Research into Target Audience

For my target audience research I decided to produce a survey on www.surveymonkey.com which I sent to some of my friends through a social networking message. Some of them have already completed the survey but I am still waiting for some results. I asked the following questions;

1. Are you male or female?

2. What age group do you fit under?

3. What genres of music do you like?

4. Do you like to watch a colour or black and white music video?

5. What is your favourite music video and why?

6. What do you prefer in a music video?

7. Do you tend to watch a music video more than once?

I thought that these questions would give me sufficient answers towards my work. 

Once more people have completed my questionnaire I will upload my findings. 


1. Are you male or female?

When I asked the question 'Are you male or female?', it was because I wanted to find out what different genres would like to see in music videos. 81% of the people I asked were female and 19% were male. 


2. What age group do you fit under?

I asked the question 'What age group do you fit under?' so that I could find out if the age group varies to what they want to see in music videos.


3. What genres of music do you like?

I asked the question 'What genres of music do you like?' because I wanted to make sure that Indie was one of the most popular ones as our song is indie and we want it to attract a large audience. 


4. Do you like to watch a colour or black and white music video?

I asked the question 'Do you like to watch a colour or black and white music?' because we wanted to find out which of the two the audience prefer. We have found that they do prefer a colour video but we may not follow this because indie music videos do tend to be in black and white including the following; 

5. What is your favourite music video and why?

Thriller by Michael Jackson because when I was younger I remember waiting for it to come on to TV for the first time when it came out. It was spectacular and still is today, it will always be remembered in the future. 

Take On Me by A-Ha. Before this music video most music videos were quite boring, it changed music videos and made them into an art form. It was very different to anything else which had ever been produced. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djV11Xbc914&ob=av2e 

6. What do you prefer in a music video?

I asked the question 'What do you prefer in a music video?' because I wanted to know what people preferred so that we could apply it to our music video. As people have said a mixture of both we have decided to do a mixture in the filming. 

7. Do you tend to watch a music video more than once?

I asked the question 'Do you tend to watch a music video more than once?' because I wanted to know if my audience found it interesting to watch a music video multiple times. 

Research into Music Video Directors

Colin Tilley
Collin Tilley is an award winning music video director for Riveting Entertainment who has written and directed music videos for many artists including Chris Brown, Justin Bieber, 50 Cent, Lil Wayne and others.
His frequent collaborator is Chris Brown and they have worked on more than a dozen music videos together in the last two years including every single off of Chris Brown's F.A.M.E. album. He won awards for Chris Brown's "Look At Me Now" video and Justin Biebers "You Smile" video.

Shane Drake
Shane Drake is an American music video director. He has directed videos for bands such as Trivium, Paramore, Fall Out Boy, Panic! at the Disco, Angels & Airwaves and others. From the list of bands just given, it shows that Shane Drake likes to stick with a certain genre of music which is rock or punk rock. He has directed more than 50 music videos and co-produced three films. This shows that he has a lot of experience. He also owns Red Van Pictures which is a Los Angeles based production company. Some of the videos he has produced are;

• Panic! at the Disco - I Write Sins Not Tragedies
• Paramore - Misery Business
• The Rocket Summer - So Much Love
• Plain White T's - Our Time Now
• Avril Lavigne - Smile

Theories on Music Videos

I have decided to research into different theories on the music video so that I can understand what I need to do to make a promotional music video to its maximum potential.

Goodwin
Goodwin identifies that a number of key features manage to distinguish a music video as being a form:

1. Particular music genres may have their own music video style and iconography. For example, punk rock bands tend to have a mixed narrative and performance. Girl and boybands tend to have a dance routine.

• As our song comes under a punk rock, indie genre we could go with the mixed narrative and performance iconography or we could decide to go out of the stereotype and just have a narrative or performance.

2. There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals. Music videos tend to illustrate the lyrics by using visuals to help the viewer understand.

3. There is a relationship between music and the visuals. The camerawork, camera shots, editing, mise en scene and lighting should work with the song.

4. The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs (or star iconography) which recur across their work. This should hopefully mean that the artist will create a star image for themselves and look good for the record company.

5. There is frequently reference to notion of looking and particularly voyeuristic treatement of the female body. Within the song that we have chosen this could be particularly hard to portray. At the moment we have chosen that we want to use a male actor, but if this is not possible due to not finding the correct image that we would like, we do have a female actress in mind. If we were to use the female actress this would be very easy to do as the song we have chosen is called 'Actin' a disgrace'.

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

Dyer

Stars and Stardom;

In order to understand the relationship between the music industry and its audiences, you must consider the roles of music stars. The term 'star' refers to the semi-mythological set of meanings constructed around the music perfomers in order to sell the performer to a large and loyal audience.

These are some common values in the music industry:

• Youthfulness
• Rebellion
• Sexual Magnetism
• An anti-authoritarian attitude
• Originality
• Creativity/talent
• Agression/anger
• A disregard for social values relating to drugs, sex and polite behaviour
• Conspicuous consumption of sex, drugs and material goods
• Success against the odds

Richard Dyer has written about the role of stars in film, TV and music. He found that stars do have some key features in common:

• A star is an image, a persona, which is constructed out of a range of materials including advertising and magazines.
• Stars are produced and consumed on the strength of their meanings.
• They depend on a range of subsidiary media - magazines, TV, radio and the internet - so that they can construct an image for themselves which can be marketed to their target audiences.

Negus

"What I'm looking for is the working act. The real act. The act that can get up on stage and do it. That act will give you a career. I signed Black Sabbath umpteen years ago; they are still making records. These are acts that are career acts..Two years ago I started a dance label..Now that's not a carer orientated label. I mean those records are one-off situations and every now and again maybe you'll get an artist come out of it."
Record Company executive, quoted in Negus (1989)

• Identifies two distinct ways of thinking about potential artists from within the music industry.
• These ideologies shape the way in which the artists' images and careers are developed, and the way that they are marketed towards specific target audiences
• The organic ideology of creativity and the synthetic ideology of creativity.

The organic ideology includes a 'naturalistic' approach to artists and the seeds of success are within the artists who have been 'nurtured' by the record company. The image of the artist should be 'enhanced' by the record company and the artist is given time to evolve and progress through their career. Emphasis is given to the album sales and the construction of a successful back catalogue. It is often aimed at older or more sophisticated consumers and the profits generated by this kind of act tend to be part of a long term strategy by the record company.

Steve Archer
The following 5 things should be found in recent music videos

1. 'Thought Beats' or seeing the sounds in your head. The basis for visualising images is found from the psychological process called synaesthesia which is where you are able to picture sounds in your mind's eye. When understanding a music video this idea is important as they build on the soundtrack's visual associations in order to connect with the audience and provide an additional pleasure.
This approach means that you need to stat with the music and sort out the way that the song works. You should take into account the way that it has been stacked up with sound. Lyrics do not need to be analysed word for word as they should be considered for the way that the introduce a general feeling or mood. Long lyrics very rarely have a meaning which can be simply read but even if they don't have a clear meaning they are still important in creating a sense of subject matter. Key phrases and lines - especially the lines in the chorus - will play a large part in the visuals associated with the song in the mind's eye.

2. Narrative and performance
Rarely do songs tell complete narratives. The narrative in songs affects the way stories are used in the music video representations of a song's meanings which normally ends up with a suggestion of a story. Music videos should avoid a classic realist narrative because that is their role in advertising. We should be able to watch the video repeatedly in a casual way with a looser approach to their storytelling.  I think that narrative is important in music videos but I also believe that the performance is important as well. Normally, music videos cut between a music performance and narrative. Sometimes, dancing which has been choreographed is used and can be used for an extra aspect to aid visualisation and the 'repeatability' factor. Sometimes, the artist (most commonly the singer) will be part of the story, acting as the narrator and participant at the same time. The lip-syncing close-up and the miming of playing the instrument remains at the heart of music videos as it shows us what the band can really do.

3. The star image
The music business relies on big name stars to fund its activities as it usually fails to connect with the popular audiences - only about one in ten acts put out by the industry actually makes any money. Therefore, what we can describe as the meta-narrative of the star image will have an important part to play in the music video production process. Meta-narrative is a term which describes the development of the star image over time.

4. Three ways in which music videos relate visuals to the song
These are illustration, amplification and disjuncture and I find them extremely useful in attempting to generalise the effects of individual music videos.

• Music videos can illustrate the meaning of lyrics and genre, providing a sometimes over literal set of images. Here, then, is the most straightforward technique and the classic example of visualisation, with everything in the music video based on the source of the pop song.
• However, as with all advertising, the most persistent type of video adds to the value of the song. Amplification is seen as the mark of the true music video Auteur, the director as artist, and an increasingly common way to view music video creatives. Crucially, though, and what separates it from disjuncture, is the fact that amplification music videos retain a link with the song and work to enhance or develop ideas, rather than fundamentally changing them.
• Disjuncture is a term used to describe those music videos that (normally intentionally) seem to work by ignoring the original song and creating a whole new set of meanings. This is quite a radical technique and used by arty bands in order to assert their difference and originality to an audience.

5. Technical aspects of music video
The last, essential aspect of music video to study is technical. This includes camerawork, movement and angle, mise-en-scene, editing and sound. It is important to remember the more general features of music videos already mentioned when trying to work out the technical effects, especially those which are post-production effects. Broadly, the technical conventions can be summed up below;

1.Speed! Speed is visualised by camera movement, fast editing (montage) and digital effects.
- Camera movement is often motivated by running, dancing and walking performers.
- Fast-cutting and montage editing creates a visually decentred experience necessary for music video consumption, with the images occasionally moving so fast that they are impossible to understand on first viewing and thus need to be viewed several times (repeatability).
- Post-production digital effects - a staple of music video where images can be colourized, multiple split screens appear, and so on, all to complicate and intrigue, providing pleasure again and again.

Not all camera movement is about speed though and some use slow pace through dissolves or static shots. This kind of editing is striking and effective in setting the song apart from the hustle and bustle of most pop activity.

2. Meat! The meat of most music videos is the cut to the close-up of the singer's face. This is because the voice is seen as the most important part of pop music.

3. Beats! Often, the video will try and represent the music through the use of the cut to go with the beat or key rhythm.

4. Lighting and colour may also be used to emphasise key moments in the song, using methods from lighting live performances for dramatic effect. Colour may be used to show a development in the song, going from colour to black and white or vice versa when the chorus comes in. Equally, any change in the mise-en-scene or camerawork can signal the sme type of thing.

5. Mise-en-scene - obviously the setting for music videos is important, often guarantee the authenticity of the clip rather than anything else. So mise-en-scene for many music videos is the concert hall or rehearsal room to emphasise the realness of the performance or the grit and practice that goes into attaining star quality. Increasingly, CGI is used, especially for dance songs which don't really rely so much on being 'real' like rock and rap acts.

Music Industry Research

Most artists make it into the music industry once they have been signed to a record label. A record label is 'a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos'.
Record labels manage the brands which coordinate with the production, manufacturing, distribution, marketing and the promotions. They have to make sure that they have copyright protection with their sound recordings and music videos so that it is known to be their production. Contracts are also normally written up with new and upcoming artists.

When an artist is signed by a record label they depend on them to broaden their audience, make their albums better marketed and heard on radio stations, television and on the internet. The internet is an ever-growing way of promoting yourself as a new artist as if you don't have a record label you most likely cannot afford to promote yourself. Promoting yourself on websites such as Youtube and SoundCloud you are able to make yourself known to the public and could also be scouted through the internet.

Major Record Labels

The four major labels since 2009, known as the 'Big Four' are;

• Sony Music Entertainment - http://www.sonymusic.com/
• EMI Group - http://www.emimusic.com/
• Warner Music Group - http://www.wmg.com/
• Universal Music Group - http://www.universalmusic.com/

The term music group is used when they are owned by a company which has non-music divisions as well. Since 2005, the 'big four' music groups control about 70% of the worlds music market.

Universal Music Group is the largest of the 'big four' record companies by its multitude of global operations. Universal Music Group owns a music publisher, Universal Music Publishing Group, which became the world's largest.

Universal Music Group is the world's largest music content company with market leading positions in recorded music, music publishing and merchandising. The recorded music business discovers and develops recording artists and then markets and promotes their music across the world. Labels include Barclay, ECM, Interscope Geffen A&M Records, Island Def Jam Music Group, Machete Music and Polydor Records.

Featured Artists : Justin Bieber, The Black Eyed Peas, Bon Jovi, Mariah Carey, Eminem, Dr. Dre, The Killers, Lady Gaga, Lil Wayne, Maroon 5, Nicki Minaj, Rihanna, Kanye West.

Through an arrangement with Hollywood Records, UMG also distributes Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez and through an arrangement with Big Machine, Rascal Flatts and Taylor Swift.

Sony Music Entertainment is the second-largest global recorded music company.

Sony Music Entertainment are a global recorded music company and have a mixture of local and international artists. It is home to premier record labels representing music from every genre.

Featured Artists : Avril Lavigne, Beyonce, Britney Spears, Chris Brown, Foo Fighters, Pitbull, Shakira

EMI Group is the fourth-largest business group in the 'big four' record companies.

EMI Music is one of the world's leading music companies and has produced some of the most successful and best known recording artists. EMI aim to bring artists and fans together by creating good music experiences. Their record labels include Angel, Astralwerks, Blue Note, EMI Records and Virgin Records.

Featured Artists : Lily Allen, The Beatles, Coldplay, Depeche Mode, David Guetta, Katy Perry, Snoop Dogg, Tinie Tempah, Thirty Seconds To Mars and Robbie Williams.

Warner Music Group is the third largest business group in the 'big four' family.

 Warner Music Group is home to a collection of the best-known record labels in the music industry including Asylum, Atlantic, Reprise and Warner Bros.

Featured Artists : Bruno Mars, Michael Buble, Cee Lo Green, Greenday, Madonna, Linkin Park and Paramore.

Independent Labels

An independent record label (indie record label) is a record label which operates without any funding from the organisations of the major record labels. Many bands and artists begin on independent labels before making it big.

Independent labels have a long history, even going back to the post-war period in the United States. In the United Kingdom during the 1950s the independent labels had problems due to the major record companies having so much power and they began to struggle becoming established.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Record_label

Conventions of Music Videos

A music video is typically a short film which includes a song and imagery combined with each other. When produced, this creates a music video. Music videos are produced for promotional or artistic purposes. They are normally created to market the artist as they intend on getting many views on different forms of technology such as, computer and televison.

Camerawork
Camera movement, angles and shot distance all need to be analysed when creating a music video as they will have a significant impact upon the meaning. Camera movement will normally accompany the movement of the performers when they are walking or dancing etc, but it may also be used to create a dynamic feel to the stage performance e.g. circling the band as they perform on the stage. Close up shots dominates the screen due to the size of the screen and because of the desire to create a sense of intimacy for the viewer. Lip synching is typically used within music videos and the close up shots like to emphasise this.

Editing
The most common form of editing associated with music videos is the fast cut montage which reders many images which are impossible to grasp on the first viewing so that is ensures multiple views. There are some music videos which use slow paced transitions to establish a mood. This is apparent in music videos for female solo artists with a broad audience. Editing is normally enhanced with digital effects because they play on the original images to offer different expereinces for the audience. Split screens, colourisations and CGI are all examples of this.

Camera Movement
The movement of the camera tends to follow the artist or dancers. If there are people walking in the video the camera movement is likely to follow them. Camera movements which are used within music videos are pans, tilts, crane shots and tracking shots. They all manage to create a different atmosphere which is suitable for the theme of the music video. 

Mise en Scene
Mise en scene includes the costumes, location and the props used within the music video. The costume of the artists are very important in a music video as they should be suitable towards the theme of either the performance or narrative. If a performance is being filmed then the costume is likely to be something which is seen to be fashionable or something that you would expect to see them in when they are in the public eye. If a narrative is being filmed the costume is most likely going to be something that fits in with the theme of the song. You could expect to see some costume changes which would be realistic depending on what is happening within the short film. When filming a music video, the location is very important if you want to get the correct vibe. For example, if you were to be filming a drum and bass song about clubbing it would be inappropriate to film in a park. Finally, the props which are used should have something to do with the lyrics or vibe within the song. Props can definitely help a song be portrayed correctly, especially if there is a hidden message within the artists lyrics.

Lighting
Some music videos decide to use black and white effects to portray a mood or emotion throughout the video. Artificial lighting can also be used to make the artists look a particular way.


Voyeurism
"The idea of voyeurism comes from Freud and refers to the idea of looking to gain sexual pleasure. It has been said that the male viewer's gaze at the screen is geared to notions of voyeurism in that it is a powerful controlling gaze at the objectified female on screen. In music promos, as we have seen, the female on screen has been a staple element through the Scopitones to Duran Duran and beyond. Goodwin argues that the female performer will frequently be objectified in this fashion, often through a combination of camerawork and editing with fragmented body shots emphasising a sexualised treatment of the star. In male performance videos too the idea of voyeuristic treatment of the female body is apparent with the use of dancers as adornments flattering the male star ego." (Pete Fraser Teaching Music Video (BFI 2004))





Lady Gaga - Telephone ft. Beyonce is a good example of voyeruism. Lady Gaga is dancing around the prison in her underwear and when in her cell she is covered in caution tape but only over her intimate areas. When in the car Beyonce is wearing a bra top which shows a lot of cleavage. This would create the powerful controlling gaze at the female.



Performance or Narrative Based
'Often, music videos will cut between a narrative and a perfomance of the song by the band. Additionally, a carefully choreographed dance might be a part of the artist's perfomance or an extra aspect of the video designed to aid visualisation and the 'repeatability' factor. Sometimes, the artist (especially the singer) will be a part of the story, acting as narrator and participant at the same time.' Stever Archer 2004.

The mise-en-scene may be used as a guarantee of what Simon Frith terms ‘authenticity’ as in the stage performance/use of a rehearsal room by a band whose musical virtuosity is their main selling point. It can be important to a narrative-based video to establish setting and relationship to existing film or televisual genres. Equally it may be used as part of the voyeuristic context by suggesting a setting associated with sexual allure, such as a sleazy nightclub or boudoir. Or finally, as John Stewart suggests, it may be used to emphasise an aspirational lifestyle for the audience, as in the current dominance of a futuristic look with emphasis on the latest gadgetry. (Pete Fraser Teaching Music Video (BFI 2004)) 



Ed Sheeran - Lego House is an example of a narrative music video. The video's narrative displays Grint developing through a mental breakdown, ending with Sheeran and Grint meeting as Grint is forcibly removed from a music venue and Sheeran comes out of an elevator. Source.




The song's accompanying music video was directed by Melina Matsoukas and presents Rihanna's relationship with her boyfriend as being like a drug and how their addiction to each other results in the singer leaving her boyfriend because of his possessive nature. Source.
Rihanna's 'We Found Love' is a good example of the singer acting as the narrator and participant at the same time. She lip-syncs the song on her own in parts of the music video and then in others she is acting with her on-screen boyfriend trying to explain their relationship and how unhealthy it is.



Beyonce's 1+1 music video is an example of a performance music video. The song's video features close-up shots of Knowles and incorporates psychedelic light effects and symmetrical filming photography. Source.


Star Image
Richard Dyer noted "a star is an image constructed from a range of materials" (Richard Dyer 1979). For pop music the materials include the songs (their lyrical themes and musical structures/genres), the record covers (singles and albums and the image of the star they present), media coverage (from interviews about career and private life through to tabloid gossip), live performance (the image through the stage show) and arguably most significantly the music videos, which may draw upon the image presented in all of the other aspects.


Intertextuality
The music video is often described as 'postmodern' which is a slippery term sometimes used as a substitute for intertextuality. If we see music promos as frequently drawing upon existing texts in order to spark recognition in the audience then we have a working definition of 'intertextuality'. John Stewart suspects that the influence of video games will predominate for the younger audience with the more plasticised look of characters emerging (as seen in Robbie Williams' 'Let Love be your Energy' and The Red Hot Chilli Peppers 'Californication'). His description of the music video "incorporating, raiding and reconstructing" is essentially the essence of intertextuality, using something with which the audience may be familiar to generate both potentially nostalgic associations and new meanings.

Research into genres

Pop Music

Pop is an abbreviation of the word 'popular'. It aims to appeal to a wide audience rather than to a particular type of audience. Pop music normally appeals to a younger audience and also tends to get very large audiences when doing concerts. It is the type of music which is often most played on the radio and is very well known culturally. Most pop music intends to encourage dancing or uses 'dance-orientated beats and rhythms'. Pop songs hold a structure which is, the song normally lasts about three and a half minutes and there is a verse-chorus with some hooks inbetween. The lyrics of a pop song tend to focus on love and relationships, partying or money. The lyrics are deliberately chosen to appeal to everyone hence the large audience.

Pop musicians include Justin Bieber, Example and Pixie Lott

Pixie Lott follows the conventions of a Pop song in this video. The video lasts just under three and a half minutes but it is a song about partying. The lyrics are very catchy and easy to remember and it follows the verse-chorus typicality.

Indie

Indie is the abbreviation of ‘Independent Music’. Indie is a term used to describe independence and a do-it-yourself approach to music. Quite regularly indie music tends to include an acoustic guitar which tends to help towards the independent sound. Indie music is normally introduced on large websites such as ‘Facebook’, ‘MySpace’ and ‘Sound Cloud’ as it means they can produce their music and publish it at a low cost. If given the chance most independent bands will choose to go to a major label and this gives them a breakthrough. Artists such as Ed Sheeran, Jamie T and The Kooks have managed to breakthrough in the past.

The Kooks had only been together as a group for three months before they were found and signed by Virgin Records. They were spotted at the Brighton Free But Festival in 2005. They said 'We were really young, we'd been together like two or three months, so we really didn't want to sign. But then we thought it's a really good opportunity and Virgin seemed like really cool people - they just seemed to really understand where we were coming from'.

R&B

R&B is an abbreviation of Rhythm and blues and is a genre of popular African American music. It began in the 1940s and now it is used to refer to electric blues, gospel and soul music. In the 1980s a newer type of R&B has developed and is now known as contemporary R&B. The mainstream use of R&B is usually referring to the comtemporary R&B music.

Beyonce and Rihanna are examples of R&B singers.

I think that in this song Rihanna catches contemporary R&B well. The background music is typical of the Rhythm and Blues genre but she has brought it up to date and popular with the lyrics she has chosen to use. The beat is typical of the African American genre but she has made it appeal to a large audience with the lyrics and upbeatness held within it.

Rock

Rock music is a popular type of music which has been constantly developing since the 1960s. Rock music normally includes an electric guitar, electric bass guitar and some drums. Typically, rock normally is a 'song-based music with a verse-chorus form'. The genre is constantly becoming more diverse and the lyrics normally concentrate on love, sex, rebellion, social concerns and life styles. Rock music is traditionally in a 4/4 meter with a repetitive drumming back beat. Punk Rock has also become very popular in the past 10 years. Sum 41, Foo Fighters and Blink 182 are good examples of rock bands.

The Foo Fighters are showing some typicality's of the Rock genre here as there is an electric guitar, an electric bass guitar and a drum kit in their song. If you listen to the lyrics it seems to also follow the genres rule as it is a song about rebellion in some form and also maybe social concerns after researching into the meaning of the song.

Hip-Hop/Rap

Hip Hop is a type of music which expresses feelings and artistic culture. It originated in the African-American and Latino communities around the 1970s. The 'Four Pillars' of hip hop culture are MCins, DJing, breaking and graffiti writing. Another element is beatboxing.
Rap refers to 'spoken or chanted rhyming lyrics'. Rapping can be done over a beat or without any music. Today, the terms 'rap' and 'rapping' are very closely associated with hip hop music. Eminem and Nicki Minaj are good examples of Hip-Hop/Rap artists.

Eminem portrays the Hip-Hop/Rap conventions well in this video. Rap songs are normally used to express feelings and he is quite obviously expressing some of his feelings within this music video. Rapping has been done over a beat in this song. Eminem is a very big rapper and he regularly expresses his feelings through his music.

History of the Music Video

The History of the Music Video on Prezi

Preliminary Task

Task Outline
For the preliminary task we were asked to recreate the 1998 Britney Spears classic 'Hit Me Baby One More Time'. We decided to create one video within the class rather than split into two gro ups and create two videos as we thought it would get better results.



If we want the video to be well produced and be completed on time then we will have to work hard and well together to get good results. The setting is easy for remake of this video because it is in a school which means that we won't have many problems with finding where we want to film or props. The video is dominated very much by females which isn't a problem to our class in particular because there are more females than males in our class. The males will however have to contribute at some point in the filming so that we can get the highest possible grade.

Planning
As there are quite a few of us in the class we decided to all split up and be assigned to different jobs. I was assigned to create the costume list for males and females. Sam, Rachel and Ellie all went to find the appropriate locations which we could film in and finally James and Richard did a shot by shot photo dump so that we could match the shots for our film.

The shot by shot photo dump was very useful to us when we were filming because it meant that we could follow chronologically the order and keep on track of which shots we had done. The people which were going to be in each shot were written down next to the applicable shots.

Filming

As we had chosen to all work in a big group we had to make sure that we were all going to contribute equally. We all needed to act, direct and film within it all. Some of the people in the class like to contribute more than others but we knew that this could not be done in this task. As we were thinking for ourselves it meant that we could choose what lighting we thought was appropriate and we could all have a contribution.

For the mise en scene we needed to try and create an exact re-make or get as close as possible to what they were wearing. To do this, the people that were acting brought in appropriate clothing to wear. The girls wore a white shirt, black/grey skirt, tights or knee high socks and we wore our hair in pigtails or plaits so that we could look as similar as possible to Britney Spears. The boys were made to wear blazers and white shirts so that they could fit in with the mise en scene of the school location. We added some props as well to make the mise en scene even more believeable and decided that bags, lockers, folders and books were appropriate.

When I was filming, I definitely found that the screen dumps were helpful because I was able to see what I was supposed to be filming and also the angle it should be filmed from and how the lighting should be. When I was acting, I had to be the main Britney at the beginning of the video and I also had to do some dancing within some of the shots. We all had to learn the choreography and all of the steps before we actually filmed which took up quite a lot of time but we wanted to make sure that everything was going to look professional and of a good quality. As none of us are actually dancers I think that the effort that we put in showed and was portrayed well in the video.

Editing

When we did the editing we decided to split into two groups because we thought that it would be much better to get different videos. One half of the class edited the first 45 seconds and the other edited the last 45 seconds. When I was editing I worked with Rachel and we split the editing equally between us so that we could both get used to using Premiere Pro again. When the other was doing some editing we both spoke to each other about what we were doing and whether or not we agreed with their decision. Not many special effects were necessary and it was mainly just cutting some of the shots and then putting them in order so that the were synchronised. When we finished the final product I was happy with it.

The Final Product

I am happy with our final product after the small time that we had to work on the project. I think that it has managed to come out well and the recreation looks quite similar to the real video. It was different having to act a lot throughout the video but I also enjoyed working behind the camera and having my opinion heard when I was contributing and saying what I thought would make the video look professional.

Evaluation

I think that as a group we managed to work really well. Everything was well planned and went smoothly. Everyone managed to contribute quite equally into the filming, acting and lip synching. This was a necessity to make the video as good as possible. As the dancing was a big part of the video I felt that we managed to do quite well in the recreation as we are not professional dancers. The quality is obviously not as good as the original but this is down to the equipment that we can afford and the location that we were able to use. I think that we worked well with what was available to us.

After doing the preliminary task I have become aware of how difficult it is going to be for me to create my own A2 video. I am going to have to work very hard and efficiently to get the results I want and need. The shot changes are very quick and I am going to have to do a lot of filming. I am also going to have to work at getting my video to a good quality but I believe that if a lot of time and effort is dedicated I will be able to get some good results.