The song is too long

The song "Eyes on Fire" is 5:02 minutes and thought that would be too long so I have decidwed to make it shorted and I'm going to cut it till 3:30 so that it would be easier to do the video for me.

Location

This is the location where I'm going to film the music video. It will be filmed in the school I currenrly study in, which is called St Edmund's college. I think it will be a really good place for this kind of music video to be filmed especially when it will wouldnt be sunny and this is the weather condition I want.

Blue Foundation - Eyes on Fire Lyrics

ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh
ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh
ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh
ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh
I’ll seek you out,
Flay you alive
One more word and you won’t survive
And I’m not scared of your stolen power
I see right through you any hour

I won’t soothe your pain
I won’t ease your strain
You’ll be waiting in vain
I got nothing for you to gain

I’m taking it slow
Feeding my flame
Shuffling the cards of your game
And just in time
In the right place
Suddenly I will play my ace

I won’t soothe your pain (ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh)
I won’t ease your strain
(ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh)
You’ll be waiting in vain
(ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh)
I got nothing for you to gain

Eyes on fire
Your spine is ablaze
Felling any foe with my gaze

And just in time
In the right place
Steadily emerging with grace

ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh,felling any foe with my gaze
ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh, steadily emerging with grace
ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh, felling any foe with my gaze
ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh, Steadily emerging with grace

Actress

The person that I have chosen to be in the music video is Xenia Telunts (currently studying in a year below me). I have chosen her because I think she has the looks and also really good in front of a camera. As well as that she does media studies and she will help me working with camera, shooting location, costumes and props. As we are both boarders and from Russian it is going to be easier for us to decide where we going to film which will probably somewhere around the school and the school has a lot of good and interesting places where I could film, also I think that the school location will suit the genre of the song. 
Me and her will decide what exactly I want to do and what kind of props and costumes we will get. I will try and make sure that everything will be planned before we go on christmas holidays and hopefully it wouldn't take us long to film so that we can get it done in one weekend just after we come back from our holiday. She will also have to learn the lyrics during the christmas holiday. 

Decision!

I have made my decision on what song I'm using for my music video. The song is called Eyes on Fire by Blue Foundation.

Blue Foundation Background

Blue Foundation started out in 2000 based on Tobias Wilner, aka Bichi's cooperation with various artists and musicians; his work with Kirstine Stubbe Teglbjærg and Bo Rande has been especially characteristic for the Blue Foundation sound. The music can be described as a mix of melodic dreamy pop influenced by indietronica and shoegaze. Tobias Wilner called it "folk music for modern people". Blue Foundation released their first 7" via MoshiMoshi (Hot Chip, Bloc Party etc) and their first, self-titled album was released shortly thereafter. During the past several years, Blue Foundation have expanded their audience, embracing both the underground and the alternative mainstream. Blue Foundation's music has been featured in major films such as Twilight, Miami Vice and the TV series The O.C.. Blue Foundation released their third album Life of a Ghost in Scandinavia in 2007. The album was released in USA on Astralwerks in 2009.

Source: www.wikipedia.org

Emailing the Blue Foundation management

I have emailed the Blue Foundation management:

And this is what they got back with:

Back up track

Florance and The Machine - Only If For a Night with lyrics

Emailing Florance and The Machine Management

I have also emailed Florance and The Machine. This is the email that and have sent and the management relying to me.

Textual Analysis of Firework by Katy Perry

I have watched a lot of music videos for the east week and have decided that the music video that I'm going to analyze will be "Fireworks" by Katy Perry.

"Firework" is a song by American recording artist Katy Perry. The song is 3-47 min and was written by Katy Perry, Mikkel S. Eriksen, Tor Erik Hermansen,Sandy Wilhelm, Ester Dean, and produced by Stargate and Sandy Vee for Perry's third studio album, Teenage Dream. The song is aself-empowerment anthem with inspirational lyrics, and was considered by Perry as the most important song for her on Teenage Dream. The song is believed to be one of the most covered songs on the Internet, particularly on the video website YouTube. It is also Perry's single through her third album which is not written or produced by her main collaborators Max Martin & Dr. Luke.

The video las for 3:55 min and it’s narrative is interlaced with sub-stories of youth struggling with complicated issues of domestic violence, body shame, and sexual orientation. Throughout the course of the narrative, several elements of mise-en-scène suggest that, although Katy appears to be a part of the world in which she sings, she is simultaneously apart from it.

The first interlacing story represented in the video shows a boy cradling his younger sister who is upset by her fighting parents.  The young boy turns to look over his shoulder at the adults slapping and screaming at each other, while his younger sister clasps her hands over her ears and shakes her head “Do you ever feel, feel so paper thin, like a house of cards, one blow from caving in?” Katy sings, as a cut back to her reveals the look of worry in her eyes while she stares deep into the camera, and ostensibly, into us, identifying our personal connection.

Another young girl sits in a chair near the edge of a pool cloaked in a heavy coat, while her friends strip and jump into the water, splashing one another and encouraging her to come in.  She shakes her head timidly. Embarrassed of her overweight body and afraid to show whom she is under her clothes.  Returning to a tighter shot of Katy’s face reveals a more encouraging countenance just before she sings, “Do you know that there’s still a chance for you?”  This sends us into the hospital room of a bald young girl with leukemia who looks longingly at the beautiful hair of the dancing woman on her television screen.  On her wall is the massive image of a butterfly, which itself represents the hope of transition, from the sheltered confines of a cocoon to a limitless world where it can fly as the wind blows.

Firework sparks begin to burst forth from her chest as she stretches out her arms, illuminating her once blue-washed face in a beautiful prism of colors.  In the first, most directly referential moment of  American ideology, she sings,  “Just own the night like the 4th of July.”  Here, Katy is mobilizing the image of the American firework that is, literally, bursting forth from her heart to demonstrate her own empowerment. For Katy and the teens, the firework becomes the necessary symbol of their imagined unity. The firework is colorful, unique, and can light up the darkened sky devoid of color.  Encouraging the teens, and by extension the audience, to “own the night” suggests that, no matter how much it is surrounded, the bursting firework will defeat the darkness of the night, illuminating the sky as it explodes with brilliant, individual colors. Also the firework is powerful and dangerous to anything in its path.

Shortly after Katy’s firework erupts, the boy, looking over his shoulder once again, takes on a new kind of motivation, as his firework itself begins to spark empowering him with the strength to protect his sister. He rushes over to his parents and pushes them apart, as the chorus continues, “Baby you’re a firework.  Come on let your colors bust.  Make ‘em go, ‘Oh! Oh! Oh!’”  In a darkened dance club, bathed in red light, a wallflower sits alone watching sadly as the people around him dance and celebrate.  While Katy’s fireworks shoot across the night sky, the girl at the pool, still with a nervous, uncomfortable look in her eyes, stands and begins to remove her jacket.

In the club, the wallflower turns to look at a straight couple sitting next to him, kissing and comfortable with the public display of their sexuality.  He looks forward, stands up and starts walking toward the bar.  The girl at the pool now removes her pants and shirt so that she stands dressed only in her bra and underwear, for the first time displaying her overweight body.  Another teen walking down an alleyway is thrown against a brick wall while a group of “thugs” attempt to mug him.  When one of them reaches into his pocket, he starts pulling out mutli-colored handkerchiefs tied unendingly together, and when another opens his coat, two white doves fly out, startling them and revealing him as a street magician.

The cancer patient walks through the corridors of the hospital, looking into a room where a woman is giving birth, screaming as her chest shimmers with the vigor of her firework. The camera cuts to a shot of the patient through the colorful sparks, showing the change on her face as she realizes the beauty and power of what happens before her.  Just then, the wallflower reaches the bar where another boy turns to look at him.  The two gazes into each other’s eyes and, after a moment of brief intensity, lean into to kiss whiles a dance of colorful embers explode around them.

The patient steps outside the doors of the hospital still dressed in her hospital gown and looks up into the night sky.  The teen magician continues to impress the “thugs” on the street with tricks as his firework brightens the darkened alley.  Breathing out a sigh, the girl at the pool runs and cannonballs, jumping up from the water and reaching toward the sky as her firework ignites.  And finally, with her eyes closed, and a smile on her face, the cancer patient throws back her bald head and shoots her fireworks high into the evening sky as the wind whips her hospital gown and Katy sings, “You’re gonna leave ‘em all in awe awe awe.”


Source:
taylorcolemiller.com
wikipedia 

Genre analysis

In my class we have done a genre analysis and watched 3 music videos which are completely different to each other. This is my research on what kind of genre I would want to use for my music video. This is the videos and the analysis:


Song 1: Something Kind Of OOOH by Girls Aloud

Performance, narrative, concept:
This music video is performance based type and it has a typical kind of girls dance
Genre expectations:
Pretty girls, catchy song, a lot of body shots, dance routines, glamourusly dressed, a lot of make up
Examples: 
A lot of make vulgar make up, a lot of open clothes, showing the body, dance routine which is very seductive, winking, a lot of close ups of the mouth while singing, fast expensive car.


Song 2: Supermassive Black Hole by Muse

Performance, narrative, concept:

Performance and concept

Genre expectations: 

Playing the instruments and showing the skills of playing, the quality of the sound.

Might see some close ups of the lead singer singing, close ups of the instruments.

Examples: 

Very weird idea of the video, a lot of interesting props are used, different costumes which look very interesting and intreating, a lot of mirrors round the rooms.

The video itself is interesting but kreepy and a little bit disturbing.

Song 3: Fit But You Know It by The Streets 

Performance, narrative, concept:

Performance and concept

Genre expectations: 

Rap-pop. Kind of talking when singing, maybe a bit random. The video itself maybe weird

Examples: 

Walking around the streets of London the coldness and the grayness a bit of a chivy place. 

the photos are bright and colorful from a holiday and the singer talks through the photos, a lot of close ups of the photos. 

The singer on the street is not the only one singing someone else on the pictures is also singing.

Representation

What is representation?
At a basic level we can say that all media are forms of representation. The people involved in making in making the representation are all governed by their own beliefs, values and attitudes. This means that no representation is objective. Most media products reproduce dominant ideologies in the way that they represent the world, which has led to many minorities complaining that they are misrepresented in the media.


Genre 
In a lot of different videos where the singer is a female the way they are represented is usually in a sexy but also beautiful way. In most of the women music videos they dance but men play instruments and it doesn't happen all the time but most of it goes this way. 

Laura Mulvey is a British feminist film theorist.

She came up with the theory of ‘The Male Gaze’:
The audience looks at a media text in two ways: as a voyeur (observe somebody without their knowledge) and fetishistically (objectifying
This creates a narcissistic identification with an ideal image seen on the screen
By watching the represented figure in this way, this turns them into a fetish so that it becomes increasingly beautiful but more objectified.
Female stars are glamorous and attractive but considered as objects and subservient.

Hisory of music video (Video Killed The Radio Star)

Notes:

• First music video came along 25 years ago
• 1950 was the first pop star kind of a video
• The Beatles would make short films music videos
• Strawberry field by the Beatles was the best song so far

• The Queen spend about 3500£ on their music video which was the most expensive music video so far
• The Queen's video was made in 3 hr

• 1940-1950 musicals were performed instead of music videos
• 1980 John Lennon was murdered
• Duran Duran Planet earth

• Musicians were acting in music videos and people started to think that music videos will become too important
• Videos became more like movies and those are: Millennium by Robbie Williams, Radio Ga Ga by the Queen, California Love by 2pack and Dr. Dre

Millennium by Robie Williams

California Love by 2pack and Dr. Dre

• The Monkeys were the TV show where singing was the main part of it
• Michel Resmith from the Monkeys left the band and sang solo, one of his songs was “Rio”
• Pop Clips was the first programme that was to show music videos on TV it was launched by Michel Resmith from the Monkeys
• The first MTV broadcast was sent in 1981
• The first music video that was shown on MTV was 'Video Killed The Radio Star"

• Bob Pitterman was the cofounder of MTV
• Toni Basil was the first one who was signed to a video contract
• Hit 'Mickey' sold more than a million copies

• 1985 - first CD available in shops and it was Billy Joel's 52nd Street

• Duran Duran "Wild Boys" was directed by Paul Mclay who wanted the guys from the band to look good. This video was very expensive to make

• Hit "Relax" lasted for a year in British charts

• The music video to song "Relax" wasn't allowed to be shown in all the countries 
• A lot of music videos then had different categories and those were the reasons why some of the music videos went allowed to be shown
• The categories such as: "too sexual", "too disturbing", "too antisocial" 
• Before MTV no one knew what Rock was
• Michel Jackson is the King of music video
• 1983 - the best Michel Jackson's album came out
• John Landis was contacted by Michel Jackson to create a music video "Thriller" because Jackson wanted it to be scary and Landis was the perfect person to help him do this

Action Plan

14.11.11- Set up blog
21.11.11- Research, action plan, song
28.11.11- Decide song, choosing the song and actror/actress, textual analysis, genre, questionaiire.
05.12.11- Choosing thge location, be prapered to film, lyrics
Christmas break
04.01.12- FILMING, maybe photoshoot for the digi-pack and the CD cover
09.01.12- FILMING, maybe photoshoot for the digi-pack and the CD cover
16.01.12- FILMING, maybe photoshoot for the digi-pack and the CD cover
23.01.12- EDITING
30.01.12- EDITING
06.02.12- EDITING
Half term
20.02.12- Research of ancillary texts, look at what pictures i have taken decide what will be written in the digy-pack
27.02.12- Drafting practical pieces and audience response
05.03.12- Evaluation
Dead line 09.03.12

Welcome to my blog!

This is my blog that I will be using in order to make my music video and all that goes with it such as research, planning, analysing and etc. I will be posting different thing here that I will find useful and this will also help me organize everything.