The Pitch

Locations:
London - The Millenium bridge, South Kensington Costa cafe and Petersham Road
Susie's House - Living Room, Kitchen, Dining Room, Bedroom
Epsom downs - A Hill
Canbury Gardens - Park 


Props:
Board Game, two coffee mugs, guitar


Cast:
Oliver Patriarca
Charlotte Robertson


Narrative:


Basically the main story line of the song is about a guy asking the one he loves for a seconds chance. In the music video, there will be flashes of the happy times and the bad times, this will contrast their memoriesand the audience will understand what went wrong without knowing the full narrative. There will be scenes where he is alone singing to himself, in the rain, on a hill, on the kitchen table where he imagines she is there when really he is just missing her, he also sees a game they used to play on the living room table and throws it across the room because it bring back memories. We will also use the technique of the field of depth, this is when he is at a cafe and he spots a couple in front of them, and he would be blurry and the couple would take over the shot. 


There is also a scene when they are in a park with balloons and they end up on a hill and they let it go and suddenly there will be just one balloon and him by himself on the hill which gives an abstract meaning that he is alone rather than making it obvious. In the end he is at the house in the living room, looking at the ring he was going to propose to her with and she opens the front door and they make up and he hides the ring in his pocket, give the audience the idea that she is the one for him and that one day they will get married.

Mind Map of ideas for the music video

Asking the Artist Permission

As we have chosen to use J R Aquino's original song 'What We Started', we decided to ask his permission because of the issue of copyrights. However, he did not get back to us but we also tried communicating with him through twitter but he did not respond to that either.

Chosen Song: J R Aquino - What We Started Lyrics and Analysis

What We Started - 


Rain on me
I want to feel every drop on my skin
Cause I've made a mess
I just wanna feel clean again


you said I needed to leave
but what I needed was here after all
all along


I couldn't leave
If i wanted
look what we started


we are meant to be
we are meant to see this to the end


Baby I'mma pick you up
promise never let you down
cause your presence around me baby
makes me feel unstoppable
See I've loved & lost
but have never loved like this before
It's like I'm the biggest fan of our love
and I'm asking for an encore


Analysis:


 The song is basically about a man asking for his ex girlfriend for a second chance as he has messed up their relationship in the past most likely more than once, this is shown when he sings :"Rain on me, i want to feel every drop on my skin, cause i've made a mess, i just wanna feel clean again", this means that the rain will wash away all the mistakes he has made and everything would come back to normal.
He is then trying to tell her all the things he will do and the promises he will make "Baby imma pick you up, promise not to let you down". He tells her that they have been through a lot so why should they end their relationship now, even if they want to, they are in too deep, "I couldn't leave you if I wanted, look what we started". He believes that they are soul mates, "meant to see this to the end" meaning he wants to be with her for the rest of her life (marry her). He then goes to say that he has "never felt like this before" and she is his first love and telling her he is the "biggest fan" of their love, which goes to show how much she means to him. 

Record Label - Atlantic Records

Atlantic records have been around for 20 years and started in 1947, formed by the founders of the label Ahmet Ertegue and Herb Abramson where they started in New York City. As Ahmet grew up in Washington , he wanted t know all about the recording business so he spent most of his time at a quality music shop ‘Waxie Maxie’ he had an aspiration to create records. 

Herb grew up collecting jazz and blues records just like Ahmet did and became a part time producer for National Records and that’s how they two founders found each other. Ahmet wanted to collaborate with someone with a solid background in record production so he thought of Herb as of then they formed Atlantic records. 

The recording company was different than other as they did not cheat their performers as other companies did, they gained reputation of being honest to their clients and this was their foundation to their success. Performers even signed on to the labels contract long term because they believed that their loyalties would be paid and wouldn’t regret their decision. The company was also known for recording rhythms, blues, rock and roll and jazz. 

Ahmet died in December 2006 and as of now Craige Kallman is the chairman of the company. Until now Atlantic continues to operate till today as part of Warner Music Group using artists like Bruno Mars, Miss Elliot, Wiz Khalifa, T.I, Trey Songs, B.o.B, Florida and many more.

Third Song Choice

What we started - J R Aquino 

Second Song Choice

Set Fire To The Third Bar - Snow Patrol 

First Song Choice

Hearless Cover - The Fray 

Timeline: Music Video History

C1900 Edison invents the gramophone in the USA: First shift from music as a solely live and audiovisual experience to recorded audio on various forms of disc

1920s Fischinger experiments with sound/vision synchronisation on film - abstracts and visual interpretations

1927 First sound film, the Jazz Singer (Alan Crosland, USA)

1930s Creation of first ‘Soundies’

1939 Introduction of the Panarom

1940s Peak period of MGM Hollywood musical

1954 Elvis Presley records ‘That’s Alright (Mama)’

1960 Scopitone introduced in France

1963 UK’s first music TV programme, Ready Steady Go (ITV)

1963 Top of the Pops TV programme begins (BBC) and The Beatles release the film and album ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ (Richard Lester, UK)

1966 The Monkees’ TV Show start on NBC in the USA - used many devices like surrealism, wacky comedy, lots of action, mixed with musical performance and all typical of music video form today Band members chosen for how they would look on TV but like boy bands like The Beatles from the 1990's onwards.

1967 The Beatles release TV promos for ‘Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields Forever’

1975 Queen: Bohemian Rhapsody (Bruce Gowers)

1977 Saturday Night Fever (John Badham, USA)

1979 Buggles: Video Killed the Radio Star (Russell Malcahy)

1980 David Bowe: Ashes to Ashes (David Mallet and David Bowie)

1981 Pop Clips on Nickelodeon and MTV starts and Duran Duran: Girls on Film (Kevin Godley and LOL Crème)

1983 Michael Jackson: Thriller (John Landis) and Beginning of Country Music Television

1984 Music Box start in Europe and MTV Video Music Awards launched

1985 VH1 begins and MTV taken over by Viacom and Live Aid

1986 Dire Straits: Money for Nothing (Steve Barron) is top video

1987 MTV-Europe (MTV-E) lauched, broadcasting to 1.6m homes and Peter Gabriel: Sledgehammer (Stephan Johnson), wins best director award

1988 MTV-Europe achieves 3.5 subscribers

1989 MTV-Europe reaches 6.7 homes and Live Broadcast from Moscow Peace Festival and Madonna: Express Yourself (David Fincher), wins best director award

1900 Madonna: Vogue (David Fincher), wins best director award and Launch of MTV-Unplugged

1991 Madonna: ‘Justify My Love’ (Jean-Baptiste Mondino)

1992 MTV launches ‘The Real World’, a fly on the wall documentary following the lives of seven people sharing a New York loft.

1993 MTV launches TV Series Beavis and Butthead

1994 REM: ‘Everybody Hurts’ (Jake Scott), wins best director award and Launch of VH1 in UK and Launch of MTV- Europe Music Awards

1997 MTV UK and Ireland launches as stand-alone channel

1998 Launch of ‘Celebrity Deathmatch’

1999 Fatboy Slim: ‘Praise You’ (Spike Jonze), wins best director award

2000 Launch of ‘Jackass’

2001 Launch of MTV Dance

Splitting the group!

After having a long group discussion between myself, Sophiya, Sophie and Tyra, we decided that myself and Sophiya should work as a pair and Sophie and Tyra in another as we had different and conflicting ideas. We had the issue that they liked one song and they had ideas for that and we liked another song and we also already had ideas for it,  my and Sophiya also have similar ideas and similar frees as each other, so it would be easier to find a time when we can work on the project. I am now paired up with Sophiya and we have completed our storyboard and going to pitch our ideas to Ms Thrasher on friday

Music Television History

MTV is the most oldest and influential American cable network, launched in August 1981, it’s introduction started off with John Lack (one of the creators of MTV) spoken on camera saying “Ladies and gentlemen, rock and roll”. The first ever music video that was played on music television was ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’ Featured by the band called the Buggles. By 1984 established as central to the music business and started their own Oscars - The Video Music awards, categories like Best Director, Best Video, Most Experimental, Best Choreography, Best SFX. 

Later one MTV was established by WASEC (Warner Amex Satellite Entertainment Company. Being established made MTV available to have low cost programming in the form of music videos and at times was given free by recording companies as MTV was also used for records and performers to advertise them. It was a ‘flow’ of music videos other than other channels that had programmes; MTV constantly played music and had a schedule for when songs could be played and if they were played again, depending on the people’s favourite song.

At the earliest of MTV, music videos mostly came from Britain as they were fairly well developed. Duran Duran was one of the first British bands that became famous through the American Market, as they had a great appeal to their fans and also created interesting music videos, and from then on the band immediately became popular. It started also become important to many more artists like Madonna, Michael Jackson, Prince and U2, which MTV helped them to become famous.

MTV throughout the years started to grow and developed through stages, and started showing quizzes shows, reality programmes like 'Unplugged' which featured live performances from artists of acoustics and satirical cartoon characters like 'Beavis and Butthead'  which attracted a younger male audience. MTV also started to become available in different places such as Asia and Europe. Different types of music were introduced like rock, pop, hip hop, grime, opera, indie and heavy metal.


Each category has a different MTV channel so it suits the target audience, MTV is still successful till now and is continuingly becoming an influence world wide. However, not only the music has changed through out the years, but also the image of MTV creating a new and modern look each year that went by, keeping the audience entertained.  MTV is now owned by Viacom, a major media conglomerate but one without significant interests in the record company, they are responsible for the shift instead of the narrow rock market, making the interest at a wider range for music genres. and diversified to establish VH1 a more album orientated channel for the older audience. MTV Europe started up with a great success.

Music Video Director Case Study : Anthony Mandler

Anthony Mandler was born in April 18 1973 who is a successful commercial and music video director. It was easy for him to become a hit and gain connection as he was raised in Hollywood with celebrity classmates and industry people around him he was influence by film at a young age. He was also a USC Film graduate. He started off as a photographer taking pictures of celebrities and his work was features on the covers of major magazines like ‘ESPN’ and ‘Entertainment Weekly’ but soon after he wanted to pursue his passion for film so he started directing music videos and is now the hottest video director in strong demand and receives high critical praises. 

Throughout his directing fame are having done music videos for several artists like: Rihanna, Drake, Jay Z, Snoop Dog, Beyonce, Neyo, One Republic and many more.  There for his stardom in the music video industry is because he has a unique style of directing and photography, he has different angles and perspectives for ideas for each song he works with it makes the audience aroused by his talent. Each music video suits the artist and has a modern feel to it each time like in the music video ‘Only Girl In The World’  by Rihanna, it is totally unique, no other music video director has done that before and makes the audience look at things in a different way. 

Music Video Analysis: Foo Fighters - The Pretenders

At the start of the music video there is a extreme high angle shot, showing the location; the warehouse. An instrumental beginning starts to play, having the extreme high angle shot, establishes the location and shows the emptiness of the place, there is also a thick black line in the middle of the location which emphasises the divide between the ‘other side’, however the audience cannot see this yet until later into the music video. He stomps in, wearing a white, representing the good and grabs the guitar, this shows his body language which expresses anger, and it foretells the song that his emotions could be anger.  In the next shot there is a close up shot of his fist, where he wraps a bandage around his knuckles, portraying that he is ready for a fight as he is also clenching his fists also gives another sign of anger and strength. There is then a low angle shot of the ‘other side’ which is dark; it could mean that that side is evil and ‘the opposite’. The low angle shot also means that he is powerful, the audience has to look up at the singer and he is also at the centre of the shot making him the main attraction.

In the next shot there is an extreme close up of the singers face, he is standing in front of a red background which expresses his emotions and how he feels which is anger and frustration; this is also shown by his facial expressions.  Soon after, the tempo of the music starts to become faster and there are a series of jump cuts and fast camera panning are shown, these cuts go in time with the beat, which shows how manic the situation is. A police man comes out from the darkness wearing protective uniform which portrays order, the law and seriousness; he is also wearing a helmet and holding a bat. There is then a crosscutting juxtaposition between an extreme close up of the singer’s faces of his manic expression, contrasting with the clops up of the police who is calm which portrays order and the law. Like the way the singer wrapped the bandage around his hand, the police man closes his helmet for protection but also to ‘get ready’ for the fight.

The tilt from a high angle shot to a low angle centre shot of the police shows the diversity of power between them that has been shifted from the singer to the police. However this is challenged them the next shot is an over the shoulder shot of the lead singer facing the police man, like he is singing to him. The next shot shows a whole pack of the police force coming forward from darkness (while this is at the point of view of the lead singer), the lead singer is still at the centre of the shot, and however, there shot portrays the field of death, the police in line in the background. As he is portrayed as ‘challenging’ them the camera pans out at high angle shot showing there are more numbers of police than the band showing that the band is weak. 

There is then crosscutting between him and the line of police which creates growing tension, then suddenly the police start running towards the band and creates a contrapuntal sound as the police are running in slow motion which the song as at its quietest. 

Soon after the chorus bursts out and gets louder, the red paint begins to spray out which expresses his emotions that are out of control through anger as they lean forward, the police start to become drawn back by the paint, otherwise known as their emotions. Their emotions are stronger the role is reversed, rather than their physical appearance. As the police are being pushed back by the paint the camera is at level with them so from low angle to level shot shows the next stage of becoming weaker, this shows that their opposition is getting beaten and as the band aren’t even moving from their spot proves that they are strong. The jump shots denote chaos and the drums go in time with the cuts, this is alternating between the police and the band shifting the power back to the band and the contrast in power. At the end of the music video he smashes the guitar, which is a typical convention of a rock star, but it also means that the ‘war’ is over and the red paint is turned off and red lighting turns from red to white, showing that they have won the fight.

Preliminary - Music Video

This is the preliminary tasked we were asked to do, we were allowed to pick a song of our choice and create a one minute music video to get used to the style of music video filming. During the task, it made me realise how different it was from a normal television program or to a film as of each take/scene, he had to sing the whole song, so it would be easier to edit so that we would have a wider range of footage, so we were not limited. I enjoyed creating this preliminary task as it got me prepared for the music video project that I have doing now. I have learn from the mistakes that we came across during this preliminary and made sure we were able to over come those obstacles or avoid them during this project. We made sure we had different kinds of shots for example: extreme close up, mid shot and long shot so there was a variation and so that the audience can enjoy the music video in different angles and aspects.
We first need to find different type of locations that would symbolise the rock star image, "rebellion"as the locations had to link in with the song and the artist. We decided to film in London in South bank where there were graffiti and the city and loads of people, as the song is about a corrupted society so we tried to portray that as the image of the music video. We took many London monuments and well known places to establish the location like for example the Tower of London, St. Paul's Cathedral, China Town and many more. The singer playing his guitar is part of the mise-en-scene and his rugged clothes denote that pop/rock look. 

Star Image - Christina Aguilera

 Christina Maria Aguilera was born December 18, 1980 and is an American recording artist and actress; she is one of the most influence artists of our time. She had a difficult childhood as her father was abusive so she and her mother moved in with her grandmother in Pennsylvania. She started competing in competitions, she was known as 'the girl with the big voice' and this influence getting bullied by jealous girls because of her talent. Christina Aguilera started her career as a star in Disney Channel's television series "The Mickey Mouse Club" where she was found by the "Star Search" program as a contestant along with Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears. This is also where sang her first single "Reflection" from the Disney animated movie "Mulan" after signing on to RCA Records. 

In 1999, Aguilera's popularity rose following her debut album 'Genie in a bottle', 'What a girl wants' and 'Come on over baby (all I want is you)', which were all on the 'Billboard Hot 100'. Later on during her height she also had three hit albums that were a commercial success, including the song 'Beautiful', 'Ain't no other man' and 'Candy Man'. She was an international star in the lime light along with Britney Spears who influenced teenage girls around the world. However, Christina Aguilera's fame started to plummet down after a disappointing sixth album "Bionic" (2010), which had mixed reviews and poor sales. People started thinking that she was trying to copy the famous Lady Gaga's image and as of that time, Lady gaga had just stepped into the lime light in late 2009 and had been increasingly popular with her look and how she dressed, therefore fans accusing her of trying to be something she wasn't. 

 In most Christina Aguilera’s music videos, she has played different types of characters to keep her audience interested, for example Marilyn Monroe, a sailor, or a character in "Moulin Rouge" in Lady Marmalade. Dancing is what she regularly does in her music videos like “Candy Man” where she is dressed up as a sailor and “Ain’t No Other Man” where she is dressed up as Marilyn, being a different character each time makes this her visual motif.  Her motif was her amazing multi-octave voice, which she is famous for and not just her looks. In each music video she changes her character, there are mostly close ups of her face and long shots of her body, showing off her figure which creates that star image. The record company focuses on her voice more than her image.

For camera work and editing, in her old music videos like "Genie in a bottle" and "Come on over" in 1999, the camera focuses on close ups of her face, less make up and her innocent dance moves, portraying her innocence and youth making her a young role model for her fans. However, during her rising fame the more she got famous, her music videos started to give out a sexual essence showing mid - shots of her revealing body, close ups of her assets and lips for example the music video "dirty" in 2002. This also goes to show that Goodwin's theory of ‘Voyeurism’ comes into context with the subject of women being objectified as a sexual pleasure and Mulvey's theory of the "Male Gaze", which is shown through the low angle shots and panning of her body, making the music video appeal to a male audience. She is no longer the innocent young teenager anymore but rather more rebellious and mature artist.

Christina Aguilera has changed her persona throughout her many years of being a pop sensation. In 1999, she was an innocent teenager, talked about crushes and love, basically what a typical teenager would be having problems about, so this appealed to young teenage fans as her genre of music was "Teen Pop". In 2002 with the release of "Dirty" she became more rebellious and seductive showing a totally different and shocking side, which predominately made her audience men, as they enjoyed watching her music videos and provocative dance moves. In 2003, she shown a more powerful, strong and independent woman and is becoming more intimidating to watch, which made her a role model for her fans. She also had a different look; pale skin and black hair, following the fashion at the period of time. This genre of music was "Rock Pop".