Magazine Advert Analysis ~ Luke Leadbetter

Advert Analysis on Prezi

Overall, the importance of Daft Punk's anonymity is vital in our production.

Lip Syncing ~ William Dixon

Throughout our video, there is lip syncing with the lyrics with the song. Although, because we are doing it with a puppet, it's quite difficult (much to our surprise) to get the lip sync accurate all the time. We thought at first that this would be a problem, but through research with other Music Videos featuring puppets, we realised that it's not all that important to get the lip sync 100% accurate.

Take the Music Video, Ass Like That by Eminem. You can clearly see that the lyrics are not always in sync, though they are always accurate enough to make it clear that that's what the puppet is singing. Same with the videos, Life In Technicolor ii by Coldplay and Land Of Confusion by Genesis. All these videos have the same features where the lip sync is always very close but not always 100%. Why this is, I think, is because it just adds to the humour of them using a puppet. Puppets are, at the end of a day, a toy that is built for Fun. So having these tiny mistakes, adds to the fun.

So what we will take from this research is that we should try our absolute best to get the sync right, but if it does happen to be a little bit off, then it'll just add to the humour and fun side to our Music Video.


To watch the Music Videos a referenced above, copy and paste the following Links into your URL

For Genesis' - Land Of Confusion
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlBIa8z_Mts&ob=av2n

For Coldplay's - Life In Technicolor ii
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXSovfzyx28

For Eminem's - Ass Like That
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yf15kikC_g

Analysis of a magazine advert ~ Jess Hitch

Magazine adverts on Prezi

- Jess Hitch

Owl City Digipak ~ Jess Hitch

Digipak - owl city on Prezi

Metanarrative: From this digipak, we can see that the artist, whose face we cannot see on the cover, feels as though he is living in a strange fantasy world which is not that different from our own but contains some obvious differences. The contrast between nature and technology suggests that those two things living in harmony is a normal occurrence. The fact that we cannot see the artist anywhere on the exterior of the digipak suggests that he doesn't want to reveal his identity to people easily and that he is mysterious and hidden. - Jess Hitch

Censorship ~ William Dixon

Censorship is when a part of a song or video gets filtered out to cover up anything inappropriate. This can either be something visual or audio. To cover up audio, you can have either a “beeb” sound over the top of the sound or mute the sound out completely. Also, if it is a word such as a swear word, you can simply change the word completely into something with a similar meaning. For example, In James Blunt’s song “Your Beautiful” in one version a lyric in the song is “you can see from my face that I was, f**king high…” and in the censored version it’s “you can see from my face that I was, flying high”. In video, you can either: blur out something, put a black box over it, or cut out the clip completely.

With songs and music videos, there will sometimes be two versions of the song/video. One version which they will only be allowed to play after 9:00pm on live T.V/Radio which will be the uncensored version and then the censored version which they will can play anytime as it’s appropriate for all audiences. An example of a music video which does this is Chase and Status’ “Pieces” Featuring Plan B. And a song with two versions, which I mentioned earlier, James Blunt’s “You’re Beautiful”

Here is a link to the uncensored version of “Pieces”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJreihOW3ZA

Here is a link to the censored version of “Pieces”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MJspL232c8&noredirect=1

You can play “You’re Beautiful” the uncensored version below by clicking play



And you play “You’re Beautiful” censored below by clicking play



With our music video, we don't plan to have any inappropriate content that will need to be censored so with regards to our Music Video, we won't be needing to censor out anything.

Digipak Analysis ~ William Dixon

Digipak: Linkin Park's A Thousand Suns on Prezi

Digipak - Hugh Laurie - Let Them Talk ~ Luke Leadbetter

Digipak - Hugh Laurie's Let Them Talk on Prezi

This sound clip is myself talking about what this digipak has made me think about in relation to our own.

Using Photos in Prezi ~ William Dixon

Prezi ~ Luke Leadbetter

This is just a demonstration of software we will use to present our ideas and planning.

Test on Prezi

Questionnaire ~ Jess Hitch

Questionnaire

1-    What electronic communications devices do you have at home?

-       Television

-       Mp3 player

-       Desktop/laptop Computer

-       Mobile phone

-       Landline phone

-       Router

-       Tablet computer

-       E-reader

-       USB accessories

2-    How often do you watch music channels such as VIVA and MTV?

-       Never

-       Rarely

-       Occasionally

-       Often

-       Very often

3-    Do you prefer music videos with a modern/futuristic theme or a retro/old-school theme?

-       Futuristic

-       Modern

4-    Are you more likely to watch music videos online or on TV?

-       Online

-       On TV

5-    Which of these items would you have in your room if you could?

-       Fairy lights

-       Lanterns

-       UV paint

-       Glow in the dark stars/planets/aliens

-       Hanging objects such as planes, spaceships and helicopters.

6-    How plain are the walls in your bedroom?

-       They’re a plain colour and have nothing on them.

-       They’re a bright colour with nothing on them.

-       They’re a plain colour with posters and shelves on them.

-       They’re a bright colour with posters and shelves on them.

7-    Do you have a desk in your bedroom?

-Yes

-No

8-    Do you have a single bed or a double bed?

-       Single

-       Double

9-    Do you prefer music videos set in exotic places or closer to home?

-       Exotic places

-       Close to home

This questionnaire will tell us how we can better relate to our target audience in our video and what their interests are regarding technology and music. It will also help us to create an image of what our target audience's bedroom looks like so we can recreate that as our setting in the video.

Graphs to show the results of this information will be created in my next blog.

       

Potential Songs ~ Jess Hitch

Potential songs

Song title	Artist/band	Opinion: Luke	Opinion: Jess	Opinion: Will
Teardrop	Massive attack	Luke liked this song “because it would have made a good abstract video.”	I didn’t like this so much because it was already used in a TV drama. I also thought it was too slow-paced and a bit boring.	Will thought it was all right but he thought it was a bit slow paced.
British mode	Goose	Luke liked this one because they haven’t had many videos made.	I thought the intro was too slow and I also just didn’t like the singer in general. It also already had a video for this particular song.	Will thought it was shallow and pedantic.”
Galaxies	Owl city	Luke thought it was great because it would have made a good, upbeat video.	I really liked this song because its really upbeat and I’m a big fan of Owl city. It would have been ideal too because it doesn’t already have a video made.	Will loved this because it was really upbeat and probably would have made a good video.
Picking up the pieces	Blue October	Luke liked this video because it’s different from many songs and could have made a unique video.	I really didn’t like this video because it was too depressing and I just didn’t like the band in general.	Will didn’t like this because it was too boring and depressing.
Television rules the nation	Daft punk	Luke thought that this would be a good song to choose because it fits in with the genre we were aiming for and would have made a good abstract video.	I didn’t like the lyrics at the start of this song and I also thought it was a little bit boring.	Will liked the upbeatness of the video and he liked how it fit in with the electronic genre.
Tommy Gun	Royal republic	I showed this video to Luke a while back and he thinks the song is great. We wanted to do this song for our preliminary but it was too simple and we thought we could do a more interesting and complex video for this song.	I loved this song, it’s really upbeat and the singer is really good. I thought the original video could have used improving and we thought about taking this song forward to our final task but it wasn’t really the genre we had in mind.	Will really liked the song too but again, it wasn’t electronica. We had a fairly fixed idea as to the kind of song we wanted for our final video.
Digital Love	Daft punk	Luke loved this song because he thinks it’s really great and really modern. It also doesn’t have a video so it would be really great if we could come up with a technological themed video to tie in with the title.	I really liked this song because it’s cute and upbeat and still fits in with the genre we had in mind. I also agreed with Luke about the theme for this song.	Will liked this song because it features lyrics and has a narrative that we can play around with.

Our final decision on song choice for our music video was Digital Love by Daft Punk. All of us were fans of Daft punk and we all really like their music and we thought that because the song is called ‘digital love’, we could create a narrative that revolved around the digital and romance themes. The digital being a common occurrence in Daft Punk’s songs but romance lacking so we decided to include that into the video. We loved how this was the kind of genre and sound that we had in mind, which makes it easier on us because all the ideas we had in our head can be placed into the video with fairly little tweaking.

Consumption/Inception ~ William Dixon

Consumption

Consumption is form of how the audience will take in a text in any form e.g. Music, T.V, Film. Consumption is when the audience will literally just take in what is given to them. For example, in the music video Let it Go by Chase and Status, if the reader just to consume the text

Inception

Inception is when the reader has to create the meaning in their own mind. This would be when a text doesn’t just have a basic storyline to follow. It’s generally in the more abstract Music Videos such as ‘Around the World’ by Daft Punk. In this video, there is no storyline only dancers and images being presented to you. This is because they want you to create your own meaning. This is what inception is, having an idea placed in your mind and then you develop the idea into your own creation.

Eletronica Genre ~ William Dixon

Electronica is the genre of music Daft Punk is based around.

Electronics’ first origins began with Electronic Dance Music which came about in the 80’s when instruments like the synthesiser were invented. Electronic Music was produced primarily for the purpose of the club scene, where distinctive beats and bass were needed for people to dance to. The first origins of Electronica Music are believed to have been with artists such as Madonna. The early 90’s is when the Electronica image began to come into mainstream music, with artists such as Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim and Daft Punk. Electronica later inspired artists such as Deadmau5, The Prodigy and Skrillex. 

Consumption VS Inception ~ Luke Leadbetter

Is meaning created at Consumption of a text? Or Inception?

In my own opinion this can be argued either way, of course there is a meaning that is given to you by a text, but whether or not you choose to accept that meaning is up to the reader.

Terminology involved:

Preferred reading - What the producer of a text wants you to interpret

Negotiated reading - Some aspects of meaning taken from both the texts intended meaning as well as the readers own reading

Rejected Meaning - The intended meaning of the text is completely rejected for the readers own interpretation.

In our video, the preferred reading we are going to put across for our audience to consume is that of the video representing Daft Punk's beginning. We are also going to attempt to represent Daft Punk's use of their alter ego as a puppet to keep them out of the public eye.

The Hoosiers Metanarrative ~ Jess Hitch

                   

- Jess Hitch

180-degree rule ~ Jess Hitch

180˚rule in music video

The 180˚ rule is often followed in filmmaking and entails that the camera should remain on an 180˚ axis in order for characters and objects in the shot to remain on the left or right. If the camera ‘crosses the line’ it can cause confusion to the audience as it appears that the characters or objects have ‘switched places’ on the screen.

In the example below, the man in blue should always be facing left and the man in orange should always be facing right. If this rule is broken, then the men in orange appear to have swapped places, which would ruin the flow of the scene.

It is said that the closer the camera is to the axis, the more involved the audience is with the goings on in the scene as they will see it from a different perspective (for example, looking at the man in blue from over the man in orange’s right shoulder.)

Some filmmakers choose not to obey this rule in order to purposely create a sense of jerkiness and disorientation for the audience.

 

In music video, this rule is often broken especially in videos with aspects of performance such as if the band if performing the song onstage. This is because, by breaking the 180˚ rule, the audience can feel like they are closer to the performance. For example; having a close-up of the lead singer then jumping to looking over the drummer’s shoulder would make the audience feel as if they are walking around the stage with the band.

Music videos with a narrative tend to stick to the 180˚ rule because they tell more of a story and are more closely related to films and TV dramas and breaking this rule would have the same effect on the audience as it would in a TV drama/film. Disorientation.

- Jess Hitch

Audience Issues ~ William Dixon

The target audience for Daft Punk is about 16 to 36 year olds. It’s commonly known that people who listen to Daft Punk are part of the club and disco scene.  It’s also commonly known that the audience of Daft Punk are part of the drug scene as well, using Daft Punk to go into a whole other reality.

The meta narrative of Daft Punk is the hidden identity. That nobody knows or needs to know who they are as they are just writing the music because they want to make music but they don’t want to be part of the celebrity scene. This gives Daft Punk a whole new level of respect and they are also part of the zeitgeist because of this secret identity.

For the reception theory there are passive and active readers of Daft Punk. The passive reader would listen to Daft Punk as an electronic dance group. They would think of Daft Punk as good for their music has a strong beat and is good to dance to. The active reader would see that Daft Punk as in fact a culture. The culture behind Daft Punk is to go into a whole other world by engaging into another world. The best example to cover these two ideas is to look at the Around the World music video. To the passive reader, the video consists of different cultures coming together dancing around the world. This fits their passive read that they are an electronic disco scene. The active reader will see it as a creation of another world, where music actually becomes the different culture of people, e.g. The robots are the vocals; the mummy’s are the drums. This fits in with their read of being able to listen to Daft Punk and go into an alternate reality. 

Grain of Voice ~ William Dixon

The grain of voice for Daft Punk, there is actually no “voice” as such, because it’s mainly electronic Dance Music. However, some songs, including the song we are doing “Digital Love” does feature lyrics and a voice. The voice is not a real voice, it’s a robotic voice created using a talk box. How a talk box works is, it’s a plastic tube which sound travels up into the mouth and as you mouth words the sound coming up the tube echos around the noise creating the words you mime. This has become Daft Punks grain of voice. The biggest hits that made the voice famous are songs such as “One More Time” and “Technologic”.

How the voice evocates power is through the meta narrative. The fact that the voice is a synthesised robotic voice, fits with the image of a secret identity. Daft Punk don’t want to be seen or recognised, including recognised by their voice. So through this technique of voice they still keep their secret identities intact to the public.

How the audience takes the voice of Daft Punk is its lack of intimacy with the audience. Daft Punk’s music is based around an “alternate reality” or a “trance world”. Basically through the use of drugs you can communicate with Daft Punk’s voice. This is why the voice is so synthesised and robotic, so the audience can communicate to Daft Punk through other means.

Stop Motion in relation to time ~ William Dixon

This clip, below, is a tester video I made simply of a little model walking around a clock. I did this test simply to show the real time it takes to film stop motion videos. 

The video was 19 seconds long and each shot was played back at 10 frames per second. If you look at the clock, I began filming at 4:58 and finished at 5:14 which means it took a total of 16 minutes to film a 19 second video. With it being at 10 frames per second that means I did a total of 190 shots and it shot took and average time of 5.1 seconds to position the model and take the shot.

What this proves to use for planning our Music Video is that the stop motion can be done in good time without it taking up hours to do simple clips. So because of this, I believe that we can film using stop motion and it won't delay our deadlines.

Types of Music Video ~ Luke Leadbetter

Performance Based Video:

This video type usually feature the artist/band performing their song for majority if not all of the video. The video is filmed at a suitable destination in favour of the artist/band's meta-narrative and budget.
An example of a performance oriented video would be 30 Seconds to Mars - Closer to the Edge. The video is majority performance based, filmed at different locations across the globe that the band has performed live. Video clips from the live gigs have been put together to fit in time with the song and show a clear performance narrative. The video does also however include a few shots of individuals giving short sentences and holding signs up.

Narrative Based Video:
A narrative video attempts to tell a story through moving image. A narrative video often contains actors and follows the lyrics held within the song, but this is not always true. Some videos show narrative through animation and other means, and some follow the original idea behind the song, not the typical meaning the audience receives upon consumption. An example of a narrative video would be Daft Punk's Da Funk, which involves a man with a dog's head walking through New York with a boom box talking to people he meets.

Abstract Video:
An Abstract Music Video does not contain any relevance to the meaning imposed by the song, instead leaving meaning to be created by the viewer upon inception. An example of an abstract music video would be Daft Punk's Around the World. This video has no clear meaning presented by the video's creator (Michel Gondry), and instead is left for the audience to interpret.