Marking criteria put into practice

Confessions - We are the Ocean. (Lucy's edit)
We have been asked to look at last years A2 coursework and given an idea of the marking criteria listed below. The task is to mark each section of the music video production in the field we see as suitable.


The production marks are given:
Music video - 40%
Digi-pack - 10%
Digi-pack magazine advertisement - 10%
The examiner will mark each of the following by either:
- Excellent
- Proficient
- Basic
- Minimal
and categories include:
1. Holding a shot steady where appropriate: Excellent
2. Framing a shot: Proficient
3. Using a variety of shot distances: Proficient
4. Shooting appropriate material: Proficient
5. Selection of mise-en-scene: Proficient
6. Editing so meaning is apparent: Excellent
7. Using a variety of shot: Basic
8. Using sound with images and editing appropriatly: Excellent.

Rihanna - Umberella

- Rihanna's clothing signifies sex and nudity, she wears fishnet tights and all black leather-like clothing which even though carries connotations of masculinity is very tight fit clothing signifying sexual power. Although these clothing codes signify professionalism showing she could be in her workplace element carrying connotations of a strip club her hair style also signifies this as it is scraped back.
- She has provocative sexual dance moves in which she includes in most of her videos and performances such as S&M as well as Only girl in the world etc.
- The use of effects in the video is key, with the rain water falling on her and bouncing off her although i am unsure of how it has been done it's a great touch and make her seem like some unknown force and signifies power and supernaturalism
- She is often seen in an array of outfits in her videos, although all of which are mainly small with little material and tight signifying sexual acts and show off her Caribbean figure.

My Pitch

     My Pitch is going to be presented a week on Monday to my media class, we are all competing with each other to get somebody to work with us using the idea we have come up with.
     I have decided, after knowing I wanted to do a music video by a female solo artist, that i would do one of Madonna's music video's as she is behind the ideas of the likes of Lady Gaga's 'new and original' music videos releasing today which actually copy Madonna's concepts and ideas. At the moment I'm deciding which music video to do after looking at her music videos released in the 1980s because we are supposed to be pitching ideas from new up and coming artists that are unsigned, non single released tracks or old music video tracks.

Sean Kingston - Party all night Music video.

In the lesson today we have been looking at the 'Party all night (sleep all day)' music video although we only looked at the first minute of the video the class in general agreed we didn't think it was well special and unique as videos like this have been done repeatedly over and over again for example out of the fifteen i have deconstructed two of my boy band videos are very similar although we thought this video is particular was boring, there was little shot variation in the music video which were also repeated mainly two shots medium shots and medium close up close of his face, his body was avoided and though harsh, this is linked to weight and the shots used reflect this as usually male artist such as the likes of 50 cent in particular has the iconic male body. The representation 'fat people are jolly' is used which links to the tittle 'Party all night (sleep all day)' signifying stereotypes of the youth lifestyle as unhealthy.

There is little shot variation as I said mainly medium shots and medium close ups, the medium shots track across the room showing the people at the party. The artist is also centre framed in the shots which is repeated throughout.

There are a number of challenges we came up with if we were to do a remake:

1.  The video is all fast paced editing therefor we would have to spend a long time editing the video.
2. On screen at the beginning and centre of the video there is 3D comic like text that appears on screen.
3. There are also a number of tracking shots that would be hard to replicate as in professionally shot music video the camera is on a track which is timed at a certain speed to capture the perfect tracking shot that doesn't shake and is accurate but unfortunately our school is not equipt with this kind of professional equipment.

The Real Pitch.

We will be pitching our ideas for the final idea on Wednesday and I have been thinking about doing a female solo artists song since i started thinking about it, I would want to do probably a counter type video of one of which of the likes of Madonna/Nicki Minaj and more like the ones of Beyonce or Britney Spears' videos such as her 'Womanizer' video that empowers women. To do this more research needs to be done to build up my knowledge of this and understand conventions in further detail. 

The primary target audience for my video would obviously be, because of the female solo artist idea, a female teen audience and therefor a secondary audience of tweenagers (8-12) based on the idea that female young girls try to escape childhood which brings in sociological ideas of childhood. As well as this to broaden the audience the aspect of the male gaze which is almost always used in music videos or videos have more of an underlying message (for example the likes of some of Madonnas videos and Lady Gaga) Audience also links to the costume and clothing conventions that are used in female solo artists music videos for example artists such as Rihanna and Nicki Minaj use limited clothing to high heels all of which carry sexual connotations and to attract the male audience, tending to be more youth 16-24 although as well as this they use suggestive dance moves such as bump and grind to attract the male audience, famously banned Rihanna's music video S&M for using props such as gags and her being spanked are used. The final element that female solo artists use to attract male audiences are the lyrics themselves e.g. Rihanna S&M 'sticks and stones may break my bones but chains and whips excite me' which carries strong sexual connotations of sexual acts and behaviour.

There are of course female solo artists behaviour that do not follow these 'rules' of female artists videos. For example, Adele who broke the US as a British artist took a totally different approach to the likes of Britney Spears, Rihanna, Nicki Minaj, Beyonce and Madonna. Her image is totally different, she dresses in conservative clothing but also wears a lot of make up another characteristic of female artists, especially her signiture eye make up which some say was adopted from the late Amy Winehouse, who also didn't dress particularly provocativly as much as Rihanna but instead toned clothing codes down and had big head. All female artists tend to try and create their own signiture feature for example, Nicki Minaj and her bottom implants creating a 'ghetto' and Caribeean look, Rihanna went for bright red hair to show sex appeal, Britney Spears went for the cutesy but sexy school girl look giving off connotations of innocence, true or not. Amy Winehouse went for the beehive hair style and huge amount of eye make up which Adele later followed, as she wanted to be seen as all about the voice which helped her break the US.

Starting editing

   We have been put into groups of twos and threes to all edit the full video separately so we are all have more involvement in editing. There is Katie and George in my group although Katie is not here today. We have imported all the footage into one project now on Final cut so we are beginning editing, starting this we have noticed it more complicated then first thought to make the transition for using iMovie to Final cut express, everything is more difficult and so much more detailed than iMovie which will just be a case of getting used to. We also have to sync the lyrics in time with the lip syncing as well as choosing which shots we want to use because we took lots of footage so we had coverage for choice.
  We are still yet to shoot the random objects being thrown on the ground because we didn't have time to do it yesterday and wanted to get the more important shots, such as the sinarios completed but we will be doing it on Monday, which is frustrating to keep putting it back because it means our deadline is being put back, but at least we will have the experience of when it comes to the real thing. Still images of what we edit out using the program will be added in later editing posts.

Filming

We've just finished filming the birthday party scene at my house, we decided to do it outside in the garden. I dressed up as the child and we have got quite alot of shots as we were using both HD cameras to film the same shots. Aswell as filming this scene we also had time to film the resteraunt scene in which the protagonist (conor) pushes the table over in the resteraunt, it ended up making quite a mess! but it was really fun to film as props me and George set out mats on the table, knives and folks and bread and pasta aswell as the wine which was a key prop we needed as it allowed us to intoduce Harriet (the waitress) which we needed to do as everyone in the class has to be involved in the video, Faye was also supposed to be in it but she had to go so hopefully we'll be able to fit her into another scene when filming the cell phone sinario and the hotdog bit tomorrow. Conor (protagonist) will also be filming the dark room scenes at lunch in either P Hall or the Drama room; as they both have dark curtains around the stage tomorrow so all filiming will be completed by tomorrow and the editing should also be done ready to hand to Dave for the Birthday sinario and the energy drink scene.

Hopefully everything will run smoothly as it has when people film tomorrow. We took pictures of before filming which should be up tomorrow!