the sucessfull short film we did in the summer

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=162291697072&saved


i have put the link up from facebook to show about the sucessful short film we did in the summer. from Daniel great acting skills and confidence we thought he would be great for our main task. this also shows the feedback some of people comented

editing the photos on photoshops experimenting ideas.

In the past week i have been watching loads of music videos and films to get some ideas on on the music video as it has been on my mind. Also when comign across photographs of young love and couples, as this is what we are aiming for. we are putting together a presentation on how what we have done so far and what are plans are to achive. we will be filmed doing this presenation on monday.

i have now started to get some screen tests with my new camera that i got for photography. then i have got Daniel to do some lup- sycing to the track, using different shots and ways towards. Danuel was very confident and tried very hard to stick to it and he tried to make it look as natural as he could, although we had to do it for a several of times to get it to look natural. Daniel being an alevel Drama student is very confident and intense infront of the camera and he had learned the lyrics of by heart being prepared infront of the camera.

Locations

Our two prime locations for the storyline are an ordinary suburban house and a deserted beach…
*The house will most likely be Anusha’s as it’s easy and accessible to film in.
*An isolated beach shouldn’t be too hard to track down as we are filming in the winter months where most people have no interest in going to the seaside. We are going to go to Bournemouth for this as it’s one of the nearest seaside towns and we know it fairly well.

Casting

*We cast our two main roles fairly quickly…
*We cast Daniel Mija in the role of the artist in the video as we worked with him in our summer project so we know he’s reliable and we know he’s capable.
*i tried out some test shots with Dan lip-syncing to the track which were very successful and made us more confident about shooting the video.
*Our other roles were tricky to fill as we needed them to be the
Same character, only at different years of their life. Luckily we managed to get Mimi and through the drama department we held auditions and found Lucy, a strong actress from Year 8, to fill these roles.

Storyboarding

*We have made several drafts of parts of our storyline and we have a clear vision on how the camera angles and techniques will dictate the beginning and ending of our music video
*However we have yet to finalise a storyboard as we are not yet completely sure about the shots during some segments of our storyline
*Our goal is to finish this by the end of this week and scan the final draft onto our group & individual blogs.

Further research to help us with our album cover…

*We also researched further into the promo packages artists offer such album covers and press releases
*We found that there was often distinct relationship between album covers and music videos, especially if the album cover brandishes an image of the artist.
*I have a background in photography and I practised taking
test shots and editing them on Photoshop.
*Anusha looked at iconic album covers and analysed them on her blog to identify what made them particularly striking and memorable so it would influence us when creating our own.

planning and concept

*First we looked into the context of the lyrics to fully understand the story within the song.
*We then brainstormed some original ideas which would be in keeping with the meaning of the song.
*We wanted a simple but interesting storyline which would provide equal performance and narrative elements and we needed something which was achievable but still gave us the opportunity for great mise-en-scene.

our inital ideas and research

To get started we looked at a wide selection of music from various genres such as punk, rock n’ roll, Motown, RnB and some classic pop tunes
*We were both in agreement that the folksy ballad “Vienna” by Billy Joel would be the best song for us to create a video for. It currently has no existing video as it was never released as a single.
*Our research consisted mainly of looking into the meaning of the lyrics and analysing some of Joel’s other videos such as “Uptown Girl” and “Piano Man”
*We then individually looked at videos from more current artists to compare as most of Joel’s videos are from the late 70’s to 80’s. i analysed Pixie Lott’s videos whilst Anusha looked at a couple of No Doubt’s.

me and anusha have a while scince we have been thinking about what the narrative would be for our music video, after brainstorming some initial ideas and casting the roles we now have a solid storyline that we can translate to a story board.

We fist want to start with an establishing shot of a train pulling out of the station. The camera pans along a row of empty seats till it reaches a profile view of a young girl around 17 years old. we have not given the girl a name, so we just call her a "girl" we want a dramtic sa look of her, so we give her a messy make up,with dark eye liner smugged down to her cheaks and black eyeshadow too so her eyes stand out,as we are focusing on her eyes as we want a close up to her eyes and then a flash back to the giel wen she was young. so we have to look for a young actor with blue eyes like mimi. for her hair we thought messy would be good as this would show that the girl is lost and confused. we wanted the girl to also look innocent so for her costume we thought a kind of old fashioned dress and also a jacket as we want her to bee seen as a runaway child. we want both the young mimi and teenage mimi to wear the same dress but for the young mimi we want her to have her hair curly, so for the fist verse we would want the young mimi to be on screen, we want young mimi to be lieing down on her parents bed when she wakes up tired and confused and just puts on her mothers make up, while searching around she find her a bottle of pills which she take

"Slow down you crazy child" suggests. There is then a 360 degree revolve around her is followed by her mother, a tired looking woman in a cashmere twin-set and pearls, appearing at the the door. When she sees her daughter she laughs endearingly at her make-up slathered face and strokes her hair in a motherly fashion as the girl sits awkwardly looking down and feeling guilty. Her mother then noticing the open bottle of pills becomes alert and empties the bottle, counting each pill. Once realisation has hit her that they are not all there, her behavour becomes erratic as she tears the room apartsearching for the stray pills. Admist all the chaos, the girl backs out of the room slowly. the next shot we jump to is the young girl, weighed down with bags, quietly leaving the house at the crack of dawn.

We then cut back to the train, focusing the camera at a young man dressed in black watching protectively over the teenage girl which brings us to the performance element of the video as he sings the line "When will you realise...Vienna waits for you". In our music video, we have interpreted Vienna to be a metaphor for a sanctuary to escape to when life becomes too claustraphobic. this also introduces the unrequited love sub-plot between the young man in black and the 17 year-old girl in white however, initially, she is so wrapped up in her troubles that she is oblivious to his prescence. Throughout the video, he will always be on a higher level with the camera looking down on her. This is not to diminish her but to connote a sense of caring that the boy feels towards her. It is not until the end of the video that they are both on common ground.

Super similarity to Billy Joel Elton John..



Sir Elton Hercules John, CBE (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight on 25 March 1947) is an English pop and rock singer, composer and pianist.

In a career spanning five decades, Elton John has sold over 250 million records and has over 50 Top 40 hits, making him one of the most successful musicians of all time.



Donald Hugh Henley (born July 22, 1947 in Gilmer, Texas) is an American rock musician who is the drummer and one of the lead singers and songwriters of the band ‘Eagles’. Since the 80´s he had a successful solo career and has played a founding role in several causes.

Henley’s music often is running social commentary. One of his more famous songs is “Dirty Laundry. ” Its origins date back to 1980, when Henley was put on probation for possession of a narcotic and fined for contributing to the delinquency of a minor. The ensuing media circus and on-air pundits claiming that his career was over led to the writing of the song, which continues to be an indictment against the broadcast news media. Similarly, “Johhny Can’t Read”, also on his Can’t Stand Still album, continues to resound as a commentary on the educational system.



John Mellencamp (born 7 October 1951 in Seymour, Indiana) is an American singer and songwriter, known for a long and successful recording and performing career highlighted by a series of 1980s hits, including “Jack and Diane”, and by his role in the Farm Aid charity event. Mellencamp lives in Bloomington, Indiana, and is married to former supermodel Elaine Irwin Mellencamp.

John’s first record released was under the stage name “Johnny Cougar” at the behest of Tony DeFries, his first manager. Mellencamp claims it was against his knowledge and will, and he hated the name. A few years later in 1982, he made his break through with the album “American Fool” which includes his hit single “Jack and Diane” under the stage name “John Cougar Mellencamp”. The story of that couple was years later continued with the song “Eden Is Burning” (1998), where Jack and Diane separate. He soon dropped “Cougar” moniker altogether, and has been known henceforth as “John Mellencamp”.

Mellencamp has always been socially and politically active and supported the “Vote for Change” Tour in 2004 opposing the policies of President George W. Bush.

Mellencamp’s new album Freedom’s Road came out January 23rd and went to no 5 in the American Billboard charts.



Jackson Browne was born in Heidelberg, Germany (his father was an American serviceman stationed in Germany), but moved to the Highland Park district of Los Angeles, California at an early age and began singing folk music locally. In 1966, his career began by joining The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.

A precociously talented songwriter, Browne signed a publishing contract with Nina Music, and his songs were performed by Tom Rush, Eagles, Linda Ronstadt, the Byrds and Steve Noonan, among others.

After moving to Greenwich Village, New York, Browne worked, for a brief period, in Tim Buckley’s back-up band and on Nico’s Chelsea Girl. After leaving New York City, Browne formed a folk band with Ned Doheney and Jack Wilce.

In 1971, Browne signed with Asylum Records and released Jackson Browne (1972), which included “Doctor My Eyes”, a major hit. He didn’t sustain pop success, though, and his next album, For Everyman (1973), while considered of high quality, was a commercial failure.

Late for the Sky (1974) established a significant audience for Browne, and fans and critics often consider this Browne’s best album. Highlights include the searching title song, the elegiac “For a Dancer” and apocalyptic “Before the Deluge”, the pure arrangements featuring David Lindley’s evocative violin and guitar playing, and the Magritte-inspired cover. The title track was also featured in Martin Scorsese’s film, Taxi Driver.




Neil Leslie Diamond (born January 24, 1941) is an American singer and songwriter, born in Brooklyn, NY.

From the 1960s to the 1980s, Diamond was one of the more successful pop music performers, scoring a number of hits. As critic William Ruhlmann writes, “as of 2001, he claimed worldwide record sales of 115 million copies, and as of 2002 he was ranked third, behind only Elton John and Barbra Streisand, on the list of the most successful adult contemporary artists in the history of the Billboard chart

billy joel and similar artists

Bronx, New York NY, United States

William Martin “Billy” Joel was born on May 9, 1949, in Bronx, New York. He is a singer, pianist, and songwriter.

Joel recorded many popular hit songs and albums from 1971 to his retirement from recording pop music in 1993. He is one of the very few rock or even pop artists to have Top 10 hits in the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s. A six-time Grammy Award winner, he has sold in excess of 100 million records worldwide and is the sixth best selling artist in the United States, according to the RIAA. Joel’s induction into the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame (Class of 1992), the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (Class of 1999), and the Long Island Music Hall of Fame (Class of 2006) has further solidified his status as one of America’s leading music icons. He has continued to tour occasionally (sometimes with Elton John) in addition to writing and recording classical music.

Joel first lived in the South Bronx, in New York City, but his family soon moved to Hicksville, Long Island. Often he himself, along with many in the media, have confused this with him living in neighboring Levittown, NY (formed 1947). In truth, Joel lived on Meeting Lane in Hicksville, a town that has existed since 1648, near the Levittown border, in a section of town where Post-WW2, there were houses developed by Abe Levitt, known as Levitt Houses, thus forming nearby Levittown.


Billy Joel

Tags: 1980s 70s 80's 80s 90s acoustic adult contemporary album rock alternative alternative rock american awesome ballad billy billy joel bronx classic classic pop classic rock classical classics country easy listening emo favorite favorite artists favorites female vocalists folk grunge guilty pleasures guitar hard rock indie japanese jazz latin love male male vocalist male vocalists mellow new york oldies piano piano man piano rock pop pop rock pop-rock pop/rock rock rock and roll singer songwriter singer-songwriter singer-songwriters soft rock songwriter soundtrack

Vienna Lyrics, Analysis and interpretation
It was important for us to look into the lyrics of the song to find where we could base a narrative around it and what the weaning conveyed. Some things were implied but others we had to take licenses with so it would be our interpretation of the song.
Slow down, you crazy child
You're so ambitious for a juvenile
But then if you're so smart,
tell me Why are you still so afraid?
Where's the fire, what's the hurry about?
You'd better cool it off before you burn it out
You've got so much to do and
Only so many hours in a day
_______________________
But you know that when the truth is told...
That you can get what you want or you get old
You're gonna kick off before you even
Get halfway through
When will you realize, Vienna waits for you?
____________________________
Slow down, you're doing fine
You can't be everything you want to be
Before your time
Although it's so romantic on the borderline tonight
Tonight,...
Too bad but it's the life you lead
you're so ahead of yourself that you forgot what you need
Though you can see when you're wrong, you know
You can't always see when you're right. you're right
You've got your passion, you've got your pride
but don't you know that only fools are satisfied?
Dream on, but don't imagine they'll all come true
When will you realize, Vienna waits for you?
______________________
Slow down, you crazy child
and take the phone off the hook and disappear for awhile
it's all right, you can afford to lose a day or two
When will you realize,..Vienna waits for you?
And you know that when the truth is told
that you can get what you want or you can just get old
You're gonna kick off before you even get half through
Why don't you realize,. Vienna waits for you
When will you realize, Vienna waits for you?
This song can have a multipul of meanings where a girl just wants to be free and time to get her head cleared out.

vienna research

"Why did I pick Vienna to use as a metaphor for the rest of your life? My father lives in Vienna now. I had to track him down. I didn't see him from the time I was 8 'till I was about 23-24 years old. He lives in Vienna, Austria which I thought was rather bizarre because he left Germany in the first place because of this guy named Hitler and he ends up going to the same place that Hitler hung out all those years! Vienna, for a long time was the crossroads. During the Cold War, between the Eastern Bloc, the Warsaw Pact nations and the NATO countries was the city of Vienna... Vienna was always the crossroads - between the Ottoman Empire and the Holy Roman Empire. So the metaphor of Vienna has the meaning of a crossroad. It's a place of inter...course, of exchange - it's the place where cultures co-mingle. You get great beer in Vienna but you also get brandy from Armenia. It was a place where cultures co-mingled.
So I go to visit my father in Vienna, I'm walking around this town and I see this old lady. She must have been about 90 years old and she is sweeping the street. I say to my father "What's this nice old lady doing sweeping the street?" He says "She's got a job, she feels useful, she's happy, she's making the street clean, she's not put out to pasture". We treat old people in this country pretty badly. We put them in rest homes, we kinda kick them under the rug and make believe they don't exist. They [the people in Vienna] don't feel like that. In a lot of these older places in the world, they value their older people and their older people feel they can still be a part of the community and I thought 'This is a terrific idea - that old people are useful -and that means I don't have to worry so much about getting old because I can still have a use in this world in my old age. I thought "Vienna waits for you..."
There is also a lot of inside stuff on the song. The beginning and the end is very Kurt Weill. That kind of sick, middle-European, kinky decadent thing.. cabaret kinda.... there's a lot of crazy stuff going on. We are seeing the result of it in this ethnic warfare in the Balkans which is a tragedy. This century started out with this Assassination of the Archduke in Sarajevo and that begat World War I which begat the Russian Revolution, then you had the Depression then that begat World War II and then that begat the Cold War and all that's over but they're still blowing each other to smithereens in Sarajevo. So this whole thing is going on in middle Europe - it's Kurt Weill. And some composers, Dvořák, Smetana - they captured it."

....

..

pixie Lott music video research for Mama Do

I will be comparing a couple of Pixie Lott's videos as her kind of music interests me. i'm going to look to see if there is a certain style that they all have. firstly i looked at mama do as in this music video the style is a contemporary pop style, which makes it appealing to young teenage girls who are i imagine are the majority of her target audience. I like the dream like nature of this video as it makes the narrative more engaging. the Narrative suits the lyrics for example the part when the guys enter in they have a little dance off and naturally the girls win. this empowers the girls, which increases her feminine appeal. The clothes she is wearing in the video are stylish and trendy but also attractive to males. this helps with her image as an up and coming pop star. Pixies Lotts make up in the video also adds to the glamorous look that she is trying to create, this makes her a roll model to young teenage girls. overall the Video is a successful piece in my opinion as it creates an engaging narrative to accompany a very good song.



Her next release which is called boys and girls, in my opinion in comparison with the mama do music video is more relaxed and it is more performance based then narrative based. This music video is fun and cool and i would say it would be directed at teenagers and youngsters because in the video its all young people dressed in really fashionable clothes, so young people are inspired by that. pixie's make up is quite contemporary on trend.

initial ideas

i will be doing a music video.

i have done some music research

From our own knowledge and some research we knew "Vienna" was a song from Billy Joel's 1977 breakthrough album "The Stranger". Although neevr released as a single, Joel still cites this as one of his favourite songs.




We looked at various websites and found a re-occuring story that Joel told when asked about the song and why he chose Vienna to represent a sanctuary to reitire into while the rest of you life awaits:

"Why did I pick Vienna to use as a metaphor for the rest of your life? My father lives in Vienna now. I had to track him down. I didn't see him from the time I was 8 'till I was about 23-24 years old. He lives in Vienna, Austria which I thought was rather bizarre because he left Germany in the first place because of this guy named Hitler and he ends up going to the same place that Hitler hung out all those years! Vienna, for a long time was the crossroads. During the Cold War, between the Eastern Bloc, the Warsaw Pact nations and the NATO countries was the city of Vienna... Vienna was always the crossroads - between the Ottoman Empire and the Holy Roman Empire. So the metaphor of Vienna has the meaning of a crossroad. It's a place of inter...course, of exchange - it's the place where cultures co-mingle. You get great beer in Vienna but you also get brandy from Armenia. It was a place where cultures co-mingled.
So I go to visit my father in Vienna, I'm walking around this town and I see this old lady. She must have been about 90 years old and she is sweeping the street. I say to my father "What's this nice old lady doing sweeping the street?" He says "She's got a job, she feels useful, she's happy, she's making the street clean, she's not put out to pasture". We treat old people in this country pretty badly. We put them in rest homes, we kinda kick them under the rug and make believe they don't exist. They [the people in Vienna] don't feel like that. In a lot of these older places in the world, they value their older people and their older people feel they can still be a part of the community and I thought 'This is a terrific idea - that old people are useful -and that means I don't have to worry so much about getting old because I can still have a use in this world in my old age. I thought "Vienna waits for you..."
There is also a lot of inside stuff on the song. The beginning and the end is very Kurt Weill. That kind of sick, middle-European, kinky decadent thing.. cabaret kinda.... there's a lot of crazy stuff going on. We are seeing the result of it in this ethnic warfare in the Balkans which is a tragedy. This century started out with this Assassination of the Archduke in Sarajevo and that begat World War I which begat the Russian Revolution, then you had the Depression then that begat World War II and then that begat the Cold War and all that's over but they're still blowing each other to smithereens in Sarajevo. So this whole thing is going on in middle Europe - it's Kurt Weill. And some composers, Dvořák, Smetana - they captured it."

A2 Music Video Blog

This is my new blog for my A2 Music Video. Over the summer I have been thinking about who i will be working with for this task, but first had to know other peoples plans and opinions on whatthey wanted to do, as i would want to work with a girl that i worked with for my summer task, when we had to make a short film, but now i want to do something different so it would be more exciting. As it all went to plan with our short film and we also worked well together, it would be very keen and exciting we to work together in this task..

Before starting on the task I fist had to consider whether I would choose to do a short film or a music video, as a did a short film for my summer assignment task focussed on emotions with the brief to include a range of camera shots and angles. I enjoyed making the film and it did come out successfully and as we wanted it to. But as I did a short film for the summer task and gained the practice and experience in making it, I thought I now wanted to try out something new instead for the A2 media task and gain experience in making a music video instead, however even though, I decided I wanted to make a music video, I feel it would be slightly easier this time, as I now have the experience of making a short film and I will be taking on board the skills I learned from the short film and hopefully develop more throughout the course. Having decided that I will now be doing a music video I now have to consider who I will be working with throughout this procedure.fining that anusha too wants to do a music video and having successfully succeeded in the summer short film task with Anusha , who was a very keen and enthusiastic individual, and also now a very good friend of mine from the enthusiasm we had to create a good short film, we both spoke about it and thought it would be best if we worked together again for the music video. As we both know how we work and that we can relay on each other to get things done, and meet up for discussions. So now we have decided that we want to work with each other and that we both want to do a music video to try something new, but the next thing to think about was start making a start on what kind of music we wanted to do and research.

As both me and Anusha are quite different individuals and are into different types of music, for example she’s more into like rock and I am more into pop however this wasn’t suppose to reflect on our personal tastes, we both thought it would only be fair if we did something we both liked but wasn’t favoured in either of our music preferences. At the beginning it was quite challenging to find a song the we both really liked but as we were both so keen on trying to find the perfect song that didn’t have an existing video that we could be prejudiced by. We searched a lot of songs, trying to find one that we both liked and had to make sure the song could interpret a narrative with performance elements, so having this in mind; we brainstormed possible tracks we could use, listening to them from a range of artists, we made a list of the likely tracks and we both liked, so we started to look at the lyrics to try and decide which one was for us, the list is shown below.






Possible Tracks
"Enjoy the Silence" by Depeche Mode (remix by Mike Shinoda)
"Bang Bang Bang Bang" by Soho Dolls
"Vienna" by Billy Joel
"Life on Mars" by David Bowie
"Memories are made of this" by Dean Martin
"I've Just Seen a Face" by The Beatles
"She's a Rainbow" by The Rolling Stones
"Out of My League" by Stephen Speaks
"Piece of My Heart" by Janis Joplin
"Hey Joe" by Jimi Hendrix
"Grounds for Divorce" by Elbow
"Bette Davis Eyes" by Kim Carnes
"She's in Fashion" by Suede
"Cherrybomb" by Joan Jett & The Runaways
"Venus in Furs" by The Velvet Underground
"Moi je Joue" by Brigitte Bardot
"Wrapped up in books" by Belle & Sebastian
"Hard to live in the City" by Albert Hammond Jr.
"Eighties Fan" by Camera Obscura
"La Foule" by Edith Piaf
"Jimmy Mack by Martha & The Vandellas
"Laisse Tomber les Filles" by France Gall
"Jeepers Creepers" by Hayley Mills
"I Want to Marry a Lighthouse Keeper" by Erika Eigen

regardless of the wide-ranging list it was the “Vienna” song that we both agreed on, however this song has no existing video but has some striking lyrics which we could create a great story around within the video. With our track down we needed to start considering research into Billy Joel's back catalogue, the history of the song, potential actors, filming locations, schedules etc.