Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Location

Sign indicating where the sports hall is (gym as well).

Entrance of the gym/sports hall

Gym from the inside:

Including weights:





Thursday, September 24, 2009

Scripting

First Refrain:

Medium (knees up) shot/High angle (camera positioned just above the man’s head). Thin man has positioned himself in front of a mirror to look at his arms and body realizing he is too thin and needs some muscles.

Song: ‘When I can’t come in’.

Medium (waste up) shot/Eye level. Flashback: Thin man can’t get into a club while other handsome, muscular men can.

Full body shot: He walks through the doors of the gym and sees a (medium shot/eye level) couple of muscular guys and (close up) has a frightened looks on his face.

Song: ‘it is all about membership’.

(over-the-shoulder shot) He signs himself up for a membership (close up of him holding pen and writing). He sees a couple of names (extreme close-up of names) on the list and later on meets these people in a dancing class (extreme long shot showing people dancing in gym/high angle)

Song: ‘Hey, for you young and old’ & ‘Ugly boys and girls’.

(Close-up)Several people of all ages are shown, some with acne, glasses etc.

Song: And make you clap to this’.

(Full body shot/low angle)Dance class is doing their routine and claps to the music. Thin man can’t keep up with the pace and claps at the wrong time.

Song: ‘I just don’t need that trip’.

1st Chorus

Thin man decides dancing is nothing for him and he goes to a different section of the gym. (Close-up of DVNO)While wearing a white t-shirt with DVNO printed in golden letters on is he is making a lot (full body shot/tilts: vertically scans the scene) of effort to push himself up, (medium shot/birds-eye-view shot) doing weights, (full body shot) doing sit-ups etc. (Medium shot/high angle) Eventually he starts to sweat and wipes the sweat of his forehead with a towel. This all happens while different shots of the muscular guys are shown doing the same thing as he is but then more intense and without ‘any’ effort.

2nd chorus

Song: ‘No need to ask my name’.

(long shot develops into medium shot/eye level) When thin man tries to chat up one of the girls they are just looking at him as if they are disgusted and walk off.

Second Chorus:

Song: ‘Cause details make the girls sweat even more’.

(Close-up girls faces, one close-up of muscular man exercising, one long shot/bird's-eye-view showing several muscular men exercising) Several pretty girls are watching the muscular man and can’t help to start daydreaming.

Before 2nd refrain:

Medium (knees up) shot/High angle (camera positioned just above the man’s head). Man goes home and looks at himself again in the mirror with an unsatisfied look in his face. (several shots and angles of him getting ready; brushing teeth, putting on pajama's etc.)He goes to bed and the next morning he wakes up and can’t get out of his bed because all his muscles hurt.

Song: ‘Ladies are all waxed’

(Three shot/eye level)Girls are chatting and flirting with a very handsome man who is sitting behind the till. (full body shot of thin man, close-up of girls' faces) When thin man shows up they leave with an arrogant face.

3rd + 4th chorus:

(Several types of shots and angles) Thin man goes to the gym again and starts exercising using the rowing machines. Again he makes a lot of effort and starts sweating, wiping the sweat of his forehead. This is shown while other muscular men are shown as well using the rowing machines without having to make a lot of effort.

Last refrains:

(Everything shown in slow-motion), flashbacks of him exercising using several machines, doing weights, him standing in front of the mirror. etc.

Slap bass solo:

(medium shot/high angle) ‘Thin’ man goes to a house party and surprisingly gets in, (Shown in several shots - long shot, medium shot, close-up/high angle, eye-level, low angle etc.) all the girls are only interested in him and they surround him, muscular men are sitting in corners of the room just looking at him. (Camera spinning around character) Thin man goes absolutely crazy, dances his lungs out, drinks a lot. (Close-up of face when 'thin' man wakes up, medium shot of him lying in bed with pretty girls) Eventually he wakes up the next morning in a bed with two pretty girls and smiles at the camera.



Initial idea

When we first listened to the song we started discussing how we could make a music video to it. The lyrics don't show very obviously what it is about, which means it could be about everything.

We thought about making a music video showing a house party or a club. Then again, we thought this would be a bit cliche because dance/electronic music is always linked in with these kind of activities. Other ideas that passed our minds were a Street Scene and Ballroom Dancing. Both those ideas didn't feel right. It didn't take long before we thought of exercising in a gym. Some lines of the lyrics fitted perfectly with this idea, such as 'It's all 'bout membership' and 'While they are shaking their belts'.

Click on the image to enlarge it.


There was only one slight problem: How would we be able to get into a real gym and shoot our music video there with permission (as we wouldn't think we could get permission). Our school, Reed's school, provides enough facilities to shoot our video there. Permission is easy to get as it is for a compulsory project and we can take our time, and come and go as often as we need, incase of re-shots or when we have to do things differently.

Performers are easily accessable aswell. There are about 500-600 pupils in this school so we can ask a couple of our friends and maybe some people from outside school wether they want to take part in our video.
We would preferably use friends as they would be keen to help us in any way. The main character is supposed to be a skinny man, that is what the video is all about. Therefore we are forced to look at friends/people that are on the skinny side. To put emphasis on the skinny guy we need several muscly men as well, which is the opposite of the skinny guy. Preferably people with wide shoulders and muscly arms, because that is easy to show. A Six pack isn't required as we don't expect people to appear half 'naked' in our music video. We also need some pretty girls.
For the dance class section we need people from all ages etc. We could mix some pupils with parents. We could ask them to bring in some glasses for the nerdy look, with a red pen or felt-tip we can draw some zits on peoples faces, because we don't want to have people in our music video with real acne (as we would find that a bit harsh because we don't want to make fun of them).

Main character:
Paris Mudan as Thin man

People in dance class:
Ollie Stokes
Andy Billman
Simon Baker
Chris Trotman
Nick Hayes
Rhiana
Molly Botelho
Charlie
Elisabeth Harris

Pretty Girls
Elisabeth Harris
Hannah Stout
Helen Major
Bethany Leslie

Security Guard:
Rik Bogers

Strong Guys:
Harry Curtis
George Crabb
Ben Talaga
Fraser Branon
James Rutter

People houseparty:
Rik Bogers
Harry Curtis
George Crabb
Ben Talaga
Fraser Branon
James Rutter
Simon Baker
Chris Trotman
Andy Billman
Paris Mudan
Ollie Stokes
Elisabeth Harris
Hannah Stout
Helen Major
Bethany Leslie
Rhianna
Molly Botelho
Charlie

For our CD cover and magazine we would like to take some images from the music video and use Photoshop, Illustrator and maybe InDesign to make it look authentic. Matt has done Photography for his AS year. Alicia finished her AS year Graphics and is carrying on with Graphics for A2 at the moment. Both skills are required to make perfect advertisements and outstanding CD covers. Alicia mainly feels that you need to have the basic (which in our case are the images of the video clip) and the rest comes later in the process. 'I feel that the best work exists out of experimenting and developing your work, which means you can't say beforehand what it will look like or what you are exactly going to do'.


Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Questionnaire

Click on the images to enlarge them





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How Old Are You?
1 15-24
2 15-24
3 15-24
4 15-24
5 15-24
6 15-24
7 15-24
8 15-24
9 15-24
10 15-24
11 15-24
12 15-24
13 15-24
14 15-24
15 15-24
16 15-24
17 25-35
18 35-55
19 35-55
20 55+

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gender?
1 Male
2 Male
3 Female
4 Male
5 Male
6 Male
7 Male
8 Female
9 Female
10 Male
11 Female
12 Male
13 Male
14 Female
15 Male
16 Female
17 Female
18 Female
19 Female
20 Female

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What genre of music video do you most like to watch?
1 Dance/Electronic
2 Rock/Alternative
3 Rock/Alternative
4 Rock/Alternative
5 Metal
6 Pop
7 R&B
8 Rock/Alternative
9 R&B
10 Rock/Alternative
11 Dance/Electronic
12 Dance/Electronic
13 Pop
14 Rock/Alternative
15 Rock/Alternative
16 R&B
17 Pop
18 Pop
19 Pop
20 N/A

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Are you familiar with dance/electronic music artists such as "The Prodigy", "Daft Punk, "Davud Guetta" etc?
1 Yes
2 Yes
3 Yes
4 Yes
5 Yes
6 No
7 Yes
8 Yes
9 Yes
10 Yes
11 Yes
12 Yes
13 Yes
14 Yes
15 Yes
16 Yes
17 Yes
18 No
19 No
20 No

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Do you enjoy listening to dance/electronic songs?
1 Yes
2 No
3 Sometimes
4 Yes
5 No
6 No
7 Yes
8 Yes
9 Yes
10 Yes
11 Yes
12 Yes
13 Yes
14 Yes
15 No
16 No
17 Yes
18 No
19 Yes
20 N/A

Friday, September 11, 2009

This is the cover of Justice's first album 'Cross', which was produced in 2007 and released on the 11th of June 2007. It was nominated for Best Electronic/dance album in 2008. The idea behind this album cover was to promote the artists intentions and work.

Track list of this album:
1. 'Genesis' - 3:54
2. 'Let There Be Light' - 4:55
3. 'D.A.N.C.E.' - 4:02
4. 'Newjack' - 3:36
5. 'Phantom' - 4:22
6. 'Phantom Pt. II' - 3:20
7. 'Valentine' - 2:56
8. 'Tthhee Ppaarrttyy' (featuring Uffie) - 3:46
9. 'DVNO' (featuring Mehdi Pinson) - 3:56
10. 'Stress' - 4:58
11. 'Waters of Nazereth' - 4:25
12. 'One Minute to Midnight' - 3:40
Bonus Track
13. 'D.A.N.C.E.' (rehearsal version) - 4:29

This CD cover is very minimalistic. The cross is used as their logo. A cross on its own is a very strong symbol and we personally think they used this symbol very effectively on the album. The only thing you can see is the cross, and nothing else, which means you can't get 'around' the album; your attention is drawn towards it. The most important thing is: it is the key to recognition.

The album cover differs from the cover of the single DVNO. Even though the same colours are used; black and gold/yellow, which suggests that both CD covers are connected to each other, other images are portrayed. The DVNO cover doesn't show their symbol, but their name and the title of the song. The cover matches their song as 'DVNO, four capital letters, printed in gold' is sung several times in the chorus.


Electronic Dance Music (EDM)

The genre we are looking at is electronic dance music (EDM). We chose the band Justice and one of their songs ‘DVNO’ because we both like the song and we feel that we can be creative using this style of music in a music video. Artists within the genre include ‘The Chemical Brothers’, ‘The Prodigy’, ‘Daft Punk’, ‘Basement Jaxx’, Tijs Verwest (aka TiĂ«sto), Armin van Buuren, David Guetta etc.

'Daft Punk' and 'David Guetta'

This music is commonly found in nightclubs because of its lively sound. One of the main reasons it is played in nightclubs is because it was influenced by 1970’s disco music. This was immensely popular in clubs at the time and now in the 2000’s dance music is now popular. Night clubs are seen as a huge entertainment venue to dance and drink after midnight. Unlike pubs and bars, nightclubs are provided with a dancefloor and a DJ, who plays recorded songs through a strong PA system to keep clubbers dancing all night.

'Life' in a nightclub

We chose this song due to dance music’s large popularity with our target audience, which have the age demographic (15-24). This means we will be producing for a mass audience (a very large group) rather than a niche audience (a more specific and smaller group).

Justice's music appeals to everyone, their genre of music arised from disco music, which at first was more popular with the African American homosexuals. Later on it was picked up by the more predominantly white gay clubs in New York. While evolving into other genres it was eventually picked up by heterosexuals and homosexuals of all ethnicities. We feel that Justices genre of music can be appreciated by both genders because of the nightclub scene promoting these genres of music. Both genders go to nightclubs and therefore are both exposed to their type of music.

These psychographics are based on the National Readership Survey's socio-economic grades:

A: Higher Managerial, administrative or professional - doctors, sollicitors.

B: Intermediate managerial, administrative or professional - bank managers, teachers.

C1: Supervisory or clerical, junior managerial, administrative or professional - 'white collar' office and bank staff.

C2: Skilled manual workers - plumbers, builders.

D: Semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers.

E: Casual labourers, unemployed, on state benefits.

However, there are problems with these categories especially because of our age demographic (target audience 15-24). From this survey it is difficult to see how much money people make or spend. This means that the 15-24 age demographic will find it hard to be categorised into one of these groups because not many 15-24 year olds are employed full-time so they would automatically classed as group E. We feel that Justice's music isn't aimed at this group E and feel that the music is aimed at group C1-E as we experience that most 15-24 year olds fall into these class bounderies.

The 4Cs: Cross Cultural Consumer Characterisation

Resigned

Rigid, strict, authoritarian and chauvinist values, oriented to the past and to Resigned roles. Brand choice stresses safety, familiarity and economy. (Older).

Struggler

Alienated, Struggler, disorganised – with few resources apart from physical/mechanical skills (e.g. car repair). Heavy consumers of alcohol, junk food and lotteries, also trainers. Brand choice involves impact and sensation.

Mainstreamer

Domestic, conformist, conventional, sentimental, passive, habitual. Part of the mass, favouring big well-known value for money ‘family’ brands. Almost invariably the largest 4Cs group.

Aspirer

Materialistic, acquisitive, affiliative, oriented to extrinsics… image, appearance, charisma, persona and fashion. Attractive packaging more important than quality of contents. (Younger, clerical/sales type occupation)

Succeeder

Strong goal orientation, confidence, work ethic, organisation… Support status quo, stability. Brand choice based on reward, prestige – the very best. Also attracted to ‘caring’ and protective brands… Stress relief. (Top management).

Explorer

Energy – autonomy, experience, challenge, new frontiers. Brand choice highlights difference, sensation, adventure, indulgence and instant effect – the first to try new brands. (Younger – student)

Reformer

Freedom from restriction, personal growth, social awareness, value for time, independent judgement, tolerance of complexity, anti-materialistic but intolerant of bad taste. Curious and enquiring, support growth of new product categories. Select brands for intrinsic quality, favouring natural simplicity, small is beautiful.(Highier education)

We hope that they can enjoy the music just as much as the video clip we want to create.

Most instruments used within this genre are mimicked, which means no traditional instruments are used and the sound is synthetic. This gives the DJ a large option of sound mixes, which he can have at his/her disposal.

Dance music can be linked to many other ‘electrical’ genres as well as disco from the 70’s, these include techno, house, trance, electro, breakbeat, drum and bass. All these genres promote dancing.


Thursday, September 10, 2009

Musical Genre


Elegia - The essence of it

The band Elegia and Justice have a lot in common, they make music which have the same genre, and if you compare this video with the video of DVNO you will notice they both use typography to establish feeling/ideas etc.

We got this video of Audiotube which is an equivalent website to Youtube, no doubt this video will be on Youtube as well. Audiotube was founded in 2006 by Karsten Becker and Scott deMercado and it was launched in 2007. Just like Youtube, it is a community website and it's purpose is to give audience the opportunity to watch and share music video's. Youtube on the other hand was created in 2005 by three former PayPal employees. Now a days it is used by Google as a subsidiary.

Typography is a technique used in visual art that arranges text in front or over the top of a media text to help establish the lyrics or meanings of an issue or topic. When using typography you have to think about several aspects such as; point sizes, typefaces, line lengths etc. The way these are conveyed can give across different meanings and influence the emotions of a viewer for example; colour can evoke different emotions e.g. blue mainly stand for calmness whilst red stands for anger. Typography is in use by several artists, typesetters, compositors, typographers, graphic designers etc.

Copied from Wikipedia :

In contemporary use, the practice and study of typography is very broad, covering all aspects of letter design and application. These include:

However, even though both Both Justice's video and Elegia's video have typographical aspects, they don't really have a story line and they definitely don't offer complex fragments. Justice's video shows images in linear order as words are shown across the screen that belong to the lyrics, while in Elegia's video a shot of a long duration is shown and the words appear on the screen.


Sportsday Megaphone - Meet in the Middle

This video commissioned for Sportdays Megaphone uses cartoon images, which is seen as a visual art. The modern meaning of cartoons conveys more humorous aspects. Justice's video D.A.N.C.E. uses a range of cartoon images as well. Two people are walking around in a clip without showing their heads. Cartoon images are appearing on their t-shirt and a sequence is created.

Both Sportsday Megaphone's and Justice's D.A.N.C.E. video offer a story line. The fragments shown aren't very realistic (e.g. Sportsday Megaphone's video at 1 min and 16 seconds shows hair products flying out of a door opening, Justice's D.A.N.C.E. video shows drawings on t-shirts that appear and disappear through the course of the video).

Image out of the video Justice - D.A.N.C.E.



Krafty Kuts - Bass Phenomenon

Krafty Kuts is an English electronic music, dance music and breakbeat producer and DJ at the same time. His real name is Martin Reeve and his debut album was released in 2006 and was called 'Freakshow'. 'Against the Grain' is his own record-label that he launched recently.

This music video has got several elements in it that is used in Justice's video music 'Around the World' as well. Both contain choreography and a strong use of colour. This video shows how how you can keep the props and setting simple and make the video interesting by cutting it, using loads of different shot types and angles, but also special effects. There isn't a very long story-line that needs to be made clear in this video, it is simple; dark background, clothes are green, red and white (two colours that are the opposite of each other but are still eye-catching and one neutral colour), lights are used to put emphasis on the person who is dancing/singing etc.
For our video we wouldn't be able to use the same techniques; cutting almost every second, because the story-line of our music video wouldn't be clear. It would just change in a blur.


Lyrics




It's always the same
Always ashamed
The story telling
When I can come in
To a hopeless troglodyte
But one more time
my answer stands
I swear I mean "no offence"
But you better learn to read
it's all 'bout membership
Hey, for the young and old
Ugly girls and boys
I put you on my list
And make you clap to this[?]
Mayhem , I just don't need that trip
And only one can win
And soon you'l say thats him

[Chorus x2]
D V N O
Four capital letters
Printed in gold
'Cause details make the girls sweat even more
while they're shaking their belt
No need to ask my name
to figure out how cool I am

[Refrain x2]
Can anyone read, anyone feel
That I'm losing my patience
I just came here to bounce
Ladies all waxed
They all know I'm coming
I'm losing my patience
I just came here to bounce

[Chorus x2]

[Refrain]

[Chorus]


About the artist Justice

Justice is a dance band that originates from Fance. The two band members are Gaspard AugĂ© (born 21st May 1979) and Xavier de Rosnay (born 2nd July 1982). Their style of music, though in the dance genre of music, contains influences from other genres such as rock and indie. This sets them apart from other dance bands or artists. Also working as a duo subverts the typical genre of a dance band. Usually a dance artist would be alone or accompanied by many others. This can be seen with the artist Calvin Harris and the band The Prodigy. Their style has been thought of as having some heavy metal influence also. This is because they combine cut-up bass lines with a compressed and distorted synthetic sound. Looking at their previous music videos has helped us to think of ideas that can suit this genre of music. Their music video for the song “D.A.N.C.E” was nominated for "Video of the Year" at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards.

In general, Justice their video's are very eye-catching, this is mainly because there is so much going on in the screen. If you blink once you already missed bits of the video clip, which makes it interesting to keep watching their video's over and over again.

For more information about the band : Click here

As part of our research we discovered: 'The star image can be used to position the consumer in relation to dominant social values (hegemony). Depending upon the artist, this may mean that the audience are positioned against the mainstream (though only to a limited degree, since they are still consumers within a capitalist system) or within the mainstream, or somewhere in between'.

We feel that Justice is very much not mainstream. This is because not that many people are aware of them or their music, despite being nominated for awards. They haven't reached a certain level of fame to rival other artists of the same genre, such as The Prodigy and Daft Punk.

Richard Dyer came up with theories about stars and their music:
Paradox 1: 'The star must be simultaneously ordinary and extraordinary for the consumer'.
Paradox 2: 'The star must be simultaneously present and absent for the consumer'.

We feel that they conform to Paradox 1, as the artists image is quite ordinary. However, their music and in particular the style of their music video's is extraordinary.

Justice - D.A.N.C.E.:


Justice has had two record labels: Ed Banger Records and Elektra
Ed Banger Records is run by Pedro Winter and founded in 2002. It is a French electronic music record label. It's Parent Company is Headbangers Entertainment.

Copied from Wikipedia:
To see full Discography by Ed Banger Records Click Here
Or to view the official website Click Here

Ed Banger Records Discography 'Justice'
Release dateArtistTitleFormatCatalogue
23 September 2003Justice vs Simian & Gambit/EspionNever Be Alone(12")ED 002
14 September 2005JusticeWaters of Nazareth12"ED 005
28 April 2006JusticeWaters Of Nazareth12"BEC 577200
29 April 2006JusticeWaters Of Nazareth6 track CD singleBEC 5772007
26 January 2007JusticePhantometched 12"ED 014ADV
4 May 2007JusticeD.A.N.C.E.12"ED 017
9 June 2007JusticeD.A.N.C.E.7"BEC 5772111
9 June 2007JusticeD.A.N.C.E.CD singleBEC 5772072
16 June 2007JusticeCDBEC 5772108
16 June 2007Justicelimited CDBEC 5772109
22 June 2007Justice2xLPBEC 5772110
27 July 2007JusticeD.A.N.C.E. (Remixes)12"ED 019
3 November 2007JusticeD.A.N.C.E.CD singleBEC 5772162
28 November 2007JusticePhantom12"BEC 5772169

Elektra is unlike Ed Banger Records an American record label and it was founded several years before Ed Banger Records in 1950 by Jac Holzman and Paul Rickholt. It's Parent Company is Warner Music Group.

To see all Logo's or read more information about Elektra Click Here
To view the official Website please Click Here


Eletra Logo; when Eletra was launched in 1950's

Butterfly logo; used in the 1970's

Most recent Elektra logo; 2009