Vivid Sky

In the past week, things have started to come together. Elissa and I attended a Vivid Sky gig and got to know the band alot better. We now have the okay from the group and it's full steam ahead. The track we are going to use is they're newly released, self-written single "Man In Black". Both Elissa and I cannot wait to get started as we both think the song is amazing. The track can be found on Vivid Sky's MySpace page [as shown on the above banner].

My initial ideas for the music promotion video is to run a narrative, parrellel to the band themselves - I think this is perfect for the lyrics of the song. I feel the video needs to be energetic and vibrant to go with the rock genre of the track. I believe handy-cam will be ideal for the video as it gives it more of an urban edge and would create more of a voyeuristic view and connection between the audience and the band.

Research

In the past 6 weeks, Elissa and I have had the task of finding the perfect artist for our A2 part of our media A-Level. We found a group straight away, Bohemia Rocks [thanks to a connection with my cousin in a media company in London] but due to distance there was difficulties,  and even had one as a backup, Ben Cosway [Elissa's brother], however he had personal reasons not to be available during filming. However, both groups fell through and left us with no artist for our coursework. On the plus side, after a lot of effort and time, we now have a band to use. A family connection, once again, helped us find our artist.

Vivid Sky is a group of four 17-19 year old males. They try to vary the range of genre they perform, including Rock, Metal, Progressive, Blues and Funk – however they are trying to create and individual sound. Vivid Sky perform covers of existing tracks as well as their own written songs.

I believe that their target audience would be ages 15-22, both males and females, and anyone interested in their music genre. Fans of Vivid Sky can contact then and view more excusive videos, tracks and information about the band on MySpace and their own website. On their MySpace page, there is a list of all their gig dates, times and venues – Vivid Sky often perform at small festivals and pubs.

Due to the fall through of our first two artists, we now have to start all over again. So the rest of the information will be on shortly.

Deconstruction

Video Director - Spike Jonze

It's Oh So Quiet - Bjorn

Possible Representations  - 

Artists

Genre

  Director

Track itself

• Lighting affects match, tempo and structure of song
  
• Synchronous
  
• Borrows from musicals - intertextuality
  
• Artist always centrally framed
  
• Distinctive orange dress
  
• Represented as young and energetic
  
• Contrasting opening - why? suggests horror
  
• Slow tracking - synchronous with music and lyrics - illustrative
  
• Borrows from Wizard of Oz - tin man
  
• Whizz pans and crash zooms
  
• Continuity editing makes you believe she did the flip
  
• Borrows film ideas/themes e.g. umbrellas - singing in the rain
  
• symbolism in her rising above - shes happy
  

Music Video Deconstructions

Chart/Pop
Katy Perry – Waking Up In Vegas
Britney Spears – Womaniser
Lady Gaga – Poker Face

Camera work
In each video, it is like a story is being told. The camera work shows this by showing the action as the video progresses.

Katy Perry – central framing, depth of focus, zooms and reverse zooms are all important camera shots used within this video. To help tell the story the camera often pans and tracks the artist as she tells the story. Close-ups of significant objects are used to emphasise them.

Britney Spears – parallel editing is used to show to the main story line and just Britney herself, based on the nature of the song. Long shots are used to show the whole shot and the men around Britney herself. Close-ups are also used emphasise her singing.

Lady Gaga – this video is very busy, for the majority of the video, the artist is centrally framed. Long shots are used as she is dancing; this enforces her status and importance. Close-ups are used to reinforce the detail of her outfit and makeup.

Editing

Katy Perry – as the video begins the editing is slow, however as the beat develops the pace of editing picks up but it is still not fast pace editing. There is several long takes which enforces the action on the screen.

Britney Spears – the editing in this video is quite fast but synchronous to the music. Insert shots have been used. Most of the cuts are jump cuts.

Lady Gaga – the majority of the editing is long takes, this helps the viewer see what is going on and doesn’t make the video asynchronous to the music or too busy for the eye.

Mise en Scene

Katy Perry – all of the scenery and outfits seen throughout the video are all in keeping with theme of the music video, Vegas.

Britney Spears – the lighting is quite dark, giving a feel to the video. Britney is seen is many different outfits, all of which show her body off with me around her objectifying her; the whole point of the song.

Lady Gaga – the lighting is light, drawing a contrast between her individual clothing and accessories and the background and people around her; making her stand out. Her style is very different to any other artist, creating a name for herself as an establishing artist.

Introdcution

This blog will follow my progress in researching, planning, production and evalutating this practice production of making a music video, a cover for the video produced, and a magazine advert to promote the Band and video.