Filming of new mini vid.

Today we've just shot the footage for our mini vid of 'Sharp Dressed Man' By ZZ Top. We did a countertype of the video because instead of a sharp dressed man we had a normal dressed woman being stalked by a group of guys, we did a range of shots of the guys following the girl (me) and shots of the boys playing the guitar similar to the ones in the origional video although we didn't have mustaches and mexican outfits, so our video is a modern and funny version updated by us. The video was really fun to shoot because the idea was silly.
The cast consisted of a number of guys and girl being followed. We did some low angled shots of peoples feet to add some narrative to the girl being followed before she was shown. We will be editing he footage throughout next week and could need some more coverage but as our location is at school we can do this as we need if we find we need more footage as it can be done quickly. In the video was Tom Cripps, Nick Lithgow, Harry Knight, Sam Pollock and Nick Lithgow and Alex McCluskey who assigned himself as the camera man.

New MiniVid: Sharp dressed man re-make (ZZ Top)

For our mini-vid our group (Me, Sam Pollock, Faye Higgins, George Gamble and Alex Mccluskey) will be doing a re-make of 'Sharped Dressed Man'. We wanted to do it quite simply and decided to do a similar version to the origional video. We've have just produced a story board and will be filming tomorrow. Instead of the old-school red car used in the video we'll be using a newer renault clio to make it a bit more fun. We were going to have instead a man driving a car (our friend Jack Margerison, who's car it is) driving to school, in the back seat they'll be three girl (probably me, faye and anyone else who volenteers to be in it out of our class) there will also be point of view shots of the driver looking in his mirror at the girls in the back seat. We will then do a range of shots outside the car which will be long/extreme long shots to show the setting similarly to the video. We will also have a range of shot types of the red car, as the video is long and we are changing it. It is going to be hard as we only have lunch time to shoot it and we have a lot of footage to get in this time. We will also need to make sure we have the right clothing for the girls to wear.

Filming

Today we filmed the Britney Spears 'Hit me baby one more time' remake. I was in a group with George, Harry, Faye, Sam Pollock, Alex and Sam Boyes although he was away so we filmed his shot of being Britney yesterday by the lockers.

We found it hard as a group because there was limited time to film the shots although we had less to film then the others groups doing the first section in the classroom. There was 162 shots in total and all together the two classes filmed nearly all of them apart from a few which were similar and we didn't have time to shoot we will just be copying and putting them in place.

The organisation of our group wasn't very good as loads of people forgot there costumes so whoever was Britney in the shot had to swap with the person before. Also we forgot some key equipment that we needed for the shot of the teacher in classroom such as the glasses chain and the brown short wig for the teacher as well as a brown dress suit.

After i completed the call sheet yesterday the group didn't really follow it that well so people were starting a group of shots that were similar, moving on and then going back to the first ones which wasted time and meant we had to do more costume changes.Instead we should have followed the call sheet as it was written out on the sheet, this would of saved time.

Preparation for filming Britney re-make

In preparation for filming tomorrow we have been given a timetable plaaning our media day. I am working in a group with Alex Mclusky, Sam Pollock, Sam Boyes, Faye Higgins, George Gamble and Harry Knight we will be working on the classroom shots at the beginning of the video.

We start the day in the school Ecopod to practice lip-syncing for the filming as everyone in the group has to be Britney for atleast one shot, although the boys are obviously quite reluctant to do so! and will probably end up something like this... 

During that first period we will also be doing individual Vodcast for our blogs and making sure the call sheet we have done today in lesson is correct. Period two we'll be filming using classroom B2 as desk are already set up individually and in rows there like they are in the video. Period three we will head off to the Gym to help the other group shoot as in this part of the music video back-uop dancers are needed and they may not have enough people. After lunch we go and finish our vodcast if we havnt already done so and then go and upload them onto the blogs and do any 'behing the scenes footage' we want. Last perios we will all meet back in F6 to got hrough what we have shot and write up a blog post of what we've learnt then if we have time we'll do group vodcast discuyssing this and record vox pops form out first month in media! Sooo much to do!

Censorship

Censorship is a huge factor when considering the idea of a music video, the last thing you want is your music video to a newly released track to be branded by officials as 'offensive'. The use of drugs, sex and violence should be considered or not included if clarification is needed. The question springs to mind is if artists should be limited as to what they can produce for their own music video? is this fair? Understandably there are arguments for and against this view because children view music channels throughout the day more than anyone else on the planet. Should their minds be protected from what an artist wishes to produce or should parents limit what their child watches, what people seem not to understand is that music videos are not real life, they arnt the way the celebrity actually lives and should not be treated as this giving children the wrong impression.
I think that its unfair to say that music videos should be banned if the include innapproprate content as most sucessful individuals in the industry have a tendency of doing wacky things eg. Lady Gaga and 'the meat dress' caused a huge upraising in the media mainly from animal rights who branded her as \wful and a disgust to the feelings of others although surprisingly nothing was mentioned about Chers outfit who presented her with her award in the night who plain and simple looked like a stripper.This year videos such as S&M by Rihanna and Gagas videos have been banned (http://www.bet.com/news/music/2011/06/06/rihanna-gaga-aguilera-videos-banned-in-uk.html) the 2 artists seem to get more stick for their sexy but creative videos then any other artists when typing banned music videos in youtube from this you can see the government seem to be more concerned with sexual refereences and behaviour rather than other bad references such as drug use or violence although understandably these kind of videos come about less often.

My fave video!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_b0okuftqng I loveeee this video of Christina Aguilera. I used to listen to her when i was younger and thought she was amazing, kind of my idol. I love the power she has in the video especially as a woman. Shes used her sexuality in the right way i feel because she never fades into the background even with so many people in the shots she is always centre of attention. Her body is amazing and she knows how to use it, using the male gaze theory to get hits and so people remember the song is clever although i know this theory is always used in the industry. 

Growing up i think its important to have role models and i remember I was always listening to her and Britney Spears both powerful women I feel there isnt really a role model in the industry at the moment for younger children as they look up to power, some people may disagree and say its Cheryl Cole now but I'd disagree I think she has portrayed herself as weak especially in the media which is the opposite of what the kids of today need. The album Stripped by Christina released around the same time is one of the best albums ive ever bought with more iconic songs such as Beautifful (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAfyFTzZDMM) 

I think its so unfortunate about what Britney Spears became under the pressure of the media and with the world watching her. She came into the industry at such a young age and was then signed with Jive Records in 1997 and released her debut album Hit me baby one more time in 1999 everything suddenly took off so quickly and unexpectedly.

Codes and conventions of music videos

The General C&Cs: There are general ideas that are behind every music video wether it be a band or solo artist and they are usually totally different based on the style of music also.
We have  looked at the different style of videos and the 3 main forms that they come in being Performance, Narrative and Image. Performance is a performance based video without sounding stupid a band or solo artist physically performing on a stage and forgetting the idea of there being a story to go with the song. Narrative, being the opposite where the video tells a story although it doesnt always physically relate to the song and could be just random that the producer wanted to create and finally Image is when the video focuses mainly on the artist which is what you usually get in more pop genres.

Male/Female gaze

In music videos much like film the male/female gaze is used to attract the audience. As music video is all about visual not just sound they are increasingly important and people may just watch the video if there is a male/female in it they are attracted to, for example Christina Aguilera in the'Dirrty' video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_b0okuftqng would be a prime example of this because of her outfit choices and dance sequence, there are more female related videos that suggest this by many artists (S&M by Rihanna http://www.youtube.com/verify_age?next_url=http%3A//www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DKdS6HFQ_LUc)


Rihannas music video for s&m actually got banned for suggestive imagery and is not shown on music channels,you also have to be 18 to view the video on youtube.

Boy and girl bands are especially known for using the male/female gaze idea to attract the audience of the oppposite sex with bands such as Girls Aloud, The Saturdays, The Wanted and Westlife, using individual shots of each member because audiences generally have preferences.

Practice pitch

We were given unknown lyrics from a song and asked to deliver an idea for a music video. Our group decided the video should be in the desert and show a man struggling to survive as he walks through the desert because of the motivational type music. We also had an idea of flashbacks to the mans childhood to show the simplicity of it and the reality of his current situation. Other ideas suggested by Emily Moore was that there could be a big marathon in New York and the same basic idea of a person struggling through it but having the satisfaction of completing it in the end.

Outfits for Britney Spears re-make Hit me baby one more time.

1.First outfit in the video is also in the corridoor of the school. She wears a white tied shirt, grey cardigan, black pleated skirt and hair in plaited pig tales with fluffy bobbles and ribbon as well as knee high grey socks and black shoes.

2. She wears cropped pink gym top with white trousers and trainers although the hair has changed from plaited pig tails to half pigtails and back ground dancers are encorporated again but mainly male in this section wearing sports clothing eg. Tracksuit bottoms, trainers and t-shirts or vests.

3. Finally inside the gym she wears cropped yellow gym top, red jogging bottoms and white trainers and her hair has changed slightly again into a half ponytail women dancers now in the background like the first shots all in grey jogging bottoms mainly hair down and cropped gym tops or t-shirts.

Potential problems with re-shooting 'Hit me baby one more time'

The video 'Hit Me Baby One More Time' by Britney Spears is based over three seperate locations; a classroon, corridoor and gym all of which we have access to so individuals or differnt group will be assigned a location to film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTyIlkNnwSs 

• The idea of the video is based in a school where other pupils are involved in a dance routine, for this we will need a lot of people but our class combined with 12D will have enough people for the set.
• Make-up Britney Spears make up and clothing is significant to the idea of the video, her being a young girl in her teens in an american high school so we will need typical schhol girl clothing such as pleated short skirts, knee high socks, white shirt and a grey cardigan if we want the audience to be able to recognise what we are trying to do. Britney also wears quite natural make up but then she has a redish tone colour on her lips to signify sexualty.
• Lip syncing. In last years work the year above seemed to be overall quite good at lip syncing which can be a difficult task. When we're filming we're going to play the song off someones phones or ipod out loud to make it easier for the person to remember the lyrics.
• Permission to shoot in the classrooms on coridoors and in the gym to get all three of the settings in the video. Last years class managed to film in certain areas.
• Choreography - The origional version of the song involves lots of dancing with large groups of people that will of been hugely rehersed, we want to make our re-make as similar to the origional as possible which will involve assigning afew people as choreographers but definatly including Melodie Abraham as she does loads of dance outside of school.
• CLOTHING AND MISE EN SCENE. Is a huge factor we want ours to be better then last years so girls involved can easily provide clothing to wear to shoot (eg. School skirts, white tied shirts, long socks and black shoes the girls also have a clothing change!) but boys will also have to remember to bring clothing that looks like what the boys wore on the origional (tracksuit bottoms, trainers, vest tops etc.) Balls and other gym equipment will also need to be used in the last location of filming because we want to create a sense of realism and really make it as much as the origional video as possible.