A2 Research and understanding summer work. Owl City & Carly Rae Jepsen

Owl City and Carly Rae Jepsen - Good time.


The storyline of this video is the typical, group of young Americans going on a road trip, and meeting all their friends. They appear to be going on a camping holiday by a lake, they are shown swimming, and partying, doing things that most youths do meaing they can relate to the storyline. The theme of the video is fun as the song and video are very upbeat, this is why the video is attractive to the young target audience as they do (or wish to do) similar things.

This music video brings two genres together as the two artists/bands are collaborating, Owl City's Indie style is mixed with Carly Rae Jepsen's girly pop style. This video can be classes as Indie-Pop. In this video the artists are portrayed as very fun, energetic and bubbly, it is set on a summers day in America and goes into the evening, this song was released during summer which is the reason why the video portrays a summery theme so listners can relate to it as a 'feel good' summer song.

In some of Owl Citys other music videos such as Fireflies, there is a much more relaxing, indie theme, contrasting to this one, due to using a pop star in the video too.  Carly Rae Jepsen is represented as a very innocent, young girl throughout her videos and its carried through to this, she has natural long wavy hair with little makeup on and summery clothes. Owl City are also represented as young, although not as young as CRJ, he also wears summery clothes. They are both shown as very 'happy go lucky' in this video. In this video, they are driving around in convertable cars with their hands in the air singing, this gives the feel that their life is a party and care free which would be an envied lifestyle by many youths. All of the actors in the video wear fashionable clothing which again would help relate to the younger generation as they would aspire to look like the people from the music video.

The camera cuts between Owl City and Carly Rae Jepeson to show them both doing similar things, till they meet and shots of them both singing together are then more prominant. The party atmosphere is created in this with a lot of young people on a summers day hanging out together and partying into the night. There are lots of long shots of Carly Rae Jepson and Owl City walking along singing on their own, this shows the main focus is on the main characters as well as a lot of close up face shots are shown of them individually singing.

A2 Research and understanding summer task. Cheryl Cole

Cheryl Cole; Under The Sun music video



The concept of this video, is Cheryl as a young lady from the 1940's/50's. The video follows her on what appears to be a normal day at first, the theme throughout is very much love, but there is a sense of Cheryl pushing the love away, as there are many men presenting them self to her and she acts uninterested. As the song progresses she begins dancing more, along with a routine with men in the video. The video appears to start in the morning, and towards the end it fades to night time, giving the idea that this is Cheryl's daily routine.

In the first scene of this video Cheryl appears to be in a 'speakeasy' kind of bar, which is old fashioned with a Juke box and 1940/50's style furniture and costumes. This scene is before the music even starts, at the beginning Cheryl is filing her nails, and watching the clock which is ticking loudly, this gives the impression she is bored, or waiting for something to happen. The clock strikes 12 and she makes her way to the old fashioned Juke box, which gives the appearance she is putting her own song on as it starts playing shortly after and she leaves the bar, this shows she is in control of the situation as she puts the song on.

After leaving the bar, Cheryl is dancing/strutting down a street, portraying her has happy and confident, the location is quite scruffy which makes her stand out in bright yellow and pink, making her contrast to the dull grey backgrounds. This links to the song title 'Under The Sun' as she is appearing as a ray of light in the dull town/city.
Also linking to Cheryl's song lyric and name of 'Under The Sun' whilst she sings 'I can see the sun shining through..' The image of the sun appears from behind clouds, giving the impression that the sun is coming out at the same time as she is. This again links her image/role to the sun, implying that she is the metaphorical sun.

After this there are many quick cut shots of Cheryl walking down the street, catching the attention of the men in the video, the fact that the men in the video are attracted to Cheryl is very much a representation of real life as boys and men that watch the music video will be able to relate to the actors in the video as Cheryl is an attractive woman.

Cheryl Cole is very much portrayed as 'the nations sweetheart'. This theme runs throughout her texts, as she always has a very girly, pretty bubbly look about her. In this video in particular Cheryl is shown as the girl next door, meaning the audience's attention is drawn to her. She has simple makeup which makes her look classy in this video, with some bright lipstick which makes her stand out, as well as the clothes which are in a 1950/40's style due to the little piece of material tied around her head, and the long, pencil, high waisted red skirt. In this video Cheryl only has one outfit, meaning it is more simple than her others where she has a few different outfits throughout, this helps tell a story of the video. Other props in the video reflect the 50/40's atmosphere such as the old fashioned cars and the costumes of the other characters in the video. The overall look that is portrayed from this video is innocence and beauty which is clearly shown throughout the aspects of the text.

The camera focuses a lot on close ups of her face, as she is the main priority and the thing that the viewers want to see as Cheryl is the celebrity. The close ups also bring the attention of the audience to how beautiful she looks from all different angles. The video also has long shots of Cheryl walking down the street, showing her whole body, emphasising her womanly figure as it draws the attention towards the main character. There is a close up of Cheryl's bum at the beginning, which does contrast with the idea of innocence and brings a sexy edge to her meaning it would strongly attract the male audience as well as females.

Cheryl also rendezvous with many men in this video, from being lifted to dancing with them. This also expresses the importance of her beauty as it appears she has captured men's hearts in this video. The majority of the other characters in the video are young, good looking men in 50/40's style outfits linking to the male attraction of Cheryl. The male dancers while Cheryl is sitting on the car are all wearing suits and hats, they look very smart whereas Cheryl looks casual implying that they have made the effort for her, making her appealing.

Although in this video, Cheryl is supposed to appear as if she is part of the neighbourhood and blends in, she catches the eye of an old woman watering her plants who gives her a surprised and slightly concerned look, this implies that she has a shock factor about her which could be to do with her beauty, or the fact she is wearing bright clothes which are revealing her stomach. Three young girls are also sitting in the bus stop and they gaze longingly at Cheryl as she struts past them, this shows how girls really do look up too/envy Cheryl.

Cheryl is shown dancing around in the street, leaning on cars and singing which is unrealistic in real life but isn't very outrageous for a usual music video, which could attract viewers, as she does not come across annoying and tacky, the video is fairly down to earth. There are old fashioned style shops shown with balloons and stalls on the street, which all link to the 50/40's theme of the video. The American style diner shown nearer to the end of the video also shows the 50/40's.

In this video, Cheryl shows off some of her tattoos, which contrasts with the feminine girly look to her and makes her appear a bit more edgy as tattoos can be disliked by people, giving the impression she does not care too much about audiences opinion. This may also be to show off the tattoos to show her rebellious side.

There are dull colours in this video, such as the street and the background of where Cheryl is walking and dancing. There are a lot of shows of bright colours such as Cheryls costume, which is shown in pictures above, also the flowers in the beginning of the video which are being arranged by a older woman are bright colours making them stand out, this is shown below. Shop windows shown in the video also have bright colour in them, showing that there are rays of sun/light in the town.



Improvement

Things that I need to do to improve from AS to A2 are:

-Checking my video for issues early, leaving opportunities for rough cuts
-More technological terms in my Blogger posts
-Justify all mis-en-scene
-Make sure my piece is original and fully thought through
-Every hour I spend in class, I spend at least another hour doing outside study
-Keep to important deadlines
-Make sure the whole group cooperates and knows whats going on
-Keep our music video from being 'cheesy' by making it different from what people have done before
-Update progress posts from lessons to refresh myself.

AS to A2 progress post

In media I believe that I am good at the creative side of the course. Getting ideas together of what our piece will be like is something I believe I have contributed strongly with. Throughout the process of making our preliminary task, through to editing it I believe I had a strong input with the creative side, costumes, actors and props. I also feel I work well in the actual process of making our video/digi pack, meaning that I am able to input ideas to the group when an issue arises with filming, for example we needed to keep a steady shot while moving the camera, but we did not have access to a dolly so we went to the science department and borrowed a small trolley from them which we placed the camera on and were able to film a moving shot of our character walking across the road. These are the kind of situations I feel I rise well too as I am good at coming up with solutions for problems we come up with.
On the other hand, I struggle with the actual editing process as I am still not completely comfortable with the mac computer and how it works. This is something I have been learning and developing although I think its one of the aspects of media studies I struggle with. Although this problem can be easily solved as if we get stuck, we google or youtube how to perform the task, meaning we're learning as we're working.
From the two practical tasks I have learnt that we need to try to get all the filming done in the same day to keep up with continuity (if the filming takes place outside) We struggled with the fact that the weather changed between the two days we filmed, meaning we had to edit the contrast of the clips to make them match. I also learnt that we need to film all our footage quickly and then get on with editing it, as we did not completely finish the editing process of our preliminary video. From this we have all learnt we need to have a proper schedule of when we are going to film, and stick to it so we are on time. I feel we carried out the digi pack task very well as we got all our pictures taken and edited quickly. We did this outside of lessons, and spent lesson time coming up with ideas for our song names, and fonts. We got all our editing done to a standard we were happy with in a good amount of time meaning that our pop princess digi pack was finished in good time.
I have learnt about the research and planning that is it a big part of the preliminary task and the actual task, as the research and planning is where you learn exactly what you're supposed to be doing. For example, I looked at many music videos and evaluated them, which helped us know what we need to do and not do. I also looked at many pop princess's digi packs to get an idea of the type of pictures we needed to take. This helped us greatly as we learnt that white is known as an innocent colour, so we used white writing on our digi pack album cover to introduce the popular idea that pop princesses are seen as innocent.
Throughout these preliminary tasks I have learnt that research and planning is a very important process as it is the basis to the ideas that create your actual piece. Our preliminary tasks have had some issues, meaning we will learn from them in our real thing such as keeping up with timing throughout and making sure we keep on top of every task we have to do. As this happened in our preliminary task we now know we need to make sure we have good time management in our actual task.

Inlay pictures

These are the images we took and edited to use in the inlay of Daisy May's album. We chose these as the theme of innocence is running through them, with the nature, flowers and trees. Also the picture of the artist with her hands in a praying position is based on one of Britney Spears album covers as she is featured with a similar pose. This portrays the idea of religious innocent girls.

Digi Pack pictures

Our given genre was Pop Princess. After researching ideas and popular conventions of this given genre we took our own pictures for Daisy Mays Digi Pack for the album I need you. This is the back and front of Daisy May the Pop Princesses album.

After researching artists such as Britney Spears we decided that the 'innocent' look is popular for Pop Princess albums. The pictures we used are very simple and do not have a provocative nature to them. The majority of our editing process was simply instagram which had an authentic effect we decided worked well for our chosen images. After deciding the track and album names we edited them over the picture in girly white writing. We chose white as it shows innocence linking with the Pop Princess style. We also included a bar code to make the whole thing appear authentic.

Fonts

We searched through Dafont.com to find some fonts to use for out Pop princess Digi pack and we looked in the 'valentine' section and decided to choose a font called Jellyka - Love and passion. The font is girly, with hearts and swirls so we decided this would be suitable for a Pop princess' album as they very much focus on a young girl audience, and the hearts relate to the 'love' theme. The font will be white so it stands out on the digi pack as the pictures have dark backgrounds. We will use this font throughout out CD.

Preliminary video shot list

The Script - The man who cant be moved
Number of seconds of each shot in brackets. (.) = less than a second.

(Danny walking down the street not singing yet)
The first shot of the video is the shadow of the singer on the ground as he is walking down the street (2)
The next shot is a front face shot (.)
There is then a shot of his feet (.)
The next shot is a low angle side shot of the singer with his hands in his pockets (.)
Shows the feet again (.)
Next is a low shot with his hands in his pockets face on (1)
There is then a face shot again (1)
Flicks to feet shot with shadow (.)
Next is a shot from behind of him walking (1)
Shot of side of singers head (.)
Singer spins round (2)
Cuts to face on shot of him (.)
(Danny starts singing)
Side of singers face singing (2) same shot moves to front of his face (2) zooms in as it moves
Looks at camera (.)
Shot moves around him standing still (2) (singing voice over the top of shot, his mouth isn't moving)
Side of face singing (2)
Danny walking across the crossing (3) (singing voice over the top of shot, his mouth isn't moving)
Face shot while singing (4)
Back of head from behind while walking, mid shot (1)
Side shot with Danny looking at the camera while singing (2)
Looking at man as he walks past singing (2)
Looks at man from behind him (1)
Side of head shot (.)
Walking towards camera (.)
Side shot (4)
Front shot walking towards camera (2)
Side shot of head puts his hands up while singing (3)
Front shot, mid shot (2)
Side shot of man walking, head chopped off (2)
Front shot while singing (5) (52 seconds)
NEW SCENE (we might not use this section)
Shot of Danny with band in background, focus on him (4)
Cross to guitarist (1)
Back to close up of Danny's face singing (1)
Close up shot of guitar (1)
Face close up (1)
Zooming out on him, mid shot (2)
Shot of drummer (.)
Face close up (1)
FINISH. (63 seconds)
(Shots move/cut in time with music)

Preliminary Video Costumes/location

For our preliminary task we are covering the first minuet of The man who can be moved by The Script.

As we want our video to look as much like The Script one does, so we have decided to base our costume as closely to theirs as we can. Danny wears casual clothes such as a leather jacket with a t-shirt underneath, he is also wearing casual jeans and shoes. To keep ours similar we have got our actor to wear very similar clothing.
The location of The Script video is a very busy street in America which would be impossible for us to achieve but to get a similar effect we are using a road by our school that has a crossing similar to the videos. Our location will not be as busy, or have shops like The Scripts video does but we plan to keep it as close to the video as we can.
The costume that Danny, and our main characher wear in this video is very casual, evidently giving a casual feel to the video and song. The lyrics also back this up with he says 'gonna camp in my sleeping bag' giving the impression that the main character could possibly be homeless.
The casual nature of the video would be appealing to the audience as people can relate to him, as he looks like an every day normal person, this along with the lyrics makes it a video that people can easily relate too. The City location also backs this up as there are other normal people on the street. We plan to remake this.. Although they location for ours will be difficult as we are filming down a village street.

Preliminary Music video

Short post about our Preliminary task of making the first minuet of an existing music video.

For our preliminary task we have decided to cover the first minuet of The Script - The man who can't be moved. We are using a boy in our class who will be wearing similar clothes to Danny in the actual video. We have decided to film down the street that goes by our school, which makes time management easier as we can film during free periods and every one can get there easily.

We have chosen a video with fast cuts, which will be difficult to film, but if we pull it off it should look very good and like the original video.

Our Pop princess album

Our Pop princess is called Daisy May as we decided this is a typically girly, feminine name and the word Daisy has direct connotations with a flower which gives the feel of beauty. We have also included flowers in some of the pictures for the digi pack of the CD which links with the Pop princesses name.
We decided to call our album 'I need you' which is also the name of the first song on the CD. We chose this, as it makes the Pop princess seem innocent and like she needs other people to be there for her. This also links to falling in love and a fairytale theme.

Our song list for the album I need you is:
1. I need you
2. Eclipse
3. Remember me
4. Free
5. I like you
6. Better than Romeo
7. Alone again
8. Kiss the stars Featuring Ronnie G
9. Cradle me
10. Render me speechless

We chose these 10 song names to feature on our album as they are typically girly and feminine. We also have followed through with the theme of love as the majority of these songs refer to it. To get ideas for our songs we looked at typical Pop princess albums such as Taylor Swift and Britney Spears as their songs relate to similar things to ours.

Pop princess album cover

These are some of the images we have got of our 'Pop princess' look that we will be using for the front cover of our CD, also the pictures will be in the inlay of the album.

Conventions of a pop princess

'Popular and beautiful young female singer'

'proud, stubborn and individual'

A pop princess can be seen in this day and age as any popular female artist but they have certain stereotypes. Artists such as Mariah Carey are know for being a 'diva' and the 'queen of pop' Kylie epitomizes the idea of a pop princess with her catchy pop songs and glamorous image.

On an album cover, the usual for a pop princess is a close head shot with glamorous hair and make up.

Pop princesses!

These pictures are examples of pop princesses and CD covers including pop princess songs. Popular, young and beautiful singers are classes as 'pop princesses'. The style of music, is evidently pop although some of these girls have been known to have an alternative theme to their songs/albums. Pop princesses are popular, as boys fancy them, and girls want to be them. This means they have appeal for both male and female. Pop princesses often have very girly pictures in their albums and on the cover, this keeps up the 'role model' look causing people to look up to them, and like them.
As you can see from the Pop princesses CD cover, girly colours such as pink, purples and yellows are used. This indicates that the main target audience is girls, probably younger girls that would listen to a lot of pop princess music.

Owl City Fireflies Video analysis

This video features the artist playing a keyboard in what appears to be a child's bedroom. He is bringing the toys and gadgets around him to life which builds up until the song comes to an end. The music video is indie style as it is an independent record label but it also features synthpop and an 80s style.
The target audience of this video would be 16-30 although it would be based on a teenage audience.
The video uses cuts between mid shots of the artist, and close ups of the toys in the bedroom. This makes the audience focus on this as it is all you can see. The toys move in time with the music.

Artist image - The artist looks very 'normal' in this video with a relaxed casual costume of jeans and a t-shirt. There is a close up shot of his socks which relates to the child like theme and makes it look like he is the child in the bedroom. The artist is portrayed as innocent and childish as all the toys are around him and he is in a child's bedroom.
Mis-en-scene - The toys in the video are 70's/80's style which gives the audience a sense of nostalgia as they are the toys they would have played with when they were younger.