8. Music Video Synopsis

The brief outline for the music video that I would like to direct is this; as the song starts there is a count in from 1 to 4 and during this I would like to have 4 different establishing shots (cinematography) of natural/rural locations all changing on the numbers that are counted (editing) then one slow pan of another different location when the piano and the beginning of the songs is playing. When the lyrics start I would very much like to have another closer establishing shot of the band all looking at the camera, I will then cut to close ups of the band, between these close ups I will add footage of the 'day in the life' sort of events that are film throughout the day of the shoot. The close ups will eventually stop in the song and more footage of the band and friends will carry on this time with the shots getting darker and darker towards sunset, for the final frames I want there to be some sort of camp fire related shots where the band and friends are sat enjoying each other's company, my main aim for this music video is that I want it to be very candid i.e for it to feel like the audience is actually their with the band. For the final 2 or 3 shots I will have shot of the band alone walking, then a long shot of the band/group all together looking into the camera as the first sign of breaking the 4th wall and for the final shot I will have an establishing shot of a natural/rural setting again this time at sunset.

In the editing process I will change all of the footage to black and white and then add more of an orange tinge to make it look similar to footage from a super8 camera but with a more modern feel as it reflects the bands modern style.

In reflection of the music video and the casting our group has decided not to cast people to play the band that we have created but to instead cast a couple to be in our music video. I feel this will give the video more of a narrative format rather than an abstract format. The couple will give a narrative to the music video also and will relate more to the lyrics and the theme of love embedded within them. In post production editing I will not change the footage into black and white, I will only change the colour filter to more of a sepia style filter. By not changing the colour into black and white I feel it will reflect the theme better as more vivid colours will be seen.

7. Creating the Mock Band/Artist

Style: 
Sticky Fingers: Sticky Fingers are an indie band that work quite a lot of reggae elements into their music, their earlier style is not typical of the indie genre.

Their more recent style is similar to that of the Arctic Monkeys' style with the smarter more dressy look, featuring a lot of leather and denim. It is useful and effective for bands to change their styles because it can often change what they represent and also keeps them relevant in the ever changing styles of the media world and in society today.

Although the two styles of indie music that the two bands play are different, they still look very similar in the way of displaying more modern conventions of the indie rock genre. We see a lot of dark colours, what we can assume to be black including materials like leather and and denim.

Band Mates:
- Boyo
- Max
- Sam
- Leo
- Harley

For the music video we will have more cast members as extras in the background of the video and also with the band.

The name of the mock band is Brother Be, it will be a five piece band with the conventional indie format in terms of members and instruments; lead singer/rhythm guitarist (Boyo), lead guitarist (Sam), bass guitarist (Harley), Keys and Synths (Leo) and Drums (Max). This style/format of band would the band a typical indie sound but other styles could be worked in. 

Upon further consideration we have decided to use a different approach in the music video, we decided to use a couple to film which we could create more of a narrative with instead of shooting the band, this proved easier also as with our desired location (Scarborough) we would have had to get the whole cast there which would have been more difficult and more expensive too.




This is the look that we went for in the video instead of going for all black and leather, we went for a more modern indie look with the denim jackets. This will be explained in more detail in the mise-en-scene for my video (post 15): https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3478478989231054336#editor/target=post;postID=5474480068548049946;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=13;src=postname

6. Genre Theory

Genre is a type of category that a product is classified in e.g Films are categorized into different genres like horror and comedy. Certain tropes, codes and conventions define these genres and are needed in certain texts to be classified as that particular genre

Genres can be determined by the use of conventions, e.g. the use of scary music to build anticipation and suspense is often used in the horror genre, as well as motifs of spiritual disturbance and death,

Genre is a critical tool that helps us study texts, audiences respond to these texts by dividing them into categories based on these common elements.

Daniel Chandler (2001) argues that the word genre comes from the french - and originally Latin - word for 'kind' and 'class'. The term is widely used in rhetoric, literary theory and media theory to refer to a distinctive type of text.

Sub Genres:

• All genres have sub-genres
• A sub-genre is basically a genre inside of a genre
• This is were a genre is divided up into more specific categories, it allow audiences to identify them more specifically by their conventions. (Barry Keith Grant)
• However, Steve Neale (1995) stresses that "genres are not systems they are processes of systematisation" - i.e. they are dynamic and evolve over time

Hybrid Genres:

• A hybrid genre is basically a mixture of two or more genres 

• Genre is a process of systematisation; the idea that any text reflects the ideology of the era that they have created.
• They evolved with the times in which they are made.

The Hypodermic Needle Theory: The idea that information/ideas are given to an audience, e.g. the media giving information to the public, and it is wholly taken in and believed.

Generic characteristics across all texts share similar elements of the below depending on the medium:

• Typical mise-en-scene/visual style (iconography, props, set design, lighting, temporal and geographical location, costumes) 
• Typical Cinematography (shot types, camera angles)
• Typical narratives (plots, historical setting, set pieces)
• Generic types i.e. typical characters (do typical male/female roles exist, archetypes? Propps Character Types?)

Levi Strauss - Theory of Binary Oppositions: Strauss believed that all the majority of narratives happen to include in them at least one binary opposition. These binary oppositions were and are still used to thicken up the plot and in turn further the narrative.
Examples of a binary oppositions in media:

• Good vs Evil
• Light vs Dark
• Love vs Hate
• Black vs White
• Man vs Woman
• Young vs Old
• East vs West
• North vs South

Binary oppositions, however, aren't always good in films, they can often bring up issues of stereotypes, the most common being man vs woman, it can often bring up stereotypes of men being the 'hero' of the women being the 'damsel in distress'

Jason Mitchell (2001) argues that genres are cultural categories that suppress the boundaries of media texts and operate with industry, audience and cultural practices as well.





                                              Genre
Institution↗ codes and conventions  ↖ Audience
                                  ↘      Text        ↙

In short, industries use genre to sell products to audiences. Media producers use familiar codes and conventions that very often make cultural references to their audience's knowledge of society and other texts.

6. Narrative Theory

a.) = Inferred events

b.) = Explicitly shown events

c.) = Non diagetic material e.g subtitles

Story = what happens

Plot = how we see what happens

In media res means the middle of things.

Tim O'Sullivan (1998) argues all media texts tell us some kind of story, through careful meditation, media texts offer a way of telling stories about ourselves - story of culture or a set of cultures.

Bordwell and Thompson (1997) offer two distinctions between story and plot which relate to the diagetic world of narrative that the audience are positioned to accept.

Story = Fabula

Plot = Syuzhet

Structure of the classic narrative system.  According to Pam Cook (1985) the standard Hollywood narrative structure should have:

• Linearity of cause and effect within overall trajectory of enigma (problem) resolution (chronological).
• A high degree of narrative closure.
• A fictional world that contains verisimilitude especially governed by spatial and temporal coherence.    

Tzvetan Tudora (1997) 

Equilibrium

protagonist

                                 Distribution - Quest - Resolution

Antagonist                                                   Re-equilibrium

Cause and effect

Narrative gives/haves dramatic interests

In short as O'Sullivan (1998) suggests narratives have a common structure staring with the establishing of plot or theme.  Then followed by development of the problem an enigma (Roland and Barthes 1997) an increase in tension.

6. Media Language Theory

Media Language is all based upon semiotics, the science of signs. Media language is used to analyse different types of media, or medium

A medium is one form of media e.g.

• a newspaper is a medium
• a newspaper, magazine and film are all media

Every medium has its own 'language' or combination of languages - that it uses to communicate meaning.

Media messages are constructed using creative language with its own rules. Each form of communication- whether newspapers, TV game shows or horror films - has its creative language: scary music heightens fear, camera close ups etc.

In terms of producing a medium with a meaning, the institutions making the products encode the meanings of the product and the audience then decodes the meaning, this could result in the institution's meaning being different to the audiences perception of the media language.

Understanding the grammar, syntax and metaphor system of media language, especially the language of sounds and visuals which can reach beyond the rational to out deepest emotional core, increases our appreciation and enjoyment of media experiences as well as helps us to be less susceptiblento manipulation.

According to theories CHARLES SANDERS PEIRCE "We think only in signs" (1931)

Signs take the form of words, images, sounds, odours, flavour, acts of objects, but no intrinsic meaning and become signs only when we invest them with meaning.

"Nothing is a sign unless it is interpreted as a sign"

Anything can be a sign as long as someone interprets it as signifying something - referring to or standing for something other than itself. We interpret things as signs largely unconsciously by relating them to familiar systems of conventions. It is the meaningful use of signs which is at the heart of concerns of semiotics.

Linguist FERDINAND DE SASSURE (1974) offered a 'dyaic' of two-part model of the sign they defined.

6. Audience Theory

Audience is vital for any media texts.  If there is no audience the media text is meaningless.

Basic media theory:

Target Audience:

• Age
• Gender
• Price
• Social class - economic background
• Niche or Mass or Alternative
• Fragmented

Julian McDougal (2009) suggests that in the online age it is getting harder to conceive a media audience as a stable, identifiable group.  An audience can be described as a 'temporary collective' (McQuail 1972)

Popular was a negative thing - there was no credibility of artistic value.

• Historically (until the 19th century) the term 'popular' was a negative thing, with overtones of vulgarity and triviality.  Something not 'nice' or 'respectable'.
• In the modern world, the term means 'respectable' liked or at least encountered by many people.  It has also come to mean 'mass produced' i.e made for a mass of people.
• There is a down side to this of course, in that it can also be interpreted as 'commercial' or 'trashy'.
• This leads into further consideration which is the definition of 'popular culture' as 'low' culture, something not for the elite but for the 'common' people.
• Cultural value (high culture) has been traditionally associated with dominant or powerful groups - those who have appreciation of classical music, art, ballet opera and so on.
• 'Low' or popular culture is everything not approved of as 'high'. It is vulgar, common or 'easy'.

Another definition of popular is literally 'of the people' a kind of 'folk' culture and this is an interesting area, because it encompasses the idea of an 'alternative' culture which includes minority groups, perhaps with subversive values.

The 'Indie' music scene is an example of this.  So 'popular' culture can and sometimes does challenge the dominant culture power groups.

In terms of media there has always been high and low culture, however it has now become blurry about how it effects audience and how audience consume.

Rigid class structure.

Len Ang (1991) detailed that media producers have an imaginary entity in mind before the construction of a media product. "Audiences only exist as an imaginary entity, an abstraction, constructed from the vantage point of the institution, in the interest of the institution".

She also states that"audience is becoming an ever more multi-faced, fragmented and diversified repertoire of practices and experiences". 

5. Chosen Song

The video/song that our group has chosen for the promotion of an album brief is by the Australian indie band Sticky Fingers and is called 'Liquorlip Loaded Gun'.


What I really like about this video is that fact that it is very candid in the format of a 'typical day out' for the band, along with elements of performance with some of the band mates singing the harmonies heard in the song The lead singer is in the story teller role of the narrative instead of being the character as a signifier because it is all candid. The use of natural urban locations is very effective also