The creatation and process of making a music video

Hey guys,

A music video is a short film/video made up by a bands single for marketing themselves. This si the process on how the music video is created:

Start of the process
1. The artists decide what song they want as there single with the bands management.
2. The video comminsioner creates a shortlist of possible directors and sends them the single with an expanded brief of the song and a summarised idea to the shortlisted directors.
3.The shortlisted directors provide a outlined treatment to the music comminsioner.
4. The band and band magement decided on the director. The budget and deadlines are agreed.
5. The director creates his ideas into a storyboard and photos of the locations are taken.
6. Art directors, wardrobe people and a photography director are enlisted. location are booked, sets are designed then created.

Too be cont. =]


xxxx

Notes on well known directors...

Helloooooooooo,

So before we can start filming, we thought it best that we take note of some of the professional's works beforehand. The first director we've chosen is Spike Jonze.

Spike Jonze was born in America in the late 1960s. His work includes directiong music videos, commercials, film and television. He was recently director for the 2009 film, 'Where the WIld Things Are'.

Jonze filmed himself as the head of the dance group in the music video 'Rockafeller Skank' by Fatboy Slim. He showed this video to Slim, who loved it, allowing Jonze to find a dance group to film for 'Praise You'. He filmed this outside a cinema in California. They were asked to perform the dance at the 1999 MTV Video Music Awards. The video won awards for Best Direction, Breakthrough, and Best Choreography.

In 2008, Jonze co -directed the 'Flashing Lights' video by Kanye West with West himself.

The next director I shall make notes on is Mark Romanek.

Romanek was also born in America, in the late 1950s. He's an award winning music video director, who has just gone into directing theatrical films.

Romanek achieved his first Grammy for his Best Short Form Video in 1996 for 'Scream' with Janet and Michael Jackson collaborating in the video.

Romanek is known for his personal and moving videos, with Johnny Cash's cover, 'Hurt'. He has since worked with Jay Z, Madonna and Lenny Kravitz.

We're still trying to work out how to embed videos, so hopefully soon we can add one for 'Hurt'.

Thanks for reading!

Liv, Rache and Mike xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Emailing Peter and the Wolf's management..

Hey everyone,

We'd still had no reply from Peter and the Wolf so I emailed the management. Here is a copy of my email and a first reply from Mr Wheeler.







xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Notes on our chosen genre...

Hiiiiiii!

Right, our chosen genre is indie rock so here are a few notes about it.

Indie rock originated in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1980s. The term is sometimes used to describe a means of production and distribution of independent music forms, as well of the style of music itself. Indie rock artists are often known for keeping a great amount of control over their music,  releasing their albums on independent record labels, relying on touring, word-of-mouth and radio stations for their growth in popularity. The lines between independent indie rock and mainstream artists are becoming blurred, stirring debates amongst fans. Many indie rock artists under mainstream record labels are still sometimes referred to as independent for their aesthetic. 

The roots of indie rock can be traced back to The Velvet Underground's album in 1967. Other examples of early indie rock bands are Minutemen, Meat Puppets, Sonic Youth and The Replacements. 

The 1990s brought change. Grunge bands such s Nirvana broke into the mainstream, achieving huge chart success. Punk revival bands such as Green Day fell under the 'alternative' stereotype. However, the term indie rock still is used to refer to the more underground, independent bands.

Many independent bands are trying to break into the mainstream, although Radiohead recently self-released their seventh album. Will this create a new trend for up and coming indie rockers?

Hope that helps!

Liv, Rache and Mike xxxxxxxx

Our Questionnaire

Hey guys =] 

we have now created a questionnaire to ask other fellow students or teachers about what music they like, and what they expect in a music video. 

here we go guys... 

Questionaire: (Draft?)

1. Male/female?

2. Age? 

3. Favourite type of music genre?

4. Favourite music video you have seen?

 5. Do you like (our genre)?

6. What do you expect to see in a music video?

7. Where do you usually watch music videos?

8. Does a music video influence whether you buy the song?

We are going to ask about 20 - 30 people to do our questionnaire. 

Hope it goes well. keep you posted...

love you guys

Michael, Rache and Liv xxx   

Hi everyone, we have some more information for you here about Peter and the Wolf.

Marc Sunderland is the lead singer, guitarist and pianist for Peter and the Wolf. Due to his ADHD and behavioural issues, he has the ability to write music drawn from real life experiences with a tougher edge. 

The first EP released, "Storyteller", was recorded in Marc's Liverpool home with fellow band members Hugo Harrison and Donna Dosanjh. 

They are on Guy Garvey's Skinny Dog record label. In 2007 they opened the Park Stage at Glastonbury, after which they were personally asked by Beautiful South's Paul Heaton to tour with him on his UK solo tour. 

In January, the band will be releasing their debut album 'Golden  Stars'. It features a complete mix of musical talents and one song is used as the soundtrack to BBC3s "Massive". It has been recorded by Gavin Monaghan (Editors, Scott Matthews, Kings of Leon, Robert Plant) and Mastered by John Dent.

'Talk About You' lyrics

Heyyyyy everyoneeeeeeee!

Here goes for the lyrics:

Verse 1

Flowers on your death bed,

You don't need to worry,

Take your mind off romance,

You'll be hit with no chance.

Champagne with your breakfast,

No cause for celebration,

Poured upon your cornflakes,

Cover up my mistakes.

Chorus

I wanna talk about you, just you.

I'll write a book about you, just you.

I need to touch up my selfish ways.

I'm gonna be a better man someday.

(Repeat)

I wanna talk about you,

Am I talking to myself?

You...

Am I...

Verse 2

Your knight will don his armor,

Feeling rather naked,

Running out to save you,

Trying yet unable.

Dining in the moonlight,

Cynical as I need be,

You must be freezing,

Second course repeating.

Chorus

I wanna talk about you, just you.

I'll write a book about you, just you.

I need to touch up my selfish ways.

I'm gonna be a better man someday.

(Repeat)

I wanna talk about you.

Am I talking to myself?

You...

Am I talking to myself?

Middle 8

You don't need, don't need to bother him.

No, no, no.

You don't need, don't need to bother him.

Verse 3

Pencils in your pillow,

Only when you're dreaming,

Holding back the nightmares,

Sleeping on your despair. 

Chorus

I wanna talk about you, just you.

I'll write a book about you, just you.

I need to touch up my selfish ways.

I'm gonna be a better man someday.

(Repeat)

I wanna talk about you.

Am I talking to myself?

You...

Am I talking to myself?

You...

Am I talking to myself?

You...

Am I talking to myself?

TA-DA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love Rache, Mike and Liv xxxxxxxxxxxx

The history of the music video...

Hi people!

We recently watched a video in class concerning the history of the music video. We were all astonished at how over publicised videos have now become compared to what their original purpose was.

So here goes...

In 1923, Hitler released 'Mein Kamf', which was one of the original vidoes with intergrated sound. Then, in 1950 came the first colour music videos.

In 1955, songs from musicals were released as individual songs with music videos. By 1967, Top of the Pops hit the scene, which catapulted music into the foreground of television. Music videos were made for bands who were not available to perform live on the show. However, these days it seems complusory to make a video whether you're available or not.

In 1975, VCRs became available to buy in shops. At this time, Queen also made their video for 'Bohemian Rapsody'. The reason behind this video was that it was too complex to perform live. It took only 3 hours to film and the total budget for that time was approximately £3,500.

1980 brought the New Romanticism era. In 1981, Mike Nesmith created MTV (or music television). The first video played on the 24hour music channel was 'Video Killed The Radio Star'. MTV soon became available in 300million homes worldwide. However, it was soon known as 'Mpty' TV because of the lack of music videos being created at this time. Some videos were repeated many times over to fill the space.

Tim Pope was soon to emerge as a popular director. He was the first of his kind not to use artists conventionally in his videos; by this we mean that the artists in the video were not necessarily performing/ singing along to the song.

In 1985 CDs were available to buy in shops. During this period, MTV started to make an income. 'Wild Boys' became the most exspensive video of its time. Also, Boy George and Frankie Goes to Hollywood began to promote homosexuality and dressing as drag queens performing in music videos. George Michael was criticised for creating videos that were too sexy in nature.

Because of the amount of videos now being created, artists became more popular as individuals and started to be noticed when out in public.

The 80s also saw computer graphics and animations being used to create music videos. At this particular time however, such videos were seen to be overly ambitious.

Before long, Michael Jackson became King of the music video. In 1983, he had the 'greatest' album of all time, which was 'Thriller', featuring songs such as 'Billie Jean' and 'Beat It'. 'Thriller' was known as a turning point for Jackson.

John Landis was the director for the 'Thriller' video; he wanted a story, plot and character set up. Jackson's record company however, did not believe that the video would be a success so would not give him financial support. This created no real problem though, as they sold a 'making of' the video, which raised enough funds for 'Thriller'. This video now overtook 'Wild Boys' and became the new most expensive video of all time. 'Thriller' tripled album sales.

At the moment, the most expensive music video existing is 'From Yesterday' by 30 Seconds To Mars, costing $13million.

I LOVE YOU MICHAEL JACKSON :)

bysie byee xxxxxxx

Update.

Helloooooo!

Just a general update. We haven't yet had a reply from the band that we emailed, but we're going to try again and also email someone new.

This week we've been researching the history of the music video, which we will write up in a new blog post within the next couple of days!

Yesterday, us three were given the 'Chasing Cars' video by Snow Patrol to analyse. For any of you that know the video well, you'll realise that not much goes on and it's very difficult to point out specific examples when doing a textual analysis.

In our textual analysis we were asked to include:
a) genre characteristics
b) The relationship between lyrics and visuals
c) The relationship between music and visuals
d) Whether there are any close-ups of the artist and star image motifs
e) Any references to the notion of looking (including voyeurism)
f) Whether there are any intertextual references
g) Whether the video is performance-, narrative- orconcept- based and how much of each is present.

The results for the 'Chasing Cars' video was as follows:
Genre characteristics- Male vocalist. You can hear the guitars but you never see them (typical to some 'pop rock' videos.
The relationship between lyrics and visuals- He lies down at the beginning of the chorus, "If I lay here..."
The relationship between music and visuals- Slow music works well with the slow editing.
The close-ups of the artist and star image motifs- At the beginning of the video, the opening shots are all close-ups.
References to the notion of looking- The video is not sexual, however the close-ups on the vocalists hands and feet are oddly attractive.
Intertextual references- None in this particular version of the video, however the version used for Grey's Anatomy features clips from the final series.
Performance-, narrative- or concept-based- It is mainly performance based as there is no underlying story line. However, some of it depends on the type of concept you as an individual understands and relates to the video.


We understand that once we have produced our music video, we each will have to write a textual analysis on it. We hope this looks like good practice!! (:

Liv, Rache and Mike xxxxx