Friday 24 September 2010

Mills Panoram

- A Panoram is a visual jukebox, it shows the music video as well as playing the song.
- It was first made in 1939 (pre World War 1) and was very successful. It was made by a company called Mills Novelty Company in Chicago, America.
- It's a wooden cabinet that holds a 16mm projector that plays continuous films.
- And is best known for its library of three minute music videos.
- These music videos were called Soundies.

Saturday 18 September 2010

Research Ideas

1) Surveys consisting of a list of music genres - these will be handed to every form class in both years 12/13 to gain an average of the most and least popular genres.

2) Make polls online on social networking websites - this will help gain a wider response from a bigger audience and of differnet age groups.

3) Get responses from a different school to see the contrast as John Cass has a high population of Asian Muslims, so the responses may be limited or too similar; and by having a different school's preferences the results should be more varied.

Each of these research ideas can help us to make sure our music video is as good as it can be, meeting the target audience's expectations as well as meeting generic conventions.

Wednesday 7 July 2010

H/W

1) Alternative Rock
- Fall Out Boy
- The Muse

Typical conventions of alternative rock music videos:
- Dark stage/background
- Stage alternates between dark and light settings
- Band members mostly in dark colours, mainly black
- Big hairstyles
- Fast jump cuts
- Music accompanies quick camera work
- Sometimes the band's logo is shown briefly


2) Hip hop/Rap
- Eminem
- Nelly

Typical conventions of hip hop/rap videos:
- Tell a narrative
- Women, money, cars, "cribs," alcohol, clubs and "bling"
- Some of Eminem's videos are humorous (Without Me)
- Do tend to degrade women (Nelly - Tip Drill)

Wednesday 30 June 2010

Evaluation of lipsynching task

What went well?
I thought that the whole task generally was good, because there weren't many times where either Reshma or myself were out of synch, although where there are some parts they could have been improved through some more editing. We both looked at the camera the majority of the time, and as the only camera angle we used was a close up on our faces, no fidgeting could be seen! The best way I found to synch was to definitely sing along with the song rather than try to mime it, this makes the miming look so much better than it would had someone been miming the lyrics.

What could be improved?
As this task was the second lipsynching task we did, we had to film it in a shorter space of time as well as edit the footage; so if we all had more time we could have used a variety of camera shots and possibly done a third take so that we'd have more footage. I say this because in some cases, two takes may not be enough especially if one is synching to just the chorus, because sometimes it takes two takes for people to loosen up and relax in front of the camera. Therefore a third take would have been just right and the lip synchers/actors would have possibly been more calmer and less rigid which essentially makes the video look good. Because we would not watch music videos if artists were not confident enough in front of the camera.

What tips or advice would you give your future self on effective lipsynching?
The foremost tip I would give is that everyone sing even when just a few people are being filmed because it helps boost them in their performance and they feel less awkward singing themselves. Especially since the actual sound will be muted so it doesn't matter if others are singing... Another tip would be to hold the lyric sheet straight under the camera, (how they do it in news rooms with prompters) so that it looks as if the actor is looking into the camera when they're reading the lyrics, this is what Reshma and I did. :) Further, I would advise my future self not to shrug or hunch my shoulders because it makes you look awkward, even if you were doing cheesy bops and gestures previously... Lastly, the main thing is to focus on the timing of the lip synching and the song at the same time, because there were moments where I was just a few milliseconds out of time, or ahead, so, just try not to think about how dumb you think you may look and concentrate on the rhythm, listen to it properly beforehand, maybe drum out a beat with your feet so you remember the rhythm and can drum away while singing!

Fini.

Lip Synching to 'Common People' with Reshma

Twas fun :)