10 top tips on making a music video (a-Level)

I was reading through a Media Magazine and came across ten top tips on how to make my own music video, and throght I should blog about the tips and how I will use them to my advantage when create my own.

These are the ten tips:

Tip1: Choosing a track - when choosing a track try to base the video around a song that is unknown or unfamilar with modern day music, this way the moderator wont feel that you will be too self-idulegent with your work keep it simple and safe.

Tip2: Listen - In your group listern to the track several times, so you get the feel of the song and start to create ideas within your group that will link your own music video to the song. Dont get too bogged down with ideas keep it clear and understandable to your group, the more complicated the worst it can become.

Tip3: Storyboard!!!!!! - you must have a main storyboard that the whole group can follow but this needs to be very clear, otherwise it could ruin the whole music video. vital!. Plan people,places and props!
Also get your groups phone number so you can contact them at anytime. aim to shoot it early rather than a deadline when something could go wrong!

Tip4: Set up a blog - this will help the groups planning and communication within the group this is a must if the music video is to go down well!. take shots of people, place, instruments and props you will be using in the music video. Compare choices to show the evidence and consideration of each possible music video.

Tip5: Know your equipment - take your chosen camera out for a test run before the real thing, nothings worse,when you come up to the big day of filming and the camera isn't working or has a problem.... always have a back up plan, you will need one!

Tip6: Location - make sure the location is usable for the purpose of the music video! Shoot three different times to give your clips diversity between each shoot! Over shoot is the key to filming anything the more you have the more you can put in! You don't want to undershoot and find out that you don't have enough to make your video at the end and its a made rush to find everything again!

Tip7: Capture - Label everything you shoot you don't want to come across a vital bit in the music video creation and cant find the right clip because you didn't label it! Be selective between useful and not need clips you don't want to be wasting time!

Tip8: The edit - Try to get the whole picture first rather than the small details, there is a risk that you will be to bogged down with the tiny detail and not give the big picture enough time. spend you time wisely!

Tip9: Screening - Hopefully you will have the chance to show your project to other students and teachers, this would be a good time to collect feedback from them. Feedback is key to find out whether or not your video has been a success!

Tip10: Analysis - Get evaluating! Use the feedback from your fellow students and teachers, this will help you evaluate your music video and don't be afraid to add your own comments and opinions on how it went!

Congratulations you have now made your music video! How it Went well!

Practise Task Three

Unfortunately We had a problem with our last task, we had completed the task to a high standard using effects and other features available to us but every time we uploaded the video it was taken down by you tube. The evidence is on StMarksA2Media called The Gnome i apologise for this problem but have no way round it unfortunately, i really enjoyed this task and am very unhappy that i cant be seen. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQQBtx29ox8&list=UUzCuzU6TJVKZ_Khku1FndtQ&index=4
this is the link showing you that the video cannot be shown due to copyright. (p.s. we have already tried to upload it with a message about copyright.)

Compared Songs For Final Music Video

For our music video we had three choices, the first was Carry on wayward son by Kansas.

We did enjoy the music video and its lyrics but we di have a problem with the length of the song we thought 5:26 was too long (time wise) and made a decision not to do the music video on this song. although we have decieded not to do this, we have both agreed this would be our back up choice. , if the first didnt go to plan.

Second choice:
Our second choice of music video to use was Short change Hero by The Heavy. This song for us was really good we had been listening to the song for a short time and really thought that the song was going to be our final choice but we decided that the song didn't fit our ideas for the video where as our final choice did!











Our final choice is Radioactive - Imagine Dragons.

This song we believed to be the best song for our ideas for the music video, from a couple of days discussion we came out with the conclusion that ths song was going to be our final choice.

Practise task two

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYKTudTCpIE&list=UUzCuzU6TJVKZ_Khku1FndtQ&index=11
Unfortunately I cannot upload/place this video on my blogger therefore i have inserted a link which will take you straight to the video.  This was our second practise task where we needed to reenact a scene from the popular show F.R.I.E.N.D.S. We all chose an actors role and began to revise our lines, once we had all group members ready we then began to film. We also went for the iconic theme song to friends and copied their opening scene slightly, we also incorporated text into this video which was a first for me, I had never done anything like this before and was surprised how well a piece of text can change the way a video looks. Another technique/feature we used was the laughing track we downloaded to give our video that extra bit of clique friends originality. This was fun to put in over the top of over jokes and puns throughout the video. overall I had fun doing this task and it helped me to advance my skills further preparing me for my final project.

Music Analysis - Goodwin's Theory

Media 1^st Video Analysis using Goodwin’s Theory

Links between Lyrics and Visuals;

In the video You Are Not a Robot by Hoodie Allen the lyrics fit the visuals in the music video

For example when the artist is coming close to being captured he admits what is the point, he feels like he is a robot already and waiting for someone to prove him wrong, but no one comes. “Say slow up,
Sometimes I'm just feelin' like a robot
Sittin round, hopin that you'll show up
But you know what, you know what” as you can see from the artists facial expression he has given up and is not bothered anymore this inks both visuals and lyrics together, by saying “But you know what, you know what”.

Another example of the lyrics fitting the visuals in the music video is when the artist using these lyrics “I'm a firm believer that the hard work pays off” because the artists knows that he has go this far with hard work why should he stop now! This is shown be his facial expression and his body movement in the image to the right.

Links between Music and Visuals;

In the Music video You Are Not a Robot by Hoodie Allen the Music fits the Visuals in the music video.

For example: From the image on the left when can see the artist, running from a group of robots that are trying to turn him into one of them, but he is resisting by being himself and not like others, he is his own identity this is shown by the music and visuals by the constant effort to continue running i.e. being himself.

Another example of this is when the artists is turned into a robot but finally understanding that labels are nothing compared to the person within, and it doesn’t matter if people judge you are who you make yourself out to be. This is seen from how the artists is holding the robot mask… showing that labels are just masks until the person behind the mask is shown.

 Genre characteristics:

The genre characteristics expected from this artist and his music are visibly unusual to the type of music being sung. The artist is classed as a rapper but has a different type of rap it’s not the regular everyday, what I call hardcore rap where the genre is shown by the artists i.e. hoods, sex references and pimped out cars singing about their money and cars etc. instead in this artists in this particular video talks about how he became who he is and how others where doubting him, not letting him be himself, he had to be like other people.

To me the artist is more about who he is, his life, how he got to where he is in life and the fact he wants to be himself not anyone else. His lyrics strangely fit his characteristics and the genre of the music but in an up-beat and fun way. Honestly I don’t think this is the normal everyday rap, if I had to class the artist, I would class him as Smart/Rap because the lyrics mean something to the artist, and it’s a new twist on rap altogether. 

Notions of Looking:

Plays on the ideas of gaze and the way people in music videos are shown to the audience according to Goodwin’s theory Women=objects and Men=controlling, violent and cheats.

In this music video the artists is shown as rebellious, righteous, and true because the way he is holding onto who he is as a person whilst running from the robots (no personality) means he is righteous and true to himself, but he is also being rebellious by resisting and not doing as he should be, being rebellious links with teenagers and young adults. 

Practice task one

This was one our our practise tasks where we had to mimic a song chosen by our teacher to help develop our skills so we can used them in our final project. Our music video we had to mimic was Get Down - Backstreet Boys. As you can see from the video on the left we hadn't really got the hang of this but did well for our first try. I enjoyed doing this task and if i was to do it again I would improve the chosen locations and storyboard of the song.

 

Brief!

Brief:

A2 media project:

• Must be challenging enough to test our skills as A Level students, but not to challenging to jeopardise the whole music video.
• Have a clear understanding of the music video and how we are going to create and develop the task into the final version. 
• Research previous music videos of the artist to get an idea of what the lyrics are about and incorporate them into our own video.
• Compare chosen videos and decide which one is better and why?
• Outline the genre of the music video
• Note the song down and revise the lyrics(Haydn)
• listen to the song multiple times to help understand the beat and vocals of the song, this will give us a chance to sync up the lyrics to our lip singing, guitar, bass, drums etc
• Note the length of the song, so we know how much time we have to plan the video side of the task. 
• Size up the lyrics to the time they are side (start-finish)
• Gather up the props for the video, so we have them for practise.
• Gather the people up to take a few test runs with the camera.
• Note down the place and arrange the placement of the band members for the video so all band members know where to be.