legal letter of copyright permission

 We needed to write a legal letter to the studio that own the rights to the song asking for copyright permission. This is important because without it our video could get taken down. 

^^Facebook page of Grumpy Plum

In order to do this we first had to find out who owned the rights to the song we want to use for our music video. We first looked up whether the band had Instagram, which they did, and clicked on their link tree which showed many other social medias they had like twitter. We could not find who owned the rights from Instagram as they did not mention it. Similarly on Facebook we could not find a studio which owned the rights, or any way of contacting the band. I decided to look at the bands Facebook, in which I found their email address, but no email for a studio owning the song. Therefore we started to think the band was independent. 

I tried to do some more research by finding an interview where the band talks about releasing the song in which they credit the producer Jim Wirt, but never the studio, which also backs the fact that we think the band is independent. Therefore in the end we wrote the email to the bands email address as this was the only email we could contact them by seeing as they are independent, and sent them this:

audience profiling

We have decided that our target audience will be 14-15 year old females. This is because this is the age in which girls are starting to be rebellious and find who they are, so this age bracket would be perfect for our song choice as it is about being different and not doing what is expected of them.

The JICNAR scale is on of the most common demographic approaches to target audience. It involves categorising people by income and job. This type of segmentation is called demographic segmentation which is essentially segmenting people according to various significant social criteria like race sexuality career. However, because our target audience will not be employed as they are too young, we will not use this scale to find our target audience.

Another way to categorise target audience is through psychological segmentation also know as lifestyle profiling. It looks at people’s attitudes, values and beliefs and people are sorted depending on these. However, our target audience are teenagers, so even though we could use VALS we have decided to use teenage VALS as we believe it will be more suiting towards our target audience. So, we decided to settle on Innovators and Rebels, as we believe that our target audience want to stand out and be different which is what Rebels primarily stand for. Also, innovators want to leave their mark on the world, which would be another thing our target audience want to achieve.

Our audience would like our new artist, as this artist encourages individuality. They also stand out and are not trying to fit in, which may be the confidence teenage girls need to do the same, they need someone they can look up to and admire and show that be female is empowering.

Mood board for our target audience:

Our cast test shoots

 

Genre conventions

Advanced Lighting workshop

On Friday my class were given an advanced lighting workshop in which we were shown different lights and how they can be used. We were first taught about health and safety with regards to the lighting. It is important that when we are in the studio we are fully aware of any wires connected to the lights so we do not trip over them and break them. We also need to be weary of the fact that the bulbs in the lights, especially the redhead lights can burst which is loud and quite bright. 

Therefore both Blonde’s and redheads have a protective mesh over the bulb so the glass doesn’t burst all over the people in the studio.

A redhead light more specifically comes straight out of the bulb and hits the actor; it is quite bright and concentrated. Changing the angle of which position the light is in can change the shadows reflecting on the actor which can change the mood of the scene. Putting a trace on, which is a waxy piece of paper can stop the light from being really harsh/ bright.

A blonde is fairly similar to a red head, except it is even brighter and bigger.

Another lighting technique was using a soft box. This is where we put a theatre flat with a plastic sheet in front of a redhead light. The light gets broken up through the gel which gives it a much softer shine.

A florescent light is a long beamed white light of which you can put different gels onto. It is however hard to tell the colours of the gel apart in normal lighting, so you can shine your phone torch inside the gel and it gives a clearer image of the colour. 

When setting up fluorescent lighting, you don’t want to put the lights right next to each other if they are different colours, because the colour will just blend together. You may want to put one as a key light and one as a back light, you can also incorporate them into scenes.

A key light is the main light source on set focusing on the object. A fill light is used to ‘fill,’ the absence of light from a certain angle and gets rid of unwanted shadows that may be in the object. Backlight is shone from the back of the set behind the point of focus/ object and it helps differentiate the point of focus from the background. Blondes are typically used for this job. This lighting technique is called three point lighting.

‘Beauty lighting,’ is a lighting technique use in the film industry. One kind of beauty lighting is using only back light. By adjusting the exposure making it darker on the camera, it makes more things in focus, while making the exposure lighter puts only the object in focus. Extra light however may come into the lens, so if that does happen we can use a MATTE box to get rid of the unwanted light.

Advanced camera workshop

On Friday my class had our first advanced camera workshop. One thing that was different to last year was the fact that we are now using monitors more often to review back footage rather than the screen on the camera. This Is because the monitor is a lot better for getting accurate exposure and colour visuals than it is on the camera screen. This is different to last year as colour and exposure are more important for our music video. 

The second thing we looked at was shutter speed. Shutter speed is measured in degrees and is to do with how motion looks in front of the camera. 180 degrees is the neutral speed which makes things look like they are moving how they would in real life in front of the camera. If you decrease the shutter speed it makes the motion look more crisp and less blurry which may be used for action sequences/ sport and when you increase it, it makes the footage more smooth, which may be used for more dreamlike sequences. 

FPS stands for frames per second and 25 is the normal rate in the UK. It controls the speed of the footage e.g slow motion. Increasing FPS makes it slower and decreasing it makes it faster.

The lenses we are using this year are prime lenses, which contrast to last year when we were using zoom lenses. Prime lenses are better quality in terms of video footage, however they cannot zoom in our out, which the zoom lenses can. Each prime lens needs an adapter to fit onto the camera effectively and 18 is shooting wide, and as the number goes up e.g 50 the camera zooms in further. 

In order to get the correct focus, you use a measuring tape and measure from the focal plane on the camera to the object you are wanting in focus. Then you focus the lens depending on the distance from the camera to your subject of interest which is measured in feet. The number should match up with the red line on your camera lens. 

The lens box should either be completely open or shut completely to prevent any damage being done to the lens. A hybrid of both a zoom lens and a prime lens is a ‘Pictor zoom,’ lens, which essentially does both.

Finally, we worked on composing an imaginary band in a shot to make it look more interesting than a traditional set up, which we did by using depth and different angles as well as levels which worked.

Feedback on our song pitch

Feedback on our pitch

My group presented our idea on Monday through a presentation to our classroom and production teacher so that we could develop our ideas for our music video further.

Here was the feedback given from our teachers.

We need to focus on the main singer as this is a convention of our genre, rather than all the band equally which we were previously going to do. Also, the music video needs to open with a performance of the entire band rather than the lead singer. This is partly because in order to maximise the barbie set we should use the band in there as well as the lead singer. We should also buy two sets of costumes of the same outfit so u can trash one of them. Finally, we should get the lead singer to also play guitar and sing, if we can, because this is a convention of our genre.

This is what we are going to do in response to our feedback:

Find a charismatic female to play our lead and that can play and sing at the same time.

We also need to research how to trash a set and make it look effective without breaking things like tables or walls because that would be very expensive.

Our song pitch

 

Feedback on my song

In our lesson on Tuesday my class reviewed our song shortlists that we had created which could be used in our final music video. We then, as a class gave feedback on the song choices for example, whether we thought it was an artist or band, what possible early image ideas could be created. This is the feedback I got on my two songs.

For song one, I chose bleach by Maeve. It was clear that she is a solo artist and that the genre is R&B/ techno. This was because of the heavy focus on the bass and the fact that the singer is the heavy focus of the music video so we can grasp that she is a solo artist. However, the singer herself is (Cayman islands?) so therefore it would be quite hard to cast in our school seeing as the majority of students are white.

Some key conventions which may be used/ expected in the music campaign and video are flashing lights, lots of costumes, dark colours backing singers and dancers. 

The look and attitude of the music video may be quite aggressive or sexual in nature and empowering for women, e.g being sexual because they want to, not just to appeal to the male gaze. Overall, this song would be a good choice for developing a further idea, and has a good amount of streams.

For my second song I chose ‘Phil,’ by Molokai. Also, to my class it was obvious that this was a solo artist, however it could be a band choice. The genre was also quite clear with it being pop. This was because of the instruments used like guitar and having lead vocals as well as a consistent melody throughout the song. However, this consistent melody may make the song more interesting by using lots of visual sets throughout the video, with the main focus being on the male singer.

This may be easier to cast than the previous song because rather than casting someone who is an ethnic minority it just has to be someone who looks older because the singer has an older sounding voice. 

It may also not be amazing for developing an idea as the song itself is quite monotonous. If I were to choose this song, some things that may be expected could be him playing the guitar throughout the video, varying location and it not being too colourful.