Album research:

I have been thinking about My digi pack and i have researched into album covers by women who are in the pop industry today,
I liked Ke$ha's cover - Animal:

I really like the use of colour i like how the main picture is in black and white and ke$ha's lips are in colour this is really quirky and the glitter is really girly this would fit really well with the ideas for our album, i also like how the writing is in colour as i feel this stands out so much more as the picture is in black and white, colour is a very important factor when thinking about my album cover.

Rhianna- Ristricted:

I liked this cover as i think is is different compared to the other typical album covers by women popstars, i like how its not focused on rhianna's face and it doesnt even have her name on, however Rhianna is a very famous women and is known world wide, for my album cover i will have to show a clear picture of the artist and have her name quite big so it stands out.

Kylie- Aphrodite:

I really like the use of camera angle on this album cover, the low angled shot shows Kylie to have great power and authority, it shows kylie to be a strong woman, and this fits really well with our ideas for our artist as she is ment to be strong willed and to have quite a feminist ideology.

Finially Lily Allen- Alright still:

I really like how Lily Allen has used extremely funky mise-en-scene in the background for her album cover, it shows her personality and really bold and loud, this is perfect for how we want to portray our artist as she is quirky and fun.

Filming day two:

On thursday we decided to film two of our scenes as our camera has to be in soon, we started our filming during lunch break in the photography room on the white background, we set up all the lights and theses shots will be our performance part to the video, performamce tends to be in a studio and the photography room is the cloestest thing weve got. We have choose the photography studio as our location to do our split screens and some point of view shoots, As Oyinda got in her costume for this scene, i set up the camera, We started with Oyinda's performance which she was wearing a candy stripe dress, we choose this as the pink is very girly and the abit quirky which fits with her character. we did high angled shots of Oyinda singing and also shots from infront. We also filmed John who is our male actor, we filmed John blow gliter into the camera and then filmed a shot of gliter being blown at Oyinda this will be our point of view shot, i really liked how this looked and was very pleased with it.

We then filmed Oyinda and John together just messing about together and shots of John trying to put his arm around Oyinda but Oyinda pushing him away this really fits with the narrative of our video.And also John throwing confettii over oyinda which i really liked the look of, this symbolises how much John's character likes Oyinda's but Oyinda doesnt look impressed showing that shes not intrested at all. We then filmed different shots so that when editing we can put them together to make the split screen scenes, we filmed John pass a bunch of flowers off shot and then Oyinda picking one up from out of the shot. We also filmed John knocking so when we edit them together it will be as if John was knocking on Oyinda's part of the screen we filmed Oyinda ignoring him. And finally we filmed just blank white screens to put in the other split screens when John and Oyinda are not in them.

The second location we went to was the Kings Head pub in Enfield town, we was thrilled to be able to film in there and really thankful as they let us and the staff was really helpful. We was even allowed to film behind the bar which was really exciting, as this would get us great camera shots, at first we was abit worried about the dim lighting but i think it was fine in the end. We started filming the part in the lyrics 'so you want to buy us a drink then?, no! But i was thinking of buying one for your friend' we had John sit on a bar stall and then danielle walked over and mimed the girls part of the line and then John pushes her head out the way to look at Oyinda sitting behind Danielle, i think this looked really good and adds humour to our video.We also filmed some other pub scenes such as the bar and John drinking (apple juice as this is similar coloured to beer) we filmed this shot as it could be our open shot to that verse which starts with the lyrics 'cut to the pub...'

After uploading what we filmed we was able to show the rest of our group and they thought what we had filmed looked really good and so did I and now we cant wait to start using final cut pro to get editing, im so excited.

Pink's idea:

After filming, I watched Pinks video raise your glass and realised that she had used almost excatly the same shot as us, to show women in such a strong light:

At the begining of the video pink is shown tensing her musle and she has a bandanna just like the ww1 poster which we had already decided to use.
I also like other ways Pink has shown a feminist ideology, at the very start of the video you see a girl shown not to be worried about her weight as she is eating a corndog, and she then hits the typically thin girl who is a cardboard cut out, this symbolises that the girl on the right (the cardboard cut out) is not a real women. women are portrayed in music video's as very thin and often shown in a sexual way, pink doesnt conform to these sterotypical views of women.

Another video which really shows Pinks views on sterotypical women in the media is Pink - stupid girls:

Filming day one:

The other day, we went to Danielle's house to film the bedroom scene, we wanted to use danielle's bedroom as it is a really girly bedroom which is really pink and has a very pretty look, mise-en-scene is very important and although the character in our video is a very pro women and stong women we still want her to be fun and girly.
we started by setting up the location, we put magazines on the bed, with a teddy and lots of pink cusions. Then Oyinda got into costume, she was wearing a dark coloured topcat t-shirt we wanted her outfit to be quirky and stand out against the pale pinks in the background, she also wore long brown socks, this is a typical bedroom outfit as you wouldnt just wear a t-shirt out on its own. we then set the camera up and started filming Oyinda sitting on the bed we then filmed her sitting on the floor by the window this let us get a high angled shot, and also a close up, i really liked these shots as the lighting was really good near the window. We then filmed Oyinda jumping on the bed just as an extra shot which is quite quirky and funny and we want humour in our video. we then filmed Oyinda sitting next to our WW1 poster which we had put on the wall next to the bed, Oyinda was pulling the same pose as the women in the poster. I really enjoyed our first day of filming and im so excited about uploading and seeing all the footage.

Practice filming:

The other day our group went out just around school to do some practice filming to get a feel of the camera and try out some of our ideas for our song choice, we practiced different shot angles and lip syncing. After uploading the shots we realised that we would need to film from so many different shot types especially close ups as there are very important in music videos. When we started to edit what we had filmed we realised that we didnt film nearly enough footage to make a music video however we managed to put together what we had filmed. we have put together the start of our song,and then we did a seperate video just showing some of our practice filming:

Andrew Godwin's theory:

Andrew Godwin writing in 'Dancing in the Distraction Factory' (Routledge 1992)
1. Music video's demonstrate genre charecteristics. For example, stage performance in metal video/ dance performance for a boy/girl band all need their set stage directions.

2. There is a relationship between music and visuals; either illustrate, amplify, contradicting.

3. There is a relationship between music and lyrics; either illustrate, amplify, contradicting.


4. The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work ( a visual style)

5. There is frequently reference to notion of looking (screens within screens telescopes) particularly voyeurism treatment of the body.

6. There is often intertextual reference (to films, tv, music)

Conventions of a music video:

Lyrics: these tend to help establish a general mood, feeling or sense of subject matter, rather than offering a meaning.
key lines may play a part in association to visuals but very rarely will music videos simply illustrate the lyrics.

My group and i have already picked out certain lyrics which we would like to have images to match the lyrics, however not to many as we thing this would look cheesy.

Music: the tempo and pace of the song should drive the editing, we would like to emphasise particular sounds from our song by changing the editing technique at these parts in the song.

Genre: some genres cross over while others are categorised, i think our song is pop. some channels and radio stations focus on a particular genre, i think The Box, The Hits, Non-stop smash hits, and Viva mainly focus on pop music.

Camera work: Camera movements may accompany the movement of performers, we would like to use a Dolly or Track to have our performer walking towards the camera on a straight path.

Close ups create star image and a sense of intimacy with an audience, this emphasises the purpose of our music video to promote and sell our star and video.
We will be trying to use lots of close ups for these reasons.

Editing: quick, fast cuts, montage effect this will go well with our song as it is very up beat and fast pace. Digital effects to enhance editing and we would like to use split screens if we can and colourisation.

Some of our lyric ideas:

so this is a song about anyone, it could be anyone. mid/lobg shot of our main singer (female) and a boy just appears in the background as if from no where.
Cut to the pub on our last night out A quick cut shot to a pub.
oh yeah actually im pregnant the girl pretending to be pregnant/ waving a pregnancy stick in his face?
"oh here we go" extreme close up of girls lips singing
Go away not, let me go... split screens

Our treatment:

Feminism:

For our music video we are thinking of going against the 'norms'of a pop video, we want to have a feminist approach to our video which will contradict the normal conventions of traditional pop videos, however other artists like pink and the spice girls also have a 'girl power' ideology, we have been thinking of ways to include intextual elements and decided to use our pro women idea to do so, we was thinking that our bedroom scene where the artists are sitting in a girly bedroom we could have a close up shot of a WW1 Women poster on the bedroom wall, this will show our message of strong women, we think this will match our song as it is mainly about men who constantly come up to girls with the intention to 'pull' we have based our narraitive around this, however we are showing our artist as against this and we want to take away the subjectifing view of women in music videos.
We want to show our actress in typical womens locations such as the kitchen however we will contrast this with her doing something there which is not so typical of women such as, going through the fridge while her bf cleans around her.

Performance idea's

For our music video we wanted to use the diversity of both narrative and performance elements to make it interesting to watch. For our performance part we have decided to use a plain white back drop so the outfits and colours on our performer will stand out as it is a pop genre we wanted to have bold bright colours to fit with the conventions. We are using the photography room as the location of our performance element as we can use the lighting and back drop to make our video look professional.
This video by Florence and the Machine reflect ideas that we may include in our performance part. Her bright outfit, movement and props (heart shaped flower bouquet), stand out against the minimal background. This video has inspired us to make our shots more imaginative, so rather that just a front, still shot, we could include some high angle shots or low shots of feet dancing.





I really like the flower props used in the video and I'd really like to use similar props as i think they stand out look really creative i think they will go very well with our song and video.

here is a screen shot of us using a similar prop in our music video: