Effects That We Like

There are a number of effects that we liked that other programmes and music videos have used before. One main effect that we liked as a group was the splitting of the screen with two different shots. This is what the TV programme 24 use and is an effect that we would like to use in the video. It would be effective to use instead of using basic cuts all the time and different transitions. The idea was to use this effect to show our model in two different places but singing the same part of the song. Another idea that we quite liked, was to use the shot idea from below.

The shot shows FOUR different scenes that are divided over the screen. The shots that are shown above are of exactly the same thing, peoples feet, and in the scene, each person is tapping their feet in exactly the same way. This is an idea that we would like to use in our video. The vision that we have is to have our artist in four (or more) different locations, singing the exact part of the song and in the same position in the shot. This idea would work well as we could establish four different places that we would like to shoot, and then focus on one as the screen expands one quarter of the screen.

In regards to editing, we like the idea of quick cutting when the pace of the song suddenly increases. This is shown in nearly all videos. The pictures below are from Oasis 'Stop Crying Your Heart Out'. I have already explained this in a previous post when analysing the video. The song speeds up in regards to the amount of beats. Because of this, there are rapid cuts between shots and within the space of about 5 seconds, there are a total of 10 shots.
As stated, this is an idea that we will definitely want incorporate into our video to add that extra bit of authenticity.

Copyright Letter

It has been two weeks now since we have sent the permission letter to Sour Mash Records, and still have not heard a reply, so as a group we assumed that we were able to use the song. If we were unable to, then I'm positive we would have been contacted to advise us of this.

Creating The Mp3

As stated in the previous post, creating the mp3 bar (below) was a lengthy frustrating process that eventually worked after failing many times to create the finished product.




To start, I had to use a programme called 'GarageBand'. The logo to this programme is on the right hand side of the screen. The programme allows you to edit audio pieces and add anything extra you may like such as pace, louder instruments and even cutting the song down. This is the interface of GarageBand.

Upon opening this program it looked slightly difficult to use but after a bit of prompting and playing around, I finally got the hang of it. So, with this on the home screen, I located the song that I wanted, in this case, the extract of our model Jack performing. Once the song was dragged into the program, the next thing to start doing was to listen to the song and see what parts I wanted to cut down. The original audio that I ended up editing can also be found here on YouTube, and from this you are able to see how much of the video I have edited out. After establishing which parts of the audio that I wanted to take out, it was time to begin the process.

At the bottom of the screen in Garage Band, there are the icons to do with editing the selected item. The icon that I needed to use was the one with the scissors (icon is highlighted in blue on the right). After clicking on this, another window opens showing the song at a zoomed in level with the bars to show its volume, tempo and length. The bar looks like the one below;


From here, I simply clicked and dragged over the parts of the song that I didn't want and then pressed delete. This then meant that the song had huge gaps in it so the remaining audio had to be joined back together.

Above is a screen grab of the edited piece that I have used for the mp3. It is obviously a lot smaller than the picture above this one and I also deleted the long introduction just so we only had the audio piece there and no long blank spaces. To me, this edited piece sounded great so far. I decided that if I was to put this straight onto my blog via an mp3 bar, then it may not sound right due to there being an abrupt ending. The vast majority of songs these days finish with music playing, however there is a significant volume reduction to play the song out. This is the effect that I used to complete the editing process.

Towards the top of the page, there is a bar that says about track volume. This is what I wanted, and after clicking on this, a blue bar below my edited piece popped up. The blue bar represented the volume, and in order to change this, I simply had to click the blue bar underneath the part of the song that I wanted to change the volume for, and then drag down to create a 'slope' in the line. The end of the song that had its volume changed can be found below. As you can see, there are blue bubbles along the blue line. This is where I clicked and dragged down in order to change the volume. After playing around a bit and listening to the ending a few times, the grab on the left shows the end of the song with the final chosen volume levels.

After saving the song, the process on Garage Band was now completed. All that was left to do was to send the song to iTunes. This was as easy as clicking the 'Share' on the tool bar at the top of the screen and selecting 'send song to iTunes'. The song was obviously then sent to iTunes, and it appeared in the playlist as normal.

I thought the process was then finished and that I could then simply add the song from iTunes straight onto my blog in an mp3 format, but I was informed that you had to host the song on an internet site. I had to do this because blogger required a link to access the song. After endless amounts of Google searches and talking to my teacher who explained a log winded way of hosting the song, I discovered that you can actually host the song via Google. Google has so many different things to it in addition to the regular 'Web, Images and Maps' searches. Under the 'more' tab on the Google tool bar, there is an option for Google Sites.


This is something that I have never seen or used myself, so like Garage Band, this was a whole new site for me to try and work with. I managed to find a blogger on the web who helps others with their blogging. The walk through of how to host a piece of audio of the web was easy to follow and the process is shown below. The process that was required to host the song was fairly easy to follow. When Google sites had loaded I had to click the create icon to make a new page. After the new page was created and named I then had to make the page able to take and upload mp3 formatted files. To do this I had to add a new page to the site. The page that then comes up is the one that is on the right of the screen. I had to change the bit where it says 'Web Page' to 'File Cabinet'. This format then allows you to upload any files from the computer such as mp3 files and videos. So, after the format was changed, I simply clicked create and the page was made. The next step was to actually add the file that I wanted to that page. This was as easy as following the on-screen instruction. I chose my file from iTunes (where it was placed after the editing) and added it.

Once the file was uploaded, all I had to do was to find the link of the song and add it to the HTML code that I already had to create the mp3 bar in blogger. To do this, I had to right click where it says 'Download' and from the drop down menu, choose 'Copy Link'. This was the hard bit over of the editing and hosting the music file. It was the easiest way to host the music rather than having to possibly pay for an account on another music hosting website. After finding the HTML code on another blogger site, a site dedicated to help other bloggers such as myself, all I had to do was enter the copied link into the correct place and add it to my post. (The HTML code that I used is below)

Who Are We Going To Use...?

When we started to story board our ideas to the music video, we realised that we didn't have a model to appear in the video. This again is another aspect of the research that we should have considered at the start of the video. It would be no good doing all the research to find that we didn't actually have an appropriate person to appear in our video. We contemplated over who we could use and different people we named but quickly decided against because they were not the sort of person to fit our genre of music.

Jay then said how he knew of someone within his football team that could possibly appear in our video. The person Jay mentioned is a young, enthusiastic singer and guitarist and this is the sort of person that we are looking for. After a few searches on YouTube and watching a couple of his performances, Jay contacted him to which he agreed to help us out. Jack can be seen in the picture to the right.


A performance of his can be found as an mp3 below.



Creating the mp3 bar above was a lengthy process which is explained in this post.

Copyright Letter

In order to use any song and produce a music video, there are hurdles that need to be addressed. The main thing was to seek permission to actually use the song from the copany that owns it. After thinking about this, it most definitely would have been better to have sent of this letter at the earliest stage possible, as in the same day that we had decided on the song to use. Instead, we carried on blogging about the chosen song and have done countless research into what we could do to produce the video. This has a potential to be catastrophic for our group. If the company that owns the song write back to us and for some reason do not allow us to use the song in our video, then the whole of our project so far would be pointless and we would have to revert back the beginning.

All well and said, Adam sent of a letter to the company. It took a while to do this. We initially thought that there would simply be an email address to send a quick email off to, but this was not the case. After seaching around, we found that the song was owned by Sour Mash Records, a company founded and produced by Noel Gallagher himself. Adam tried to find the company's website, however as yet, there has not yet been an official site created. Instead, a simple Google search of the name produced us with a blogger page dedicated to the company and Noel Gallagher. The link to this website can be found here.

After a couple of more internet searches and scrolling down the page of the endless results Google gives you, one address kept popping up, so we decided to send a letter to that address. Adam typed out the letter and it can be seen below. The letter was then stuck in an envelope and sent off to the company, and we await a reply!

Location Shots

After establishing the song that we are going to produce a video to, the next thing was to decide on locations that we would want to be in our video. We could have filmed in local areas in woods, houses or town centers however a a group, we felt that local areas would take away authenticity of the video as people viewing it would identify the area and not believe it was a proper music video. We wanted to find a location that would be iconic and one that we know has been used in other videos as a central point of the video. Taking this into consideration, we felt that London would the most appropriate location to do our shoot. There are so many different locations in London that could work with our video, from the constant busy streets, to the quiet side alleys that are yet to be discovered by many people that venture up to London.

Southbank
An iconic location that could be used in our video is the famous London Southbank. It is always busy with people commuting to and from work, going out for day trips, and also with tourists. The riverside walkway also hosts a number of different famous landmarks such as The Houses of Parliament, The Mayor's Office, The London Eye and Tower Bridge, all of which are identifiable to the public as being London's tourist attractions. These places would be good to film for large crowds and also a different number of people as tourists from all over the world travel to see the different destinations.

Wembley WayWembley Way would be another great place to film. We could have a long shot of the whole of the walkway and see the stadium in the background looking at the different people that are walking below. This would give a notion of looking sense as the audience can see what other people do with their lives and either relate or differentiate it to their own life. It would be ideal to shoot this location completely empty to show how life has not yet started (due to the time of day) and then a later shot of the walkway packed with people showing how quickly life develops and how the world becomes busy.

Tube Stations
Tube stations are tricky locations to shoot in. There are so many across London that would benefit us and our video. One of our ideas for the video is to have our artist/actor singing with his guitar in a tube station watching life as it goes by. Although this could be a good idea, we have to appreciate that filming anything on the TFL (Transport For London) is very tricky due to the previous terrorist attacks. As a group, the only way we could decide on over coming this, should a tube station happen to appear in out video, and we are asked to move on, the best thing to do is plead ignorance and say we are students merrily filming some footage for our Media A-Level and we were unaware of the restrictions of filming in tube stations. The idea of the tube station, again can be used to show people moving about their everyday life and would show an audience the different types of people that live in the world.

Hyde Park

Another location that sprung to mind to appear in our music video was Hyde Park. As Christmas is just around the corner - only 5 weeks away - we thought that we could take this to our advantage and use the famous Christmas market and fair in our video. We were told by our teacher that a few students from a different school used this same location and produced a high graded finished product. As a group, we felt that the different colourful lights would have a good effect with the right camera work, and that again, there would be hundreds or even thousands of people walking around the fair going on the different rides and buying different items that are on sale. The idea was to have our artist walking around the fair watching the people on the rides and walking around and see how people enjoy their lives. It would also be good to have our artist in a neutral position as he observes a different variety of people as they pass him.

Obviously the ideas above are only rough ideas that are potential locations for filming. When we go up to London to shoot -thats even if we defenitly choose to go to London- then when travelling around, we may find areas that we feel would look good in the video and set up a camera and start filming. If later we chose not to use that part of the film, then it can easily be edited out.

Noel Gallagher To Bring Out Music Video!

When the song was originally decided upon, there was no proper music video released for the song. All that was on the internet were videos that contained lyrics and some live performances of Noel Gallagher performing the song, as you can see from the video bar on the side of the screen.
This has now changed. When searching on the internet, Adam, who is in my group, came across an article on the Sun Newspaper's website reporting of a video that was to be released to Gallagher's 'What A Life' song. The article can be found here. Now that a video has been released, it will probably be played more over the music channels meaning it will become more contemporary. Originally we wanted to stay away from the contemporary music, however as a group we feel that we can still produce a video to the song to a good standard.

The video can be found below.


The video is 8 minutes long and has a story line to it. The video picks up from another song by Gallagher called 'The Death of You and Me'. The video followed a waitress in her life, and his What A Life song takes on from this. This psychedelic video features actor and comedian Russell Brand as he portrays an evil being whom tries to poison the waitress from the video 'The Death of You and Me'. She acts as the protagonist until Noel Gallagher appears to save her from two females. The video is notable for including snippets of a reworked version of 'The Death of You and Me', causing speculation that it has been taken from Gallagher's second solo album.

(taken from Wikipedia)

Second Video Analysis

As part of my research for my video, it is vital to look at other videos that share the genre of the music my group are going to use. This is so as we can see how a music video is filmed to this particular type of music, and also to see if there are any ideas that we could use that would look professional in our own video. So, within the group we each looked at a music video that is from the same genre of music as our own and analysed it. Now, I found it difficult to pick a song to analyse because there are so many different artists to choose from, and then you have to sift thorough their songs to analyse one. I finally settled on 'Stop Crying Your Heart Out' by Oasis. I felt that this was an appropriate band to analyse seeing as the song that we are producing a video to is by the lead singer of the band. The video can be found below.



The video begins with someone striking a match. As you can see from the video, the striking of the match happens exactly as the music begins. Although at this point in the video this visual has no meaning to the viewer, it becomes apparent later why this was used. The next shot in the video is a visual of the main vocalist of the song, Liam Gallagher. This would have been included so as to identify the band to the viewer. The shot then quickly changes to an empty street with someone with their back to the camera. The screen has black side bars that create the impression of a television. The idea that you as a viewer or the band themselves are looking at this person through 'a TV screen' creates a notion of looking as we look upon what this person is going to do. The shot that follows is again, of Liam Gallagher. This time the shot is a close up of him as he begins to perform the song. This idea of having a close up of the artist singing the opening line is a technique that my group wanted to use to establish who was singing the song and to start the video off.

Just from the first few seconds of the video, you can already tell that it is going to be a mixture of a performance and narrative video. You can tell this as you have already seen the singer, and another person in a completely different place to the performance of the song who has nothing to do with the band. As the opening line of the song is sung, the camera moves around the artist from right to left. This shot causes it to become more interesting that simply have a still shot of the artists face. The whole time that the camera is moving, the artist, Liam Gallagher is staring straight in the same position the whole time. Another thing that I noticed when watching this video, was how Liam Gallagher is chewing gum throughout. This shows how the laid back, casual, not caring attitude that a stereotypical rock artist is supposed to have. This is not an idea that we have thought about incorporating into our own video, however it is an idea that could be worked upon. The song continues and the shots switch between the girl in the street (with the TV screen look) and the band. When the band is on the screen, it should be noted that the camera is hardly ever in one position with the whole band in the shot. Instead, the angles of the shot change and the camera is constantly moving slowly from one side to another as it establishes what is happening within the room.

When the band is in shot, the camera switches from each band member in turn and some of the shots have close ups of the instruments that are being played. This shows to the viewer each of the band members contribution to the song. As already said, the video cuts between a performance of the song and a narrative to go with it. The performance of the song is as though Oasis are directly singing the song to the girl withing the video. The girl is walking down an empty street with very little life and blanked out billboards. The lyrics that accompany this are 'stop crying your heart out' - also the name of the song. To an on looker, this would connotate that the girl in the video is possibly depressed and lonely, and the song is trying to almost cheer her up and get her thinking positive again. This is shown in the second verse of the song. At 1 min 25 secs of the video, the song breaks into the swing of it and the drums are played loudly with a continuous rhythm. The drum is beaten around 11-13 times in the space of 5 seconds, to which there is a cut for every beat (as shown with the picture below) This is a definite convention that all music videos follow, and one that we will use. By this I mean cutting to the beat of the song, and should there be a fast paced bit within the song, then it would be ideal to have quick editing with lots of different shots to fill the beats. This is done to show a lot of different things but with only a small space of time. The viewer has enough time with this video to see that the girl is lonely, and is obviously in a petrol station and has payed for some fuel.

The video now changes, as does the song. The song picks up a bit of pace and a few more instruments are heard and with a louder tune too. Songs increase in volume after the first few lines are sung to show that the middle of the song has been reached and the main message is being conveyed. The lyrics change from the depressing 'stop crying your heart out' to 'get up, come on'. This is more motivational language, and the visuals match this. In the beginning, the billboards that the girl passes are all turned off, and now that she has perked up after hearing these words, not only is she smiling and looking to the sky, but all of the boards are turned on and displaying images of clouds. After this is seen, the match that appeared at the start of the song is seen being lit again, followed by shots of the girl walking away from the petrol station holding a full petrol canister. It then becomes apparent what the girl intends to do (setting alight to something - we later learn that it is herself) and therefore shows the depressing side of the song.