Screenplays Infographic

Just thought I would add to my screenplays section an infographic I found on why most screenwriters fail and tips on how they succeeded. Here is a link to a bigger copy of it: http://i.imgur.com/T22gGBO.png

Somebody That I Used To Know Lyrics Meaning

Gotye Lyrics Meaning

Purpose of music video essay

Intro

Since the 1970’s, the medium of music has been dominated by the ever rising takeover of the music video. A music video gives the artist an excuse to promote their music on the television, with visuals matching the tone of the song and providing a story to go along with the lyrics. In this essay, I will be discussing the up rise of this medium, along with new innovations that give the audience more accessibility to their favourite artists. I will also be discussing the marketing and promotion of said artists and why I think they are so popular.

Promotion Of Artist’s

A positive of making a music video is promotion for the artists and the directors, using the band’s name on something like a bass drum will let people know who the band are and then get more of a following through this self-promotion. An example of this would be The Hive’s song ‘Hate To Say I Told You So’, in the video, they printed their band name on to the front of the bass drum, as well as printing the name on the straps of the guitars, it is very subtle but noticeable at the same time.

A director will also promote himself by designing a music video that people will instantly recognise, that is unique, and will get stuck in the viewer’s head, and example of a director is Jack White, he directed the White Stripes song ‘Fell In Love With A Girl’, this video was remembered for being short, and using techniques barely even used back then, he recreated an entire scene using Lego stop motion animation, this made this video unique and made people remember Jack White’s name because of this video, this is the director promoting himself in one of his client’s videos. Another example would be the music video to the Beastie Boys' song 'Sabotage' which was directed by Spike Jonze.

Producers’ Strategies

The majority of music videos and music lyrics nower-days refer to Sex and Sex appeal, Major band labels found that men are more attracted to a music video featuring a young female or male on screen sing provocative lyrics, and example of this would be Britney Spears’ song ‘Hit Me Baby One More Time’, I mean, even the title of the song is provocative enough. Another aspect of a music video that people are attracted to is flashy effects, a video with cool stunts and explosions are more likely to grab someone’s attention, like Michael and Janet Jackson’s song ‘Scream’ which is still the most expensive music video in the world. Another example of a music video with flashy effects would be the Gorillaz song, 'Feel Good Inc' Which won the MTv award for visual effects in 2005, it features a contrast of bright and colourful animation with real time footage.
 

With the invention of the World Wide Web and evolving into Web 2.0, the Internet has become a new and fast way of watching music videos on demand; this was an innovation as now fans can watch their favourite band or artist whenever they want. This is also a benefit for Independent artists as it is harder to get their work noticed and it is usually the case big record labels will not even give them a chance, making your video go viral will get you noticed.

Extending Artists And Record Labels Income

One of the main reasons a record label will not give independent artists a chance is because it is like taking a gamble, if the new artist doesn’t sell well then the label is losing money. This is the same for radio stations; they will not play an unpopular song because they will be losing money, they're basically shit scared to tiptoe outside the proverbial box so it becomes a cesspool of the same songs played over and over again every day. The difference between a major record’s and an independent record label is that the budget for the independent label is significantly lower than a major label, and example of a major label music video would be Janet and Michael Jackson’s song scream, which is still the most expensive music video ever made. With websites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo, it has become easier for independent artists to get the funding needed to make a decent music video, fans of the band will donate small amount to help them get to their target budget and in return, they receive perks for their donations, ranging depending how much they contribute. This has also made it easier for independent artists to get noticed by big labels.

Extension Of Various Media Outlets                           

There are many media outlets that can be implemented into music video, examples of these would be the internet, with websites like YouTube that give an infinite source of music video for audiences to watch for free, TV with channels like MTV and VH1 for all ages. Radio with stations like Kiss Fm and Heart, Movies are another source, the film Skyfall’s theme was accompanied with an official lyric video by singer Adele. Videogames are also a media source, an example would be the game Final Fantasy 13 which had singer Leona Lewis singing all of the songs in the soundtrack, when the Original Sound Track (OST) was released, it was credited to Leona and it was produced as one of her albums.

Synergistic Marketing

Sometimes, a music production company will give permission to another distributor to sell a product with the face of one of their talents on it, if the talent is very popular, then it is likely to sell very well in retail, this is a gamble for manufacturers as they have to decide whether the talent will make them a lot of money. It will benefit the producer greatly if it does succeed because it is giving the talent advertising, making the audience more incline to check out their work. An example of this is the marketing for the band Queen, the record producer paid retail manufacturers to print thier logo on t-shirts mugs and posters to sell to the fans, the pretty much become a walking advertisment for the band. They also use the music in the TV series, Flash Gordon, this went on to be sold as the flash gordon album by Queen.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I feel that music videos have greatly benefitted the listening experience since their premiere over thirty years ago, there will always be ever changing mediums that will continue to help and hinder the viewing experience of music in the late future.

Styles And Conventions And Techniques In Music Production

There are eight different types of Styles and Conventions in music production, these include:

Popular Music Genre
In-Concert and 'as live' footage
Narrative and interpretive
Surrealist/absurdist
Impressionist
Influence Of Commercial
Intertexual
Animation

Popular Music Genre

Most music videos will contain items assoiated and that stereotypically reflect the band or genre's image, for example a rock band may have guys with long hair head banging to the music. Or a Pop song may have images of alcohol or people partying to go with the narrative. Like the Foo Fighters song, Best Of You's music video has powerful imagery to go with powerful vocals.

Concert And 'As Live Footage'

Sometimes, a music video will feature a live performace muted infront of a recorded track, sometimes adding cuts of naratives or audiences reactions to the mix as well. An example genre that use this would be mainly rock and pop, like Bon Jovi's song, It's My Life, which features a boy rushing to a Bon Jovi concert and shots of them playing 'Live'

Narrative And Interperative

A narrative and interperative music video is one that follows a story as well as there being a song, sometimes the lyrics contradict what is going on in the video, but some times the video will follows the lyrics exactly, and example of this is Eminem's song Love The Way You Lie Featuring Rihanna.

Surrealist/Absurdist

A Surreal music video typically means that it doesnt make sense or it is unrealistic to real life, a good example of this is foo fighters song, Everlong.

Impressionist

An Impressionist music video will use artistic shots and emotional lyrics, sometimes the shots will match up to the lyrics. But this is used to make the audience feel a certain way about the imagery and leave an impression on them, an example of this would be Thirty Seconds To Mars' song The Kill, which uses emotional lyrics and surrealistic imagery to create an artistic performance.

Influence Of Commercial

A music video with Influence Of Commercial will use a certain lifestyle and glamorise it in the music video,an example would be Bruno Mar's song Billionaire, which glamorises the billionaire lifestyle but also emphasyis through context the struggles of being an unknown artist.

Intertextual

Intertextual also means different types of a music video, I will list examples for each;

• Synergy
• Allusion
• Pastiche
• Parody
• Homage
• Reference

Synergistic music videos are one that will promote a certain product or film. Nickelback's Hero promotes the Sam Raimi directed Spiderman Film.

Allusion music videos are ones where the story is referencing something but is not what it seems to be an example of this would be Taylor Swift's Love Story (I'm so sorry Sean and Ellie, I probably hate this song more than you do)

A pastiche is a homage to a film or historical event, an example of this would be Queen's Radio Gaga, which splices footage of the film Metropolis into the music video

A Parody completely, but respectfully, makes fun of a different musical piece or film or artist, an example of this is (The King Of Parody) Weird Al Yankovic's I love rocky road, which is a parody of Joan Jett's I love rock and roll.

Animation

An animated music video is one that is completely made up of catoon drawings animated. An example of an animated music video would be Daft Punk's One More Time.

Lip Snycing And Miming

Sometimes a music video producer will have the talent mime to the song during the video, also known as lip snycing. This will make the fans think that he was actually singing it during the filming of the video, an example of this is Lorde's song 'Royals'.

Editing

Sometimes a music video will utilise cool special effects like explosions or lasers or other editing techniques to emphasise the uniqueness of the music video, an example of this would be The White Stripes song 'Fell In Love With A Girl' which won the 2002 MTv music award for special effects in a music video.

Cutting To The Beat/ Multi Image Effect

A Music video can have cutting that matches the tempo of the song, this makes the sound seem stronger in the video, they also use an effect where multiple shots of the different or the same set will appear on screen at the same time, an example of this is Blink 182's song Always.

Production Effects/Chroma Key

A music video can use an effect where they film the talent infront of a green wall or a sheet and the the editor can cut out the talent and make it look like they are somewhere else in the world, this is using a green screen. To do this without using a green screen, the editor can intricatly cut out the talent from one scene and place them in another without the use of a screen, this is call chroma key. An example of this is the PERFECTLY created song 'Bound 2' By Kanye West and featuring Kim Kardashian.

(Obligatory)

Also this masterpiece

Camera Angles, Movement And Shot Types

Sometimes they use technical camera movements and angles in music videos to establish a shot and also for the director to show off his creative flair through the medium of a music video. An example of this is R.E.M's song 'Everybody Hurts' which won the MTv's VMA's Best Cinematography award in 1994.

Mise En Scene

A music video producer also needs to set a scene for the audience so that they get the idea of what is going on in the scene, also known as Mise en scene. They need appealing visuals to give the fans an idea of what the story is suppost to be. An example of this would be Outkast's song 'Hey Ya', the director wanted to give the idea of a fun and jumpy stage show with thousands of fans, it also won the MTv's VMA award for best art direction in 2004.

Final Music Video

Pre Production Work

Single Camera Techniques

Introduction

Today I will be discussing the different single camera techniques used in the media industry, the four key components to focus on when making a single camera piece, the different genres and formats relating to a single camera production and the differences between using this technique and using a multi-camera set up as well as the pros and cons of using a single camera set up in comparison to a multi set up.

Camera

A single camera production uses one camera to film the whole series, the benefits of a single camera production is that there is less footage to go through one the production stage is completed, also you can work in much more cramped spaces as there is less equipment needed. But there can be negatives, to some people shooting one scene over and over to get the perfect shot could seem like a positive but it is very time consuming, there can also be the worry of having continuity errors in the piece as there is only one camera, if there are a lot of cuts in the production then it could be harder to remember what was in the scene. It can also be a lot easier to find locations as well because of the ability to film in tight spaces, sets are barely needed and more actual buildings are used.

Lighting

The lighting in a single camera production is a lot easier to control as lighting each shot individually is a lot more simple. The lighting must be perfect in every shot to keep it looking linear. also, you have to avoid getting the reflector or key light in shot at all times. It's better to light on a sigle camera production because it gives the shots a lot more tone.

 

 

Sound

The number one rule of recording sound is to never use the in built microphone on your camera during a serious media production. There are too many variables that could affect the dialogue, most film makers will utilise a shotgun mic to pick up the dialogue, and a multi track camera to record the background noise, that way in post production there are less jumps in the audio. If a shot is cut mid dialogue, the editor will mute the sound on the second footage and add the main audio ontop, snycing it to the appropriate place. It is better when the actor talking on the second footage is facing away from the camera, kind of like an over the shoulder shot so that the syncing would look a lot more fluid, This is also beneficial because they have a choice over what audio to use as they have shot multiple times.

 

Coverage

This kind of mixes in with my previous point, the benefit of a single camera production is that you can film one shot, cut it, film it at another angle and then cut and merge those two together. The only con is that the actors are repeating the lines over and over again, giving it subtle differences in the dialogue, causing a syncing problem. This is where aa multiple camera set up is beneficial because you can get the exact same sequence from multiple angles and it will snyc perfectly, the only con of this is that the directors and set designers have to think of crafty ways to hide the camera out of site at all times.

 

Editing

Editing in post production can take a long time regardless if it is a single or multiple camera production. But in the long run, it is a lot easier to comb through the footage of a single camera production than a multiple camera production, with a single, you would have carefully planned out each angle you wanted it filmed and then filmed it the way the storyboard details. With a multiple camera production, you have more than two cameras pointing at different angles, sure you have more choice in the shots that you use, but that is almost double the amount of footage taken compared to a single camera.

Pictured: inside the set of the coffee shop 'Central Perk' in the popular sitcom Friends.

 

 

Single Camera Genre and Formats

Situation comedies, as I said before, are usually filmed with multiple cameras, if they are filmed in a live studio audience, like Fraiser, Friends and The Big Bang Theory. But there are many sitcoms that do not use the laugh track to their advantage and leave the humour to the television audiences . Shows like Scrubs and Red Dwarf currently use this method, although with Red Dwarf, they use canned laughter rather than a live studio audience, this gives the genre a lot more freedom to move around outsie and are not secluded to big indoor sets and dodgy "Outside" settings.

 

Another popular series that uses this method is a favourite in America, but is only seen on BBC Four every now and then, which is Parks And Recreation, which I believe to be one of the funniest american sitcoms ever made. (Sorry Office)

Drama too uses only single camera, like the BBC series, Sherlock or Doctor Who. Pretty much anything that is written by Stephen Moffat for the BBC is a single camera production.

 

Multi Camera Techniques

The main difference between a single camre production and a multiple camera is that it is easier to get that perfect take in more than one camera ange, with a single camera, you have to shoot and then reset in a different angle, this can cause continuity errors, like a drink in the background suddenly rising and falling in fluidity. Exples of shows that use a single camera woud be My Name Is Earl, Obviously Parks And Recreation like I said before, The Office and Call The Midwife. Examples of a multiple camera production would be Reality cometition shows like The X Factor, And Britains Got Talent. Another genre of shows would be comedies like The Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother, Friends, Two Broke Girls and pretty much any American comedy show on E4.