Lip Syncing Task

 My group and I, filmed our Prelim music Video on an iPhone using an app called Video Star, which allowed us to choose a song, add effects and easily cut to the beat. The song we chose was 'Shape of you' by Ed Sheeran. The reason we chose this song was because it is a very current song which was number 1 in the charts, therefore because of this we thought it would be good to use as everyone would know the lyrics, making it easier to lip Sync during the filming. However, all though everyone in my group knew the words to the song, we found it extremely difficult to lip sync due to the fast pace and quick beat of the song, meaning that it was hard of us to mouth the lyrics in time of the beat. The app Video Star allowed us to use a vast range of effects and filters, which we used accordingly to the narrative of the song. For example when the lyrics mentioned love, we put in heart filters around the footage, this allowed our video to relate to the narrative and so therefore our audience would be able to understand the music video.

 If I were to re-do this prelim task, I would make sure to spend more time planning in advance due to the fact that there are a lot of factors to take into consideration, such as: Actors, Location and song choice. For example, when filming we used female actors however, the artist of the song chosen is male, this make the music video look less realistic and therefore will not give off a good effect to the audience. Additionally, Due to the fact that we had limited time, we were not able to complete the full song.

Therefore, when filming our real music video we will create and story board and plan the music video in advance, to ensure we can make it the best it could possibly be.

Overall, This was a good draft, and I am happy with the outcome as it enabled us to see what our future music should look like and what it should include. It has taught me important skills and allowed me to practice lip syncing and cutting to the beat

Music Artists Websites

Similarities Between Several Artists Websites


- They all have tabs to go to specific areas within their website

- Their names are at the top of the screen in bold writing

- They all have a main picture in the middle of the screen to promote their newest song

- They all have links to follow them on social media

- They all advertise merchandise

- They all display the dates and locations for their tour

- They all have a link to buy tickets for their concerts

- They show where we can download and listen to their music

- They all have News which includes the latest updates about that artist

- They all give an option for the audience to sign up and subscribe to their website

- They state which record label they are with






Differences Between Several Artists Websites: Organic Vs Synthetic



- Beyonce's name is at the top of the website, whereas, the Foo fighters name is at the bottom

- On the Foo Fighter Website, the tabs are not clearly visible, but on Beyonce's they are

- Beyonce's is very bright colour, which compares to the Foo Fighters is in black and white

Application of the Narrative Theory to a Music Video

John Grant - Chicken Bones

Equilibrium - The Man is a failed Super hero who has lost all his power, however tries to still do good by helping people such as the old Lady. As seen in the Picture on the right, the Super hero is very content being normal at a car boot sale

Disruption - He gets beaten up by another super hero who is much stronger than him

Acknowledgement - As a result of being beaten up, the failed super hero goes out drinking and takes a lot of drugs in order to drown his sorrows and plot his revenge against the Stronger superhero who hurt him

Attempt to Restore - He carries out the revenge on the Super Hero who beat him up 

New Equilibrium - Once he carried out his revenge, although he has become stronger, he now realises he has become a bad person

Although this Music Video has a fairly linear Narrative, i understand not all Music Videos need to follow this path, however, some music videos are purely narrative driven and follow a traditional narrative trajectory. This is one option for a possible music video to make as we can eschew performance element and make a video entirely narrative driven in order to sell the song and the artist

Narrative Theories in Music Video's

Todorov - He proposes that all texts have a narrative structure. He states that their are 5 stages to each narrative structure and he analyses old Russian folk tales in order to demonstrate his theory.
He argues that we have the following:

• Equilibrium - The normality at the beginning 
• Disruption - An event occurs to disrupt the normality
• Acknowledgement - When the main protagonist understands that he/she needs to act in order to restore normality/equilibrium 
• Attempt to Restore - Is the act of fighting/rectifying the problem in order to solve the issue.
• New equilibrium - Is the restoration of normality, However, due to the act/journey under taken by the protagonist, this is a new normal as the old version of normality no longer exists and can never be replicated.

The Narrative structures do not have to come in a specific order and can often start at the point of disruption or acknowledgement and then work in a non-linear fashion towards the new equilibrium.

Vladimir Propp - Russian Folklorist in the early of the 20th century. He said that there are only ever 7 different character types that exist in literature. 

• Hero
• Donor
• Helper 
• Villain
• Princess
• False Hero
• Dispatcher

He added that it is not a necessity for all 7 character types to appear in the plot, but after analysing a range of different folk tales and literature observed that these 7 character types were the mainstays of all fiction and therefore media texts.

Enrique Inglesias - Hero

• This music Starts at the point of Disruption as it appears that someone has been robbed and the main 'princess' and 'hero' have run off together
• Acknowledgment then occurs when Enrique realises he needs to fight the Villain in order to win the princess. He cannot Escape the Villain and restore equilibrium without first fighting him to win her and the money
• Attempt to Restore Happens when the Hero and the Villain meet up in the desert and have a fight to the death, so that the winner can take the money and win the princess. However, the Princess calls for Helpers 
• Unfortunately, the Helpers do not get there in time and Enrique dies
• In the New Equilibrium, the Villain is arrested, the Hero dies and the Princess is heartbroken but runs away with all the money

Band of Horses - Dilly

• Equilibrium - The town people are fine and the bikers are also fine because they have not realised that they were going to end up in trouble with the towns people.
• Disruption - The Bikers realised they were not liked in the bar and in turn, they react in a way that they shouldnt 
• Acknowledgement - The bar people called the police
• Attempt to Restore - The shoot out between the bikers and the police
• New equilibrium - The Bikers ride off into the sunset 

The Iconography of the Album cover

The iconography of an Album cover:

The art of an album cover is a curious one. Part packaging, part advertising, often an insight into an artist's world view and usually the happy result of a successful collaboration between creative minds, the best album cover art illustrates and accompanies the music in a way that creates a whole package. Julian House states how most of the direction of a music cover must be taken from the artists themselves. He also explains how an Album sleeve is an entry point into the universe that the music is and how it is a wind into the themes an ideas of an artist.

Deconstructing album cover Art:

Album covers can be extremely varies, utilising photos, graphics, typography, or any combination of these. As a type of media text, it can be deconstructed like any other. When analysing it we can use the same tools we'd use to analyse and understand any visual media text

Associations and connotations:

denotation, means simply identifying the elements in the image, and connotation means examining what meanings and associations they might link to. On a hip-hop cover it may well have connotations of conspicuous wealth and extravagance, given that genre's conventions

Signs, Symbols and Codes:

A sign is a representation that refers to something else and has meaning. A code means the structure of how signs are organised into systems to make meaning. These are usually divided into the technical and the symbolic

Composition and Framing:

This focuses on the construction of the album cover, e.g. light, shadow and colour. We refer to conventions are established ways of doing things, in this case they mean established forms of presenting an image. it can be helpful to examine how closely any given image tracks the conventions you'd associate it with.

Examples:

Pink Floyd 'The dark side of the moon' was inspired by a physics textbook, and the bands desire to use a simple design rather than a photograph. This famous cover also nods to Pink Floyd famous light shows.

John Coltrane 'Blue Train' - with its bold typography, simple colour scheme and striking, high contrast photography, this is a classic example of the iconic work of Miles and Wolff which defines the classic 'blue note' look of this period

Music Video Tips

1. The Music video will be our bands first release, so it is important to make sure that it is successful
2. We will start by creating the image of the band. This includes: style of the song and instruments required so that they can realistically mime the track.
3. It is up to us to get the word out about our band via various marketing techniques and digipacks  in order to construct our band a fanbase
4. The best type of music videos contain three different narrative strands, a performance element which the label think is vital as it acts as a save, a lip sync element and a narrative element which will be led by genre and style
5. the music video will consist of constant cutting between these narrative strands
6. We are advised to make a 'Mood film' or press hat involves a set of images to create a short film to demonstrate the ideas for the final product. this helps us to clarify the idea and identify any potential problems

Using Coral Draw to make an Album Cover

Step 1: I held down the hand shape and used the Bezier tool to draw straight lines around and trace the hand
Step 2: I then selected the colour white so that the traced shape was filled
Step 3: I held down the control button and drew a square, the filled this shape with the colour black to make the background for my album cover
Step 4: I clicked on the text tool and then selected a similar font to the original album cover
Step 5: I then selected the bezier tool again and traced over the grenade and heart from the original image and then placed it accordingly on my version of the album cover

On the left is the original album cover and on the right is my version of which i recreated

This has helped me to develop the skills I need to create my own Music Video cover, and has given me ideas to use for when we create our own one