Director research task

Tyler the creator:
The music video for "Yonkers" was released on February 10, 2011 on the official OFWGKTA Youtube channel. It was produced by Tyler, the Creator. The song received controversy due to its violent lyrics and numerous "disses". A 'diss' in rap/hip hop was came onto the scene more or less from Eminem. Involving somebody's name in the lyrics and picking out negatives on the trend worldwide.
Tyler also directed a music video for the single, which was also met with positive critical reception. The video is shot in black-and-white using a Perspective control lens.
The video features Tyler handling and eating a cockroach and vomiting. The word Kill is seen on his hand along with an upside-down cross. It concludes with Tyler placing a noose around his neck and hanging himself. It cuts off the song almost three minutes in, leaving out his alter ego Wolf Haley's verse, yet another controversial trait of this artist.

His idea for the theme of the 'Yonkers' video is very simple, but effective. If I was to do a music video like this, I must ensure that my actor is good in front of a camera. Tyler's acting skills are put to the test in this video but is done very well. Small ideas such as the cockroach can be seen as boring by the sound of it but how he does it is unique which I think I want to go for.

Richard Ayoade:

Ayoade has directed videos for the:
Arctic Monkeys - Fluorescent Adolescent, Crying Lightning and Cornerstone.
the Last Shadow Puppets - Standing Next to Me, My Mistakes Were Made For You
Vampire Weekend - Oxford Comma and Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa
Kasabian -  Vlad the Impaler which starred Noel Fielding
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Heads Will Roll
In 2007 he directed a live Arctic Monkeys DVD entitled 'At the Apollo', which was recorded at the Manchester Apollo. It was previewed at Vue cinemas across the UK during October 2008 and was released on DVD the following month, winning the "Best DVD" title at the NME Awards that year.

In 2010, Ayoade released his debut directorial feature, Submarine, a coming-of-age comedy-drama film adapted from the 2008 novel of the same name by Joe Dunthorne. The film stars newcomers Craig Roberts and Yasmin Paige with Sally Hawkins and Paddy Considine. The film was produced by Warp Films and Film4 and musician Alex Turner of Arctic Monkeys contributed five original songs to the soundtrack.

His music videos and films feature niche performers and original ideas. They aren't pure blockbusters with an amazing amount of funding. His down to earth approach is very unique. Minimalism is a huge factor behind the screenplay of his work.

His style is seen to be as quite qwerky. The visuals in his videos are very artistic, seem to be inspired by photography work. Colour contrast also portrays as an important factor in his work. In his music video 'Crying lightning' by the Arctic Monkeys, the editing is surrounding the band as they sit in a small boat. Strange, dark and dim colours are used. 

- The film Submarine in which Ayoade directed portrays a very minimalistic approach which he uses frequently in his music video. He only tends to use a one part narrative and build gradually on the ideas.

Corin Hardy:

A keen sculptor, illustrator & film-maker obsessed and motivated by a healthy mixture of 1970’s storybooks and & 80’s Spielberg cinema, his balance of live action & animated work frequently mixes the macabre, the beautiful and the epic.

A degree in practical special effects at Wimbledon School Of Art lead to award winning stop-motion short ‘Butterfly’ in 2003, after which he began directing music videos with Keane's 'Somewhere Only We Know' & 'Bedshaped'. Signed to Academy Films in 2006 the wide diversity of bands ranges from underground acts including Jon Spencer, Martin Grech and The Guillemots as well as commercial pop/rock of Mcfly, The Feeling, Olly Murs, Paolo Nutini and Biffy Clyro. Other imaginative & inventive works on his reel include his MVA award winning Horrors promo ‘She is the new thing’ and the Rushes Shorts Best Music Video/Saatchi New Directors Showcase nomination for Prodigy’s 'Warriors Dance'.

Corin cross references his other skills into his music videos. It is clear that he is a brilliant and artistic sculpture with abnormal ideas. He combines these art forms to create epic visuals. An example of this is the Prodigy video 'Warriors Dance' he did using cigarette packets and creating small puppets with them. He uses the technique Stop Motion often to bring it to life.

Music video research

- Above shows the mind map I completed in the first lesson after filming the prelim task. As a class, we looked into the purpose of a music video in detail. The answers that are in bubbles are my answers when we were asked to put down what we thought. I thought of the idea that music videos portray a form of synergy between both music and photography/camera work.

I was quite surprised as to how much thought has gone in behind this concept. A purpose of a music video has several different answers and argument, including theories. There are 4 theories that state their own opinions:

 1. Keith Negus' theory - 'producing pop' Organic and synthetic ideology of creative. This means that artists that are signed by labels now are either in it for the long run such as the Rolling Stones, decades of writing their own music. Then the likes of one hit wonders such as the boy group Hanson who had split up when their voices dropped. The synthetic side is to quickly earn rapid earnings through a hit that would sell to a mass audience.

2. Adornos theory - 'Culture industries sell a mass of sentimental products which replace more critical art forms' This is basically explaining that the likes of new innovations such as 3DTV's and laptops/tablets etc are replacing art forms that make an individuals brain think and figure out what is happening such as the theatre.

3. Dick Hebdige' theory - 'Consumption is an active process in which alters towards differences in audiences social construction' This theory states Adoros theory is wrong and overly pessimistic. He believes that mass audiences are easily manipulated and not judged as individual groups. It is said by Dick that people are easily led by subcultures and should be their own self and like what they like. There is a sense of competition when the latest gadget in technology is released, this is known as a subcultures. Everyone feels the irrelevant need to quickly purchase it, which Dick Hebdige disobeys. You should get what you enjoy and want, not what others decide on doing/getting.

4. Dyers 'Stardom' theory - Dyer believes that the whole idea of a music video is to create quite simply a star in the eyes of an audience. Once an artist is seen in their own music video on TV, it is classed as stardom by the public. Dyer thinks that is primarily the objective behind music videos. An example of this is One Direction. The boy band sensation have taken over the world from tour to tour, purely on their looks. This is portrayed in their music videos, advertising what they are releasing and how they look. 

He believes that stars are constructed to represent 'real people' experiencing real emotions. Stars are manufactured by the music industry to serve a purpose; to make money out of audience, who respond to various elements of a star’s personality by buying records and becoming fans. 

His theory is split into three sections:

1. Audiences and Institutions 

2. Constitutions 

3. Hegemony

What is a star? Am image of a star is created by many different media connections such as interviews, photo shoots etc.

Prelim planning/brainstorms

- When I was first given the task of the lip synch prelim, I began to write up this note page where I viewed various music videos to see what shots are used. The time we were given to complete is was quite limited and so was the location as we only had 6 hours.

- This was a problem for me in AS media when I filmed my thriller prelim. I was overthinking and attempted making things more difficult for myself. I learnt from that process that with filming and many other things 'less is more'. I remembered this as I planned the lip synch task and kept it simple, therefore meaning I can spend more time editing and making it seem legitimate.

This is the lyrics sheet in which I assigned the right lyrics to who is singing (Me or Ben)

Prelim mindmap

- My mindmap is the next stage from the first, rational ideas of my brainstorms. I begun envisioning what I want in shots and how things would look through the camera. To keep my thoughts organised, I look to use mindmaps to state clearly each sections of what needs to be thought of.

Prelim storyboard

This is the final process of preparation for filming, the storyboard. Most of the initial ideas from the brainstorms and mindmap have been finalised onto the storyboard. The shots that we have used in the video have all been portrayed.

Beginning with the close up of the lips had been changed when we filmed it. I found out that lighting on the lips can be hard for how much time we had to complete it so the shot changed to a close up of the face in the final peice.

The rest of the diagrams were all included. I also stated on the storyboard that the lyrics correspond to each singer, being David bowie and Mick Jagger. Each correspond to who is singing what at what time. I allocated myself the part of Mick Jagger with my filming partner for the task Ben to play the part of David Bowie. I feel in the videos that involve collaborations that the parts sung by a different artist must be highlighted.

Lip Synch Prelim task

Evaluation:

As an introduction to our new A2 Media course, we were given the task to record and edit a small music video. We were only given a verse and chorus to lip synch to and the whole meaning behind it was to discover how hard the process of lip synching actually is. 6 hours was our time limit to get the task completed. I can confirm now that I understand just how hard lip synching is.

- Filming in a public location is hard anyway with ambient sounds, however when you are lip synching lyrics from a song, it gets even harder.

There must be someway that you can hear the track being played to you at a clear and loud volume. This isn't always easy to achieve.

- Learning the track must be done as well. It tends to be that singers facial expressions adapt to what note they are singing, whether it'd be at a high or low pitch.

Knowing this and when to do it at the right times is quite a skill to execute on camera. This means I need to choose talented actors for my real music video.

- The editing side of lip synching also isn't that easy. All other audio but the actual track must be deleted so the track is playing behind the video.

However, getting pieces of raw footage captured on your camera and putting the lip synch to the music is hard to do, requires a bit of luck! It is like a jigsaw of all the different scenes, lyrics and lip synching to put together as one.

- This can be hindered if the skill of lip synching on camera isn't done well, making editing so much harder.

- I figured on my task that it is best to get things filmed in order instead of coming back to scenes, which I did. It is hard to interpret what is being lip synched on video without any audio so following the lyrics word for word and line for line should help as a technique.

Shot count analysis

A2 Media: Shot count analysis

Track: All my life                                

Artist: Foo Fighters                                      

Director: The lead singer of the band Dave Grohl, directed the music video

Release Date: September 7^th 2002

Length of video: 4:45

Number of shots in entire video: 357

Average length of shot: 0.8 seconds long

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Number of shots in 30 second segment: (First 30 seconds) 14 shots

Number of CU: 4

Number of ECU: 2

Number of LS: 4

Number of MS: 3

Number of panning shots: 3

Number of tilts: 1

Other shots: 0

Analysis - what have you learnt from this process? 

• With this task I have learnt that most music videos do have a purpose behind them. In this specific video, I have found out in my research that Dave Grohl directed this video himself. The whole idea behind the directory of this video is to portray to their audiences watching it, that it is what they are like as a live act. There isn't an audience watching them live, The camera work is entirely edited and filmed purely on what the band members are doing.

• The quick cuts and edits are done to show every perspective and view that can be offered of the Foo Fighters. Shots are taken from backstage watching Dave walk out which isn't something that the majority of his fans get to see. The is done for intimacy between the band and their audience, building a better relationship. The video is very down to earth and simple, but the amount and also quality of the edits bring it to life.

• I have also learnt the amount of shots that are in a music video can vary but usually are a lot. I have watched many in the past and never consciously realised quite how as much shots there are. However, It can depend how many there are on the tempo or genre of the music. A slow, relaxing acoustic track wouldn't obviously have as much shots as a heavy, rock song like All my life but there are a lot more than a film or episode on TV. The shots in a music video have to cover much more, meaning more is required. I realised as well that the cuts are done to the music e.g - A cymbal hit would be when a shot would be cut to the next.
    
  

  •  I learnt that camera movement in music videos is dependent to what genre or tempo the track. With 'All my life' many different camera shots were taken from different angles but there is rarely camera movement. Only in both the pan at the intro and tilt there is camera movement. These both occur however when the music slows down or doesn't actually play, which backs up my point mentioned previously.

Shot number	Shot type	Shot length	Description	Edit to next shot
1	L to R Pan	5 seconds	Shows the surroundings of where the video is shot	Straight cut
2	Medium shot	2 seconds	Introduces the band from the stomach upwards	Fade out
3	L to R pan Close up	1 second	Shows the artists instruments in detail	Fade out
4	Medium shot	0.5 seconds	Portrays the other two bands mates behind the first two	Fade out
5	Slight pan, Long shot	0.5 seconds	Moving slowly with the band walking, can see their full body for the first time	Fade out
6	Medium shot	0.3 seconds	From behind Dave Grohl, capturing the moment he walks out on stage	Straight cut
7	Long Shot	0.3 seconds	Seeing the band preparing onstage, with camera filming it from backstage	Straight cut
8	Close up	0.5 seconds	Dave Grohl walking by himself up to the lead vocal microphone, not too much of a close-up but reasonably	Straight cut
9	Long shot	0.5 seconds	The same angle shot as shot 7, however the camera just watches Dave Grohl from behind slowly approaching the microphone	Fade out
10	Tilt from above into a long-shot	6 seconds	Camera tilts down from above Dave grohl when he begins singing and stops tilting once Dave's fully body from head to toe is in the shot for a second	Straight cut
11	Close-up	3 seconds	Camera focused on Dave's face slightly below the jawline looking up	Straight cut
12	Extreme Close-up	3 seconds	Camera looking side on to Dave and the mic and slowly moves out for proportion	Straight cut
13	Close up	1.5 seconds	Above Dave's head, looking down upon him singing	Straight cut
14	Extreme close-up	1 second	Showing Dave's Guitar and his hand action at which he is doing to show the audience a bit more intimacy for detail	Straight cut