Music Video Practical

Music Video Practical

In this assignment I will be producing a music video and writing a production diary detailing the entire process, this includes pre production paper work. How I organised my equipment and spaces for shooting the video. I will display my different ideas and show a basic idea of what my music video will turn out like.

My Ideas

I am planning on filming some sort of cover with myself playing the song and directing where the cameras will be placed. As of the 09/05/2015 i'm not sure if I will do a drum cover or a guitar cover of a song. I have ideas for using windows to show different parts of the song. For example I would have a different window in the edit to show the lead guitar part and another for the rhythm. For the drums I would have one camera pointed at the kit to show what my foot is doing and another moving around the front of the kit and maybe one at a higher angle behind me to show the full kit. 

Here is an example of a shot from the back at a higher angle. As you can see it gives a good view of the entire drum kit.

Here is an example of the camera moving around the front of the drum kit to show different angles of the performance.

Here is an example of different windows to show both the melody and rhythm of a certain part of the song at the same time. 

I have decided to make a drum cover of the song Beggars by Mallory Knox. I have listened to this song a lot, watched live performances and played it in my band so I know the song from an instrumental and lyrical standpoint very well.

Here is the original song with the original video. The video has references to the film clockwork orange.

Beggars lyrics

The Devil's been stuck in my brain,

and he's been living there seventeen days
He said that I can do better
But I know I'll get better
I'll do anything to feel something

The voices they're loudest at night
And they're so loud that they're haunting my mind
Although I know it makes me unsettled
To know I'll get better, if I find something deep within

See I can't find the way, out my mind.

(x2 Chorus)
Breath in, I'm coming to get you
You need me, but I don't know how to reach you
You know I'm going to be the one
(But I don't wanna be the one
But I don't wanna be the one!

I'm begging it to push me away
Cause this song will only drive me insane
I'm hoping just to sort it someday
And then it's just me and myself all the way

(So try sleeping with a stranger in your room.
It spends time banging on your bedroom walls
The voices in the pitch black letting you know that you're not alone)

See I can't find the way, out my mind.

(x2 Chorus)
Breath in, I'm coming to get you
You need me, but I don't know how to reach you
You know I'm going to be the one
(But I don't wanna be the one)
But I don't wanna be the one

(I'm coming to get you, I'm coming to get you)
I know I'm gonna be the one, but I don't wanna be the one
(Coming to get you, I'm coming to get you)
I know I'm gonna be the one, but I don't wanna be the one

See I can't find, the way out of my mind.
(Cause I don't wanna be the one, cause I don't wanna be the one)
The devil has his claws too deep inside
(Cause I don't wanna be the one, cause I don't wanna be the one)

See I can't, the way out of my mind.
(I'm coming to get you, I'm coming to get you, I don't wanna be the one)
The devil has his claws too deep inside
(I'm coming to get you, I'm coming to get you
I don't wanna be the one, I don't wanna be the one)

The song seems to be about an inner conflict between two different personalities in one person and being trapped in the solidarity and paranoia. Throughout the song you can see that there are conflicting lyrics that contradict each other 

Breath in, I'm coming to get you
You need me, but I don't know how to reach you
You know I'm going to be the one
(But I don't wanna be the one)
But I don't wanna be the one

The line "But I don't wanna be the one" is repeated a lot throughout the song usually by the back up singer which gives a sense of conflicting voices as it's two different people singing contradicting lines. 

The lines "The voices are loudest at night" "And then it's just me and myself all the way" and  "See I can't find, the way out of my mind." gives the sense of loneliness and being trapped with yourself. 

The song starts at 5:36. There are a few differences dew to it being a live performance where this can be quite common.

Pre production

Crew identified 

Camera man: Cameron Harris 

Camera man 2: Adam Watson 

Director/drummer: Chris Palmer

Studio engineer: Josh Webb 

Photographer: Chris Healey 

Schedule

Shooting day 21/05/2015

All pre production work 3/06/2015

Editing 4/06/2015-5/06/2015

Permissions 

I needed permission to use both the studio space, drum kit, microphones and camera equipment. I have a friend who is a student in the music technology department so he was able to book the studio space for me and recorded the performance for me. As I couldn't play and film at the same time I asked my two classmates Cameron Harris and Adam Watson to help out, I would tell them where to place the cameras and what they should be focusing on during the performance. During the recording I got my camera men to stand in certain places to film footage I could mix in between the moving footage in front of the drum kit and some higher up shots. I also had a shot for one of the takes I put the camera directed at the kick drum so the viewers can see what my foot is doing. 

This is when we are setting up the cameras and deciding on which angles to film at and the positioning of the microphones. At this point we were testing the levels of the drum kit and doing short recordings to make sure that everyone was good to go.

This is the first take where we had both of the cameras stationary. As you can see one is pointed directly in front and one is pointing at the kick pedal. I chose to do this take first because it would give Cameron and Adam an idea of what the song would be like so for the second take they could move around and have a better plan.

For the third take I had Adam to my left to record my upper body movements and Cameron in the middles to film the sticks hitting the drum kit. Cameron would be doing similar movements to the video I linked.

For the fourth take I had Cameron stand behind and get a higher up view which would give a good view of the whole drum kit. The idea was to be similar to the first video that I have linked. 

Production log

15/05/2015

I asked my friend about booking out one of the studio spaces with a drum kit and all of the mics required to record it. Luckly the time where there wasn't a lesson in the classroom was the time when we were all free, however we had about an hour before a class needed the room which ment we couldn't do multiple cuts if there were any mistakes. Later that day I got confurmation that we could use the room and the equipment. I sent out a booking form that night asking for two c100 cameras and two tripods.

21/05/2015

On the day of the shoot I had a little bit of trouble getting the equipment that I needed for the shoot. We weren't able to get a second tripod and we had to ask a lecturer to get our equipment because the staff weren't in the area. To make up for a lack of a second tripod we used a shoebox as a replacment which ended up working well for recording the pedal movements. Other than that we didn't have any problems on the shooting day.

28/05/2015

On the edit day I ran into the problem of not having the drum audio mixed with the song. Because of this I synced the original track to the video of me playing drums. Other than that the edit went fine I didn't run into many problems that couldn't be avoided. I had some issues with syncing because my cover wasn't spot on to the track but it wasn't to noticable because of the use of different camera angles which I used to hide some of the mistakes.

Radio assignment 

In this assignment I will be talking about the different types of speech packages and how they are used. I will be talking about the differences between public, private and community radio stations and how they operate. I will be talking about different demographics and psycho-graphics and it helps radio stations to produce content that will get lots of views. 

Public radio stations

Public radio stations purpose is to inform, entertain and educate the public. All public radio stations are funded by the public through license fee's. Examples of public radio stations would be the different BBC radio stations. 

The BBC can afford to spend a lot of money on its broadcasts because of its public funding. Because of this they can access more resources than a community or private radio station. The BBC has a lot more people working on the different speech packages compared to other types of radio stations. 

Private radio stations

Private radio stations main purpose is to make money from advertising. Because they are not funded by a licensing  fee like the BBC they must make there own money through advertisements. A private radio station will usually be more narrow in what they broadcast compared to the BBC who have a number of different radio stations producing a wide range of content for different demographics and psycho graphics. Because a private radio station must get its on funding they usually rely on sponsors and add revenue to keep the station going.

Planet rock is a private radio station which focuses on people who are fans of rock music and the other sub genres surrounding it. They play advertisements that will appeal to their audience whether it be new albums or the latest songs available on itunes.

As you can see they are playing the music that is targeting their audience of people who like rock music.  They show the audience what songs are next and what was previously on. They have a rather up beat loud music que which introduces planet rock and says it's "the home of rock".  To keep things interesting for viewers they do specials for example they are doing a acoustic hour.

They play new songs from different rock artists such as muse's new single which will attract a large audience and will be good advertising for the song. the band will probably have approached the radio station and ask them to promote the song.

Community radio stations 

Community radio stations main aim is to appeal to a local audience. They will mainly tackle local stories as opposed to national news. Different news stories will take priority depending on how relevant they are to the local area. A lot of the guests will be people from the local area and a lot of advertisements will be targeted to the local area.

CVFM is a community radio for Middlesbrough. Almost all of there stories are about something happening in the local area. and example being the story of a local doctor going and helping victims in the Nepalese. Another story being about potential pollution in lakes.

As you can see on the front page there are stories mainly about the local area and making people aware of what there local area. The top story is about charity funds raising after the last episode of benefits street. On the live station at the time they had a guest talking about how you could donate mosques all over the world through their platform. The founder of the website and the project was a man from the local area which gave it some relevance to the local area

Another example of a news story based in Middlesbrough. As you can see all of the stories are targeted toward the local area.

Different speech packages

There are a plenty of different speech packages, documentary format, radio drama and the different ways to present news through the media. There is the more formal way which is just a list of the different stories in a short concise way with a focus on formality and clear speech (No slang, little to no accent)  from the presenter. The other popular form of news presentation is a less formal presentation but not exactly informal. Lots of music and ques are used. The presenters are usually quite bright and vibrant sounding with an up beat feel to the speech package.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_World_Service

The BBC World Service is a very formal news radio station which tells news from around the world. They have someone who doesn't have a thick accent and is very clear in the way they speak so people from other countries can better understand what the presenter is saying. The speech package will have a lack of music or if it does it wont be very loud and will be designed to not attract to much attention.

http://myersmedia.co.uk/2013/tfm-the-reality-of-radio-today/

TFM radio also does news packages except they do them a little differently to the BBC World Service. This radio station is a lot more up beat with a abundance of music ques and background music. TFM radio uses vox pops which the world service doesn't. This form of presenting news tends to talk about local news or news relevant to the UK, they tend to go into more detail on a story whether it be with a vox pops an interview or just reading out statistics. 

How does the audience effect the radio station

The audience for a radio station defines what that radio station is and what it produces. A radio station must know its demographic as well as its psych graphic. You must target your content to the audience otherwise they wont listen to it and will lose interest. For example planet rock knows that its target audience are people who like rock music, they have a rather wide age range as they play a lot of different types of rock music from different eras. If planet rock started playing pop music they would alienate their audience and potentially lose it. TFM radio is targeted at people of the age from 24-40 however depending on the different sub stations depends on the target audience, for instance TFM is aimed at young people who aren't necessarily high class. It targets at this audience by being pretty informal and by the types of news they present. 

 Live/pre recorded 

Nearly every radio broadcast is done live however there are some exceptions. Documentaries, quiz shows and radio dramas are conventionally pre recorded and then played. News packages are usually done live but if there is a split transmission for different ares then there will be on pre recorded package and one done live playing at the same time to different places.  News broadcasts are normally done live so they can talk about the most recent new stories, if it was pre recorded they would keep on having to add new stories as the come out. 

Contributes

Contributes are interview guests, correspondents, politicians, experts on the subject and reporters. All of these serve different purposes but they are all for the same goal of enhancing the speech package with more information and other peoples opinions on different subjects. Having a experts opinion on a topic is a good addition to the production because it informs people more and makes sure that the subject is talked properly by someone who knows what they are talking about.

Actuality

Actuality is all of the different sound effects and sound ques. These are normally played at the beginning of the show as well as the beginning of the different segments of the show. they usually say the names of the radio station and the different presenters. The idea of these sound bites are to start the show off with something that draws in the listeners attention. Sometimes you will find the actuality noises to be things that you would find on the scene, so if it was in an office for example you might hear the sound of pen to paper or the sound of computer keys being tapped.

Ethics and regulation.

There are quite a few different things that producers must be aware of when they are making there news radio broadcasts in terms of ethics and making sure that they stick to regulation so they arent reported and face consequences. Producers must make sure they make sure peoples private lifes are kept private, have accurate information, stay away from encouraging stereotypes and to make sure people get a fair representation.

Privacy

Radio producers must make sure that the privacy of certain issues are kept. A lot of privacy issues can be met when talking about crimes committed, you have to make sure that the family member surrounding the crime are kept private so they don't receive any sort of abuse.

Stereotyping/Fair representation

Radio producers must be careful not to indorce or encourage stereotypes as they are not seen as a fair representation of a group of people. People can be easily offended by misconceptions and stereotypes. To avoid stereotypes you shouldn't focus to much on one group or have people from that group interviewed how their opinion on the subject.

Unbiased

A producer must make sure that no information sounds biased whether it be by biased to a certain political standing or to make it look different to how it actually is. You must make sure that your presenters wont present the information in a biased way and wont be influenced by there own opinion. The news needs to be impartial, it needs to present the facts as they are and not be effected by anything else.

Accuracy 

A producer has to make sure that the information is accurate, incorrect information can lead to a number of different problems like reinforcing stereotypes, coming off as biased. In general giving false information to the audience is a bad idea as the news' purpose is to present facts around the world and if they are false then it renders the station incompetent. 

Offcom 

The offcom's regulations for radio forbid the ones above if you break one of those you will receive some sort of punishment which will depend on the severity as well as quantity of the offence. Depending on the severity of the offence offcom could take your license away which would prevent you from working in that sector ever again and would put a black mark on you as an employee. In some extreme cases violation can lead to prison time. 

http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/enforcement/spectrum-enforcement/law