Lip Syncing Exercise- Blurred Lines- Robin Thicke

In class today we started practising lip syncing for our music video. Me, Jacob and Ben choose to lip sync Blurred Lines by Robin Thicke.

We went around school and choose our location, which was just in a quiet corridor, and started trying to recreate some shots from the music video...

Here are some photos of us filming...



We filmed the video just using a handycam without a tripod to create the moving around look. In the back ground we played the song so Ben could hear it and sing along to it.

After we did this we went onto adobe cs6 to start editing it. The lip syncing went well, however, stuck in year 12 mode we started editing shot by shot, like we did in the film, rather than filming whole chunks of the video from one angle and layering them up on adobe, like this...




Here is what we created in the end...

Hugo- 99 Problems- Analysis

Preliminary Ancillary Task

  For our coursework we have to do 2 ancillary tasks. These are a website for our band and a CD cover. Today to practice we created a CD cover using Photoshop.

 We used Wikipedia to create our band name. We went onto the site and selected random article, this became the name for our band. Then we did it again and scrolled to the bottom of the page and took the last 4 words: this became the album name. After this we went onto Flickr and took the 3 picture that was on screen.

Here is what my Album cover looks like...

Steve Archer: How to study a music video

Here is a Powerpoint on Steve Archers theory to analysing music videos...

Andrew Goodwin's Theory of Music Video Analysis

Andrew Goodwin’s Music Video Theory is a theory used for analysing music videos and what to expect to see in music videos and is a key aspect to the course for creating our own music video.

Key Points;

1. Relationship between the lyrics and the visuals.
- Themes, mise-en-scene and events of the video match with lyrics of the song, to help to portray the message of the song.

2. Relationship between the music and the visuals.
- The cuts and edits of the video are in sync with the rhythm and beat of the song matching cuts or effects to specific drum beats or notes.

3. Music videos have genre characteristics
- Certain features are expected out of a video depending on the genre of the music, for example a girl bands/artists are expected to have dancers and close ups of the singers, whilst a Indi band are expected to have performance shots of the band and cut to a fast beat.

4. Star Appeal
- This allows the record label to promote a set image for the band, which will help target audiences empathise with the band.

5. Emphasis on 'looking'
- The 'male gaze' is often used to attract a male audience. The male gaze is a focus on presenting things that appeal to men. This often means a voyeuristic view of, and an objectification, of women. The emphasis on looking also includes the artist looking directly into the camera helping the audience connect with the artist.

6. Intertexual references.
- Music videos reference other forms of media, most commonly film, but can also be television and other music videos.

How to analyse music videos;
Andrew Goodwin identifies 5 key aspects of music videos that we, the audience, should look out for to analyse them. These are...

- Thought beats ("seeing" the sound)
- Narrative and Performance
- The Star Image
- Relation of visuals to song
- Technical aspects of a music video

‘Thought Beats – ‘Seeing’ the sound

- To look at the music itself. We must take into account the structure of the song.

- The voice of the song. The artists voice is extremely unique and can form identification that work well with the star image. Roland Barthes theory of the Grain of voice can be related to this. He sees the singing voice as an expressive instrument and therefore able to make associations of its own.

- Goodwin points out the artists mode of address. Songs can be seen as stories and the artist the storyteller, making the music video a two communication device – them telling us a story and we listening.

Narrative & Performance
Goodwin explains that music videos should ignore common narrative. It is important in their role of advertising. Narrative and performance work hand in hand its make it easier for the audience to watch over and over without loosing interest. The artist acting as both narrator & participant helps to increase the authenticity however the lip sync and other mimed actions remains the heart of music videos. The audience need to believe this is real.

‘Star Image’

The star image is another vital aspect of music videos. Meta narrative which is a big story that describes the development of the star over time, it has an important part to play in the music video production process.

Relation of Visuals to the song

This is created through the use of various technical aspects...

- Camera work, movement, angle, mise-en-scene, editing, sound and special effects.
Speed, camera movement, editing, cutting and post production are all forms of use of camera.
- Lighting and colour.
- Mise-en-scene, the setting of music videos is vital, it needs to look authentic to attain professionalism.
- Beats, music videos use cuts to go with the beat or rhythm making the video more entertaining.

Introduction

Hi, I'm Toby Rodgers, welcome to my A2 Advanced Media Portfolio Blog. Following from my AS film opening, this year I will be creating a Music Video and two ancillary tasks, including a Digipak (a Cd cover) and a website for the band.  On this blog I will be posting all of my research, planning, creation and evaluation of my music video and ancillary tasks.