Costume and makeup

• studio - blue screen (in puddle) and performance in uniform e.g. military jackets, black skinny jeans, mens shoes or plimsoles
• guildford - casual tops (show individuality), black skinny jeans, mens shoes or plimsoles

Prop list

• keyboard
• bass
• guitar
• drums/drumsticks
• mic
• guitar piks
• ink - red, blue, green, purple, orange, black, pink
• paint - red, blue, green, purple, orange, pink
• wax spray
• water
• buckets
• hosepipes
• empty coke cans
• hat for money
• money - coins
• plastic cup/cup
• bed
• cupboard/wardrobe
• wallpaper

Research references

For one of our initial ideas we were searching how to make stop motion for a music video and we came across the pen story which is an advert for an olympus camera and it is stop motion so this influenced us to make a video like it so having a story with photos however we then realised that we would not be able to finish in time and that it would be very hard to do so we came off that idea. While looking at the pen story and how to make it on youtube we also found the giant pen story which is the same but in a bigger scale which would be even more time and would be harder. During our search also a member of our group found the original stop motion video by wolf and pig:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmkLlVzUBn4

keith Negus

Negus said “what I’m looking for is the working act. The real act. The act that can get up on stage and do it. That act will give you a career. I signed black Sabbath umpteen years ago; they are still making records. These are acts that are career acts. Two years ago I started a dance label, now that’s not a career orientated label. I mean those records are one-off situations and every now and again maybe you’ll get an artist come out of it”.
“When I first started it was more about going out and finding bands. That method is becoming more and more redundant. More and more these days I find it’s as much about: I sit here and think ‘there’s really a gap in the market for this kind of project…’. I don’t go out to gigs. That’s not how I find my stuff. It comes through various writers and producers. So if a writer comes in he may have some great songs and maybe is looking for a front person. Or maybe I have the front person who I want to launch into the market but I haven’t got the songs. So you put the two together.”

Ideologies of Creativity
• Keith Negus – Producing pop
• Identifies two distinct ways of thinking about potential artists from within the music industry.
• These ideologies shape the way in which the artists’ images and careers are developed, and the way that they are marketed towards specific target audiences.
• The organic ideology of creativity and…
• The synthetic ideology of creativity.

The organic ideology of creativity 1
•A “naturalistic” approach to artists
•the seeds of success are within the artists, who have been to be “nurtured” by the record company
•The image of the artist is “enhanced” by the record company
•The artist is given time to evolve and progress through their career

The organic ideology of creativity 2
•Emphasis is given to album sales and the construction of a successful back catalogue
•Often aimed at older or more sophisticated consumers
•Profits generated by this kind of act tend to be part of a long term strategy by the record company

The synthetic ideology of creativity 1
•A combinational approuach to artists and material
•Executives attempt to construct successful acts out of the artists and the songs at their disposal
•The image of the artist is often constructed by the record company
•The arisst will be given a short time to prove their success before other combinations will be tried out

The Synthetic Ideology of Creativity 2
• Emphasis is given to single sales and to promoting first albums.
• Often aimed at younger, less sophisticated audiences.
• Profits generated by this kind of artist tend to be part of an immediate, short term strategy by the record company.

Balancing the Two
• In practice, the success of synthetic acts will fund the development and investment in organic acts.
• Most big record labels will look to balance their roster with a combination of successful synthetic and organic acts to ensure that there are funds available for the day-to-day running of the company as well as long term profit making potential.

Promoting Organic and Synthetic Acts
• There are clear distinctions between the ways in which different types of artist are represented to ensure short term or long term success.
• Organic acts are often sold on their ‘authenticity’, both musically and socially.
• The image of the artist appears ‘unconstructed’ (although, of course, this is in itself a carefully constructed look)
• Synthetic acts are often sold on their ‘look’ or personalities
• The image of the artist is carefully and unashamedly constructed.

Richard Dyer

In order to understand the relationship between the music industry and its audiences it is important to consider the roles of music stars. The term “star” refers to the semi-mythological set of meanings constructed around music performers in order to sell the performer to a large and loyal audience. Some common values of music stardom include youthfulness, rebellion, sexual magnetism, anti-authoritarian attitude, originality, creativity/talent, aggression and disregard for social values relating to drugs, sex and polite behaviour.

Dyer has written about the role of stars in film, TV and music. Stars have some key features in common such as a star is an image not a real person that is constructed out of a range of materials. Stars depend upon a range of subsidiary media e.g magazines, TV, radio and the internet in order to construct an image for themselves which can be marketed to their target audiences. The star image is made up of a range of meanings which are attractive to the target audience. Fundamentally, the star image is incoherent; Dyer says that this is because it is biased upon two key paradoxes. The first is the star must be simultaneously ordinary and extraordinary for the consumer and the second is that the star must be simultaneously present and absent for the consumer. The incoherence of the star image ensures that audiences continually strive to complete the image, this is achieved by continued consumption of the star through his or her products. In the music industry, performance seems to promise the completion of the image. This means that fans will go away determined to continue consuming the star in order to carry on attempting to complete their image. Finally, the star image can be used to position the consumer in relation to dominant social values. Depending upon the artist, this may mean that the audience are positioned against the mainstream or within the mainstream or between.

Richard Dyer made a star image quote which is:
“In these terms it can be argued that stars are representations of persons which reinforce, legitimate or occasionally alter the prevalent preconceptions of what it is to be a human being in this society. There is a good deal at stake in such conceptions. On one hand our society stresses what makes them like others in the social group to which they belong. This individualising stress involved a separation of the person’s self from his/her social roles and hence posses the individual against society. On the other hand society suggests that certain norms of behaviour are appropriate to given groups of people, which many people in such groups would now wish to contest. Stars are one of the ways in which conceptions of such persons are promulgated.

Creating an anematic

We put all the storyboards into final cut pro and then we put the track onto the programme so we can edit it in time with the song. We had to import the track into itunes then from there import it into final cut pro. Usually we would create a log bin and name it to store our shots however they were already in a log bin so we just named it so we know where to find the shots. The copy we had of the music was a wav file so we changed it to a wmp so it was compatible with final cut pro. Once we sorted that out we dragged the song into final cut pro and locked it so it would not be ruined while we were editing. We had to drag the clip from the log bin we needed into the video window to check if it was the right one then we dragged it onto the timeline to edit it. In our music video we wanted to have an introduction with background noise and then the song would start after so the first thing we did was to sort out the shots needed for the introduction. We had our storyboard next to us so we know what is meant to go next. The introduction was meant to hide the band's identity at first then when the song starts the band would be seen by the audience so at first we had shots of a mysterious man picking up money from a hat and walking away, this was done in a high angle tilted shot of a hat on the pavement with money in, the camera then tilts up the body of this man while he picks up the money and puts it in his pocket. As we did not want to show who this man was yet we stopped the tilting at the sholdour and then the man turns around and walks away. We all thought this was a good introduction as it gets the audience entrigued to where the man is going and what he is doing. We then needed to fit in the background noise and we had already put the shots in and we went on soundtrack pro which has a variety of background sounds to choose from so we went through to find street sounds. We had to keep continuity between the shots so that it would make sense on what is happening so for example in the beginning when the man is picking up the money and putting it in his pocket we had to make sure that the shots matched his actions. We also had to remember to cut out the voices as what we filmed had a microphone so you could hear us in the background which we didn’t want to be in the video, this was an easy task as we just had to mute it. We changed the order in which our shots went occasionally as we thought it looked better and fit more with the song. Some examples include when there was a drum solo or a guitar solo we just focused on the drummer and the guitarist instead of originally we would have the whole band. We also repeated some shots for example one shot of the singer which we added in places where he was singing in the chorus when we had the guitarist or drummer but we thought as his singing was a strong point in that time in the song we thought that he should be introduced at his strong points. Some of the shots we didn’t put in from the log bin as we realised we didn’t need them as they did not fit anywhere.
This was useful as we needed to organise our shots so we have a clear idea of what order they would fit in to go with the song as clearly we didn’t realise that some of our shots would not have worked well with the timing as we had to extend some and cut some out completely. I feel more confident editing this year than last year because i used it all last year so i knew how to use it, i just had to remind myself and i was fine.