to the audience, is a path created by two walls of the young children (all of whom are cursing at the camera using NV language), the camera then goes down this figurative path, then the end of this ‘path’ is blocked off by the leader singer of the band, who is shown to be looking straight at the audience (by looking into the lens of the camera). This makes the audience almost feel as if they are cut off from the real world, and instead, are trapped in this clearly abdicated environment, with the children and the artist as company. This greatly increases the figurative prevelance of the artists themselves.
   
             Importantly, Goodwin talked about the voyeuristic treatment of the body. In this music music video, there is voyeuristic treatment of the female lead singer. The main way in which this is achieved is through costume (mise en scene), the dress which she is shown to be wearing a very high-cut dress, which does not conceal much of her lower body. At times in the song when her performances is more energetic, her underwear is visible, which is voyeuristic as many may viewers may find something sexual about this.

               Music videos are a post modern form, which implies that they often borrow and rework ideas from other texts and forms. ‘Y control’ by Yeah Yeah Yeahs uses intertextuality in the form of pastiche. The most dominant characters in this music video are the small children who have a eidolon persona, as I have previously mentioned, these children do resemble the iconic look of possessed children. The typical image of a possessed child has featured in a number of media texts, but most notably is ’The Shining’ (Kubrick, 1980) where this image was arguably first created. Many media texts often use intertextuality and refer to this in the form of parody of pastiche, but throughout this music video, it could be argued that the director (Jonze) has used it as both). At points in this music video, the children are viewed as intimidating and serious, such as when they are standing in a stationary manner whilst wielding weapons, while at others time, the children who are still in a haunted manner, are shown to be dancing and celebrating and exhibiting behaviour of contemporary youthful people, such as using Non-verbal language to curse. The fact that both pastiche and parody have been used, honours the original use of where the referenced image originates from, it also achieves the desired effect of creating a horror aspect within the music video, then the parody reference gives the music video a slightly more light-hearted and energetic persona.

Group: Storyboard 6 key shots

JC: Track Ideas

1.) DIIV 'Human'

This track starts with reverberant keyboards and guitars which gives the song a dreamy sound.
This instrumentation immediately brings to mind hazy, warping images along with a performance-based video. Also, the effect of projecting images onto the artist's face while miming seems fitting for the hazy aura of this track

2.) Wavves 'Hippies is Punks'

The track starts with distorted guitars which is reminiscent of the 90s 'grunge' era. A video for this song could feature a strong narrative story, as the song is about becoming bored of someone and not liking them anymore. The visuals would also be similar to the DIIV song, as the track suits distorted colours and possibly VCR effects such as magnetic tape being destroyed.

3.)Peace 'Oceans Eye'

This last track features a dancy drum beat and at the same time lilting guitar lines and rasping vocals. A video for this could include a full band performance and also use of the band's motif: a peace symbol which incorporates fruit (a watermelon cut into segments which resembles the CND logo) The video would also be heavily emphasising the band's image, which consists of leather jackets, long hair, and drainpipe jeans.

CF: Possible tracks and ideas

Fidlar- got no money

-       Video could be a mixture of both conceptual and performance based, possibly every time the song returns to the chorus, 

-       Camera could follow character/singer from in front on a journey (on a bicycle or walking) while they sing.

-       The song is in the surf rock genre, which has come from surf culture, a stereotype of surfers is their ‘laid-back’ personalities, to relate to this, parts of the videos could consist of such behaviour, and the surfer culture could be conveyed through mise en scene and the actors actions.

-       The high tempo of the song may mean that we should have a high cutting rate within the music video.

-       The start of the song consists of roughly recorded dialogue, during this bit, we could use an affect that would make it look like we were using an older vhs-style camcorder. This part could be filmed to create the illusion that the person holding the camera is the one who says the dialogue, and the audience get a first person view through the camera.

-       Due to the high-tempo of the song, parts could be recorded and fast-forwarded, this could add a comical aspect to our video, as people generally find actions like dancing amusing when shown at a higher speed.

The Strokes- Machu Picchu

-       As the siren like sound takes place at the start, there could be a number of cuts going closer and closer to the artists until the sound stops, then

-       At 20 seconds, the singers voice comes into the track in a very sudden way, his presence on the camera could do the same. As his voice becomes heard on the track, he could walk into the shot (an extreme close-up on the microphone on a stand)

-       From 1:22 to 1:30, every time the guitar reaches the end of its riff, there could be a cut to another band member performing their instrument alone

Killers – I can’t stay

-       There is a very strong narrative in this song about a decision that someone must make about going home or not, we feel that we could convey this narrative in an extremely graphic way, and we feel that the audience may be able to relate to this, as the concept of home is clearly one that everyone recognises.

-       The use of instruments such as steel drums are generally associated with cultures such as that of Hawaii which is iconic for its sunny weather, sun is also a recurring theme within the lyrics of this song. We believe that this could be personified; a intertextual references to such culture could be made.

-       A story is told through the lyrics, many infer that it is about a man discovering he has a child that he was previously unaware of, and we believe that due to the fact that this is a common theme amongst popular television shows (especially soaps). For this reason, if we were to retell such a story within our production, the audience may relate to this on a personal scale which may enhance the audience’s general view towards our production.