Music Video Lipsync Mini-project

This post is about a project we did together in class in order to practice our production skills. This post was composed by me. 

Today in class, Mr Nick told us that we would have to create several clips for a music video with our team. The song was "I Want it That Way" by Backstreet Boys. Mr Nick was unfortunately inspired by one of our team members to use this song.

The song in question

To begin, I felt highly doubtful that we would even do anything productive. We were only given a 1 hour time frame to plan and record our clips which felt like it was far too little. Time management will be a real issue here. Our phone cameras also lack quality, which may result in especially poor results. None of us have previously lip-synced for a video and it has been a long time since I went to a Karaoke, meaning that our performance was likely to be incredibly poor.

We sent our video to Mr Nick and then he compiled the results of every group

Post production reflection:

That probably went better than I expected. Time was defenitely an issue as we only got 2 clips done when Mr Nick told us to come back to class, causing us to rush the last scene. Camerawork was probably something I overlooked. We definitely need to practice our shots before actually applying them. Sticking to our storyboard might also be a great idea as it is difficult to find good shots on the fly. When we are going to actually going to record our music video, I feel like we need to put extra attention towards our storyboard and actually stick to it as it would make it a lot easier to create better shots. We might also need location scouting beforehand as in our school it is difficult to find interesting locations. Performances are also something that I think should be must-rehearse. Maybe it could also help to get someone who is more familiar with lip-syncing. We should definitely get a better camera as well

Weekly Progress

 Week 1

- I was absent so I must catch up on research, I will join a team later on

Problem: I didn't know where to start because I was not in class

Solution: I took inspiration from friends blogs and decided to start by doing research

Week 2

- Started research for music videos

- Get team assembled

Problem: I am stuck at funerals in and out of town for an entire week

Solution: I worked from home and whenever I had free time, so I was able to catch up on some research

where I worked while I was in Bogor

Week 3

- Continue research on branding of music groups

- Continued discussion for song ideas

- I decided to change the format of my weekly progress blog to be more reflective

- I finally returned to class, yay

Problem: We need our statement of intent done by week 4 and a song ready by then

Solution: Continue discussions in and out of class, we also started choosing by process of elimination by genres

To do: Write statement of intent, fast.

very excited to be back in class

Week 4

- Started development and moodboard

- We made a mini project for the music video to test our current skills

- Finished research

Problem: I am still quite unfamiliar with the brand we are going for

Solution: Consult with the band and look into the brand of the artist

To do: Do specific research on the Weeknd

Week 5

- Continued development, I scouted locations via google maps and put it into our google docs

- Gathered more ideas for the music video

Problem: Canva does not work on my laptop for some reason

Solution: Find alternatives or get help

To do list: Add technical skills blog post

still very happy to be back in class

Week 6

- Continued development. I think its getting a bit stagnant, there's only so much we can do 

- Started eliminating ideas from our development to make it easier to work with, too many ideas on it

Problem: I am way too busy with student council work to help significantly with the group

Solution: I guess I should just wait it out or start sleeping later so I have time to help

To do list: I can start practicing editing skills

Me and Niki in class on Friday circa 10/11/23 12.56PM

Week 7

- Separated my location scouting from my development blog

- Posted statement of intent

- Completed blog requirements ahead of semester break

- Re-ordered my blog so that it would make sense, I posted everything randomly

Problem: the semestral exams are next week

Solution: Do everything now, used a check list to figure out what I have not done

To do list: Just chip in on work while I have the opportunity

Week 10

- got feedback from Mr. Nick for my blogs, he told me to fix the format of my weekly plan because the text was not properly bolded making it hard to read

- Mr. Nick also advised us to change the layout of our blogs so that it would be easier for Cambridge examiners to mark, it looks ugly but we have to stick with it

-We did location scouting in level 21, Mertasari, Living World, and Sanur. Fortunately, we are also able to complete the evaluation and risk assessment for each location this week

Problem: I feel as though we are running out of time and we need to get things going quickly

Solution: The team has decided to start filming by next week, meaning that we have to make a storyboard and screenplay with immediate effect

To do list: Assist Niki with the storyboard, get a screenplay up and running, coordinate with our actors and cameraman. I also need to fix my blog so that everything is in proper order and that all the content is moved from google docs to the blog.

Week 11

- We scheduled our shooting schedule. Here is the link to the post. Mr. Nick told us to make this in a separate blog to prevent cluttering

- Prepared and practiced for our first shoot. Including the Screenplay and storyboard. We practiced in class and created mockups of the shots.

- Met up and finalized the shoot and general ideas for intro and outro in Level 21

- Mr. Nick gave us a deadline to finish our shooting within the next 2 weeks as we have mock exams and post-production still to deal with

Problem: We did not have enough resources to properly practice shots at school

Solution: Niki pretended to be a car by sticking a sheet of paper to his butt claiming its a license plate, where as Baron used a chair and just pushed it. This allowed us to somewhat practice filming

To Do List: Filming the first part of our video, begin further post-production research into digipacks and finish screenplay + storyboard for next shoot

Week 12

- Continued filming in Mertasari beach. We completed the scenes with Deva and the McD bag. we are finally done about 50% with filming yipeeee.

- Prepared for the shoot in the weekend, we are going to a new location so we have prepared heavily

- Started Social Media research for our stars

Problem: We're getting tired of this project (not in a bad way) and we feel that we need to take a break

Solution: We slowed down our progress for one week to catch a breath, we will start gassing it up again this weekend

To do list: Plan out the rest of the shoots and social media production

Week 13

- Started working on our self-reflection, we had to relearn how to make it as Cambridge gave Mr Nick advice on how to do it in a more proper way to make our scores better.

- We filmed the scenes in Serangan, that tips our filming progress past the 50% mark.

- Filmed Juna lipsync in Level 21 Mall. Did both on the same day, incredibly tiring. I want to try and avoid 2 shoots in one day

Problem: we got absolutely rained on

Solution: We got up and ran away immediately on our bikes. We continued shooting in the mall instead

To do list: Start digipack

Week 14

- Shot at Pantai Saba. Tiring shoot as it was very far away from where I lived but it was close to Niki's house.

- Shot the scenes at Gus's house. the neighbours were cooking fish and we had to survive the incredible stench

- Started mockup for digipacks

Problem: we were very inefficient in the production of the digipack

Solution: We gave ourselves time limits and a set target to work on to make sure that things actually happen. Otherwise we'd spend hours doing the same thing

To do list: Take pictures of Juna

Week 15 (Sem 2 Week 7)

- Photoshoot with our star, we got to make more content from it especially from our social media

- Started creating promotional material for our social media, including teasers, world tours, and memes

- We lost a media lesson to democracy. The government made election day a national holiday

Problem: Our Star arrived really late for the shoot and had to go really quickly

Solution: We sped up the photo session, there was not much specific directing of his poses, we just scream words for him to try to imitate.

To do list: Self reflection, finish digipack, finish social media, get on with it.

Week 16 (Sem 2 Week 8)

- further development of digipak + social media

Team - Comp 3

 This blog includes the team members and blog links for component 3

Niki B: nikibmediastudies.blogspot.com

Baron: https://baronmediastudies.blogspot.com/

Rania: https://raniasurimulyadi.blogspot.com/

Jason: https://jasonmediastudies2223.blogspot.com/

Reflection: I have previously worked with Niki B and Baron on multiple projects from our first storyboard project at the beginning of our AS Level Media Studies. We also worked together on our Component 1 movie opening called "El-Higho" but we had the assistance of Gemi, who moved to Australia right before Year 12. We also did a documentary project together as a trio for "The Mandemic" however we felt like we needed extra manpower to get us through this component so we ended up recruiting Rania. We saw her work ethic and results of her previous components and decided that she would fit right in to do this component together

Research Music Video - Comp 3

This blog includes the research performed for this project, written and conducted by Jason

The Unforgiven - Metallica

James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, Kirk Hammett (1991) [Performed By Metallica] on "Metallica"

Media Languange

The video starts with an extreme long shot in black and white of a boy playing alone. This connotes loneliness and isolation. This theme is carried along the music video as all characters and band members are never shown together and are either alone in a large open space or a dark confined room. The choice of black and white dulls out all the colours and matches well with the song's dark mood and groove. As with typical of rock music videos of the era, the video is entirely made up of two components: the band playing the song and some form of b-roll footage that fits the meaning of the song. The actions that the characters were performing were slow and grinding as compared to reality, this may be used to connote struggle. In the beginning of the music video, the boy is still seen being free in the open space up until the midpoint of the video where it starts to depict him trying to escape the small confined room, this may be a symbol for aging from being a care-free child to a struggling teenager.

Representation

The music video represents aging in a negative way. The boy starts out free and ends as an old man trying to chip away at a concrete wall with a pen. This might be suggesting that aging restricts our freedom and causes us to struggle more in life. This view is typical for media products that are targeted towards teenagers as they show that you are free when you are younger in order to appeal more towards them.  A convention for metal bands during this era is to represent the band as cool and masculine. The dark lighting creates silhouettes of their more masculine features (ie, tough faces, strong standing stances,) They are also filmed from slight below eye level to make them seem more tough and strong.

Audience

In this era, rock was dominated by colourful videos of boys with large hair, colourful lights, over-the-top costumes and lots of ladies. However, this video might appeal more to the counter-culture of the time. The dark colours, "masculine" men, and aggressive music. Their audience is likely to be entirely male as the entire cast is made up of males that are average looking. Making them able to connect more with men and less with women as they are not so good looking

Industry

The music video is very simple, only requiring the removal of colors for all the shots. There are no fancy VFX seen in the music video. The song ends with a fade, so the directors decided to end the video by fading to black along with the song, this may be more convenient for the era as the music video would be aired onto MTV, as it would cut down the video length while preserving the song. Nowadays, it is uploaded onto Youtube. As the music is fading out, they take the opportunity to to place clickable links to other Metallica videos

ETA - NewJeans

Ylva Dimberg, Ho Hyoung Lee, Beenzino, Hyun Ji Kim (2023) [Performed by NewJeans] on "NewJeans 2nd EP 'Get Up'"

This video is an advertisement, which would be very nice to do as I would get profit from A Level Media Studies. It has a narrative structure as a girl is falling in love with a boy in the music video and they are stalking them. The show that phones can be used to create professional music videos, which we may take inspiration for as we typically use gimbals which are large an inflexible. I like the large amounts of quick camera movement to switch between shots as it helps make the music video more smooth. Phones will be useful for these as they would be lighter to move around with, allowing us to make these shots. They also have a lot of scenes which are recorded through a phone which may be useful in appealing to a younger audience as they are more likely to be using phones as compared to older generations. Phone cameras also slightly dull out the colors which makes the video easier to look at and not too excessively colourful to the point where it connotes happiness.

don't miss me - Claire Rosinkranz

Claire Rosinkranz, Ragnar Rosinkranz, Presley Delano Regier, (2021) [Performed By Claire Rosinkranz] on "The Hating Game (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)"

This video has a lot of examples of possible b-roll footage mentioned from before that we can use if we were to make a music video with a band. The video is entirely filmed in a ratio from a past time and added with a dirty filter to make it seem more homemade or retro. If we were to pick an older song, this may be a technique that we may use to convey more emotions. The video contains only one character and repeats many scenes from the video. In a band setting, I think this should be avoided. I like the inclusion of bloopers and real audio from the b-roll footage as it may make the video seem more genuine to the fans

Breaking The Habit - Linkin Park

Joe Hahn, Robert G. Bourdon, Chester Bennington, David Farrel, Mike Shinoda, Brad Delson [Performed By Linkin Park] on "Meteora"

The music video is rather unique as it is fully animated. I like this animation style as subverts the convention of band music videos. Again there are more example of B-roll which we can use if we are going to make a music video with a band. However this style of animation seems difficult to execute for our current skill level. The animation allows them to create slightly exaggerated facial expressions and movements. In the case of highly emotional moments in songs, we can utilize animations using this method. The animation was made by a well known Japanese anime studio, this may be a method used by the band target an alternate audience of weaboos who may become interested because the music video may fit their identity. Because of this, they will consume this media for their diversion as seen in the Uses and Gratification theory by Blumer and Katz.

Terlambat Sudah - Poppy Mercury

A. S. Rachmat [Performed by Poppy Mercury] on "Terlambat Sudah"

One glaring feature of this music video is the inclusion of Karaoke-style lyrics on screen. I believe this may be done to allow easier distribution of the content to karaoke bars to earn greater royalty from these bars. Another possibility is so that audiences would have a better time remembering the song if it were aired on TV as lyrics would be clearly displayed for them to remember. We may take this into consideration when we are thinking of the distribution channels we are going to be using to distribute our project. Other than that, the music video is simple. Just some clips of singing/guitar solo on a thematic background + unrelated story-less b-roll footage to slap in every other cut. We could use the poor graphics and square ratio from this video to create an older feel for our music video as those features are often associated with an older era. 

Wake Me Up When September Ends - Green Day

Billie Joe Armstrong, Frank E Wright III, Michael Pritchard [Performed by Green Day] on "American Idiot"

Media Language

The music video starts with a couple in the middle of a thick yellow flowers. Flowers are often connotated with ideals of love and the colour yellow with happiness. They talk of serious topics while in close-ups to bring the audience closer to the moment. This may be an example of Levi Strauss's binary opposites as it could be interpreted as Reality v Love. This further shown as her pleas for him to not leave her are broken when chooses to go the army. The song starts at 1:40 which subverts the conventions of music video to only include the duration of the music to an extreme. This may be done to show that there is greater focus on the video rather than the song. The song is then accompanied with slow motion clips of the couple going through their day. Slow motion may have been used to connote surrealism over a memory. The door slams open as the song drops in volume to bring the focus back onto the narrative. The cut back to the man on the porch was sudden and could be described as a snap back to reality. The song fully cuts out. There are noticeably less cuts in the video when the woman is crying, this may be representation on how conflicts often feel long and never ending when they happen. The director the uses cross cuts  of the man preparing to go to war and the woman missing him back home. This may have been used to further connote the binary opposite of Love v Reality. The music video ends with a sound bite from an early part of the video to show irony of how the man has left hear in spite of her pleads

Representations

The music video represents the military as a place where love dies. Features such as cold faces, injuries, women and children in warzones, explosions and many others are seen in the music video in a way that is antagonising the military. This may have been done to tell people to not go to the military through cultivation theory as they learn that they will get hurt in the military. This could have been done in protest of real life events especially because of the post 9/11 war on terrorism in which the USA sends large amounts of conscripts abroad. However, there exists a negative reading of this text where younger children who have less understanding of war may be more enticed to join the military as explosions, bullets and armoured vehicles are often seen as cool things instead of the intended horror. This could be because of the representation of the military in other media products which are more common where they are the protagonist.

Audience

The audience of this music video may be young adults. This could be suggested by the choice to include the military conscription as the antagonist of the video. Realistically, younger adults are often the target of military conscription. Serious romantic relationships are also something which teenagers and children would fail to understand. It may be targeted towards both genders as both the man and the woman are seen to be worse off after the man's conscription, showing that both ends of the deal end up badly. This may have been done to make women to be more likely to restrict their loved ones form going to war. The music video is shown to antagonise the US military, we can identify this by the usage of the stereotyped aggressive drill sergeant, often seen in media representations of the US military. Hence we can probably predict that it was targeted towards those living in the USA

Industry

I do not think that this is good for money. The music video is unnecessarily long for TV airing as it will reduce time for advertisements. Nowadays, it has been uploaded onto Youtube for it to be viewed. The long format may actually be beneficial on Youtube as the algorithm identifies silent parts or breaks in chapters and may slap in advertisements in those opportunities, increasing income for the band. The music video may have also been used to gain public support for the band as they show that they are against war,  a view commonly held by the average American during the Iraq war.

Reflection: This research on music videos gave me some simple ideas to fill up a music video. As this component usually longer than component 1, I was afraid that we would not have enough content to fill the entire music video. It also made me realise that music videos can have as much meaning as movie openings that we had during our AS Level Exams. We really have to put attention into detail in this project!

Brief

This is the brief that we were given by Mr Nick (Our Media Teacher) 

Component 3: Advanced Portfolio

This is a coursework component, internally assessed and externally moderated, 50 marks.

Candidates build on the skills developed in Component 1 to engage with contemporary media technologies. They produce a media campaign through a combination of three media (video, print and official social media page), selecting from a choice of set briefs. Candidates will record the process of the planning, research and production of their work online in a blog format. Each candidate must also write a critical reflection, responding to four compulsory questions. The final products and the critical reflection will also be presented on their blog.

The work may be undertaken individually or by a group (maximum group size is four candidates). Candidates must present the evidence for assessment individually, whether they have worked in a group or individually. Centres must assess candidates on an individual basis. Each candidate’s blog should clearly indicate the candidate’s own role in any group activity to allow the teacher to assess the contribution of each individual within the group.

This component assesses the following Assessment Objectives:

AO2: Analyse media products, and evaluate their own work, by applying knowledge and understanding of theoretical and creative approaches, supported with relevant textual evidence.

AO3: Research, plan and construct critically informed media products using appropriate technical and creative skills. 

Set briefs

The set briefs each contain a major task and two associated minor tasks; candidates should spend approximately two thirds of their time on the major task, and one third on the minor tasks.

The set brief options are as follows:

Option 1: music promotion package

A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music video (major task), together with an official social media page for the band or artiste(s) and a digipak for the album’s release (minor tasks).

____________________________________________________________________________

Option 2: film promotion package

A promotion package for a new film, to include two trailers (major task), together with an official social media page for the film and a poster for the film (minor tasks).

____________________________________________________________________________

Option 3: documentary package

An extract from an original documentary TV programme, lasting approximately five minutes (major task), together with an official social media page for the documentary and a magazine article for the documentary (minor tasks).

____________________________________________________________________________

Option 4: short film package

A short film in its entirety, lasting approximately five minutes (major task), which may be live action or animated or a combination of both, together with an official social media page for the short film and a postcard advertisement for the film at a short film festival (minor tasks).

____________________________________________________________________________

Tasks may be undertaken individually or as a group. There should be a maximum of four members to a group.

Images and video should be original material only. Sound should be predominantly original (dialogue and atmospheric sound), though music taken from an acknowledged source may be used as part of the soundtrack.

Process

Each candidate must have an individual blog which is started at the beginning of the project, which will comprise the complete evidence for the moderator at the end of each project. Each blog should contain:

• the process of research, planning and production

• any refinement, changes or edits made, and reflections on key moments

• all individual contributions to any task undertaken as a group

• evidence of any preliminary exercises

• the final finished product, clearly labelled

• the critical reflection (see below), clearly labelled.

Some production elements such as storyboards may be shared by all members of a group. Collaborators who worked with the candidate on research, planning and/or production must be listed on the Individual Candidate Record Card under ‘other group members’. Centres should select dedicated blogging applications which allow posts to be read chronologically, with appropriate capabilities to embed other applications.

Now this is me writing:  I chose option 1, because everyone else was. If I were to rebel and choose something else, i will end up with no group and that would be hell in Media Studies