Pitch & Pitch Feedback

Music Pitch

This is my pitch for the idea I had for my own music video. I think I was quite confident in actually presenting my idea however I did feel nervous throughout. Hopefully it didn’t show but I quite liked my idea and I was quite optimistic that my peers would actually like my idea as well. 

Music Pitch Feedback

This is the video of the feedback I had received on my idea form my peers. Overall I think it was really good feedback from everyone and there was only a couple of weaknesses that were in there. The strengths of my pitch were that everybody really liked the narrative that I had in mind. My teacher and Tianna had said “I think the link with the boy on the bike could be really good and as Tianna says it’s something a bit more different, a bit more positive than a traditional hip hop video.” My teacher really liked the idea I had of this boy that walks in at the end and picks up then puts down the gun and she even gave me suggestions of putting him in the video from the beginning as a cameo. That idea was probably the best idea I had in the whole video as it really emphasised the message of the song.  After I had talked about what my storyline is Halima had said “I think the storyline is quite deep and it suits how harsh the song really is” This backs up the feedback that everyone had said something positive about the narrative of my work. This really helps me because when writing up about it after the narrative was the main key concept that I could write about. Another thing that was said was that the narrative actually had a meaning to it making it more original. I think the main piece of positive feedback I got was from my teacher; she said that if I add a cameo of this boy then it would make the audience want to watch it multiple times and in my view I think that is quite important.

When it came to weakness Kieran had talked about that my narrative was thought out pretty well, however it really depends on how I edit it which means there will be a lot of hard work in post-production. Also my teacher had said that there was no need for me to have 3 characters to match the lyrics and I should just have normal characters that don’t actually need a status and use them and also I would need to recast and if I was going to have someone play a teacher then I should get someone older to actually play the part. Another thing is, judging from the questions, it is evident that I wasn’t that clear with how I explained my idea as in the feedback I had to clear things up to make my peers understand what I was trying to get at.

My partner in this project is Damanjyot and she has a completely different idea to mine. The songs are complete opposites and the idea itself cannot be matched in any sort of way. Due to this we could not mix our ideas and we had to select one idea and stick with it all the way. The idea that we chose was Damanjyot’s and I feel we can work quite well on it. Her idea consists of getting people’s reactions to her character walking down the street. At first I thought this was quite boring but I had thought of new ideas to incorporate into it to make it more interesting and I now think it can work pretty well. Damanjyot herself is going to be the main star in the video and I will be the director and I think it will work because she suits the song and with my knowledge of camera angles and how to use them makes us a good team and the outcome at the end will hopefully be better than what we thought. 

These two videos portray the same sort of idea as the idea my partner and I have for our music video. 

Music Video Pitch

Lyric analysis - V.I.T.A.L Emcee- "Put Down That Gun"

Target audience

The song

This whole song is about being rebellious and tries to portray how guns are bad .The chorus follows the lyrics of how average people on the streets have one which emphasizes the fact that it is so easy to get one. In the first verse he talks about how the streets are filled these people with violence on their mind. One of the lyrics are "Monkey see Monkey do" connotes that people imitate what they see which is describing the city. Towards the end of the first verse it talks metaphorically about death. "Now you're dropping, calling on god cuz the sky is falling" This is saying that the soul is going towards to god as he has died and assuming from the themes of the song, that person is shot dead. 

The second verse starts talking about more action and how things actually happen in life and how people react. "Repetitive psycho shoots his wife, his kids then himself with a rifle" This is probably the most meaningful line as it actually creates a vivid image in your mind and that line itself can portray the message they are trying to show.

Music & Tempo

The soundtrack is hip-hop and you can denote this from the lyrics as it is basically a rap song. The tempo is consistent through out, it goes straight into it right from the beginning and throughout the tempo does not change. The only thing that changes gradually is the meaning behind the lyrics  as it gets more aggressive however the actual beat of the song stays the same. Right at the end the volume of the song decreases and it slowly dies out bringing the song to an end.

How I would use the song in a video

From these lyrics you can clearly see that the artist is trying to show a message to if i incorporate this into a video then I would show a narrative to emphasize the  point the artist is trying to make. 

V.I.T.A.L Emcee-Put Down That Gun Lyrics

Chorus

And all the kids say, the President's got one,

The cops they got one,

My favourite rapper got one,  

You need to put down that gun,

You need to put down that gun,

And all the kids say, the President's got one,

 My teacher's got one,                              

My favourite rap star got one,  

Put down that gun,

 You need to put down that gun,  

Bang, bang, bang, 

Verse 1:
I done seen them preachers in pulpits,

Heard rappers with full clips,  

Who pull quick and teach the kids to believe in this bull-ish,  

The heart of the city beats for these thieves and these culprits,

 While their leaders run around for their facetious indulgements,

 It's a vicious cycle, I just sit through it and observe,

 Like a live Doppler scanning from helicopters,

 I'm hearing mausbergs, 45s, and 22s,

 Ain't got no kind of clue—monkey see, monkey do,

 But monkey what monkey who,

 I heard you're quick to brag on pulling triggers, but who's the one that's been pulling you,

 Young minded so your lack of experience has up tightened, now you run around the streets like you're bulletproof,

But uh-huh that's two shots past your spinal column,  

Now you're dropping, calling on God cuz the sky is falling,  

So ashes to dust, Earth back to the universe comes in thirds,  

And you'll see that Father Time was watching, 

Chorus

Verse 2:
And bang, bang is how it goes,

 Some blasts from an assassin creep to crash through your windows,  

And all your boys drop or dash as fast as the wind blows,

 And you're the only cat to see the last of your kinfolk up in thin smoke,

 And you say you're a menace God,  

A heat seeker sweeping streets, bent on some vengeance God,

The kind of cat who'd bring the reaper to a renaissance,

 Until you're caught up feeding that devil exactly what he wants,

 Now, it's like 360 degrees,

 And the future's predetermined by futures previously,

 And you can see this story on any TV at 3,  

Immediately as the media sees it to be,

 In the same old cycle,

 Repetitive psycho shoots his wife, his kids and then himself with a rifle,

 So that's why I'm holding close to mines, cuz when I go,  

It’s gon’ be on both feet, locking this mic like a maestro.

Chorus

Narrative

Narrative devices

Twist - AFI- Silver and Cold

A twist is something unexpected and it surprises the audience. 

1:51 - Man whose thinking of suicide

3:35- An explosion happening on the streets

In this video there is clearly a twist because throughout the video the centre of attention is the man who is on the edge who is about to commit suicide and it shows how his friends are running to go and save him; however the twist comes in near the end when you see that his friends actually die in a explosion and he just walks off and doesn't even commit suicide. This can make the audience actually quite confused or even shocked. 

Flashback - Justin Timberlake- Mirrors

A flashback is when the protagonist is looking back into the past

1:12- Old people who are the main people

1:25- Flashback to the past when they were young

In 'Mirrors' it follows the story a old husband and wife and how the wife is looking back onto her relationship with him and this causes many flashbacks. This creates more depth for the characters and this helps the audience become more emotionally invested into the video. 

Pathetic Fallacy -Bruno Mars- Grenade

2:13- The rain matching the mood

In this song, there is a very depressing tone to it as he is talking about all these things he would do for this girl but then gets turned away at the end. There are plenty of shots where Bruno Mars is standing in the rain and this adds to the mood of the song. This adds the intensity to the video making it more interesting for the audience.

Todorov

Todorov created a narrative theory where he said was 5 different parts to the narrative:

1. Equilibrium- State of normality
2. Disruption - Something damages the equilibrium
3. Recognition - The character recognizes the disruption
4. Restoring the equilibrium- Trying to solve the problem
5. New equilibrium- A new state of normality.

The Calling- Wherever You Will Go

Equillibruim (0:26) - Right from the start you see the girl looking at a picture of her and her boyfriend and then at 0:26 you see she has a tattoo of her boyfriend's name on her arm.

Disruption (1:14) - At 1:14 you can clearly denote that her boyfriend is sleeping with another woman and this causes a disruption in her life as he is cheating on her

Recognition (1:30) - At 1:30 the woman walks in seeing her boyfriend cheating on her and she recognises the disruption

Trying to restore equilibrium (1:56) - The protagonist is seen throwing all her boyfriend's clothes out of the door and she is seen smashing his things inside the house. This is seen to be her way of trying to repair the damage done to her.

New equilibrium (3:03) - The protagonist is seen walking out of her house with a new boy showing she is now happy and she has restored her equilibrium.

McKee 

McKee is another person who has his own theory on narrative. He also says there are 5 stages to it. 

1. Inciting incident 
2. Progressive complications 
3. Crisis
4. Climax
5. Resolution

Drake- Hold on, We're Going Home

Inciting incident (1:24) - The protagonists girlfriend gets kidnapped and this causes a disruption in the lives of the characters.

Progressive complications (2:56) - It turns out that the kidnapping was part of a revenge scheme and things get worse when the protagonist comes into a room with all his friends to find a load of guns that they are going to use which will no doubt make the situation worse. 

Crisis (4:24) - The characters step outside the car and start shooting at everyone. This is the crisis as when the character sees all the people that are involved in her kidnapping they all go on a shooting spree. 

Climax (6:21) - At this point the protagonist has come  face to face with the antagonist and then shoots him in the head as the antagonist kidnapped his girlfriend and then went on top of her before he got shot. 

Resolution (6:44) - At the end of the video you see the protagonist and his now saved girlfriend walk out looking happy which means they have resolved their problem and created a new equilibrium. 

Genre

Genre is a style or a category of a particular text. It helps us differentiate and identify between different sorts of texts. E.g. Hip-hop and R&B are two different types of genres in the music industry.

3 types of genre

R&B- John Legend-All of me

John Legend- All of me is a typical R&B song, it has the conventions that other R&B songs have.

2:25 - Topless protagonist

0:33- John Legend singing

Typical R&B songs have dominance in the black ethnicity; majority of the time the protagonist is of a black ethnicity and this can be seen in other music videos such as all of the Rihanna songs or even Chris Brown songs. On top of this the protagonist is seen topless in this video which is a typical convention in the R&B genre. Men are normally shown topless and always wearing jeans.

2:19- Love being shown 

1:56- Girl barely wearing clothes

A main theme in the R&B genre is love and this song is all about love. In  the image above you can clearly denote the two characters making love in the shower and this portrays the theme so accurately. Most r&B songs are about love and it is a recurring theme throughout each music video. Also no matter what the tempo is of the song or the mood is girls are always shown to be more sexual. An example of this is shown in the image above where the girl is clearly not wearing any clothes and is using the duvet to cover herself. This is seen a lot and it portrays women as sensual people and are only there to be seen as that.

Hybrid genre- FUSE ODG ft Sean Paul- Dangerous Love- Hip-hop & Afrobeat

A hybrid genre is a mix of two genres, Dangerous Love mixes Hip-Hop and Afrobeat together. 

3:24- Chants his name in the same tone all the time

In Afrobeat there are always chants in each Afrobeat song and this is what makes up the genre. In Dangerous Love, Fuse chants his name in every song but what makes it unique is he chants his name and all the things afterwards in the same tone as he does in all his other songs and in turn this turns into a chant. Fuse's music are all Afrobeat songs and he says the same chant in all his songs such as Azonto.

2:08- Girls partying and in revealing outfits

You can tell that it also has Hip-hop in the song because partying scenes are always seen in the genre and so are girls with minimal clothing. In the image above you can denote that there is a party with all the people and also you can tell there are revealing outfits by seeing the girl on the left. With these conventions in place it easy to define the genre as Hip-hop.

Sub genre- Route 94- My Love-  House music

House music was originated from dance music making it a sub genre. House music is basically electronic dance music. 

0:36- DJ in the house

In house music it is typical to see shots of a DJ playing the music and not all videos have this. In dance videos they barely show DJ's, however in house music they always show the DJ just to let us know it is house music and it adds more of a dancing feel to it. There is more of a electro dance to it when the DJ is shown and the colours add to this.

0:43- A lot of people dancing in the club

Another thing that is typical in house music is you see a lot of people in the video dancing. In Hip-hop or R&B videos you always see around 10 people dancing however in house music you see a whole shot filled with people dancing and the shot in the image above is a high angle shot and you can denote all the people in that shot are dancing and there must be over 20 people.

Generic conventions

Pop- Problem- Ariana Grande ft Iggy Azalea

Problem is a music video that conforms to the conventions of the Pop genre.

2:09- background dancers on sides- Rita Ora- I will never let you down

0:02- In centre with dancers behind

Mise-en-scene- In a typical pop song you always background dancers who support the main singer and the majority of the time you see them singing on a set. Above there are two images of two pop songs. On the left is 'Problem' by Ariana Grande and you can clearly see that there are background dancers who are in sync and they are symmetrically set out as well as the fact that they are on a set and the protagonist is in the centre of the shot. On the right is 'I will never let you down' by Rita Ora and this is another pop song which shows the exact same thing with the symmetrical background dancers and the singer in the centre and is placed on the set. This backs up the point that having dancers on a set makes up the Pop music video genre. 

0:52- Timber- Ke$ha

0:04- Random shot of Ariana Grande's face

Narrative- In pop videos there is always a set piece of random shots of the singer's face not really doing much but smiling or looking at the camera. This is a recurring thing as it never actually has any relevance to the video. As well as that there really is no narrative to pop videos, normally it is just shots coming together to make a good compilation of scenes. On the right is another example of the same sort of thing from 'Timber' where Kes$ha is just smiling at the camera. 

0:29- Chris Brown- Loyal

2:27- Ariana centred with guys around her

Representation- In pop videos it is quite different than other videos. Majority of the time in pop videos the girl is the dominant sex and the men are going after the girl whereas in a hip hop video it is always seen as the men are the dominant sex. The image above denotes Ariana Grande as centre of attention whilst there are men all around her whereas in other genre videos you see the male in the centre of attention with the girls around him. On the right is a image of a hip-hop song which you can compare with the pop song as in the hip hop video the boy is surrounded by girls but in the pop song the girl is surrounded by boys. 

0:42- "One Less problem without ya'" 

0:05- Rita Ora- How We Do

Sound design- When it comes to pop songs the lyrics of the song varies but they all actually have one thing in common, which is talking about life things. An example for this is that in 'Problem' they talk about the problems that were in life and in 'How we do' the opening line is "Let's party and bullshit". This just shows that the lyrics really talk about things that teens and young adults go through in life whereas in R&B they talk about money and success etc. 

0:46- Back to the shot of them dancing

Editing- The editing style is very similar in pop videos. There are a lot of cuts but they always cut to the same settings that we have already seen before, the only thing that changes is what they are doing in that setting. The image above shows the singer dancing on the same set we see the song open with showing that there is a repeat of settings. 

Genre themes

0:12- opening line

Teen angst- The first line in the song is "Hey baby even though i hate ya! I wanna love ya!" This shows the theme of teenage problems because it portrays how teenagers can be double minded when it comes to relationships and how it can cause frustrations. Also it shows how confused teens can be. 

1:12- Talking about love

Love/romance- Mid way through the song the lyrics "Say you love me, i get a bit breathless." This shows the theme of love as she is talking about how she feels when the boy says he loves her. Also in the image above you can denote that the boy and girl are staring at each other and normally a boy and girl being together connotes love.

Creative Commons

Creative commons logo

"Creative Commons is a new system, built upon current copyright law, that allows you to legally use “some rights reserved” music, movies, images, and other content — all for free. CC offers free copyright licenses that anyone can use (without a lawyer) to mark their creative work with the freedoms they want it to carry. For instance, a musician would use a Creative Commons license to allow people to legally share her songs online, make copies for friends, or even use them in videos or other compositions" - CreativeCommonsWebsite

My song is called "Put Down That Gun" by V.I.T.A.L Emcee and I got it off Creative Commons which allows me to use the song copyright free.

Representation: Goodwin's Theory of Voyeurism

Frankenstein

I have put together different body parts of all these female artists to make a Frankenstein illustration.

Voyeurism is to look. The theory of voyeurism can be explained in different ways. One way is the relationship between what the music video is actually showing and the actual lyrics of the music video. Also it is said that the genre actually interprets different styles of voyeurism; but there are also frequent references to female bodies. They look at females as just objects and degrade them. Sometimes there are intertextual references meaning they reference movies in their song such as Men in Black.

In the picture above there are 6 different music videos that make up the image. These artists that are in these videos consist of Miley Cyrus, Nicki Minaj, J Lo & Jessie J. It shows how women are typically represented in music videos and Miley Cyrus is the most used artist showing how she is typically represented. 

Representation: Dyer Star Theory

James Arthur after winning X factor

Stars as construction- Artists can be created through the media and how they are represented. They are created for the audience to love them and in turn this makes more money for the music company. These constructed stars are shown to be authentic but they have no real control over what they can do or even wear. The X-Factor is a place where a lot of constructed stars come from. The contestant comes in as themselves and once they win they are told what to wear and how to act. James Arthur is a primary example of this. His life was being controlled.

JLS

Stars as products- These stars are only in the music industry to fill a gap in the market. When JLS came in there was a gap in the boy band market. Their main purpose is to gather money and JLS was a very well known boy band and they had a lot of fans. They did not win X-Factor but as there was a gap they were still signed and a lot o money was made. Due to this they are seen as a product rather than anything else.

Imagine Dragons

Stars as personalities- These stars have retained their personalities throughout the career of fame. They are the most authentic stars in the industry. Most of Imagine Dragons music videos are live performances and this adds a real authenticity to each of the stars because it shows them all for who they really are. There are no big special effects and all that sort of stuff. Their performances really appeal to the audience and that is because of how real they really are.

John Lennon

Stars as embodiment and ideologies/cultures- These stars represent their own beliefs and influence people. John Lennon is believed to be a very spiritual man and he was part of the most famous band- The Beatles. After his death people still talk about him and his beliefs. John Lennon was a very calm person that no one could find a fault in.

Video style remake evaluation

Research and planning

When making the thrift shop video the research and planning was very minimal, as no research really had to be done for this video. All we had to do is watch the video and then mirror the camera angles; but when coming to planning we had to draw storyboards and this was helpful as it kept everything neat and organized. I found it quite difficult though on the storyboard as we got the lyrics a bit messed up but overall I think it was quite good as we did mirror the camera angles.

Original video

My version of thrift shop

Conventions

 When it came to camera movement and editing, it basically had to be the same as the actual Thrift shop video and overall I think we did this quite well as we had very limited time. The themes were basically the same as the actual video as there wasn’t much we could really do when it came to themes.  The major thing that did change in our video is the mis-en-scene. This was due to the fact that we couldn’t get the exact same costumes and props as the people in the music video. We did try to make it look like the same props but we had limited resources but I think with the supplies we had we did pretty well. The narrative is the same as the original video. I think the main problem we had was with the lip syncing and time. Some parts were quite off but If we had more time then I think we could have improved. 

0:19

Creativity

When it came to creativity I think we were pretty decent as we had limited time and we thought quite quickly. We actually found a boy who looked alike the boy in the actual video. As well as this we had to film some shots using improvisation. Such as when Macklemore is on a knee board we could not do this so we used innovation. 

0:08

Post Production

When it came to editing this piece of work we had to be very precise; this was because we had to actually match the mouths to the music to create successful lip syncing. We had used Final Cut Pro which is a editing programme where you can edit much more precisely therefore it was easier to actually do successful lip syncing.  I think the most successful thing was the editing as we had cut it on the beat just like the real video therefore I think we accomplished the task at hand.

Digital Technology 

We had used a camera, SD card and the iMacs to film and edit this piece of work. We also used Final Cut pro which was a very easy programme to pick up and learn. This programme gave us more depth into the editing as we were now able to add effects such as slow motion and reverse shots.  As we are going to edit the music video on Final Cut, this gave me an insight on what we can do on the programme and it makes me comfortable for when editing my music video.