Costume

We roughly brainstormed what we were going to wear.

SLEEPOVER:
-Pajamas
-Slippers

ALL THAT GLITTERS
Emily:

Alicia: -leopard print black velvety jeany trousers,

Olivia:

PUNK-GRUNGE
Emily:

Alicia: Leather shorts

Olivia:

COUNTRY:
Emily: Denim sleeveless jacket, white dress, brown boots

Alicia: Denim shorts, black cowboy boots, Blue shirt

Olivia:

RAP:
Emily:

Alicia:

Olivia:

BOYBAND:
Emily:

Alicia:

Olivia:


ALICIA:

Country – Blue shirt, denim shorts, Black Cowboy Boots

Grunge – Leather shorts, Sonia’s black crop top with no shoulders, grunge boots

Rap – Black baggy trousers and bralet AND Glittery hot pants and red top

Boy Band – Cargo shorts and white t shirt

Although this was subject to change it was important to have a good idea early on so we could get what we needed to get soon.

Second Presentation

Since we abandoned our idea in our first presentation (Monopoly), we created a second presentation in order to present our new idea proposal to our teachers and classmates.

The handout:

Representation of Gender

We believe that our music video will hold an interesting representation of gender. This is because we will be combining two extremities of the female stereotype, creating an artist identity that is very unique to 'All That Glitters'.



One of these stereotypes is the typical girly girl who would  love pink and be very giggly and generally do things that fit the gender role. They would not be sexualized at all. One celebrity who would possibly fit this persona is Taylor Swift.

The other of these stereotypes is the 'femme fatale', a woman empowered by her sexuality. They would appeal to girls as they would admire their strength and appeal to boys as a dominating female. Celebrities who would fit this persona are Scarlett Johansson or Lana Del Rey. 

Another interesting point about our band is that we are going to combine these stereotypes in different amounts between each member. We each have our separate identities which we believe adds depth to our artist and allows a more universal relatability across the breadth of our target audience. 


Olivia is going to be most comparable to Ariana Grande. 
Alicia is going to be most comparable to Kristen Stewart.
Emily is going to be most comparable to Cher Lloyd.

Song timing outline

We have mapped out the timings of the song. This is for a couple of reasons:

1. According to Andrew Goodwin, the music and the visuals should link. Therefore, when deciding on the narrative to our music video we have to have the transitions in the song (e.g soft verse, strong chorus) in sync with particular events in the visuals.
2. It gives us a structure to plan from, breaking up the song into manageable chunks.
3. We have identified the chorus, verse, instrumentals and bridge parts that are crucial to music video theory. 

0.00-0.10
INTRO -Instrumental

0.11-0.30
First verse

0.31-35
And he doesn't give a damn about me

0.36-0.55
Chorus

0.56-1.07
Instrumental interlude

1.08-1.27
Verse 2

1.28-1.33
And she doesn't give a damn about me

1.34-1.53
Chorus 2

1.54-1.56
Music

1.57-2.19
Don't know what he's missin'

2.20-2.39
Verse 3

2.40-2.44
And why does he give a damn about me

2.45-3.05
Bridge- two tickets to Iron Maiden

3.06-3.30
Don't know what he's missin'

3.30-3.46
Instrumental

In conclusion, we believe identifying the timings will not just aid us in the planning stage, but every stage including post-production when we are editing.

Influences Commentary

To explain our influences in more detail and to show the sorts of genre stereotypes we are looking for, we have prepared a visual representation below with a commentary over the top.

As these are our visual references, we concentrate more on showing clips reflective of the style we want to show in our own music video, rather than clips which are more typical of the genre we are describing.

For each clip, we introduce and discuss why we like this particular clip, and how we will use it in relation to our own music video.




We believe that this exercise was helpful as it allowed us to address the key themes and signifiers that we wanted in our own music video.

The Pop-Rock Genre

Pop rock is a music genre which mixes a catchy pop style and light lyrics in its (typically) guitar-based rock songs. There are varying definitions of the term, ranging from a slower and mellower form of rock music to a sub genre of pop music. The detractors of pop rock often deride it as a slick, commercial product, less authentic than rock music.

In the modern mainstream, there is no predominant female pop-rock group, and so we feel this presents a gap in the market we seek to fill. Within this genre we can use fun and different stylings, combining the glamourous, pretty girly style seen within pop groups, with a more grungey, dark look and sound more common in rock music. We planned for the colours pink and black to be featured heavily within our band image, however while this worked well for our actual shoots, it became tacky, common and over-used when applied to the website and album design. It seemed far to safe and typical to stick to this traditional 'punky girl' colour scheme, and so we introduced more white and gold into our designing.


Typically pop-rock groups play instruments, such as guitars or drums, and so we decided that our band should consist of a lead singer, and two instrumentalists.

Examples:

1980s- Stevie Wonder, Cher, Madonna, Phil Collins

1990s- Emergence of 'pop-punk'. Green Day, Natalie Imbruglia, Shakira, Hanson, Gin Blossoms

2000s and 10s- Maroon 5, Nickelback, Avril Lavigne, Kelly Clarkson, Ashlee Simpson, P!NK, Christina Aguiliera, Demi Lovato

As you can see, these are predominantly solo artists.

The Rap and Hip-Hop Genre

Rapping is 'spoken or chanted rhyming lyrics', and 'occupies a grey area' between speech, prose, poetry and singing.
Also known as emceeing, MCing, spitting bars or rhyming.
Hip-hop and reggae music center around it, and recently it can be found in alternative rock, but history shows us that rapping predates hip hop culture by centuries.
Can be delivered over a beat or without accompaniment.
The word 'rap' originally meaned 'to hit', and had been used in British English since the 16th century, and came to mean 'to say' in the 18th. In the 1960s it became part of an African American dialect of English meaning 'to converse' and soon after it came to be used in its current way, to describe the musical style. Today it's so closely associated with hip hop music that many people use the two terms interchangeably.
Originated in Africa, where stories were delivered rhythmically over drums and other instruments.
A rap solo is often featured in pop songs.

RAP VIDEOS:

GOLD DIGGER- Kanye West ft. Jamie Foxx

GIRLS- N-Dubz

RACK CITY- Tyga

PAPER PLANES- M.I.A.

POP RAP:

More feminine styles, combining pop style choruses with rapping, more typical of female artists.

SUPER BASS- Nicki Minaj

OATH- Cher Lloyd ft. Becky G

PU$$Y- Iggy Azalea

PARODY:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JcmQONgXJM

From this research I have found that rap videos contain some common features:
-Displays of wealth, bling, cars, money
-'Alpha Males'
-Sexy women dancing in their bikinis (oversexualised and sexist depiction)
-Shots of rapper in foreground, with scantily clad women dancing provocatively in the background
-Rapper with crowds of women around him

The Country Genre

One of the genres that we will be parodying is Country. This blog post looks at the different key signifiers.

Country is a genre from American popular music that originated in the Southern United States in the 1920s. Its roots originate from the southern-eastern genre of American folk music and Western music. Over the last few decades Country music is becoming an emerging genre in mainstream music charts. Country music is now appreciated more and has gained popularity through the work of artists such as Taylor Swift, Mumford and Sons and Lady Antebellum.

Country music consists of ballads or dance songs with generally simple forms and harmonies accompanied with stringed instruments such as banjos, acoustic guitars and fiddles.

The outfits clearly depict the genre with classic cowboy boots and denim. Makeup is very natural to complete the natural look. The set ups are typical and the videos have many recurring themes- Straw/grass/animals...

Musical Inspirations 

Taylor Swift's video was one of our main inspirations for our country shot. The video itself could almost be classed as a parody as they are using the typical conventions of the genre. They are able to create a country feel like setting in a studio with the warm lighting to represent sunlight and hay to create the country setting. The costumes are very typical old country/western making the genre easily recognisable. This is similar to how we want our video to be. 

Much like the Taylor Swift video they have created a country/Western setting in a studio. Unlike the MEAN video they have relied quite heavily on the editing to help create the right atmosphere. They focused less on props and used a more minimalistic setting and used a sepia type filter to create the country atmosphere. Due to the space we have for the suit and our budget this type of setting will be more like ours. We will be using a relatively minimal setting but deep lighting and energetic performances to promote the country genre. However, unlike this video we wont be making the video look old fashioned as the video is being broadcasted in 'modern times' so needs to fit with all of our other genres. 

Target Audience Profile

In order to maximize success for 'All That Glitters' we need to gain an understanding of who we are targeting and how we are going to appeal to them. Below we have created profiles for typical members of our target audience.

Name: Sophie Grant

Age: 15

Occupation: Student
Radio Station: Radio 1

Personality Traits: Sassy, quite girly, quirky, carefree

Interests: Sophie enjoys partying, running, getting dressed up

Favourite Genres: Pop

How we will target: Sophie will find our band very relatable as we are only a few years older than her. This will cause her to look up to us. We are also glamorous and are presented within our music video as having similar interests to that of a normal girl like Sophie e.g. partaking in sleepovers. Sophie is likely to spend a lot of time on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Therefore, we will target her with our official Facebook page but also with our personal twitters which we will use to tweet about what's occurring in our lives, as well as advertising the band. This ensures that Sophie feels close to us and finds us very likable. Girls Sophie's age may also be very interested in other social networks such as Instagram and Keek, so our band will have accounts on there too.

Name: Patrick Schmidt

Age: 18

Occupation: Student
Radio Station: Capital

Personality Traits: Party Animal, Flirty

Interests: Patrick enjoys listening to music that puts him in a good mood and a regular partyer.

Favourite Genres: Dance

How we will target: As our band is made up of three attractive girls, boys Patrick's age are likely to take an interest in their activities as a band. The band is also made up of 19 and 20 year olds, being of a relatable age. They may have younger sisters that also listen to our music. Also, as club nights generally play mainstream music, Patrick will hear our songs around clubs and possibly grow to like them. Our debut song is also very upbeat, fitting with Patrick's musical interests. Facebook and Twitter will be used to target people like Patrick.

Name: Nicky Bird
Age: 48
Occupation: Parent/Council Worker
Radio Station: Heart
Personality Traits: Sensible, Girly, Motherly
Interests: Nicky enjoys gardening, going shopping, listening to music on her iPod and in the car
Favourite Genres: Club Classics
How we will target: We want our band to have a clean reputation that parents like Nicky will agree with. Bands like the pussycat dolls are less likeable to older generations. As girl pop groups would've been popular when Nicky was younger, she will be likely to like 'All That Glitters' as it is familiar to her generation. We will target Nicky by appealing to her children. Therefore she will be exposed to the music around the house and grow to enjoy it. 

Location- Sleepover

The only part of our music video which is not filmed in the studio is the sleepover section.

This will be filmed in Olivia's bedroom, and this is for a number of reasons:

• Her room is already pink, and very girly with photos over the walls, and accessories all around, and so will not need large amounts of set dressing or changes.
• The way her room is set out already leaves a lot of space for movement, as her bed is in the middle. This means that we can shoot from any side of the room, and still achieve shots which display appropriate sections of the bedroom.
• We have used her room previously when shooting our AS film project (Pretty Popular), and so we have already experienced the logistics of shooting in this space, and where the lights and camera can be positioned.

The room layout:

Sleepovers

In order to depict a sleepover in our video we need to explore media references to them. The media has managed to create a distinct stereotype towards sleepovers, with these being some features of them:

• eating pizza
• pillow fights
• pajamas
• dancing
• gossiping/sharing secrets
•  prank calling
• taking selfies
• watching films/tv
• all nighters
• telling ghost stories

Some of the more male-manufactured stereotypes of girly sleepovers include getting drunk and engaging in lesbian behavior. In order to construct an appeal towards our desired target audience, we will not be abiding to these expectations and will have friendship and fun as our most significant features. Using these when possible will help to establish the girly sleepover stereotype we hope to deliver. If teenagers see that our band recognize the fun surrounding sleepovers, they will be able to relate to us.

 

One of our key inspirations for depicting a sleepover is in Fifth Harmony's 'Me and my Girls':

There is a massive sense of unity that shines through and is around the level of girlyness we are aiming for with ours. The exaggeration will fit in with the satire we are also pursuing.

Sleepovers are also very stereotypical in Angus Thongs and Perfect Snogging. Although this is not a music video, it is an example of the media constructing a sleepover very stereo typically in way we also shall be. 

• The girls are eating pizza
• They are sitting in a circle, representing unity and friendship
• They are wearing pajamas
• They are gossiping about boys 

We like the unity that is portrayed in this clip from the film '13 going on 30':

• Holding teddy bears
• Jumping on the bed
• Singing into hairbrushes
• Dancing
• Dressing up
• Eating snacks

One theme present in this clip that we see as particularly inspirational is the idea of them watching music videos at sleepovers, as that is crucial to our idea.

Costume Change Inspirations

We have now finalised that our idea will rely heavily on satire and costume change. After doing some research we found these videos that utilize costume change. Here are some music videos that we will use as inspirations:

Red Hot Chili Peppers - 'Dani California'

Although this music video only explores the genres of rock, we like it because it is satirical and is an example of what we are aiming to do with our costume changes. The rock band impersonations will also have been very relatable to their fans, who enjoy rock music. This is why we would like to include certain references to pop culture so our target audience can relate to the our band.

Britney Spears - 'Toxic'

Christina Aguilera - 'Candyman'

In these videos Christina and Britney both place different characters. In 'Candy Man' this is to fit in with the time period of the narrative whereas in 'Toxic' Britney plays three entirely separate characters. However, we would like to incorporate some of their sex appeal and 'empowered female' personas to an extent.

Blink 182 - 'All The Small Things'

Like 'Dani California' we like the satire involved in this video and how it portrays the personality of the band. This is what we aim to achieve through our music video, as our audience are young people who will find this sense of humor funny as we will be satirizing different genre stereotypes they know of.

Our Video

We want to combine the sense of humour of 'Dani California' and 'All the Small Things' with the girliness and sex appeal surrounding the female artists, their songs and their poppy genre. Furthermore, we are developing the idea even further with the artist being a girl band. We are also aiming to reference pop culture (for example Single Ladies) to make sure that the sense of humor we are portraying is very accessible to the mainstream market our band is part of. We are aiming to make the video and artist familiar, but still fresh and different in these ways.

Lyric Interpretation

Literal interpretation:
The lyrics are about desiring a boy and being willing or determined to get him.




































Alternative interpretation:
However they could be read as an invitation to our audience, inviting them in and convincing them to love 'All That Glitters' and buy their music!

Meeting- 4.10.13, and 6.10.13

We established the parts of our video which have been planned out and completed, and discussed the parts we were still yet to decide for our new idea.

We needed to decide on our artist identity, and specify each band member and their indivudual style, as well as the group style of the whole band, and how this would appeal to our target audience. We still hadn't finalised our band name, album title and record label, and at this meeting we decided our band would be called; 'All That Glitters', our album would be called;******, and our record label would be called 'Silence and Noise Music'.

For our music video idea we finalised the different musical genres we wanted to show on the TV in our video, and decided that five different styled bands would be used.
The five bands are:

• A punky grunge band
• A country band
• A rap band
• A boy band
• All That Glitters- our actual band image (pop rock)

For each set up we booked a studio session, with extra sessions planned where we'll work out what sets and equipment we'll use.

This week we will be creating posts on our band image and style and researching bands with similar music videos, either costume change, style change, satirisation of other bands or genres, and use of TV and channel changing. 

Costume/Style Change Videos

GIRLS ALOUD- Biology

Here the girls travel through three different settings, each with a different girly style, showing outfit changes as the girls dance. Firstly we see a classy black chic set up with crystal chandeliers, where the girls all wear black dresses, with diamond embellishments, the girls dance and pose in a sexual and glamorous way.

The camera then rotates to show a white backdrop with black butterflies, and the girl's outfits change to pink and purple girly dresses with large floaty skirts. Their dancing style changes here to being more feminine, girly and 'cutesy'.

The final set up shows a hot pink room decorated with black furniture and a black floral pattern on the walls, and the girls outfits fit the colour scheme as they wear long tight skirted outfits, with fitted tops, in black and hot pink varieties. Their dancing style again changes, as it becomes more structured and classy.

EYTAN AND THE EMBASSY- Everything Changes

This video is shot in one continuous take, with no editing between and features 18 costume changes, showcasing different musicians throughout history. The changes to the costumes are made using wigs, glasses, fake moustaches and special jackets fastening at the back. Many pairs of female hands complete with rings and bracelets make these changes on Eytan Oren. When Eytan is in costume, he performs in a different way accoridng to the character he is portraying, shown through the way he moves his head and his eyes and mouth positions.

BUDDY HOLLY

JOHN LENNON

JIM MORRISON

BOB DYLAN

THE TEMPTATIONS

ELTON JOHN

ELVIS PRESLEY

DAVID BOWIE (as Ziggy Stardust)

SID VICIOUS

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN

VAN HALEN

PRINCE

KURT KOBAIN

BILLIE JOE ARMSTRONG

 (Green Day)

WEIRD AL YANKOVIC

BEASTIE BOYS

LADY GAGA

DEADMAU5

THE SATURDAYS- Disco Love

Here the girls move through different decades, with costume changes and different sets for the 70s, 80s and 90s. Relative to Goodwin's theory, the lyrics link with the visuals, as they say they'll take you back in time to 19....

1979

1989

1999

Satire music videos- further research

In our music video we are going to become different music genres such as rock, country ect.. The genres will be very exaggerated and focus on the conventions of that style of music. The music video is going to be a satire of popular music genres. This has been done in previous music videos in an attempt to mimic genre conventions. This blog post shows some the parody videos that we took inspiration from 

"Hopeless Wanderer" by Mumford and Sons mimics the band itself. The performers are comedy brothers Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis, Ed Helms, and Will Forte who dress as the real Mumford and Sons band. The video is a satire of all the Mumford and Sons videos. The boys exaggerate conventions used in previous Mumford and Son videos with extreme banjo playing and countryside setting. The band played on image to create a memorable comedic music video 

http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/this-is-every-mumford-sons-song-ever

"Dani California" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers is a satire which mimics past bands and performers. The band become famous characters throughout history and replicate them through costume and iconic movements. This makes the video easily assessable to different audiences because of references to performers of different genres. This is quite similar to how we hope ours will look as we are going to replicate famous music genres by imitating costumes. 

"All The Small Things" by Blink-182 is a music video which makes fun at the music industry conventions. Its uses iconic shots and scenes but adds a comical twist. For example the water being poured on the band members. This has been used in music videos throughout history. It is used to create 'sex appeal' yet Blink-182 copy this but make it comical by showing the hose. Ours will use elements of this but will not focus on such obvious comedy.

"Walks Like Rihanna' is one of the newest music video parodies. In the video The Wanted recreate famous music videos by infamous boy bands (such as Take That and The Backstreet Boys). It focuses mainly on the look of the band and their iconic videos.

The "Let's Dance" video is joke at all the conventions of a typical music video. It includes all the conventions which are used within mainstream music video. It is comical because of the ridiculous nature of the  video. It includes elements that we will use such as exaggerating the typical features of a music video. 

We like the way that the video are able to be entertaining whilst still professional. We wanted to keep the same feel in the music videos above by being able to entertain the audience without being over the top. We will revisit some of these videos during the filming and editing process to looks at how they cut and shot the videos to get a comedic effect.

Test Cards- Music video technique

This post shows an addition way in which we thought we could end our video. We looked at the idea of a test screen-so to fit in with our TV channel plan- but adapted to be the ATG girls to make it more modern. We believe that this idea hasn't been done in any current music videos so felt that it could work well. We also like the idea of bringing in the old and making it modern.
After the 'cctv' shot the screen will fuss out and then 'All That Glitters' will appear on the TV. This creates suspense and adds another layer to our music video. 
'A test card, also known as a test pattern, is a television test signal, typically broadcast at times when the transmitter is active but no program is being broadcast (often at startup and closedown).'

For our music video we wanted to use a blacked out screen or a 'fuzzy' screen. We researched how they had been used in the past and the effect they had on the viewers.  

Test screens were used frequently throughout the TV series 'Life on Mars'. When LOM used this technique it was used to scare the audience. The picture would appear as the protagonist would contact another world. The picture would appear suddenly and would often appear with children's laughter in the background. The setting was dark and grey which made the sequence very creepy. This is not the type of atmosphere we would want to create when using this technique. We want to confuse the audience rather than scare.

"Lost Generation" ends with a cracked screen after the lead singer punches the screen. This is used to show the anger of the band after constantly being in the public eye and forever being followed.

We are looking  at different types of ending screens such as 

After doing our research we really liked the idea of finishing the music video we a modern and adapted test screen as we felt it would link in well with the themes of the video as well as it being a good ending to the video. In the upcoming weeks we will be testing out the possible new layout out of the ATG test screen using photoshop!