Production Journal 5

1.12.11

Today me and Zoe started our filming, we made excellent progress as me have got almost all of our filming out of the way, there were a few errors that occurred when we were setting up for filming, one of our band members didn't turn up, due to time we had to cut the fourth member of the band so now the band consists of three members, we also had to change our location due to the office in school being locked, so we decided to change a class room into an office, this was a very impresive interpenetration of an office, with dividers and to split the desks up it was great fun and look forward to editing it. :) 

Production Journal 4

8.11.11

 Yesterday we pitched our ideas to our classmates; so we could talk about each other’s ideas and help each other develop their ideas. Our pitch didn’t go according to plan and the feedback we received had a lot of improvements, which shouldn’t be to much of a problem to sort out.  We have looked at all of the feedback and we will now act on what we have been told by our peers and the teacher.

Production Journal 3

1.11.11

Today we have now decided how to make the setting be an office, we are actually going to use the school reception as they appear to look like offices, to make them look less like a school we will be making alteration to give it more of an office feel, we have also finished our storyboard and are currently making it into an animatic.

We need to make sure we have computers and office type equipment in our shots to make it a successful as possible.

X Factor

The X Factor Machine 

According to Adorno and Horkheimer the way X factor works is almost machine like, The contestant begin the show in a completely different style to that of there end result, for example JLS began as an completely different style to what they are now, this is because of the X factor machine.

Adorno and Horkheimer Theory 

Adorno and Horkheimer theorized  that the phenomenon of mass culture has a political implication, namely that all the many forms of popular culture are  a single culture industry whose purpose is to ensure the continued obedience of the masses to market interests.

Production Journal 2

1.10.11

Today we finished our mood board and have a better idea of what we want to happen and after talking to our teacher we had some rough ideas that may be better than our original plans. We now have the option of going against the lyrics with the visuals as filming inside a park would be to obvious and boring for people to watch, we will be setting it in an office instead.

B filming it in an office, we can make it comical for the audience and for the actors and as we film it. But we still don’t actually have an exact storyline as to what is actually going to happen in our footage so this is the next step for us, we also need to start thinking about who will be staring in our video and if we go with the office scene, where are we actually going to get an office from. 

Production Journal 1

27.9.11

We have picked our brief and decided to go for a Brit Pop genre and have picked 'parklife' by Blur as our song the we are going to re-create a video for. We also had other songs in mind such as Song 2 also by Blur, but this song wouldn't of been long enough.

We have started to put together a mood board which the background is a Union Jack to represent our genre and we will be putting pictures of other bands that we think will become our influences such and Pulp. We haven't come up with a full idea of what we are going to actually film yet but we might go with the obvious of a woods or park because of the name of the song and the lyrics.

Once we have done our mood board I think it will help us put some ideas together and actually look towards what we are going to film

Lady GaGa- Judas

1. Genre Characteristics 

• Motor way & Biker bar setting. The characters in this video reveal that it is in fact a Bikers bar.
• Representation of "Biker life style" riding on their Harley Davison in a big wolf like pack, their behavior of the bikers is rough and Deadly.
• Lady GaGa in the video is dressed in a very minimal biker jacket and bottoms. 

2. Relationship between lyrics & Visuals

• Jesus's despoils have their names on the back of their jackets.
• Choreography in time with lyrics and lyrics in time with choreography
• Visuals bring lyrics to life, in a narrative manor
• Overall images illustrate the lyrics, sometimes subtle and some obvious, the general theme of the song is betrayal in love, the video shows this.

3. Relationship between music & visuals 

• Video is choreographed in time with the lyrics 

4. The demand of the record labels with close ups

• A lot of shots of Lady GaGa most of which are long and close ups
• There are also long, mid and close ups of Jesus and Judas as there are both important roles of the video

5.Reference to motion of looking/ Voyeurism 

• Scopohilic treatment of men and women back up dancers, this is strange for a male to be portrayed like this in a music video, although GaGa has been know for represent men like this in some of her other music videos, such as Aleandro or Born this way.

6. Intertexual References 

• None noticed

Rough Trade Notes

1970

• Punk/Rock/Reggie were popular in the 70's
• They started as a record shop in 1976 called rough trade in west London, which was founded by Geoff Travis
• In 1978 became an official record company
• One of their signed acts Stiff little fingers was their first big success as they became 14th in the charts. 

1980

• They began to start recording pop songs starting with Scritty Politty, which wasnt very successful. 
• Robert Wyatt a former member of Scitty Politty became popular as he was a veteran from the Falkland wars and that is what he sung about.
• In 1982 they bought an accountant, he told them they would have to dispose of the shop, which they then did to be later bought by some of there staff members it still open today. 
• They signed the smiths in 1983, they had a 4 album contract.
• Rough Tade became international.
• The Smiths then left Rough Trade then the band itself split up.

1990

• In December 1990 Rough trade was halted
• In March 1991 Rough Trade axed 2 out of 3 staff and admin, then the company went bust
• In 1992 Geoff Travis and Janet Lee started Rough Trade again without the rights to the name
• Pulp was there first success once offically reopened in 1993, Common People was 2nd in the charts in 1995, Then they had there 20th anniversary of the shop

2000

• The Strokes Re kick started Rough Trade, The Strokes became the record companies biggest signing since the smiths.
• In 2001 they signed the Libertines
• Duffy has been with Rough Trade for 4 years under contract, Eventually they were rewarded with their first ever top of the charts with Duffy.

Tenacious D- Tribute

1. Genre Characteristics 

• Parody Genre
• Doesn't really fit normal conventions of a rock video
• Live rock performance
• Rebellious 

2. Relationship between lyrics & Visuals

• Story Telling

3. Relationship between music & visuals 

• Comical relationship between the visuals and the music. 

4. The demand of the record labels with close ups

• Not much of a variety of shots, mainly mid shots. 

5.Reference to motion of looking/ Voyeurism 

• Looking through the the boot, straight at them like your in the booth with them.

6. Intertexual References 

• Ben Stiller makes a cameo appearance in the music video
• Ending similar to the ending of Michael Jackson's Thriller Music video, possibly a parody. 

Jay-Z 99 Problems Notes

1. Genre Characteristics 

• Urban setting - Brooklyn, New York,as shown by his hoody.This is revealed  by him revealing the name on his hoody.
• Representation of a " Gangsta lifestyle" cruising in cars, dog fighting, loitering on the streets, getting pulled over by the police, basket ball, guns, criminality and money.
• Street dancing, free styling
• Scantily clad women " Sexy but cheap gold bikinis"
• Jail scenes all inmates are black
• Sterotypical race representation white guys in suits, policeman is also white . Black people jail birds or on the streets causing trouble.
• Goes against conventions of representations of wea;th-lacks fancy cars, cloths and bling and hot women.
• Women are only a minor element in the video, useually all you see is haf naked women in hip-hop videos.

     2. Relationship between Lyrics and Visuals

• "From the hood"- Jay-Z pulls his hood down
• "Radio"-  Image of Radio
• "B**ch"- Image of women
• "Jay-Z"- Points to himself
• "Fast forward"-Moves  his hands along to demonstraight
• "Paparazzi" Camera flashing images of criminals identity shots.
• Overall images illustrate the lyrics sometimes very literally, sometimes in more subtle ways. Theme of song- all the problems Jay-Z has; video shows problems.

     3. Relationship between music & Visuals 

• Video is cut in time with the beat of song 
• Music hard hitting, agressive sounding with an emphasis on beat rather than melody- visuals are also harsh looking and edits

    4. The Demand of the record label 

• Lots of shots of Jay Z not all close ups but there are some close ups of other men as well aggressive looking in appearance.
• Shots of women are long shots, mid-shots because they are not important.
• Less emphasis on Jay Z on his own, he is an established artist & doesn't need as much exposure.
• Jay z has his own record lable as well as being part of Island/Defjam. quiet independent, evidence of less control by the lable in his video than you might expect from a mainstream Label.

    5. Reference to notion of looking 

• Jay z puts his hands over the camera so that it seems as though the audience is looking through his fingers.
• X-ray vision shots of money in a car trunk of Jay Z car
• Scopohilic treatment of women is quite uncomfortable to watch seems totally unnecessary.
• Early shots are almost out of view, creating the impresion that the audience is looking around the hood.
• Video of Jay Z is seen outside the subway

      6. Intertexual References 

• Possibly a video of him referencing himself? 

Introduction of Music video course work

In todays lesson we were introduced to our A2 coursework creating a music video for an already existing song, we focused mainly on music videos today with a general significance to technical codes such as Bob Dylan- subterranean homesick blues or Queen- Bohemian rhapsody. We also analyzed the Goodwins music video analysis.  

1). Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics.

2). There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals.

3). There is a relationship between music and visuals.

4). The demands of the record label will include the 

need for lots of close ups of the artist and the artist 

may develop motifs which recur across their work.

5). There is frequently reference to notion of looking and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body.

6). There is often intertextual references .