HIATUS

Parisienne Records (Deanna and Dora) has taken a short break from filming and updating blogs over the Christmas and exam season- but we will be back shortly!

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Dividing Roles

PARISIENNE RECORDS

THE TEAM

Dora Lynn & Deanna Quirke

As there are two of us in the group- we need to start thinking of dividing up roles and who is exactly going to do what so we can get the most out of our time and lessons. Last year I felt that I wasn't particularly organised and we weren't working as a unit- but hopefully things will change!

We have decided that I am going to be the performer, starring in the video, trying to give a performance that is conventional of the genre across all ancillary tasks and the video itself. As a result- Dora is going to be the cinematographer, taking all the pictures and recording all of the footage as well as editing it. This led to Dora becoming the brains of the operation- dealing in the technical side of production; choosing the right shot types, editing footage and photos, storyboarding and I would be the creative input- leading the group in terms of research, creating the ancillary tasks, performing and also assisting in the larger scale tasks like editing and setting up cameras.

Knowing exactly what we are in charge of from the start allows me and Dora to prioritise our own separate tasks with little confusing- helping us achieve a sense of professionalism and making the most of the time at hand.

Genre Theory and how it relates to my project

We have been studying various Media theorists and the genre concepts that they enforce. Rick Altman, Edward Buscombe, Richard Maltby, Ian Craven and John Fiske are all influential Media theorists, and it is of the utmost importance to understand their theories and apply them to my own project.

Richard Altman, the writer of A Theory of Narrative, believes that genre is negative, it restricts space for thought and discovery and turns viewers into passive voyeurs- taking in everything the Media feeds them. However, the main point of this theory is that genre doesn't acknowledged the hybrid- and every film or genre of music draws from various other genres, so it is ignorant just to put things into one box. John Fiske, a media scholar, shares the belief of Altman, that there are a variety of characteristics within each genre, but the viewer needs to decide what genre is the 'main' genre- where most of the icons within that genre are present. In terms of Dora and I's music video for 'Pumpkin Soup' by Kate Nash, the female solo artist genre is strongly apparent by the styling of the music video, the song we've used and a few scenes that have been influenced by singers like Gwen Stefani and Beyonce (a 'studio' scene cut with juxtaposed with situational scenes) - however, indie-pop subgenres are very influential as the styling has a 'kooky' edge and we've tried to incorperate humour into the situational scenes.

Edward Buscombe, an editor at the British Film Institute believes that iconology is the best way to achieve generic definitions- and this also comes under the umbrella of auteur theory, where symbolism within the Media is so distinct that you can tell who made the film- not just what genre it is. In basic terms of genre- the symbols of money, guns, New York accents and suits are common attribute of gangster films like Goodfellas. In regards to auteur theory- camera shots from a car boot, close ups of women's feet, characters framed in doorways and the phrase 'Bingo!' are all trademarks of the auteur Quentin Tarantino. We have tried to use iconology within our project to try and present the indie-pop edge to the audience via the forms of retro dresses and make up as well a kind of sillyness and 'not taking yourself too seriously' mindset that comes with singers like Katy Perry and Kate Nash.

Richard Maltby & Ian Craven strongly hold the belief that the success of Hollywood relies on predictable elements with a slight variation- as audiences like to pre-read texts and know exactly what they're watching before they go in to see a film. We have tried to go against this by creating a very unique storyline and look to our music video.

CASE STUDY: Documentary shoot with MA Film and TV Production students at the University of Bristol

In my AS year- we didn't really work as a production company or have separate roles, however for A2, it's detrimental to our project to know exactly what we're doing when creating a media production.

Last year, I assisted a group of MA students film a 3 minute documentary focusing on the questions 'What did you want to be when you grew up?' and 'What do you do now?'. Though I obviously didn't get involved in the technical side of filming and directing- it was my job to stroll about with a sign and encourage people to be a part of the film. However simple my job was that day, watching the others certainly gave me a great insight into what goes into producing good footage and how to get the best shots possible. Prior to the shoot that day- the students I worked with visited all the locations with a camera and took a picture of the exact shots that they wanted to get, just how it would look on film. I realise that this prevented them from wasting precious time and I should certainly employ this technique when it comes to making our film opening.

Something else I learned was incorporating the use of masking tape to make sure everyone who was in the shot was positioned properly, ensuring they weren't cut off or with light on their faces. This also made each shot look consistent- creating a very professional feel overall. Also, I got a feel of what it was like to work in a team, where each person had their own job; director, editor, producer, sound operator...rather than just using whoever is available at the time. On the more technical side, I encountered some of the most advanced equipment I've ever seen close up such as boom microphones and professional cameras. Also, I had the chance to meet the tutor of the course and take a look around the the Drama department of the University of Bristol!

I believe my time spent with the Film & TV Production students was a very worthwhile experience as I have learnt some particularly good skills in both film and organisation. Furthermore, just meeting and getting to know these people (apart from my manager, who I am already quite acquainted with, as he got me in on the task) was particularly beneficial as I have a network of people to talk to when it comes to making our music video. Despite that they were making a documentary- which is completely different to our project, I learnt a wealth of valuable and transferable skills that will Parisienne Records.

Target Audience Research

Target Audience Researc by parisiennerecords

Target Audience-Vlog

We compiled all of our research into a short video, looking at our target audience in depth and examining exactly what they'd want from a music video.

Representation within our music video

What different groups of people do you have in your genre?
Within our music video, we are using a variety of stereotypes to add a touch of light humour to our music video. The majority of the stereotypical representation comes in the form of the 3 men who are infatuated with the protaganist, to show the diversity between her partners and that she'd happily go out with anyone. We have 'The Geek', 'The Hunk' and 'The Bohemian' all chasing after a realitively new stereotype of women which we have referred to as 'Indie Girl'. In recent years, singers like Adele, Amy Winehouse, Kate Nash and Florence + The Machine have rose to success without ever portraying themselves as sex objects- they are still attractive and dress femininely, but play instruments as opposed to dancing scantily clad and portray a sassy and feisty attitude.

What are the common stereotypes?
'The Hunk':
Cocky, muscley, stylishly dressed but slightly dim-witted. He is going to be featured in a gym scene where the protaganist is spotting him as he lifts weights.

'The Geek':
Shy, nervous, cute, bow tie + glasses. He is going to be having a romantic picnic with the protaganist, and perhaps on a country bike ride. She gets bored by him in the end and cycles of to meet up with another guy.

'The Bohemian':
Alternatively dressed, an artist, sensitive. He will be painting a picture of the protaganist whilst she poses.

'Indie Girl':
Kooky dress sense, big hair, sassy, witty, fun.

Are they traditional or modern representations?
'The Geek', 'The Bohemian' and 'Indie Girl' are all modern representations as they go against the traditional grain that states that men are big and strong, and women are meek sex objects.

What changes have there been in society which have impacted on the representations of your groups?
As I stated earlier, the popularity of female indie-pop artists have influenced a generation of girls who can be seen shopping at Urban Outfitters with big backcombed hair. Rising numbers of people going to university have caused the 'The Geek' to be even more apparent in young society, with characters like Will from The Inbetweeners or the entire male cast of The Big Bang Theory. Metrosexual fashion has influenced more males to embrace their feminine side, with celebrities like Russell Brand popularizing a bohemian look. LAD culture of binge drinking, clubbing and fashionable clothes has also had a huge impact on 'The Hunk' within our music video.

Ellie Goulding- 'Your Song': analysing existing media texts

In the video for Ellie Goulding's song, 'Your Song'- it's simplicity is what makes it beautiful. I've tried my best to analyse very different music videos, and this is unlike anything that I've ever seen before. It has a muted colour palette of soft beiges and greens from the trees, and a bokeh effect has been used on the footage to give it a dreamlike feel.

There is no set narrative to the music video, it features Ellie in situations with her friends and family (walks in the park, playing on a piano, on a train) but the bokeh effect, but this is interjected with a scene of her in the woods on her own- much sharper in effect than any other scene in the music video. This suggests that she is reminiscing of a time in the past.

'Your Song' is very ballad-like and slow in comparison to the other songs I have analysed, 'California Gurls' and 'Foundations' and therefore the conventions most likely wouldn't apply to our video for 'Pumpkin Soup' but something we could take from the video is the use of close ups- as they were especially effective at drawing us into Ellie's story, and the indie styling in terms of clothes and hair- as we can't forget about about the indie half of Kate Nash's music.

Katy Perry- 'California Gurls': analysing existing media texts

Katy Perry's video for California Gurls is set in a fantasy land called Candyfornia, where Katy and a gaggle of confectionery themed girls are players in a board game owned by the Candy King- Snoop Dog. It has a very vibrant and sugar sweet colour palette which is presented to the audience in the Willy Wonka style setting and Katy's costumes; throughout the video she is wearing a confectionery-encrusted dress with a lilac wig, wrapped in a candy floss cloud, a girl scout outfit and a pair of sparkly blue hot pants and a cake bra! This shows that Mis-en-Scene is really important in terms of costume, this is probably down to the target audience of Katy Perry being young girls- so looking good (even if it is a little crazy!) is very important, we need to remember this when making our own music video as we share the same audience as Katy!

The narrative involves Katy battling through the board game, adding to her team of candy girls and eventually taking on Snoop Dog- however, like many other music videos- it incorporates a scene, usually a studio, which will interject between the narrative where the artist is solely lip syncing singing. We will most likely follow this pattern too as it keeps the piece true to the form of the music video.

At the end of the video, Katy goes back to basics and fits the conventions of a traditional female solo artist- with a racy dance routine with a legion of back up dancers! I don't think this would be horrible appropriate for a Kate Nash music video, but it kind of told us that even though Kate Nash's music is a little bit more 'feminist' (for lack of a better word), sex appeal may be very important when creating a music video so it can appeal to both sexes.

Kate Nash 'Foundations' - analysing existing media texts

This is something we need to look into a lot of detail- a video by Kate Nash herself! The colour scheme is quite unique- being quite muted, lots of beiges and pale blues- but with splashes of yellow such as Kate's dress, a Power Ranger toy, lemons and bottles of lager in the fridge. As the long is about a couple on the process of breaking up- to me the splashes of yellow represent hope and happiness amongst the storm. I like the idea of doing a similar thing with 'Pumpkin Soup'.

Also, a lot of stop motion is used- the couples' socks trying to get tangled up with each other and their toothbrushes trying to 'kiss'- this gives a fun childlike element to the video. In terms of camera shots, mostly close ups are used as Kate is telling us her most intimate thoughts- and these make us feel close to her.

Unlike other female solo artists, Kate more or less sings/lip syncs throughout her whole music- as her songs are like stories that just need to be told rather than just music. I think we will probably employ this within our music video to try and fit her usual conventions.

Ellie Goulding: Webpage Design research

ellieg

Conventions of Ellie Goulding's website:
Muted colours, lots of pictures of Ellie Goulding, seems to have the perfect balance between commercial and alternative when compared to Kate Nash's and Katy Perry's websites.

Ellie Goulding's website

Katy Perry: Webpage Design research

katyp

Katy Perry's website

Perfect example of branding- continuous theme throughout the music video for 'California Gurls', posters, every website and CD covers, bright feminine colours.

Copywrite Awareness

Fiction Records Limited

In the music industry, crimes against copywriting and licensing are becoming more and more frequent. Within 5 minutes, someone could download an entire album via program like BitTorrent or Limewire. Distrubuting someone else's music without paying for it carries a serious fine, so it is important to attempt to get permission to use a music track when creating an amateur music video.

I have written a letter to Kate Nash's ex-label Fiction Records. Although she is now signed with Geffen Records, Kate recorded the album Made of Bricks with Fiction- meaning they own the rights to it.

It is unlikely that they will return a letter to a group of A-level students, but it is important to show that you have done it. I have sent a letter to them and tried to contact them from their website...


Presentation 1

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Storyboard

Storyboard

Apologies for the horizontal format of the storyboard!

Song Choice

We have decided to do a music video for our coursework, because we believe it is the choice that we can have fun with. We also have managed to think up a lot of ideas in a short space of time, which shows that we are very enthused with the concept of a music video- making us less likely to run out of ideas when it comes to post-production.

We are going to make a music video (as well as posters and a CD cover) for Kate Nash's song Pumpkin Soup from the album Made of Bricks. We chose this song because we thought it had a fun narrative, and a lot to play with in regards to creating a music video. I'm looking forward to starting production as now we have chosen our song choice, we can start to assess out target audience and start story-boarding.

The Culmination Theory

Because of the difficulty of proving the effects of individual media texts on their audience a theory. According to this, while any one media text does not have too much effect, years and years of watching more violence will make you less sensitive to violence, years and years of watching women being mistreated in soaps will make you less bothered about it in real life.

One difficulty with both of these ways of looking at the media is that they are very difficult to prove either way. Many people have a general sense that the media do affect our behaviour and advertisers certainly justify their fees by working on this assumption, but it can be extraordinarily difficult to actually prove how much effect if any a text might have on an audience. In fact researchers have spent enormous amounts of time and effort trying to prove the validity of the culmination theory with no success- this of course does not mean that there is no truth in it as an idea.

http://www.northallertoncoll.org.uk/media/audience.htm

The Hyperdermic Syringe

This theory implies that the media has a direct impact on the audience:

- A child will play a arcade fighter video game, then attack his friend at school the next day.
- A man will see a woman washing up, and will assume that it is a woman's job to do the cleaning.

The Hyperdermic Syringe is thought of as quite a basic way to distinguish the distrubution of ideologies- but on a large scale, it seems to come together. For example; after the release of the uncut version of Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, in the years 1972-73 p,olice had linked several cases to the film that had been committed by teenagers after one of the ascused admitted to reading the book. As a result of this, Kubrick even attempted to get the film banned itself

However, the flaw in this theory is that people respond to the media in different ways. So Man A will believe that it is a woman's job to do the washing up after watching Bree Van de Kamp on an episode of Desperate Housewives- but Man B might think 'Hey, that's really awful that woman need to do all the housework- I'm going to do the ironing for my girlfriend when I get home'. The hyperdermic syringe theory sees all of the audience as a mass, and not as individuals.

The Three Choices

Short Film:
+Long duration (more 'time' to play with)
-A social message needs to conveyed.
-Hard to pull off.
-A member of the group must be competent in script writing.
-Copyrighted music is banned.

Teaser Trailer:
+Short script
+Many different genres to choose from.
-Despite only showing small sections of the film, you need to know exactly what is going to happen.
-Copyrighted music is banned.


Music Video:
+Shots can be recycled.
+The narrative is already in place from the lyrics.
+Copyrighted can be used.

It's good that our school selects Film as it's option as it plays to our strengths as a group as me and Dora are both performing art students. For the above reasons we've decided to choose the music video option, as it allows us to use our directing and creative skills within the guideline of an already set narrative.

Personal Targets

From my AS year, I have learnt that I need to improve my time management skills. Even though everything worked out in the end, and I achieved a good grade and create successful product- everything seemed to be done in a mad rush before hand in day. To counteract this, this year, I'm going to make sure I plan everything I do- and aim for 10 blog entries every month to suggest consistent progress though out the course.

I had a little trouble using iMovie and generally issues with technology were my main problem. However, this year we're using Adobe PremierPro which I have experience of using from GCSE, where I achieved an A* grade because I felt at ease with the programs we were using in the editing process. Although I have used APP before, I'm going to do some extra reading on the program so I can make full use the effects available to us. I'm also going to take a camera out on every 'shoot' so we can document the creation of our project as it happens.

Hand in date is probably going to be at the beginning of May- so we have nearly the whole year to create an amazing end project and a detailed production process.

Preliminary Task :)

In order to understand the true nature of technical creativity, these were some of the questions that were raised:

Why would you use that camera angle?
What effect does that close up have on the scene?
What message does that style of editing convey to the audience?

Technical creativity means being aware of what you are doing, and asking the question 'Why is that happening?' instead of 'What's going to happen?' To use it effectively, you need to understand why you are using every single shot or cut. An example is using a pan instead of a jump cut to suggest an unravelling story, or an aerial shot to convey a sense of omniscience within a scene.

The task we were given was to create a scene around the word suspicion, and to make it as short as possible- so we could truly focus on why we were doing things, and how it made the audience feel- rather than what it looked like to them.

Subsequent to hearing this, we chose the basic narrative of a girl being followed. When we were trying to in-camera edit to save time, discovery was used to a great extent to explain to the audience that the girl was walking into trouble, and getting herself involved in an unwanted situation. Close ups were also used to show the audience the girl's emotions and fears that someone was following her. Long shots were also used to distance her from the audience, and make her seem alone. When it came to editing on iMovie, we distorted the images and unsaturated to the colour to create a colour pallet that wouldn't out of place in a horror movie to create a sense of fear with the effects, tense music was used for the same reason.