Analysis of a Music video - Vic

The Kills - Tape Song


The Music video itself it fairly obscure, it is a veriety of short chopy shots, with elements of montage editing. The video lacks a narative, it seems as though its a cluster of different clips, some being repeated. The video itself is very individual and it is clear that the band want to be represented as being 'a little bit out there', 'different, and 'edgey'. The video is set in approxmitatly 11 fairly simple locations, the unusual editing makes the video look effective.  




This element of the video is edited very effectivly, it ensures the unusualness of the video is continued. The flash of colour is a very interesting idea, which which could possibly simbolise the effects of drug taking.



The entire music video is shot in a blured fashion, the shots are also the size of a polaroid which is really edgey and fresh. This gives the music video a 'vintage edge'. Several of the shots are hand held, which represents the camera man walking towatds the artists. This element looks really effective and could possibly be used in our own music video.



This part of the video shows the band palying instruments in a sort of barn setting which looks really dark and grundy which is the style which we are aiming to achieve in our own music video. The shot also have a greeny/grey colour wash, which looks really effective. 



The collage of shot in the these particular shots look really effective. The mixture of the black and white images with the colour is a really interesting idea and I think we could possibly draw inspiration from this element. The colour images have a hazy, blury edge which also is a really good idea. Also at the end of the clip the black and white shot of the male playing the guitar looks 'rocky' and 'grungy', the way in which it has been editing is interesting, the haziness over in the black and white shot looks very 'vintage'.




The use of a fuzzy black and white shot looks effective. The beggining of the first shot a sort of 'fly on the wall' shot. In the shot the people are having a good time and acting as if the camera isnt even there. The second shot is of a guitarist, it begins in a black and white negative shot then a red negative colour wash.

Costumes, hair and make up - Vic

Our costume ideas that we plan to use in our video are fairly 'provocative', as we aim to use stockings and suspenders, a veriety of tight, short, dresses. We also need to ensure that the video doesnt come off looking too 'sexual' as it will make it look cheap and tacky and as a result we will fail to achieve our target audience (ages 15 - 25), and will most likly have an older male audience.  

Our ideas for costumes could be fairly costly however our friends have got outfits which fit our genre, therefore this will save us as a group money. The outfits have either come from highstreet shops, old dancing costumes or fancy fress costumes. If we need any extra clothing I plan on searching charity shops and various vintage shops in the town centre.

We plan on using several items of fake fur. Non of the fur used in our video will be real. We are well aware that using real fur could raise some ethical issues.

For the make up aspect of things most of the make up we will need Emily or myself own it. However for the slightly more 'outrageous' make up e.g. 'crimson lipstick' and 'large fake eye lashes', I plan on buying it from the Market in the town centre. This will be a cheap way of buying the make up.

We have planned for the girls in our music video to have long hair in a 'messed up' style. We have gained inspiration from other female rock artists for his look. We will need hair spray which I own and this 'hair cream' to give the hair a messy, wavey look which I also own. The hair will also require back combing.

The only issue that may occur is the shoes, they need to be a certain grungy look and possibly one of our friends may own some large, black, grungy heels, and she has different sized feet to the other actors in our music video. However I am confident that we will overcome this possible issue.

Lip syncing research - Vic

It is essential that we get actors in our video who are fairly good at lip syncing as it makes the video look less effective. Lip syncing out of time with the music looks un - proffessional and 'tacky'. Lip syncing can make or break a music video so it is key that we ensure that it is time perfect. I believe that we should only use several shota of our lead singer lip syncing as it is difficult to do and it is very difficult to edit effectly.

Here are some examples of Good and Bad lip syncing...


Good 




Bad

Shot ideas -Vic

Our idea for the beggining of the music video, is before the music begins we will film a close up of a 'Jack Daniels' bottle scraping along a wall (Including the sound) with the sound of the girls heels in the background. This will give the viewers an idea of the style of music and the genre which we are portraying in our music video. 

A further idea is a close up shot of one of the females blowing smoke into the camera lense and when the lense clears its a close up of the lead singer. We hope to achieve this by either zooming into the shot or using as blured shot. I will test which shot  looks most effective.

Camera footage ideas - Vic

Our idea for the footage of our video is to use a mixture of 'normal' shot, a colour wash shot and Black and white shots. I believe that a black and white element in our video will look effective and will flow with our genre. Black and white will make our video look chic. It will make our video look edgey which is our main focus. The colour wash will give the video a grungy look without looking dirty or too outrageous. Both these ideas will give our video and rocky edge.

I also believe that using a mixure of tripod 'Non shakey' shot and hand held 'shakey shot'. This will also give our video and rocky 'unstructured' edge.

Props. Emily

In our video we are planning on the characters actually playing the instruments. The shots wont be for long as the people we have choose carnt actually play the instuments we have choosen to put in our video, but as a group we thaught it was essential that they did as to show they were a band!
Trinny will be main vocals.
Hannah on the drums.
Daisy on guitar.

In one of their previous videos you see a chaise longue, we have acsess to one of these so we think it will be effective to see it in our video. On this we thaught it would be a nice idea to see them with lots of pearls to show the girly side to the band. On the side of that shot some dead red roses, to again tie in the red and the dirty/romantic look that we are going for.

The jack daniels bottle will add the efffect of the rock and roll elemt of our video. As a group we thaught that a vodka bottle wasn't dirty enough and isn't sen as a very grimey drink as wisky or JD.

Location - Vic

I have gained inspiration for our LOcation for our music video from my friends music video. I believe that the type of shots that they have used are ideal for the many ideas that we have got for our music video.

I thought of a location for our music video. The location is an abandoned farm. The farm has a barn with an old barn, and there is random brick layed around the location and broken, splintered peices of wood.

The Location is close to my house (The next village). I gained inspiration for this location after viewing my friends bands music video which was located there.

The location is ideal for our genre and idea because it is dark and grundy looking which will portray our 'rock party' idea. The video also has a mysterious, scary edge which we hope to represent in our music video.




It is very apprant that they have gained inspiration for their music video from the well known band Kasabian's music video to thier song 'Vlad the impaler'.




The two videos are very similar. Here is several shots that are almost the same.







The character is very similar and almost the entire body language and the way that the characters both hold themselves.





The way that the murder is shot is the same and the way that the victims respond to the knife. Also the same use of weapon.

Video Effects- Jack

For our video we wanted to have like a screen wash creating a different kind of worn affect, this will hopefully be acheivable to do on my mac. This will hopefully give the video more depth and hopefully make it seem more vintage. We quite like the colours that have been used on the Rihanna video teaser for Only Girl, even though this could be seen as a contrasting peice of music we think that it will look effective and boad well with our narrative and help the video have more depth.



here are some pictures taken on my phone wich are given an immediate efect 'Vintage'.

Styling- Jack

After continually listening to the song my vision for the make up and styling is becoming more clear. I think that the girls should look grunge with dark eyes and messy hair. I think the overall look of Taylor in the group is very try-effortless. She has clearly been styled to her eyeballs to look as though she isn't trying. This in-fact is one of the hardest things to do. Over the next few days I am going to search the girls wardrobes to see what they could wear and to try and pull looks together. I think it would be ideal for the girls to have at least 2 outfits if not more. This then gives more depth to the video and makes it look more planned. I will be posting the pictures of the clothing onto the blog over the next few days.

Makeup- I am also going to do something similar with the make up. I have spoken to Hannah a member of the 'Band' and she has said she will be happy to help with the make up and i know Vic has said she is looking forward to trying out new looks. I am therefore going to post pictures of the girls with the correct make up on as i know the pictures posted earlier have caused concern as the girls look too girls. We are going to prove the power of heavy black makeup and some good styling.

Ideas for clothes......

Heavy biker boots to give a un-glamorous image yet still on trend. I think these are a good choice as i know hannah owns them. I also like the chain/metal detailing as it looks quite heavy and grunge like.

I think that this kind of shoe would look brilliant on camera, all though not exactly the height of fashion, they fit with the rebellion theme we were going for. These would suit Trinny's lead character I think. But after receiving feedback from the teacher i have realised that these may be in appropriate for a school media project even though this is a picture of Taylor's shoes herself. 

The studded leather jacket would be perfect this because they are very on trent making the video appeal to its female target audience and also an easy way to look chic and effortless. This item along with the shoes above may fit into the Male Gaze theory, being leather and something to take off may appeal to the male audience and also the high perspex heel for there height and connotation.

I like this dress, i think it has a dirty look about it which i feel would fit well with our rebellion theme. The studs yet again add a hard girl image to the dress yet the material is very delicate and see through (making her look vulnerable), of course which would appeal to the male audience. 








Hair and Make-Up.

The heavy black eye look i no is strong but i think with the genre of music we have chosen and the rebellious theme we have going on the eyes will look good. I also think that they look haunted and scary which also ties in with the dark theme we wanted. 

The dip dye scraggy extension look is very 'rock and roll' this season, and of course we cant make any of our girls change the colour of their hair but i like this kind of image with the dirty looking messy, un styled (but has probably had hours on end spent on it) look. I think that it will be fitting to the music video. Trinny's hair is white platinum blonde so we could buy different coloured extensions to try and re create the look. 

The Dark plum lipstick is also very on trend and will help the band portray their bad girl image.

In my opinion there is nothing more rock and roll than the artist wearing statement sunglasses. I think that the Rayban clubmasrters portray a rock and roll hard girl image and would fit perfectly with the video.




As a group we understand that we don't have the sort of funds that these professional bands and stylists have but we hope we can make what we have work. Ideally we don't want to have to buy anything new for the shoot as we think it not only would be a waste of money but also we want the items to look old and tattered (worn and cheap). We are going for a very overstated eccentric style of Rock Glamour pushing the looks to the extreme. Hopefully it will all work out. Keep checking for pictures of the girls own clothes and make up shots. 

Our 25 word pitch. Emily and Jack

Factor girl- Emily.

This is the song when have choosen to create for our coursework. We believe that this we be a great song to use because it would really open doors to what our video could be like. Also The pretty reckless havent created a video for this song so its not going to be critisised for being different or not as good as the original.

Choosing The Characters Part 2- Jack

After talking with the rest of the group we have decided not to add another member to the group. We feel like we can carry it off with just the three of them. We thought there was no point just adding someone for the same of it when the ones we have chosen have been for a specific reason.

Thinking About The Pitch.- Jack

Due to only being allowed 25 words to portray as a pitch I feel as though those 25 words need to be fitting enough to sell our idea. I personally think when showing the rest of the class the pitch we shouldn't show any video footage from the group because we can see that what we are planning to do may have similarities to to the actual group, but we don't want them to think we are copying them or make them think we are doing a parody. So letting them listen to the track without any other influence other than maybe a mood board that has been put together by the group will help them in-vision our idea.


In the pitch i would like to include images of the set, the costume and maybe some sample shots of camera angles and effect we would like to include.

Choosing The Characters- Jack

As we have decided to have an all girl group rather than following in the footsteps of The Pretty Reckless we are finding it difficult to find the last member of the group.

We have chosen for Trinny to front the band because we feel her look is similar to the appearance of Taylor Momsen. We have then chosen Hannah and Daisy to be 2/3 of the group all we need is another female around the same age. We think that the decision we have made so far when choosing members because they they are all able to look completely different with the help of make up and styling, we also feel as though they will give everything they have got when it comes to performing.

Hannah and Daisy.

Trinny.

Ideas for shots- emily

As a group we have dicided that we like the shot that is in this clip. its timimg is from 1.14 to 1.16. The two shots are one of taylor on her own and then aging in the same place but with the band behind her. We think this is a very clever shot and intend on using in in our muisc video when we come to make it. We like this shot because it shows the lead singer first showing that she is the important one then again with the rest of the band showing that it is a band and not a singer with a band, thins links back to my earlier posts where i was discussing how she is the focus for the band/ the icon for their audience.

Marketing Age- Jack

When later talking about the overall rebellious image we wanted to portray for the band we thought that we should differ from the original band themselves. Therfore instead of marketing our all girl band (opposed to the 1 girl 3 men) as 16/17 year olds like Taylor herself we are going to market them at the age of 18. This simply being we wanted to add alcohol and smoking into out video to give it our desired effect of grunge and rebellion. Therfore we decided to make them seem older so that it isnt setting a bad influence to their younger fans.

Audience reseach - Vic

I plan to create a questionnaire to determine the age of our target audience. As we have chosen to create a Grunge/ alternative rock genre which will be fronted by a female. We aime to use the music of bands such as 'The Pretty Reckless' or 'Hole,' which is the band that Courtney Love is the front woman of, and or 'Paramore' etc.

I predict that the target audience will be females aged 15-25 as females are mainly fans of female artists and female fronted bands. I Will gain a broarder understanding of our target audience after the completion of the questionnaire exercise.

The Group - Vic

As a group we chose to work together as we felt we have similar visions for our work and our personalites will not clash. We were in the same class last year however we didnt work together. After dicussions outside of the classroom we have similar ideas about the video we want to create, and also we have similar tastes in music therefore there will be no heated dicussions about the music choice. Also looking into the future when filming we all drive so therefore we will be able to get to filming locations easily, we also live very close to one another so whilst planning outside of school time it will be simple to arrange to meet at a persons house.

The Kills, Black Balloon -Emily.

I know 'The kills' is not really a rock band as such but this video resembles some similarities too 'The pretty Reckless' video. After looking at this video i think it wouldn't be impossible to create something of this standard. The whole video has this green/brown wash which seems to be apparent in most rock music video so give a feel of rough/grunge/non-clean cut. The girl in this video is unlike Taylor because she doesn't wear sexual clothing and wear lots of heavy black eye make-up. Even though they are different you can tell that they are aiming at the same type of audience because of the smoking, giving their target audience a invitation to smoke. This way we know they are not aiming at the younger age bracket. This then gives and indication to what genre of music they are. There not pop as that age bracket is vary varied!

Rock Band Videos- Emily

Here are some of the most famous 'Rock bands' of all time, I have taken a look and analysed parts of their videos to give us as a group and idea too what we could possibly create with our music video. I have related some parts of the music videos back too,The pretty reckless video 'make me wanna die.'

AC/DC

As you can see in their video they have lots of close ups of the different instruments and most of the band. this shows that they are working as a team to get the band moving. this is ironic as they are on a moving truck when they are all playing together. In comparison to 'the pretty reckless' video where the majority of the time the camera is focused on the lead singer. Also in this clip you can see illustrated images to help represent the lyrics;helping the person watching to understand what's going on. For example here the singer say 'ridin' on the highway' and the previous shot cuts to a high angle/ birds eye shot of the highway.

Nirvarna

From this music video you can defiantly see some similarity's between this and 'makes me wanna die.' This video has a green/brown wash over all of the shots; creating a dirty, not so clean cut effect. Also in this you see mostly teenagers, giving the impression of a gig. This represents their target audience as being teenagers and the title of the song teen spirit. In the corner you can seen cheerleaders, and they often drive team spirit so encouraging the crowd of teens.

Background.

I've found a background for the blog but i carn't put it on as i'm not the creator, so jack you will have to post it onto the blog when i send you the link. Thanks..

blah blah blah

Trying to see if this works on my phone!

Genre - Vic

As a group we have chosen to use a Grundge/ alternative Rock genre. We decided upon a punk rock genre because as a group we believed that we could create a more effective video.

We are well aware that 'rocky' styles of clothing involve ripped jeans and tights long messy hair and dark make up, however we are leaning towards a Rock look; which we we will portray in our video.

Our vision for our project is a grimey, dark video. We are going to ensure that our actors are not looking 'clean cut'.We shall ensure our front woman looks powerful, endearing and feisty  We are going to gain inspiration from powerful women in the'rock' scene such as Courtney love and Taylor Momsen from the band The Pretty Reckless.

 We also plan to use attractive women in our video, ensuring that our video is more appealing to a wider male audience as well as female audiences. Gaining inspiration from female front artist such as Hayley Williams from Paramore we plan to ensure that the front woman in our video will wear red lipstick to cannote sexuality.

Our target audience will be focused at 15-25. However it will also to appeal to the elder generations who are ex Courtney Love fans. However we will use empowering shot such as low angle shots to cannote power and not just focusing on sexuality.

Factory Girl - Jack Reid

As I mentioned before we have chosen to use the song Factory Girl by The Pretty Reckless, the reason being it doesnt already have a video. I have decided to post the lyics of the song because this helped the group choose the song as we cannoted numerous differrent ideas, shown in brackets below.

FACTORY GIRL- THE PRETTY RECKLESS.

I am a factory girl, won't you pardon me?
See I can make my whole world in a backseat
Lost point, want a joint, show me how to treat a john
Someone save me, save me from what I'm on (being in a grave yard talking to god?)
Wait a minute girl, can you show me to the party?
I said wait a minute girl, can you show me to the party?
Please let me in through the backdoor (Andrew Goodwin-Literally comign through a backdoor)
Just let me in through the backdoor, baby
Just let me in through the backdoor, just let me in
Wait a minute girl, can you show me to the party? (Andrew Goodwin- literally entering a party.)
It's gonna be a real good time

I'm waiting for my man and hollywood and vine, so fine
Been done in the alley, son I'm on New York time
Take a look at those red lights, green lights,(red lights and Green lights being shown on screen) blowin' my mind
I'll show you somethin' if you show me a good time (sexually connoting that she will show off her body.... this could be referenced through minipulating camera angles of her clothing.)
Wait a minute girl, can you show me to the party?
Wait a minute girl, can you show me to the party?
I'll let you in through the backdoor
I'll let you in through the backdoor, baby
I'll let you in through the backdoor, I'll let you in
Wait a minute girl, can you show me to the party?

Here she comes, coming around again
Here she comes, coming around again
Here she comes, coming around again
Here she comes, coming again (Andrew Goodwin- Amplifying and the use of repetition or how the camera could break the 180 degree rule by spinning all the way around the act) Wait a minute girl, can you show me to the party?
I said wait a minute girl, can you show me to the party?

Wait a minute girl, can you show me to the party?
Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute
Wait a minute, wait a minute, hey girl, can you show me, girl?
Can you show me to the party? Can you show me to the party?
Can you show me to the party? ( maybe ending on a cliffhanger justy entering the party or maybe being turned away from the party).


(Plans at the beginning) 
(Plans whilst drawing up the storyboard)
(plans before/whilst filming)
(plans when editing)

Music video analysis. Emily.

'Makes me wanna die' by the mainstream rock band The Pretty Reckless. This video shows a clear representation of what the group is about, rebelion, having a good time and being an individual and help the audience understand the niche of their market.

The video starts of with a establishing shot of the area of where the video is filmed. From what the audience can see it looks like the band are in a rough part of a major US city. There is a deep wash over most of the shots to make it seem more urban, less polished, and somewhat mysterious and fits with their genre of the music.

Throughout the video you mainly see pictures of the lead singer Taylor Momsen, she is the girl with long blonde hair; the only female in the band. People may think that One of the clips you see is of her smoke coming out of her mouth, this conotes rebelion and the whole image of being in a rock band. This also links to when we saw them at VFestival '10. There she told us to 'light up whatever you have' this helps her to connect to and attract their target audience because it shows shes not as clean cut or well behaived as other teens and this is what they believe is what attractive to them as a band.

She writes 'reckless' in a red lipstick, which promotes the band as they are not very big at the moment. Also that red canotes 'sex' and 'danger' two things which link to being in a rock band. We like this shot and may use this in our video.

There is a section just before the chourus where the shot cuts between taylor in black and white and taylor in colour, this is almost like a montage that fits with the beat of the music.

Research & Planning.- Jack Reid

                                                     

Taylor Momsen (17), the lead singer of the band The Pretty Reckless is a rebelious character that has taken a different path from the likes of other child stars such as Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber. As a group we have decidedn that we like this image even though risque but we think that it represents the genre ans type of the music. Therfore we have decided to do our music video in the style of The Pretty Reckless videos and style the 'band' (our group of friends) in the way Taylor has been styled. Due to this decision we have chosen our Friend Trinny Maloy as we think she would fit the image we are looking for perfectly. Also we are going to differ from the actual band by having an all girl group wheras the original group is Taylor Momsen and three other men. We thought about this but willing females are more accessable and willing to help the group. This also means we can market the group in a different way. This will come further ino play when creating the cd cover and the posters later on in the coursework year.

When briefly mentioning the bands style in particular Taylor's and the way in which it represents the band and their niche mkt. Looking at the picture above where Taylor is smoking and wearing very little we think is the direction we want to take, no matter how innapropriate for a 17 year old girl. The reason we have chosen to do this is because we feel it bodes well with the image of the group and their music ethic. We also like how the groups image and our interpretation of the image connotes individualism and being your own person, this will make our video more personal to its audience. We also like the grime aspect of the group (being less polished)unlike Miley Cyrus with her mainstream Pop music. We want no limits with our music video and hope to make it look as professional as possible.   

Research & Discussion- Jack Reid

As a group we thought it would be better to collectively get together and  get the ball rolling by thinking of ideas, music genres, people to have in the video, locations and songs because that way we are able to agree and ensure that every member of the group is happy with the project at hand.
During this discussion we came up with a few different music ideas but ended choosing a song by The Pretty Reckless, we thought this because we liked the more mainstream rock genre as we thought it would be more approachable to different audiences.
 We also thought that a mutual friend of the group Trinity Maloy dresses alike and knows many of the groups songs. This will come in handy when styling the video and whenthe aspect of lipsyncing comes into it. 
 Vic researched on the internet and found a location near by which doesnt try and that would be fitting for one of the songs by the group.
 So after further diliberation within the group about songs clothing and genre of music, we chose to the song Factory Girl for numerous reasons. One being that the song doesnt have a video, this meaning we are able to think of our own ideas without being influenced by the ideas of their creative team.