Model of the media

Group meeting

Using the concept that Lauren  I came up with when thinking of how our music video will play out.  As this is quite an instrument heavy song, there should be quite a few shots of the main character playing the guitar or drums.  I also came up with the story of the video, which involves the main character, waiting for people to audition for his band, however nobody turns up.  This causes him to decide to that he should make a one man band and so there are shots of him playing with the different instruments and finally being able to play them.  The video then ends with the character either having an interview or a photo shoot.  We all agreed that this should be the basic outline of our video and if there is anything that anyone comes up with then we can add it to the video.

Sexism in music videos

In 2013 “Blurred Lines” by Robin Thicke and “Wrecking Ball” by Miley Cyrus provoked controversy.

They are both seen as sexist videos, however, Blurred lines has been banned in many university unions.

Lily Allen’s “Hard out Here” video parodied black music videos that reduce black women’s bodies to lurid props. Even this video is making a joke out of sexist videos, there is still a hint of exploitation of women as they dance around in hardly any clothes.

“Wrecking Ball”

      

This video caused such an outrage because of the fact she is naked through some of the scenes of the video and she would lick a sledgehammer which made no sense in the video. It was almost like she was exploiting herself, but some scenes you could see the emotion in her expression which really connected to the song. It is a completely different image from when she was Hannah Montana as she used to act and look innocent. This has obviously controlled her future and so she is trying to break out the old mold.

I feel like she made this video to show that she is breaking the mold and that the things that the media says about her is upsetting. It's her way of showing that she doesn't care what some people may think of her, she wants to do what she wants, dress how she wants and to just be accepted for how she is.

In some parts, she is exploiting herself, as this may be her way of showing how people see her. If they see her as this girl gone crazy then she'll act like it. But she will do it how she wants.

“Blurred Lines”

            

20 University Student Unions ended up banning the record due to the rape related lyrics and vile music video to accompany it.

Look at the lyrics – how does the pop video reinforce these controversial lyrics?


The lyrics include lines such as 'I know you want it', 'What do they make dreams for when you got them jeans on' and 'I hate these blurred lines'.

These lyrics are very much related to rape and sexual assault as it encourages people to think that 'no doesn't really mean no' and that woman are 'asking for it'. This is a common argument from rapists, as they try to blame the woman for getting raped, although it was the rapists fault for what happened. Woman do not ask for it, if someone wants to wear a short skirt or a revealing top then it is up to them how they want to look. Others need to be taught that this does not mean they want to get with a man and have them look at them in certain sexual ways, they need to just appreciate that she wants her body to be seen because she thinks it looks great. All she wants is for her body to be sort of celebrated, not used. This can also be argued with woman who breast feed their children. It is a natural process and is also very healthy for the baby. But because the woman is exposing herself, this means that it is sexual. They are not a sexual part of the woman and this needs to be learnt in society.

There are two versions of the video, where one has girls in hardly any clothing, the other has girls in no clothing. This is to degrade woman even further than the edited version already did. This version was deleted from youtube but was later restored.

How exactly are women portrayed in this pop video?

The woman in this video are portrayed as objects. They are only there to please the men in the video and in the audience. It further encourages others that woman do not need to be respected and are just there for men to use. It shows that whatever they wear that is seen as sexy, is seen as them asking for a man to rape them or sexually assault them.


“Hard out Here”

            

This video is a feminist video as it is mocking other videos that sexualise woman. It is showing how its hard nowadays to be a woman because of all the expectations that people have for them. People think they need to be skinny where, as the song says, you can see their bones. They need to have a big butt and boobs because this is what will get them a good life and get them to stardom. However, as the video shows, we can see that Lily Allen completely disagrees with these views. This makes the video entertaining and it can also teach others what woman have to go through during their lives.

It is clear that the video is a parody of a lot of current videos, such as J Lo's video 'Booty'. It does sexualise woman throughout the video but this is just to show what happens behind the cameras and maybe even the media in general.

I think the video is very good at showing Lily Allen's views and does not objectify woman in the way that other videos do. It is just showing what happens throughout society and is mainly making fun of other peoples views.

Alex Southam

Alex Southam has worked for Agile Films described him as an exciting new talent, working in a dizzying variety of styles across live action and animation. Entirely self-taught, his inventiveness and creativity have caught the eye with a series of diverse promos for the likes of the Walkmen, Alt+J and Lianne La Havas. Alex joined Agile in August 2012.’

To begin with Southam undertook all the tasks on his videos

• Camera
• Lighting
• Editing
• Now uses a Director of Photography

Southam likes the format of music videos as, ‘you can try new techniques and can have real artistic freedom’. He is less keen on commercials as they allow for ‘much less freedom’. He uses Vimeo to showcase his videos – this is becoming an increasingly important platform as it is considered to have ‘higher status’ than YouTube.

His breakthrough came with the video Tesselate for Alt J

• Budget: £10,000
• 1 day shoot
• Large cast
• Special effects – used AfterEffects

               

As there have been edits used and a huge cast, the entire video doesn't exactly make sense. Whilst watching this video, I could not see how the video was related to the song. The entire video consisted of woman dressed in very tight or showing outfits, dancing around the men. Laura Mulvey's theory can be applied to this video due to the way the woman are dressed and also how the men are looking at them.



Chase & Status – Lost and Not Found

• £50,000 budget
• Filmed Los Angeles
• Used Steadicam
• Filmed at 36 frames per second then slowed down
• Influenced by Massive Attack’s Unfinshed Sympathy
• Went for an early 1990s VHS video look

           

This music video was very interesting as the whole thing was filmed in one long shot.  There are only a few edits throughout the video, which give clues as to what is happening in the story.  The video is slightly related to song as we think that the girl is missing however, we then find that she is running away with a criminal.  The twist makes it more interesting and you can see that a big budget was used to film it. 

First scene shooting

The first scene has finally been shot after a few days of practicing.  Our main character found it hard to get into the song and so we have recorded many failed attempts.  Tariq found it hard to move to the music and he mumbled when singing the song.  We were unable to use any of the footage that we recorded so we we were starting to think that he needed replacing.  But before we were going to replace him, we decided as a group to give him one more chance.  However, so that we didn't repeat the footage from before, we tried to come up with a plan to help him.

He told us that his preferred genre of music is rap and so we decided to play a rap song instead to see what he would do.  Tariq became a lot more lively but it was still not what we were looking for.  Our next idea was to leave him alone with the camera.  As he is quite camera shy and would become embarrassed in front of us, we hid behind the corner so that we were not in his view.  This worked so well and the footage is able to be used for the music video.  He was lip syncing so much better to the song and was really starting to move to the beat of the song.  After a lot of attempts we finally have something we can work with!

Audience Research

This survey is used for the audience research. We are trying to find out what genres people listen to and if they watch the music videos for the songs that they enjoy.

Other forms of audience research that can be done is a vox pop.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey , the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Emil Nava

Emil began as a runner for film production companies, then worked for Blink Productions and now freelances for OB Management.


After working as a runner graduated to Assistant Director (A.D.), where he would manage the video shoots. He signed to Academy, the biggest music video production company.
Then he worked for Between the Eyes and now works mainly for Pulse.

      At his busiest Emil has made 24 music videos in one year.  When he began shooting videos for independent labels the budget would be as low as £5,000 to £10,000.  His most expensive video to date has been for Jessie J and the budget was £160,000. 

•Emil’s first budget was for the band Kid British and the track Our House

•Budget - £20,000

•Location – Manchester

•Cast – local people

•1 day for filming

•2/3 days for editing

•10 days pre-production

•Demonstrates the very tight timescales involved

          

Paloma Faith ‘30 Minute Love Affair'

     Client Sony - Director Emil Nava


   

This video for '30 minute love affair' is very good as it shows the story that are in the lyrics.  The way it is shot in a strip club shows how men fall in love for just 30 minutes, which is probably the amount of time that the girls perform.  It is very good at portraying the emotions that Paloma is singing about throughout.  It also shows her specific style in which we see her in other videos.

Ed Sheeran 'Lego House'                  

Client Atlantic - Director Emil Nava

   

The video Nava created for 'Lego House' is my favourite pieces of his work.  I love how the video is quite sad until you realise that the reason for the characters emotion is because he is a fan of Ed Sheeran's.  This brings in a comedy element as you see him sneaking into his tour bus and onto the stage.  Also, the fact that they used a well known star to play the stalker makes the video even more funny.


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He has now begun to make adverts, which generally have a far higher budget and production values but which allow for less creative freedom.