Thoughts on Narrative

In the music video 'Teenage Dream' the editors and creaters have made the narrative very obvious to the script. A lot of the same shot are used, and the same setting. Half the song is taken up by the character with her boyfriend. The other half taken up by different styles of close ups and establishing shots. As these are used constantly throughout the whole song it can get very repetitive and seems un-original. This is something we will have to consider when we do our own. On the plus side, the narrative is very clear and leaves the audience with no doubt, however this can also be linked to the lyrics. We want to make sure that the story we are trying to tell comes through.

Our Logo

Record Company Logo Research

As part of this project we have been given the opportunity to create a company name and logo which will appear on all of our media projects as well as advertisement if we were to create web pages etc. We have researched into existing logos to help us when deciding on our own.

All the logos are fairly plain, basic and straight forward. This is a convention we will definitley follow. All the logos feautre the company name with an individual font, some also have designs on them. Interestingly, abriviated names such as EMI have not got the full name printed on there at all - this is something we will consider.

Tears Dry on Their Own - Lyrical Analysis

These are the lyrics to our seleceted song 'Teenage Dream'. From reading the lyrics you will be able to see the general outline of the song. She is singing out a boy she loves and who is literally her 'teenage dream'. She talking very highly of him and how much he loves and accepts her for what she is. This links in with the title, she's expressing that she is having the time of her life with him. This song fits nicely in our conventions in that she is singing about love, narrative will be simple as the lyrics are very readable. In our music video we will begin the song upbeat and end in the same fashion.

You think I'm pretty
Without any makeup on
You think I'm funny
When I tell the punchline wrong
I know you get me
So I let my walls come down, down

Before you met me
I was alright but things
Were kinda heavy
You brought me to life
Now every February
You'll be my Valentine, Valentine

Let's go all the way tonight
No regrets, just love
We can dance, until we die
You and I, will be young forever

You make me feel
Like I'm livin' a
Teenage dream
The way you turn me on
I can't sleep
Let's run away and
Don't ever look back,
Don't ever look back

My heart stops
When you look at me
Just one touch
Now baby I believe
This is real
So take a chance and
Don't ever look back,
Don't ever look back

We drove to Cali
And got drunk on the beach
Got a motel and
Built a fort out of sheets
I finally found you
My missing puzzle piece
I'm complete

Let's go all the way tonight
No regrets, just love
We can dance, until we die
You and I, will be young forever

You make me feel
Like I'm livin' a
Teenage dream
The way you turn me on
I can't sleep
Let's run away and
Don't ever look back,
Don't ever look back

My heart stops
When you look at me
Just one touch
Now baby I believe
This is real
So take a chance and
Don't ever look back,
Don't ever look back

I'mma get your heart racing
In my skin tights jeans
Be your teenage dream tonight
Let you put your hands on me
In my skin tight jeans
Be your teenage dream tonight

Yoooouuu
You make me feel
Like I'm livin' a
Teenage dream
The way you turn me on
I can't sleep
Let's run away and
Don't ever look back,
Don't ever look back
No

My heart stops
When you look at me
Just one touch
Now baby I believe
This is real
So take a chance and
Don't ever look back,
Don't ever look back

I'mma get your heart racing
In my skin tights jeans
Be your teenage dream tonight
Let you put your hands on me
In my skin tight jeans
Be your teenage dream tonight
(Tonight, tonight, tonight, tonight, tonight, tonight)

Poster Analysis

Another part of our music vdeo production is marketing for it. This includes creating a poster. We are going to analyse different music promotional posters from our selected genre to research into the different codes and conventions.

Amy Winehouse - Back to Black (2007)

This is the poster advertising Amy Winehouse's 2007 album 'Back to Black'. As you can see the editor has kept this very simple. The font on the poster has a Jazzy style to it which links in well to our genre. The subject isn't posed in a particular way which relates to the background which is a cleaned black board. The album name is in a smaller font to the artits name which is a common convention to music posters however the rest of this poster does not follow typical conventions of a music poster. There are no upcomming dates for performances and no information of the artist.

The Overtones - Good Ol' Fashioned Love (2010)

This is the promotional music poster advertising The Overtones album 'Good Ol' Fashioned Love'. The style to this poster is the most realted to our selected genre with the Jazzy appeal to it. The colour scheme is very safe in that none of the colours contrast with eachother. This is a convention that we will need to follow as our genre is very chilled and mellow. In my opinion a more sophisticated style of music. A very typical convention in music posters is to have to artist/band the large, central image - this is a convention we will most definitley stick to.

Paloma Faith - Crash Rhino (2009)

This is the promotional poster for Paloma Faith performing in an upcomming concert. This poster does not follow typical conventions as shown in the other examples. The main subject isn't central, instead it is in the bottom righ hand corner looking up to the title which has been made the central imagine. Contrasting colours have been used with the model and the background which sugests that this leans more to the indi genre than it does to jazz.

Music Video Codes and Conventions

After my analysis of the different music videos by Indie/Jazz artits/groups I have drawn some conventions of this genre.

All the music videos I analysed followed the generic conventions of all the characters being in love. They all preseneted female figures feeling let down and disguarded my love. Interestingly, most of the videos didn't involve a man as the other half, it was left to the filming, lyrics and narrative to portray the emotion and characteristics of the song. From Amy Winehouse's - Tears Dry on Their own, to Paloma Faith's - New York, they all seem to involve a women being left on her own telling a story. In our video we will follow the same convention in that the women is telling a story about her love. This is a very traditional representation of women as being the weaker sex. The fact that the videos don't have a male role could contrast this however it could also prove this. Contrastingly, with not having a male character, it is not 100% apparant that the narrative is so obvious, however provingly by not having the male character this could show the traditional side of a woman being emotional whatever circumstance.

The majority of shots types throughout the different videos and throughout each song are predominantly close ups and mid shots of the character in performance shots. We were not able to see a conventional narrative shot type as it varied from each music video. This is helpful to us as we know we can be creative when filming to gratify the audience. For example the narrative shots in 'Tears Dry on Their Own' involve the character walking through busy streets whereas shots in 'Rolling in the Deep' are of objects and dancers - completely contrasting in the stereotypical narrative shots. The lighting in each video has been catered to fit the mood of each song. In some videos the lighting looks very natural and no extreme affects have been used whereas others dim the whole video making it also almost black and white. Out of our analysed videos the only one with special affects was 'Gambling Man'. This video consists of a lot of edited wipe shots, colour changes to the frames, action wipes etc to follow the theme of the song.

The locations of each music video do not match therefore we cannot see a concention to the videos. This will get rid of the limitations when deciding where to film as we know that there isn't a certain order we will ahve to follow.

Uses and Gratification Theory

We all individually know what it is we like to watch and what we look for in the conventions of our preferences, we also expect to be gratified by what we watch as we assume it will follow our prefereces. The gratification types are as followed:
- information
- entertainment
- personal identity
- socail empathy/social personaly interest
- escapsim
Some of these conventions are linked more to a short film however when creating our music video we want to make sure that we have a very clear narrative and one that also follows our selected genre and is able to gratify the audience.

Moodboard of Existing Album Covers

Mood Board

Amy Winehouse - Tears Dry On Their Own

Inital Song Ideas

Initially my partner and I had similar trains of thoughts when it came to chosing a song for our music video. We were both in unison with deciding that we wanted to use an already created song rather than produce our own due to lack of time for the project.

We both wanted to do a song that could have simple yet affective narrative. We knew that we wouldn't have the resources to create a video with loads of people and elaberate sets, therefore this also affected our song choice. We wanted to go with an 'Indie/Pop' feel style genre as narrative to these types of music aren't too difficult. We narrowed it down to certain artits that we both liked and in the end came to the decison of 'Katy Perry - Teenage Dream'. We chose this song because it has an easy tempo to uphold also the lyrics aren't too precise therefore when coming up with narrative we have a lot of different options.

Targets

Last year for I created a magazine cover, contents page and double page spread for a music company. I chose to base my genre of music around Indi artits as I was keen to use this for the style and image of the magazine. Last year I was very successful in the final product however the pre-production was difficult as I had a late start due to having to change my project. This year I hope to be able to manage my time for efficently and complete tasks on time to save worrying and not completeing things to the best of my ability due to lack of time. This year I would like to get my pre-production to the same standard as my production.

Analysing Editing - Paloma Faith: New York

Pa Lo Ma Faith

Analysing Shot Types - Amy Winehouse: Tears Dry on Their Own

Amy Winehouse