Editing Journal - Day One

So we have finally reached what will be the blood sweat and tears of our music video - the editing. It is so important when editing a music video, (as we have found out) that the pace and lighting and angle of the shots have to be so carefully worked out in order for it to be a success. But the good thing we didnt have to do was put it in chronological order like we did in our film. We were in a way more free to mess about and experiment with different ideas and places to put different shots.

So during day one, the goal was to upload all our footage that we had shot from dayone of our shooting and just place the very bare bones of our music video in creating a skeleton to work with. The video upload was a success, but as youcan imagine took forever! So as we were waiting we decided to watch back on all our footage. One thing that we did notice with this, is the the fact that some of our shots came out really dark in Final Cut Pro eventhough it came out really bright on to camera. This meant that we definatly had to go back to Langley Park to re-shoot some things.

Once we had finished uploading our footage, we decided to focus on the main goal that we had set for today and place in some shots that we definatly knew we wanted. We found this really challenging as we hadn't uploaded the mp3 of 'This Beauty' into Final Cut, so we were just guessing most of the way.

By the end of this session we had completed the following:

-Uploaded all our footage we have so far

-Looked over our footage and found areas and shots that we would have to shoot again

-Made a rough skeleton of shots that we knew we definatly wanted in there

Editing Textual Analysis - Go Back ~ Marketa Irglova

 Title: Go Back

Artist: Marketa Irglova

Director: Unknown

Release Date: October 6th 2011

Genre: Folk/Indie

Intro

This song is made entirely out of reversing clips and is very effective with such simple editing  done to it. I like this music video because it challenges the conventions of its genre and I really like music video's that can tell a story.

How Many Shots Are There In The Music Video?

Surprisingly there were 49 shots in the music video which is shocking because I expected it to be more because of its type of genre. The shots tend to fade into one another almost merging but not quite. 

Where Were The Cuts In The Music Video?

When we first listened to the beat, because of the time signature being 4/4, we thought to make it even and in time the shots would cut on the beat but we found when listening to a certain layer of the music or taking a layer out, the beat sometimes cut to the rhythm of that. So technically it was still in time but in different instruments in the music. We found that the music video was full with jump cuts as it was interchanging with different scenes of objects in different stages of reversing.

Did The Music Video Shrink Or Expand?

From a first glance the music video looked like it was shrinking time because obviously the reverse sequence makes it look like its shrinking but when we looked at it again, we realised that it was indeed expanding time because the objects and actions that were happening have been slowed down like the reversal of the match lighting up and candle burning.

Editing Textual Analysis - Yellow ~ Coldplay

Title: Yellow

Artist: Coldplay

Director:  James Frost & Alex of The Artists Company

Release Date: June 26th 2000

Genre: Alternative Rock

Intro

Coldplay are a very popular band that have played all over the world and in many exciting venues. They even played in the Olympic opening ceremony which is a very big thing to do. I came across this band when I was a lot younger and I always liked the inventiveness of their music videos.

How Many Shots Are There In The Music Video?

The entire music video is one continuous shot of a performance based music video, which captures the essence and emotion of the song. The audience feel a really deep connection with the artist as he sing directly to them.There is not much at all going on in the background so this one continuous shot is just directly about this artist singing.

Where Were The Cuts In The Music Video?

Since it was just one continuous shot there were no jump cuts or cuts in general to comment about. But he did do certain things on the beat of the music like run or slow down or glance at the sea beside him. 

Did The Music Video Shrink Or Expand?

Looking at it from my point of view I think it did both as the background was changing from night to day about three or four times which obviously resembled different parts of the day. But the music video had a feel overall which made ir feel like it was expanding time because of the amount of slow motion that was used.

Actors Research

We have decided to use me as the acting 'Amanda Rodgers'!

We all decided that we would take an anonamous vote on who suits the image of Amanda better, so we took a class vote and a VKLC vote and decided that I would be acting Amanda Rodgers as I have the most acting experience within the group, and i like performing.

Acting is a very hard thing to do as you are basically trying to embody and repesent a compleatly different person to yourself, which is why I think actors and actresses are under rated. It takes so much method acting and Researching your role into depth to create a beilieveable performance and character. You also have to captivate the audience and get them interested whirlst also marketing yourself which is mainly seen in music videos.

Upon researching music videos and looking at the behind the scenes on set of them, I have noticed that when doing scenes that involve lip -syncing, the actor/actress always sings along to the song instead of miming to create a more real and believable lip-sync and to make it look like they were actually singing it live. This also helps with continuity errors, as by singing them you are getting the right mouthing action, where-as when your miming it is completely different.

Becoming Amanda Rodgers...

When becoming Amanda Rodgers, looking deeper into her personality and artist history was very helpful as it helped me have a good understanding of role she plays in her band and how she carries herself. I discovered she was very hippy-like and free so to show this we had to choose costume and make-up very carefully to represent a nature-saving care free spirit. 

I also had to look into creating a connection with the audience and to do this I researched videos such as 'Yellow' by Coldplay as he chooses to stay in close-up for the whole music video. This therefore makes the audience feel like he is choosing to embrace them on his journey through out the music video and that he is only singing to them. The intense eye connection he has with the camera only expands this point further. The fact that he also uses slow-motion as well makes the connection stronger and makes the video more intense and meaningful.

Other things that I had to consider is marketing Amanda Rodgers to the audience i had to do this by making sure that I was sending out a good message to the audience and by having a positive track to work with made it a whole lot easier. I had to sell myself to the audience and make them like me and the only way of doing that is being likeable, unforgettable and original. This also links with having to create a connection with the audience and the amount of close ups that appear in the music video.


Some-thing else that I thought would help me into becoming Amanda Rodgers is looking at videos of her live performance to see how she connects to her songs and what actions and gestures she uses by looking at the following video:

After seeing that I noticed that she puts a lot of her emotions into the song, starting off weak and finishing strong. She closes her eyes and gets  into the zone expressing herself. She is truly singing from the heart on a subject that probably means a lot to her, and she lets the audience see that delicate vulnerable side of her that works in her favour. By letting the audience in to what almost seems like a diary entry song, she is captivating them and getting her message across.

So to wrap everything up, I have to keep a strong connection with the meaning of the song to connect to the audience and maintain that young innocent carefree spirit that Amanda seems to portray.

Artist Representation Process

Amanda Rodgers markets herself to the audience as someone who loves nature and has a humble soul, being that she has advertised on her website that she is a vegan. By wearing dresses and flowers in her hair, she is marketing herself as someone that is rather an underground artist than wanting to be in the public eye changing with the poplular styles, for instance some-one like Miley Cyrus does this. She markets herself as the same as she markets her songs and she shows a lot of her personality through her lyrics and melodies. Many people have said that she resembles what a child of John Lennon would look like and do, advertising herself as more hippy than the average pop singer. Being compared to John Lennon is quite challenging, therfore saying that people think that you would resemble the daughter of John Lennon she must be good as an artist to be compared to someone so great.

By being a vegan and advertising it with a picture on her website she markets herself as one with nature and presents herself to be very natural, hence the long hair and pure dresses in colours such as white. You can definatly tell just by the way she presents herself and her songs/lyrics that she loves nature and wishes to proserve it.

When I look at Amanda Rodgers, I see her as quite hippy and not bothred about what is in the heart of online media and what is mainstream. She looks to me like the small voiced girl who just got on with life and is happy whatever. Furthermore, she looks like an only child and someone who doesnt talk to a lot of people and likes enjoying her own company and her family. She kind of presents herself very hipster and indie. Being that not many people have heard of her and she doesn't do massive concerts and she is more the type to sing at festivals says to me that she is not a very out-there sort of person and is almost shy in a way. On the other hand this could empower her and show that she doesnt stick to the popular things and doesn't want to be what everyone wants her to be, she just wants to be herself.


How her career has changed her..

Her music career started off being quite dark and she sung about very dark sadening things and stuff that annoyed her. Her image hasn't changed much. I'd say she got less indie and went more pop based changing her genre to fit herself and becoming indie-pop. In this photo she looks a lot more dark and grungy using a lot of eye make-up and having darker hair. Also simple the fact that she had taken photos in black and white back then shows that she was a very sort of conceled person and sort of lived with her music.


Looking at the picture of her now, she shows a lot more colour in her cheeks and has sort of gone a bit girly in a way. She has changed the colour of her hair to a lighter colour and it is obviously longer. She has less black make up around the eyes and showing the trees and nature bhind her shows that she likes being natural. The picture is also taken in colour showing that she has opened up a bit more now to her audience and widened her audience also. It shows that she has slightly gone a bit more mainstream, but is till true to her image and conveys it across in every way she can.

Props Research

 Red String

We have decided that we would have some red string in the video that our actress would follow which would slowly lead her to what she thinks is the true beauty. We thought that we should have everything connected by the the red string would be really effective and would help our ideas and locations to link more smoothly. we thought that we could have a shot where it shows all of us in the group even if it's just a snippet of us or just our lips or something, which would work well with our red string idea to show that they are all connected and the beauty is in all of them no matter how different they are, there is beauty in everyone.




Red Heart


We had this idea that the red string would lead to a red heart echoing the Heartwood album and also the 'Heartwood tree' which is where our protagonist would  end up in the end. another idea that we had was that the protagonist could be following this red string which leads to the Heartwood tree and she then finds out that the heart is attached to her but she could not see it all this time, linking to the fact she is in fact the true beauty, and she has been searching for the true meaning of beauty and she had found that is is in herself hence the heart.







Photos In The Tree

We thought that having photos attached to the tree showing what the media thinks is true beauty, so bits from magazines and air-brushed models tied to a brown string because it will look quite natural. This idea was influenced by Taylor Swifts music video 'Mine' where she is in the forest with photos hanging all around her. We thought that we would have a shot of our protagonist ripping the photos off the tree to show that she is angry and doesn't want to believe that this is the true beauty that she is searching for.

Lyrics Analysis - This Beauty ~ Amanda Rodgers

This Beauty - Lyrics

When your words
Come too easily for me to believe
And this paint goes on too thinly
To peel away
I will find
A silver lining sometime
Blur my vision
And I'll be fine
And I'll be fine

Burn the pages of the magazines
I hate the way they look at me
With every smile and every laugh
There's something I will always lack
And maybe, just maybe
An imperfected me
Will not be seen

When your words
Burn forever in my mind
And those greens
And those blues
Seem too perfect to be true
I will light a fire every time
I think to myself
I will be fine
I will be fine

Burn the pages of the magazines
I hate the way they look at me
With every smile and every laugh
There's something I will always lack
And maybe, just maybe
An imperfected me
Will not be seen

But I'll go on silently
and I'll be strong fortunately

This beauty is not clear to me
This beauty is not clear to me
To me, to me, to me...
To me, to me, to me...

Burn the pages of the magazines
I hate the way they look at me
With every smile and every laugh
There's something I will always...

Burn the pages of the magazines
I hate the way they look at me
With every smile and every laugh
There's something I will always lack
And maybe, just maybe
This beauty will be clearer to me, to me, to me...

Analysis


Verse 1

The first verse talks about the fact that she is finding it hard to believe that people look at themselves and the way that people comment about her inner and outer beauty almost bullying her. She talks about paint going on too thinly and peeling away which she is trying to get across that she has had enough hence the expression “you've spread your paint too thin” which means your sort of pushing the limits in what you’re saying, like you’re about to burst in a way. She says that she will find a silver lining in all this mess and she will come out shinning on top. “Blur my vision and I’ll be fine...” hints to the audience that she wants her vision to be blurred so she can’t see what is going on around her and then she will be fine and she won’t be competing with the image of beauty in the media.

Chorus

The chorus is basically talking about the fact  that the image of beauty these days in the magazines and the media is way too stereotypical and judgmental. The “something I will always lack” line implies the fact that she is never good enough for the media’s image of beauty and her imperfections are always being pointed out. So she hopes that one day there won’t be such a judgmental image of beauty and then all her imperfections won’t be seen and pointed out because she can just be herself and not what everybody else wants her to be.


Verse 2

The second verse talks almost about her being bullied and being brought don’t by what people are saying to her when she says the first line “when your words, burn forever in my mind”. There is a hint that she is talking about the beauty of nature and how people now-a-days take it for granted and they can’t actually see the real beauty around them which is nature; “and those greens and those blues seem too perfect to be true”. She goes back to the idea of burning what people are saying to her with “I will light a fire every-time”. After she has burnt all these words and images she  knows she will be fine as she says the lines “I think to myself, I will be fine...”

The Bridge

What I call the bridge of the song talks about her fighting her battle of bullying and the judgmental image of beauty. She is saying that she will be strong and not let them break her and turn her into something that she's not in the lines “But I’ll go on silently, and I’ll be strong fortunately”. She then talks about the fact that the beauty that is present in the media now is corrupted and it is not clear to her because she does not understand why anyone would want to be like that, and she does not fit the criteria to be beautiful in this day and age: “this beauty is not clear to me...”

The Ending

Right at the very end the lyrics change to “and maybe , just maybe this beauty will be clearer to me...” She is basically saying that once she’s done all she can (burning the photos etc..) she can live happily and the image of beauty will be ‘just to be yourself’ and not what everyone else wants you to be.

In Conclusion

The lyrics have a very natural feel to them and is about the beauty if being yourself and the conformity of beauty these days.

What I learnt to apply to my music video..

From analyzing the lyrics I thought it would probably be best to have a natural setting, and very natural style makeup and costume ti represent that she is not all caught up in the image of beauty. There needs to be some form of ripping a photo or magazine to show the anger that Amanda Rodgers has for the beauty these days.