Lip Sync Task four

For this exercise we needed to capture footage to be able to lip sync to “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart”. When shooting this it was different to previous times that we have recorded because we had to sing to the music with the thought of whether it would sync up when editing. For this Lip syncing we needed to repeat the movements and the singing multiple times but changing the position of the camera, which we done about four times. We done this so that the audience would not get bored and only be looking at one static shot of the two people singing. Four each of these different positions we only used one take when editing and this was so that when syncing up the footage to the music we only needed to match one part of the footage which would meant that the rest of the footage would be successfully synced. At key parts of the song we made sure that the movements were the same so that when editing there would be no continuity errors. The main thing that needed to be achieved was that we needed it to look realistic, as though we were actually singing and we done this by playing the music whilst recording and having the actor sing the song. This was good because it came across that they were singing in the final edit and therefore made it look realistic. When the person was singing it did not matter about the quality of the voice because the audio from the recording would be discarded and replaced with the song.

Once all of the recording had been completed I then had to edit all of the clips to make the music video. The first thing that had to be done for this was to sync up each of the clips to the song and this was helped by the use of markers. Markers were used to highlight a part of the song and for me I done it when Elton John first started to sing. I done it on this bit because it is a clear part of the song and would also be clear in the footage for when this starts. Although I knew that when the first part of the footage is synced the rest would be I also placed markers at other significant parts and then used them as references to make sure that it was only fully synced. The use of markers was very helpful because this meant that when I added in the other clips that we recorded I could go straight to those parts and make sure it synced and I feel like I used them successfully in order to obtain my goal. The first part of using the markers was to play the song and pick out parts that would be easy to see that the video is synced up with the audio.

The next thing that I done after I placed the marker was to find the part on the video which was to be synced up with the markers that I had created. For the his was a key part because if this part was slightly off then it would mean the rest of the footage would also be off and the music video would lose it effectiveness.

Once I found the section of the video where I was going going to sync up I placed my cursor at the start of the clip and then cropped the video up until the point of the desired part. 

I then moved the footage to the marker so that the footage and the audio would be synced to point when Elton John started to sing and the first person in the video also did. 

Now that the the footage was synced up I took expanded the start of the footage so that the video then started for the beginning of the song rather than starting at the part where i synced up the the audio and the video.

Layers were important in helping me successfully edit the footage to the music because it meant that I could place all of the clips into the composition before I started to cut them and make the music video. This meant that all of the pieces of footage were placed onto their own individual layers and once I selected a part of the footage that I wanted to be shown on a certain part of the music I would just be able to delete that section of the recording on the other layers that I did not want and this made the task a lot easier than if I was to have done this task all on one layer. I repeated the previous steps from the markers section to sync up all of the footage to the audio. After that I then went through each of the footage and the audio and decided what I wanted to be shown at what parts.

I chose to have the second layer on the composition to be the first thing to be shown at the start of the music.  I placed the play head on the end of the section that I wanted to be shown and on the clips I used to cut tool to separate that section of the footage from the rest of the clip. Now that the first section of footage was separate i deleted the beginning part of the footage from the clips that I did not want to be shown. 

This is repeated for the rest of the footage until the music video has been completed.

I lip synced the footage by having a point in the music which was clear and placed a marker there then I dragged the clip that I was going to sync up and found this part on the video. Once I found this part on the footage I then cropped the footage to that point and moved it to the section that I placed the marker on and then expanded the footage back until it reached the start of the video. I then played the video to see if it had successfully synced up which it did all of the times. I then repeated this for all of the other clips in order to sync them up.

Although it was important to ensure that all of the footage was synced up it was mostly the parts of singing on the close ups of the people singing that I was most careful about. This was because if this part was not synced up then it would break the illusion that they were not actually singing the song. This did not matter as much on the medium shots because it was not only their mouths that are being shown and therefore would be less likely to be noticeable if the footage was slightly out of sync.

lip syncing from Daniel Cole on Vimeo.

Task Three - Understand the techniques of music videos

For this task I had to take different pieces of footage and apply music music to it to make a music video. There were various techniques that i had to do for this music video in order to show that i was able to successfully create a music video. These techniques were to sync the music with the different clips, ensure the rhythm of the music is matched with the movements, use split screen efficiently and be able to use chroma key.
        The first thing that i done was to import the music onto the project and then apply it to the timeline. For this I had to go onto file -> Import and select the music track from the files on the computer.

 After I placed the music into the project and placed it into the work area I then had to import the separate clips into the project so that i was able to start creating the music video.

Now that the separate clips were imported I then had to cut them down as they had areas of black screen which I would not be able to use and therefore had to remove them. This meant placing each individual clip into the workspace and then going through the clip and cutting out the black screens. I done this so that it was easier to work with when looking for what clips to place at which point in the music. Below is the the original clip in the timeline.

 This screenshot shows after I have cut around the black screens.

 After cutting around the clip to make the black screen and the footage into different parts I then selected and deleted the black screens.

 I then repeated this process with each of the clips and placed them on their own different line so it would be easier to move them how i wanted to after I had completed this step.

 After all of this I then moved it so that there were no gaps between the clips.

 This was the part of creating the music video which was the hardest and took the most time. For this part of editing I had to re watch and listen to the song multiple times in order to know what part of the clips will go best with the music. Having the clips on their own line made this process much easier becuase it meant all i had to do was move the clips left and right to place it in the right place and not have the other clips getting in the way of each other.

                             

I used a few effects for the music video in order to mix it up and would also keep the audiences attention. The first effect that i created was split screen which is where there will either be different clips playing together on the same screen or the same clip copied so that it is seen more than once at the same time. The first step to creating split screen is to stack two or more clips on top of each other on the separate lines.

 The next step is to double click onto one of the clips which will open up the effect panel for that clip where the rotation, opacity and size of the clip is shown and can be modified. The thing that need to be changed in order to create this split screen effect is to change the size of the clip and make it so that the clip covers a half of the screen. In this programme the width and the height of the clip is linked which means when one is moved so is the other and this has to be turned off in order to change the size in the desired way. It is turned off by clicking on the icon that looks like two chains that are linked together.

 When the clip is moved the other clip will be seen behind the clip which has just been changed and you should be able to see how the split screen will work from this. Once the clip has been modified to how you want then i repeated the step on the other clip to show all of the clip next to the clip and then the split screen is shown.

 This is the finished product of creating the split screen. When this effect is used in music videos it can be used to create different effects whether it be a contrast of the two clips such as happiness and sadness or emphasis by showing the same thing from two points of view or two people experiencing the same thing.

Chroma key was the next effect that i created for this task and this is when the colour in the video is distorted and in this case it is removing the colour from the video but leaving in one colour. To do this I clicked on the effects panel in the bottom right window and searched for 'Leave Colour' (on different pieces of software the name for this effect is different but still performs the same task. After finding the effect I dragged it onto the car clip in on the timeline. Once I done this, a list of options for this effect appeared which changed how much the effect would change the clip.

For this effect i wanted to keep the colour of the red car on the clip but remove the rest of the colour and this required experimenting  with the effects settings in order to get the look that i wanted. After selecting the colour that i wanted to leave i then went on to change the settings for tolerance of the colour, so that the higher the toloerance the boundary of the colour is increased and allows more red to be shown. I also changed the amount which is the amount of colour de-saturation i wanted to occur.

Assignment One: Task Two – Understand the styles and conventions of music videos

Andrew Goodwin is a writer who has identified that there are six key features and wrote a book in 1992 called Dancing in the Distraction Factory. The first of these features is that with different genre there are also different characteristics that are present throughout each one. One genre that can be an example is girl bands and within this each video can be seen to have the characteristics. Some of these are that there are always close ups of the members of the band, the girls are seen together in a line doing the same movements and striking poses. Below are examples of two girl bands videos and  both include this feature that Andrew Goodwin had identified. 

This isnt just applicable to girl bands because it can also be seen in a lot of boy band videos where they are seen to be having fun and doing choreographed movement. A main reason for this is because most boy bands are not able to play instruments and are only able to 'sing' so the video has to be of them dancing rather than playing instruments. below is an image of Westlife in one their music videos doing the same thing as above, posing together.

Another genre in which there are characteristics throughout the music videos is rock and in these there are elements that are seen in all of the music videos. The main one that can be seen is that the majority of the videos have clips of the band playing their instruments. A reason for this could be that they are showing they are playing the instruments and also to show of their talents as musicians. This is different from the girl bands because they do not usually have this talent to show to the audience. An example of this is from The Strokes and the Foo Fighters, two different bands that share the same genre of music and also show the same features.










Another one of Andrew's key conventions of music videos is there is a relationship because the lyrics of the song and the visuals that are shown in the music video. The three classifications are illustrative, amplify and contradict. Illustrative means that the music video will be created with the thought of using the visuals to set the images and represent the lyrics by showing their meaning. An example of this is the song 'Feel Like a Bird' by Nelly Furtado. The reason why this is an illustrative music video is because in the song she is singing about feeling free and wanting to be a bird and in the video there are lots of images of her being a bird and also actual birds appearing throughout. This is illustrative because the words are parallel with the images created from the video.







The next relation is that the music video can amplify the lyrics of the song, causing the song to be seen to have a much deeper meaning and also raise the emotion that the audience may not have felt without the music video. An example of a music video that amplifies the song is "Bad Day" by Daniel Powter in which it shows two people throughout are having a bad days through different things such as seeing couples on the train or bus and having their bosses shouting at them. The reason why this is an amplifying music video is because the audience is able to see that the two characters are having bad days and are also able to relate to them, this means it is able to create emotion within the audience that would not be able to be created in other ways and therefore gives more meaning to the song and lyrics.







The final relationship between music video and the song is that the music video is contradicting to each other. A contradicting music video is one where the lyrics and song are ignored and does not have anything to do with each other. A music video that shows this is "Corner Stone" by Arctic Monkeys. If this method of music video is applied correctly then it is able to create strong feeling in the audience because they will be listening to the lyrics as there is nothing else to distract them. In this music video it shows one person singing into a microphone in front of a white background and there is nothing that will distract the audience. This is maybe the most difficult music video to execute correctly because it will easily be able to turn out boring and lose the audiences attention or not connect with it which is one of the purposes.








Music videos are able to come in different forms whether it is being recorded or is animated. These different forms can be seen throughout all of the different genres. One of these forms is digital animation and is computer based and an example of this is "Feel Good Inc." from Gorillaz. Even though this form is not recorded it can cost as much if not more than other recorded forms.






Another form that is stop motion which is quite uncommon for a music video because it is really difficult to create due to making the lip syncing properly. An example of a stop motion music video is by Peter Gabriel called "Sledge Hammer". Stop motion is created by putting different photos together to create the illusion of it moving. Although this form is very complicated and also uncommon it can be effective as things are able to be created which may not be able to be done through other forms and give the video a unique feel.







The next form that a music video can take is one where the footage is of the band in concert, performing the song on stage. This form of music of music video has long ben what heavy metal bands such as Guns and Roses, Metallica and Poison use. This form of video is usually easier to make in certain aspects becuase the band will usually perform gigs that are recorded anyway so all that has to be done is to edited the different angles and positions that the performance was recorded from. For most there of these forms of music video they record other parts in order to give the video a story which is shown in Welcome to the Jungle by Guns and Roses.






"as live" footage is a music video which will create the view of the bandeing fun and natural. This form of music video shows the band acting 'natural', messing around and joking with each other. It will show the group or artist in their day to day life. This is not always true for these forms of music video as the footage that is shown and recorded is all set up to create a positive image of them. An example of this type of music video is the from One Direction called What Makes You Beautiful which shows them just walking down the beach having fun.




A studio based music video shows the background of what happens in the studio when they are recording the song. This is similar to the 'as live' music video as the audience is seeing the band or artist not performing but just being themselves, or at least that is what they want you to think. The music video will show behind the scenes of the song being recorded and would create the natural feel. This music video would be easy to create because there is no need to look for locations. An example of this form of music video is Rule the World form Take That.





The final form is a cinematic music video and these are usually only created for bands and artist with big budgets as these videos can cost hundreds of thousands if not millions to create. These videos are most popular with pop artist such as Katy Perry or Lady GaGa. These videos will have very extravagant setting and backgrounds that are usually created such as the jungle from Katy Perry's Roar. These videos are created to hide the fake that the artist are untalented singers.

 




Throughout each of these forms, Andrew Goodwin also saw that there were different styles of music video within the different forms and that there is often that vary depending on what the genre of music is on and also what the actual song is about. The first style is narrative based and this means that the video will follow a story line, whether it is a journey or someone trying to find something. This is one of the most popular styles which is also performed by many artist throughout all of the genres. An example of a narrative based music video is Whitney Houston "I Will Always Love You" which is the story of someone having to leave the person who they love to travel somewhere else and is saying that they will always love them. This style is able to enhance the music video because it might be able to connect with someone who has also gone through the same thing.







The style that was identified is an impressionist orientated music video and is very artistic and does not have to always make sense. The music video may be in black and white to give it the impression of being very deep and and emphasizing the song. This could mean that even if a song did not make any sense the video might be able to make the audience think the song has a lot of meaning and is very deep. Another way that the video could look is more like a painting rather with it being colourful. An example of this is from Goyte called "Somebody That I Used To Know" which uses a white background and the two people as a canvas who are painted on.






The surrealist style is commonly used by the Aphex Twins and does not have a meaning. This form is usually weird and designed to mess with the audience whether it is trying to get ion their head or to scare them. This style of music video is mostly seen with heavy death metal bands or electronic acid techno. The video below, for example is difficult to understand what is happening and why it is happening when the children all have Aphex masks on in the video below called "Come to Daddy"







A pastiche music video is one that tries to recreate and time period and make it appear as though the video was created in that time period. An example of this is from Christina Agruilera in the music video "Candyman". This is good example because another time and culture is being imitated to give the impression of the 1940's. This style of music video will often be created when the song that has been created sounds similar or as though it would fit in with that time.




A parody music video is the is one that is looking to make fun of either another music video, picture or video and is commonly seen in comedic music videos. A parody song is either an entirely new song that is making fun of something, keeping the same backing track but changing the lyrics or keeping the lyrics and changing the genre of music to something else. A popular parody artist is "Weird Al" Yankovic and has taken popular music videos such as Michael Jackson's "Beat It" and keeping the famous car park setting but changing what happens in that scene. The look of the music video and the tune is kept the same with the lyrics and what happens in the video changing. Below shows the two music videos, the top one from Michael Jackson and the one underneath that from "Weird Al" Yankovic.








Homage is another style that Andrew Goodwin identified within music videos and this is something which dedicates themselves to a certain person or time and exaggerates it whilst not going so far as to make it funny or disrespect the people or time involved. An example of this  from a band called OutKast and the song is Hey Ya. This song is a homage to Lou Reed because it shows the same style and format of the singer whilst exaggerating it with bright colours and and over the top movements.





Intertextuality is primarily based on reference to other sources of entertainment and implements them into their own music video. The references are able to come from anything whether it is a book, television, film or could even be another music video. An example of an intertextual music video is telephone by Lady GaGa which takes the image of the film Kill Bill and uses it within her own music video. The image that is taken is the car that is used and there are strong similarities which makes it certain that this image has been used on purpose. The effect of using intertextuality is that the audience would see it and be able to use emotions that they have received from the other source and then associate it with the music video. The first image is from Lady GaGa's Telephone and the second is the image that has been used to recreate from Kill Bill.

Importance of Music video

Sone people would say that the music video is very important to the music industry. Although this may have been the case 40 years ago since then there has been a decline in the effectiveness of the music video. One reason for this is that the increased ways of people to listen to music has caused a shift in the amount of people that watch music videos as they are more likely to know the song from the radio or from the internet. However in recent years the music can be seen to have increased in popularity and effectiveness due to sites such as youtube. In the height of its use the music video would typically get hundreds of thousands or in some cases millions such as Michael Jackson's Scream.
        The music video would need a start to get it to be seen as a necessity to go with the actual music. One video that s thought to be the first proper music video is from a band called The Buggles with the song Video Killed The Radio Star. This is a prime example of how the music video helped to make a song popular as without it it is thought that the song would not have been as popular as it was. One reason for its popularity was because before this the only way that music was able to be listened to was on the radio and the music video allowed another format for music to be a form of entertainment. From this point onwards more money would be spent on videos for the music as the producers saw this as a way of making the music as popular as it could be.


Although more money was put more into the music industry for the videos this was not always needed in order to make the video effective. A key example of this is in the song  Nothing Compares 2U sung by Sinead O'Connor. This song was originally a Prince song and Sinead done a cover of the song. Because of the music video this song which was a cover was more popular than when Prince had released it. The record company gave the director of the video money in oder to be able to film the video and make it as good as he possibly could. The original idea for the video was to have Sinead walking through a cemetery with snippets of an extreme close up of her singing the song. However, after the video of her singing had been shot in the studio the director decided to use the footage of the studio more rather than the the footage of Paris which had all of its money spent on. The reason for this is because in the final video Sinead had some emotional connection to the song and therefore gave it the effectiveness and emotion that would not have been portrayed in the original idea. The director said that if he could then he would have had the whole song of the extreme close up but if he did then the record label would have been annoyed.

Assignment 1 Task One – Understand the purpose of music videos

Task One – Understand the purpose of music videos

Before the invent of music videos in order for a band to publicise they had to go onto television and radio in order to spread the word about a new song. However now band that would change this were The Beatles who, in 1964, starred in their first feature film 'A Hard Days Night' which was created to promote their new song. A year later this film was used to create promotional clips which were then able to be shown around the world. The effect of this was that the band and song were getting promoted in many countries without the need for them to physically appear on the shows and therefore would be able to reach a lot more people. This increased the availability of the artist.

Another way that the music and promotional music videos can help towards the availability of the artist is when the song gets very popular and is shown on many channels and played o may stations. The first band and song that really made use of this was Queen with their song 'Bohemian Rhapsody'. This song reached number number one and was in the charts for many weeks and every week bands that were in the charts would appear on Top of the Tops to perform their song was difficult to sing the song due to complex effects that would not be able to be performed live with ease. This is when the production company decided to create a music video for the band which would be played on Top of the Pops because they would not be able to perform the song each week for months on end. Before these promotional videos were created, if the artist could not appear on the show then whilst the song is being played there would be a group of dancers, one of which were called Pans People, that would perform on stage. These dancers would not get very long to choreograph or practice the dance so the dance would not promote the song and artist in the way that they wanted it to be whereas showing a music video created by the artist would.

 

 

Some people would say that the music video is very important to the music industry. Although this may have been the case 40 years ago since then there has been a decline in the effectiveness of the music video. One reason for this is that the increased ways of people to listen to music has caused a shift in the amount of people that watch music videos as they are more likely to know the song from the radio or from the internet. However in recent years the music can be seen to have increased in popularity and effectiveness due to sites such as youtube. In the height of its use the music video would typically get hundreds of thousands or in some cases millions such as Michael Jackson's Scream.




The music video has had a massive effect on how songs and artists are promoted in this industry with large amounts of money being spent on them in order to create the best video. There have been many songs which are likely to not have been as popular if not for the creation of a music video. If a video creates a stir or gets lots of publicity then this means that the artist and song are also getting advertised alongside that, so getting promoted. To get this advertisement to work the music video has to be able to successfully appeal to the audience. Sometimes if this is not achieved then it could meant the song may not be as successful as a result.   Another purpose of a music video is to appeal visually to the audience alongside just being listened to. The effect of this is that it can take the affect which it has on the audience and multiply it because they are not only being stimulated by hearing the music but also seeing the video which goes alongside it and therefore will get more emotions from it when viewing it. 

Music videos are a key way to advertise the artists or band by creating a brand/image for them. Different artists create their own brand through the music video such as either making it simple, such as Adele in "Someone Like You" which simply shows her walking in london in black and white. On the opposite side is Lady GaGa who is famous for her eccentric style of clothing that she wears in her music videos.  For Lady GaGa she would be seen as having a style over substance ideology with her music videos because she has many interesting and complex video s which lots of content rather than simple and keeping the audiences attention on the lyrics and song, this is her brand.  

The extension of income means how the the Music video is going to increase the amount of money that the song, album and artist will make. A successful music video will result in the artist making more money due to increased audience and therefore plays/sales. The video acts as a promotional tool for the artist and label. It is also able to raise the audiences awareness and profile in order for the artist to be able to play at festivals and do tours which will also cause a raise in awareness and so on. Another way for increased income is to use product placement in which a company will pay the artist to insert one of their products into the music video. In the case of product placement it is usually the more coverage and popular the artist is then the more money that wold be made from product placement. In We Cant Stop by Miley Cyrus right at the start there is product placement of Beats Pill.

Extension of outlets means all of the different ways in which the artist's music video and song will be able to be played on. One of these is playing it through music channels such as 4Music or Kerrang! Where this extension may have been popular in the past, now days this is not so much the most popular choice but can still get the song out there and be shown. The reason for music channels not being as popular is because of the next extension with is through the internet. This method has grown dramatically over the past few years due to the fact of internet becoming much more popular and easier to et access to. Through the internet there are a variety of ways to view the artists music videos, one of which is streaming. The main website which will be used to stream music videos is Youtube, with millions of videos where anyone can upload to. The affect of this is that if the artist does not have the mine or is not well known enough o have their video/ song played/shown they would be able to upload to youtube where people will be able to view it. An example of this is Justin Bieber who first sung on youtube and his 'talent' was discovered where he is now famous. Another method of getting people to view the music video on the internet is through downloading it from a variety of sites, one of which is iTunes, where the person will most likely have to pay to download it and then be able to view it but this is not as popular with the ability to download and stream video from youtube for free almost anywhere. CDs are still a popular extension with many people buying the CDs of the artist whether it is a single or an album. On the CD/DVD the band or artist could included some special features such as live footage of them or bonus tracks. However it has been said that this  extension has begun to be overtaken by people downloading the music. 

Synergy is when the creation of the music is done by two products/companies work together to make a music video which can be effective because it can create a link between the two things. One example of this is Adele and James Bond, this is an example because it is two different people/companies working together. Adele was chosen to sing Skyfall and the music video for this song was a trailer for the film which shows that they incorporated he singing and therefore her image and both were used to promote each other. Synergy also spreads along to television programmes and is when a song is played on a certain show then this will mean that the band is getting promoted and is reaching an audience which may not have been reached before.

Without producers it is difficult for an artist to be able to make it big or to even get their songs played to people and with the different producers there are different strategies and types that they will use. One type of producer are the Major Labels and these are the main ones that control the music industry, often hiring many bands at a time which would be able to be done by the smaller producers. Some of these producers are Universal, Sony Music and Warner Brothers and these producers would have lots of money that they would be able t spend on the bands and artists that they want to promote the most and create high budget music videos. The Major producers will be involved in many other industries most of the time such as film and television which could mean they another way to promote the artist. 
The next producers are the Major independents and there are many more of these compared to the Major Labels. These producers would most likely only be a part of the one industry but still have the money to be able to promote the artist. Examples of these are Columbia, Island and Syco. these labels would still have very well known artists and be able to make high budget music videos but won't have the access to their own extensions of outcomes. 
The Final type are the self promoted artists and it is this type of producer that is there is the most of in the industry, often only gavin a few artists that they promote. The cost of music videos from these producers can vary depending on how many and how well the artists are doing. These producers usually only specialise in one style of music such as Indie rock or Rap. One of these producers are called Warp records.

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