Music Video - Permission Email

Shown below is the email that I sent to the "Selected" YouTube channel asking for permission to use their song Bounce as the track for my music video. This was a necessary step in order to avoid any copyright issues that could occur if I used their song without gaining the correct authorisation beforehand.


Hi, I am a student at Landau Forte Academy Tamworth Sixth Form and am planning to create a music video for the song listed in the subject of this email (Bounce by Calvin Harris). I will be creating the music video for my A2 media studies coursework but need permission from the songs uploader in order to proceed with creating the video. The video will be used for educational purposes only and will not be used for any monetary gain. Please reply letting me know whether or not I have your permission to use this song for my coursework.

Regards,
Dan Price
Student: LFATSF

Pitch feedback

I like the ambition of re-mixing a song yourself. Keep it to 4-5 minutes.

How will you brand the artist in the video.  Who is the artist and what influenced the way he is portrayed?

You need to make your ideas clear in the web-log with detailed planning and research.

What music videos have inspired your ideas?

Research the genre of music to see how other artists are branded.

What is the USP of your artist and outline where your brand lies in the market.

What camera shots will you have

Can you share some drafts of print products and storyboards

Outline the narrative of your story further so that we can see the dream sequence. 

Lay the audio track down on the timeline first. 

Task 4: Audience Research

The target audience for my horror film will be any horror fans over the age of 15, as this is the age certification that my film will have.  The film is aimed at people of any ethnicity, sexuality and gender. Because of the genre of the film, it will be aimed at horror fans, who are likely to be mainly teenagers and young adults, but can be of any age over the age of 15. The audience for my horror film are likely to follow the passive audience behaviour theory, but people that go to view the film at the cinema and are expecting to be scared will be behaving actively. as it will directly affect them by scaring them. There are multiple different ways in which I cold choose to circulate my product. These include film posters, which would be useful when placed inside cinemas due to the fact that they will be viewed by people who are going to watch films at the cinema, which is the target audience that we are aiming our product at.

Another way that I could market my product would be to make film trailers to be shown either or TV or at the cinema in the trailers that are shown before a film starts. This way, the trailer will be seen by a large amount of people as a lot of people go to the cinema to watch films and even more watch TV so will see the advert during advert breaks. This is a passive behaviour because the audience will see the advert on TV and this may make them want to watch the film or learn more about it. These audience members would be experiencing the hypodermic needle theory, as the product is affecting them without them actively looking into the product. The behaviour of audience members in different age ranges may be affected differently upon viewing my horror film. This is because older audience members are likely to not get as scared as younger members, especially if the older people a have been horror fans for a long time as they will be used to getting scared by horror films. Despite this, younger people may get more excitement and a larger adrenaline rush out of viewing my film, due to not being as used to experiencing fear from a film, especially if they are not a fan of horror films. The gender, social class and ethnic background of the members of the audience that watch my film is unlikely to affect how they behave upon viewing it in any way or how they respond to the product. I would expect that younger viewers would have a better response to my film due to the fact that they are likely to be more frightened of horror than many older viewers.

Task 2: Lady Gaga - Bad Romance: Textual Analysis

The opening of the music video for Lady Gaga's Bad Romance shows the characters that are involved in the music video bathed in a bright white light, ensuring that the video will capture the viewers attention from the outset. In this opening shot, Gaga is shown sitting on a white chair, which could also be described as a throne, in order to make her stand out from the rest of the characters on screen and to show that she is to focus of the story and the most important character. To add to this effect, Gaga is shown in gold coloured clothes and heels, while everyone else is wearing either black or white, more plain clothing. The main thing which stands out in the background characters are the headpieces that some are wearing, using masks to cover their faces. The fact that the background and floor are both coloured white with black stripes also ensures that Gaga will stand out as much as possible, as some of the other characters almost seem to blur with the setting of the shot. As this opening scene continues and cuts from the original pan shot to a close up of Gaga's face, it becomes apparent that the glasses that she is wearing are made of razor blades. This is likely a metaphor for Gaga being dangerous or unsafe and shows that she is capable of acknowledging this fact. This is also shown in the way that she is wearing what looks like some kind of metal mesh over the tips of her fingers, meaning that she has a dangerous touch. This close up of her fingers also shows some product placement, advertising a speaker made by a brand named Parrot.

 
The next scene begins with a shot of a yellow light becoming the centrefold of the shot with a black background heavily contrasting with the light. The light then begins to fill the setting of this scene, with a soft yellow light bathing the contents of the room that we are shown. The viewer now sees a line of what look like pods, each of which says Monster on the front of it. After this, a white light is turned on and lights up the entire scene, at which point the pods open and people start to emerge from inside of them. When put into context, this scene seems like an awakening, as the yellow light from the beginning of the scene seems to wake up the people inside of the pods, like the rising sun waking people up from their beds in the morning. The "Monsters" from inside of the pods are dressed in all white, matching the background of the scene, and begin to dance stiffly once they have all emerged from the pods. One of the following shots to this shows Gaga looking in the mirror, now in a setting with dimmer lighting and dressed all in black, including sunglasses and a large black crown. This could serve to show that she has changed in mood or personality, or that she has a darker side to her than what we have been shown in the previous shots.

Narrative Theories

Tzvetan Todorov
5 stage narrative theory. Todorov developed this theory in 1969, and believed that this theory could be applied to every film, as he believed that all films followed the same narrative pattern.

1. Equilibrium.
2. Disruption of the equilibrium (conflict).
3. Realisation of disruption.
4. Attempt to repair damage caused by disruption.
5. Restoration of a new equilibrium.



Roland Barthes
5 narrative codes.
Action code: Conflict
Referential code: Audiences external knowledge
Symbolic code: Symbolism
Enigma code: The main mystery/unknown of the story according to the audience
Semantic code: Additional meanings



Ferdinand De Saussure
Binary oppositions
A binary opposition is a pair of related terms or concepts that are opposite in meaning. De Saussure also states that people cannot understand the concept of good without understanding evil, so binary oppositions are necessary for language in general.
E.g. good vs evil, young vs old, protagonist vs antagonist.

Rutherford feedback

You have made a positive start to research. Now step it up and complete blog posts. Begin your planning and ensure it is documented on the web-log.

Targets

Complete research into the short film (Andrea Arnold, Lynne Ramsay)

Establish the purpose and codes and conventions of the short film

Complete the analysis of Lady Ga Ga videos

Personalise the research by looking at texts that you have chosen.

Task 2: Lady Gaga - Paparazzi: Textual Analysis

The above video is the music video for Lady Gaga's 2009 song "Paparazzi"

The opening of the music video for Lady Gaga's song "Paparazzi" is set at a very different pace than the later stages of the video and is much calmer, putting it in direct contrast with the more upbeat, fast paced action shown in the rest of the video. This start to the video is used to open the storyline of the video and set up the plot that is shown throughout. One example of this is the use of text in the opening credits of the video. Due to the font that is used the text looks very old fashioned, more like something out of the 1950's or 60's than a font that would be used in 2009. As well as this, the scene for the video is set, showing a large, lavish house with a lot of expensive looking luxuries littering the inside of the house. After this, the early stages of the video are used to show Lady Gaga's power, wealth and how important she is. This is shown in the way that her face is on the 100$ notes that can be seen in the video and how she has large amounts of money and expensive looking jewellery just lying around throughout the house. The camera also focuses on a newspaper headline which states "Lady Gaga reaches the top yet again". This shows that she is an important public figure as she is appearing as the main feature on the front page of a newspaper. As well as this, some parts of the video are used as advertisements for other companies or products. The stand out example of this is the fact that Gaga is wearing rings on her fingers that spell out Dior, at one point even holding these up for the camera, which does a close up which shows her face and the product placement in the same shot. As she fades out away from the camera, Gaga is shown in a Christ like pose similar to that of Jesus on the cross. This could be Gaga attempting to compare herself to him or possibly implying that she is a martyr for the music industry and is trying to get her message heard at any cost.



In the next scene of the video, Gaga is lifted out of a limousine into a wheelchair, showing that she is broken and no longer as powerful as she previously was. Contradicting this though is the purple carpet that she is pushed along, purple being a colour that is often associated with royalty and wealth. At this point she is also wearing a neck brace that is adorned with glitter and is bright red in colour, showing that she is still trying to be glamorous and attempting to stand out even though she is confined to a wheelchair and must wear a protective neck brace due to the injuries that she received when she was pushed off of the balcony of her house by her boyfriend. Slightly later on in the video, Gaga us shown dancing, now seemingly fully healed. In this scene, she is dressed in a white outfit with black accessories flowing out from the sides of the outfit. This mixture of black and white could be being used to contrast the two different sides of Lady Gaga, due to the fact that black is often a colour associated with bad and evil while white is more often associated linked to good. This is an effectively used technique in this scene as it is showing the beginning of her transformation from a good, innocent character in the story to a more questionable, possibly evil character, as is shown later in the music video when Gaga poisons and kills her boyfriend. This is also symbolized with much more subtlety with the black highlighted streak that Gaga now has in her hair, as opposed to the bright pink colour that her hair was dyed in previously. Shortly after this, Gaga is seen in an almost entirely black outfit, now with only a small colouring of white in her hair. This is to show how she is no longer an innocent character and now has bad intentions, and should possibly be seen as a bad or evil character.



In conclusion, the music video to Lady Gaga's song Paparazzi has a variety of messages throughout its duration, hidden behind imagery and storytelling, for people to learn. One such message is the theme of sexism that is fairly evident throughout the video.  The main points where this is shown are within the first scene of the video and the final one, combining to link the story together. Near the start of the video, Gaga's character is shown being pushed off of the balcony of her home by her boyfriend, who escapes any form of punishment for his wrongdoing. However, when Gaga gets her revenge on him at the end of the video through the use of poison, she is soon arrested. This can be seen as a social commentary on how women and men are treated differently, and how women are unfairly treated and possibly also discriminated against, maybe being seen as less important than men. There is also a small portion of the video which also shows a theme of racism and shows the discrimination that black people face, with the only black men that are shown in the video being servants for Gaga and helping to carry her when she is confined to a wheelchair. This shows the unfair treatment of black people in everyday life, also shown in the way that this subtle undertone in the video can be easily missed.