For our music video we have to request copyright of the song that we wish to recreate. After looking for quite a while we found that Mercury Records were under Universal. Here is the email that I have sent to them requesting permissionto use Pixie Lott and her song 'Here we go again'


'Dear Universal,

For a recent educational project, we have been asked to recreate a music video. We have chosen the song 'Here We Go Again' by Pixie Lott and we would like to request your permission to use this song. The production of this video is only for educational purposes to learn about constructing a music video and promoting the star. '




I hope they don't say no.

Web page analysis

this is a brief analysis of pixie lott's official website.

The site is designed by TEN4 (who have designed websites for The Boat That Rocked, Britany Spears, Lemar and Manic Street Preachers to mention a few) and Pixie herself is signed by Mercury Records (who are a subsidiary of Univeral Music Group). The site has 4 Key Features:

• Interactive - there is a Naughts and Crosses game that you can play with Pixie, a section where fans who have signed up can leave comments on her new album or concerts etc and also plenty of invite to "Join Pixie" on various social networking sites.
• Advertising - Obviously the site is designed to premote Pixie and her music however there are adverts for not only her album (which again in vite you to "click here" but also associated bands who also have albums being released.
• Keeping the reader up to date - in this sense the page is more of a blog with up to date feeds on tours and concerts, links to her twitter page, the "latest pix" and a link to her blog.
• Premoting an image - the slideshow of images just below the "i got soul" advert, are all wide shot close ups that tend to portray Pixie as a young rock-pop star. the image shown on the picture above is or her infront of a rustik brick wall with duffy-style hair and a black shiffon top. This urban, 'rocky' imagergy (aimed more at older teenage girls who enjoy partying and clubbing) crontrasts witht the innocent, playful swinging motion picture at the top of the page (which is perhaps aimed at younger girls), which also matches the elegent yet playful typography used for the words "pixie lott" at the top of the page.
• All ot the links and headings are in capitals, which may be to draw the viewers attention to them, enticing them to click it.

http://www.pixielott.com/site/global/frontpage?cmdr=ip2country/detected

Test Shot - Layering

This is a short film we produced today.

We were trying to experiment with our layering idea (and of course in the video the subject would be dancing instead of signing) and also learn how to use final cut pro.

We found that if we simply layered the shots the subject became translucent, but when we split the shot into two and put them together they became opaque. This may pose a problem later because we won't be able to show depth as much or have as many people in the frame. Furthermore, we had to alter the lighting on one half of the frame because it didn't match the other, so we will have to ensure we keep the lighting as consistent as possible and we had to ensure the camera satyed as still as possible so the background matched up.

But this does look good and i think we will certainly concider using it in our music video.

Tomorrow we are planning to hold our Focus Group, which we will hopefully film so we can put the results up on here. We're also planning to do some test shots with green screen and see what we can do with that, tho i'm not sure we'll have time.

We still have a few post that need to go up on here and we need to start our planning stage.

Video analysis - Michel Gondry

Michel Gondry as a director is very 'avant garde' or different, which we were quite influenced by, especially his manipulation of what is on screen. Here are a couple of his videos that we are interested in for our work.

White Stripes- Hardest Button to Button

Good thing about this video is the fact that its doesn't have high production values, which we think it would be hard to recreate effectively.

Relationship between music and visual:

Cut on the beat every time, for example at the beginning each time the guitar comes in Jack is seen and each hit of the drum meg appears on another drum set.

Body movement/dancing in time with the beat.

Demands of the record label:

There is a close up of Meg, and the concept of the performers moving with all the instruments puts the focus on them.

The video is a good example of how Michel Gondry manipulates mise en scene and is highly creative. We liked this as we were influenced by the idea of multiple same objects but also want to try this with humans, which is also like his Kylie Minogue Video.

Kylie Minogue- Come into my World

This video is highly innovative and surreal. What we were drawn to most about this video is the idea of multiple Kylies, as we were looking at multiplying people in our video too.

Demands of the record label:

Four Kylies means that the record label will be pleased. Some close ups of Kylie are apparent too.

Notion of Looking:

"Come into my world" almost instantly says it, but the video seems to be looking at Kylie doing everyday things.

Just one single take for the whole video with no cuts is also highly inventive which is a theme we like but might not recreate ourselves.

Brainstorm

Song Choices

Here's a list of songs that we considered:

Candyman - Christina Aguilera
We liked the 1950's style and upbeat tempo however we felt it would be hard to recreate effectivly the context because of the high production values involved, costumes and casting.

I Got Trouble- Christina Aguilera
We really like this song, and are still considering it. Same problems as before, high production values and mise en scene make it difficult.

Just can't get enough - Wallis Bird
This song was quite slow compared to the others that we looked at, and we were looking for something a little more upbeat to make editing a bit more interesting.

Good Luck - Bassment Jaxx
We liked this one as well, still considering it but looking at others which we prefer. Had a good upbeat tempo, however we would have to do a more performance based video which we are steering away from.

Boys and Girls - Pixie Lott
This song was good as the artist was the same age as us. We thought that it would be easy to do a party based video, but the concept was too close to the actual video.

Here we go again - Pixie Lott
This is the song we like the most, as its similar to the boys and girls but we can be more original with the video and theres more scope to do more interesting stuff. The lyrics 'last one on the dancefloor' gave us the idea that we could use just one girl with effects like overlay, rather than have a big cast.

Looking at previous student work

We have decided against doing a performance based music video after seeing some student work. We think that it will look too fake if we have people singing on camera, especially if they don't know the words very well.

However, we have taken an idea from one of the student music videos from last year. We liked the way that there were multiple Louise's in her and Kat's video to Addicted to Base by Puretone. The best example of what we want to do is at 2 mins 19 secs, with the multiple girls dancing.

some ideas

-We really liked the idea of avoiding a performance based video by using lyrics on t-shirts like in the Bassment Jaxx 'Do Your Thing' video. We throught this would work well with a fun upbeat song.


- this one is just good for the stop motion idea and its in negative

- if we're going for an urban look this if good.

Student work from kegs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtZn6IDxdhM
Pros - strong narative reinforced by the faded flashbacks
- the framing of the shots, not quite showing everything made for more interesting viewing
Cons - some shaky hand held camera shots

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXVrz08nLco
Pros - fast foward
- sense of fun with all the people
- cut on action of "paper back writer" with the 3 different shots.
Cons - not all the lyrics are in time
- the publisher's office is in a garden