Voyeurism

When we visited Richmix, with head examiner Pete Fraser. He mentioned that voyeurism was a good element to have involved within our video. Lots of videos include voyeurism within them. Nat King Cole's 'Frim Fram Sauce' was the example we were shown on the trip.

Here are some other videos I have found that includes Voyeurism:

We decided that we would include voyeurism in our music video with our lead singer looking in to a mirror. Here is our attempt:

Media trip to Richmix

We went to Rich Mix for the second time on Tuesday 15th March and yet again had another interesting trip. The first talk was from Chief Examiner Pete Fraser on Collective Identity. It was focussed on youth and as an individual I found it very interesting and beneficial.

The second half was again with Pete Fraser but also introduced the audience to Misfits lead director, Tom Green.



I found it very interesting listening about the making of Misfits as I have watched both series so far. We watched an episode from the second series which Tom Green described as his most "proud" episode as it was a very hard one to make. Following this we watched short films made by Tom Green from degree level, which were too very impressive. Though they differed hugely to Misfits as they were very serious based unlike comedy series Misfits.

Andrew Goodwin's analysis on music videos.

When we were on our trip at Rich Mix, Pete Fraser spoke to us about the theory Andrew Goodwin displays in his book called 'Dancing in the distraction factory'. This theory involves what he feels are the 6 key points of what should be displayed in a music video.

These are:

1. It should demonstrate genre conventions, for example in a rock video, a stage performance. Another example would be a pop video's artist having a particular dance routine.

2. There must be a relationship between lyrics and visuals. This can be whether it is illustrative, amplifying or cotradicting but there has to be some kind of relationship between the lyrics and the visuals appearing in the music video.

3. Again, there should be a relationship between the music and visuals too, whether its illustrative, amplifying or contradicting.

4. The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs that run which recur across their work
(there is a creative style)

5. There is frequent reference to looking and the notion of looking
(screens within screens, telescopes and voyeuristic treatment of the female body)

6. Intertextual reference to films, Tv programmes and other music videos is often used.

Trip to Rich Mix

As a class we made a trip to Bethnal Green to 'Rich Mix', an up and coming arts centre. At Rich Mix they were holding a music video workshop called 'MTV to Youtube'. First of all we were welcomed by the Rich Mix Education officer, Thalia Cassimatis. She informed us of the itinerary for the day.

We were firstly spoken to by Pete Fraser, the Chief Examiner for OCR A Level Media Studies. He spoke to us about the history of music video, mentioning the roots and the beginning of music videos. He showed us Len Lye: A Colour Box which is believed to be one of the starting points of music videos as it was made in 1935.




We were taken through the history and worked our way up to music videos of the present time. We looked at various videos ranging from the Beatles to Jay-Z. He spoke about how the Jay-Z music video for 99 problems was different at the time to what people had seen before as he got a different director to direct this video for him in comparison to usual. He managed to get Rick Rubin to direct his video who was a very renowned director for the rock genre's music videos. He worked with the likes of the Slipknot, Metallica, System Of A Down and Rage Against The Machine. This gave '99 Problems' a different edge to most usual hip hop videos, and the amount of cuts used in the music video is certainly noticeable which Pete Fraser pointed out at the start of the music video.




The video is shot entirely in black-and-white. It received a lot of praise and also a lot of criticism from the public. It was no surprise that there would be controversy following the end of the music video with Jay-Z being shot with multiple bullets by people we do not see. This is very controversial as music video networks would not usually air videos with any violent content. On MTV, there was an explanation on every airing of the video to why it was appropriate to air the video unedited.

We were also shown a music video that was a remix of Jay-Z's 'The Black Album' and the Beatles 'The White Album' by Dangermouse (a DJ) forming a mashup of the two naming it 'The Grey Video'. I'd never seen this before and found it interesting as we were informed that music video producers heard the track and decided to then 'mash up' the video which I think looks really effective.




Pete Fraser then went on to give us tips for making our own music videos as well as informing us about the main conventions of a music video. We were then given our task to think of a concept for a music video to a given song. Pete Fraser announced the song that we would be thinking of an idea for would be Biffy Clyro - God & Satan. This caused a bit of excitement amongst some people from our school! We breaked for lunch and as a school we conducted a meeting and thought of some ideas.

Our concept:

We decided that we would have two individuals hunched over at a bar for the opening shot of the music video to 'God & Satan'. Then a split screen of the individuals and their doings to represent God & Satan. The person being represented as God would be a doctor and the person as Satan a drug addict, however due to events happening the audience's view would be switched from the stereotype they had of the doctor and drug addict as it infact would be the other way round as the doctor would be 'Satan' and the drug addict would be 'God'

The Afternoon session:

We came back from lunch to be spoken to by Liz Kessler who works in the industry producing and commissioning music videos. I found her talk really interesting as she spoke to us about all the different jobs and their roles that are possible in her specific field of the media and she also spoke about the stages of producing a music video. Liz Kessler showed us some of her exsisting work with music videos and upcoming music videos that haven't been released yet. She spoke to us about the problems encountered and also the successes. I found her talk very useful and interesting due to the fact that a lot of what was being said could definitely contribute towards helping make our music video better.

Here is one of her videos for Paolo Nutini, who stated in the brief that he wanted to be in the music video, but at the same time, he didn't.



Following this, the pitch was made for the idea for the music video of 'God & Satan'. This featured Pete Fraser, Liz Kessler, and Corin Hardy - a music director who we were still awaiting to be spoken to by. Each school pitched their ideas and then Charlotte and Dom took their turn to pitch our idea. It went down well as it got a clap from the audience which pleased us. The feedback we received from each of the panel was also very good so we were happy that our ideas and efforts paid off.

After the pitch, there was then an interview based talk with Corin Hardy and Pete Fraser. This was all about him working as a music video director and I found this very interesting. We were shown some of his work and a lot of it is mainly animation based unlike his video for God & Satan. I love the video for warriors dance - the prodigy, and when I found out he made the video for it I have to say I was quite inspired.