Elton John Duet

1. What have you learnt about filming music videos? I learnt that to make a convincing music video you have to have perfect lip syncing to the song, the best way to achieve this is to actually sing the song when filming, this also makes editing a lot easier and the video already matches up to the sound track.
2. What have you learnt about filming duets? To make a good duet it is important that both the people on screen are fully engrossed in the song and have good chemistry with each other, if not it looks forced and un natural.
3. The process of editing. To edit a music video it is best to line up all of the camera shots you have with the sound and put them into different layers, then you can cut the parts of each layer that you do not want and keep the ones that you do, this makes putting a good video together easy.
4. What have you learnt about editing music videos? I learnt how to make a convincing music video that has perfect lip syncing and how using effects well can smooth out transitions between shots so they arent so harsh.
5. In what ways could you improve the filming/editing of the sequence? If i were to do this again i would get more into the singing more so that it comes across as more natural looking and fun.

History of the pop video-Bing Crosby to The Beatles

Bing Crosby
In the 1940's Bing Crosby was the biggest star in the world.
Fans saw him on his TV shows where he sang "white Christmas" for the first time.
This is a clip form "the Bing Crosby show"
This is the song white Christmas that was first sang on the Bing Crosby show.
 This is an episode of the Bing Crosby show.
Frank Sinatra
He replaced Bing Crosby as the biggest star in the world.
This is one of Frank Sinatra's popular songs performed live.
Frank Sinatra was like a younger version of Bing Crosby.
Elvis Presley
Elvis marked the birth of Rock and Roll. Fans mainly saw him on TV and the only was to see him live was to fly out to the USA as he didn't tour in any other country.
This is one of Elvis Presley's popular songs "suspicious Mind".
This is a video of Elvis performing live.
Elvis was liked so widely as he was a young man who looked younger than Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra.
The Beatles
The Beatles were the most popular band in the 1960's . Pre-music videos the Beatles toured all over the world.
In 1966 the Beatles were sick of touring as when they sang they couldn't be heard due to the amount of screaming girls.
After they stopped touring the performed regularly on top of the pops in order to promote their new records.
1966 marked the birth of the pop video where the Beatles performed paperback writer and rain at kenwood house. They then sent the videos all over the world to promote their records and everyone got the chance to see them.
The Beatles performing live where you can hear the screaming fans.
These are the first pop music videos that marked the birth of the music video.
The Beatles were liked as they were British, young, relate-able and a little bit rebellious.
At the time there was no other band like the Beatles, that why they were so universally loved.

Foo fighters animatic

What did we have to do?
For this task we had to watch foo fighters the pretender and make a storyboard and animatic for it. The animatic was around 39 seconds long and contained around 15 different camera shots.

What we learned by doing this
From doing this exercise i learned how to correctly story board for a music video. Making the animatic taught me about how to match editing to the sound, e.g. cut to next scene on a beat.
It also taught me that in a music video you have to use lots of fast cuts and edits in order to keep the music video interesting. You also need a detailed animatic to have any idea of what to do as you get many different shots very quickly e.g. in the foo fighters song the pretender there are three different shots within the space of one second.

How is editing a music video different to editing a thriller?
A music video is very different to editing a thriller. This is because a thriller is relatively fast paced with only some fast shots. In a music video the majority of the video consists of fast edits. If i were to edit a music video in the same way as a thriller it would be very boring a tedious. If i edited a thriller like a music video it would kill the atmosphere and the audience would struggle to keep up with what is going on on screen.

Narrative Theory

Narrative is the way the story is organised.
The thriller that I made covers about 3 minutes of the characters life.
An enigma is a problem that has been created and needs to be solved.
In the Thriller that i made the enigma is who is the killer? Why did he kill the person? and what will the murderer do with the usb. Will anyone avenge the victim?

My thriller is also very linear as everything that takes place happens in the correct order.
Disruption of the equilibrium will cause enigmas which will need  resolution which will lead to a new equilibrium.
In the thriller i made the equilibrium is the person walking through the woods, the disruption is the character getting murdered, at that point in time there is no resolution and the new equilibrium is that the murderer will have the usb that he stole for evil. Next in the thriller the dead person will likely be avenged and the murderer will get the punishment that he deserves.

Roland Barthes theory stated that there are two ways that narrative can end, it will either be open or closed. Open is when the questions raised in the narrative are left unanswered. My thriller will have a closed ending as all of the questions raised in the opening will be answered.
Some films can be read in a number of ways e.g. did batman die at the end of dark knight rises, some say yes and some say no, this is known as a Polysemic text.

Vladimir Propp's theory stated that folk stories always have 8 character roles, these are:
The Hero
The Villain
The Donor
The Helper
The Father
The Dispatcher
The Princess
The False Hero

Blog 3: Purpose of a music promo video

Promotion videos are made for publicity, which helps make money and increase sales.
Synergy
The music video only exists as one strand of multimedia campaign. Its just one way that a song is promoted.
The music industry as a while has a relationship with a number of different media, these include; radio, TV, print, media, film and new media.
There is often a clear sense of synergy across a number of platforms.

An example where a film is used to promote a film is Skyfall, Adele sang the opening song to this and in the music video it shows out takes from the film.

This video promoted the film Four weddings and a funeral, this song was responsible for the films big success. Before this song was released the film was failing. This promoted the film by showing small clips from the film and the films success further promoted the music. This song spent 19 weeks in the chart before the band pulled it as they felt it had been over played.

If a piece of music is used in a good way in a movie it can persuade people to go out and buy that song or maybe even the whole album by that artist.

Types of music

In the music industry there are two categories of artists, these are; Organic and Synthetic.
Organic
The term organic is used to describe bands where the music comes first, they make the kind of music they want and then the record labels try to make the music.
Organic music often appeals to a niche market, but can appeal to a mass audience.
Radiohead are a good example of an organic band . The music will always come before the money and fame!
Example of organic bands include; The Beatles;
The Beatles came Loved by the Americans when they made an appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show.

Synthetic

The synthetic refers to the X factor mythology and its the record labels who sit in the drivers seat and dictate what the bands do.

A gap in the market is identified, and then it is exploited by the development of music, often the artist is made to fill the gap.

Money is the main objective.
An example of a synthetic is 1 Direction as this is a manufactured music group.

This is all of the one direction members before one direction was formed.

Record Labels

Major record labels
The music industry is dominated by four major record labels, these include;
Universal
Sony Music
Warner Brothers
Emi
These are referred to as "The Majors" . The majority of these are backed up by conglomerated with stakes in other industries such as film, TV and electronics.

Major independents
The major independents include;
Columbia-This is owned by Sony Music
Island-This is owned by Universal
Syco-This is owned by Sony Music
RCA-Owned by Sony Entertainment
Virgin-This is owned by Universal

These are known as Major independents as they are owned by the major record labels. The major independents reach different audiences with different genres of music.
Independents
There are many small companies who have little to no financial connection to the majors.
These companies often focus on a small number of acts with specialized niches in the industry.
An example of a successful independent record label is domino records.

Often most record labels start off as independents and when they gain in popularity are supported by the majors to become major independents.

You can see the size differences between the majors,major independents and independent record labels by looking at their you tube channels, Universal music have over 2 million subscribers, Island records have 110 thousand subscribers and Domino records have 205 thousand subscribers.
The major record labels have hundreds to thousands of artists signed to them where as the independents such as domino have less than 60 artists signed to them. The major record labels are most likely to have the most popular mainstream artists where as the major independents and independents are more likely to feature less popular artists and genres.