James Chege: A2 Media Studies

Thursday, 4 February 2016

Audience Feedback

To receive more feedback we decided to ask some students in our class what they thought about our video and we sent other people a link to a short survey. We created our survey on a free website called 'SurveyMonkey'. We included some simple questions about the video and how we could've improved the cinematography and editing.

All the people that answered the survey enjoyed watching the video, 66.67% of people liked the editing, but as for the others they said we could've improved this by putting in more shots from different locations.

We were recommended to use other transitions such as dip to black and jump cuts. With the last question regarding visuals people thought the we should have improved the contrast to make the video look vibrant and use more shots in different locations.

The feedback that we got from some of our classmates were mostly concerned with the editing. Some students didn't really like the parts of the video where the speed of the clip is increased. They said that we should've used different clips to fill in the gaps. Also some of the clips last too long. They said that to avoid this we should include more random shots of the band to make the video look more professional.

Thursday, 28 January 2016

Finished Music Video

This is our finished music video. The only changes that we have made are the transitions. We all decided to take some transitions out as they were unnecessary and made the video look bad. We did plan to film some more footage, but after consideration we decided that there would be nowhere to put it.

Magazine Advert

Monday, 25 January 2016

Case Study - Alex Southam

Thursday, 21 January 2016

Case Study - Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson was an American Pop star that was globally known for his contributions in popular culture by dancing and singing. He began singing in a group called "Jackson 5" with his brothers and the purpose was to spread music. It was later on when he began to establish himself and start his solo career.

"Rock with You" was the first song he sang as an individual. The song was released in 1979 and it was all about him. There were many close up and shots of him dancing with his shiny costume. The video was almost a message to the world that he was doing his own thing and he was unique. In Michael Jackson's early days he was always more focused on the music and the way he sung. You can see that he is truly enjoying his music as he dances to the song.

After "Billie Jean" which was released in 1982 he became more focused on story telling. In this video it showed how he was bringing everything to life. It was the first interesting pop video around his time and he was breathing life into it. The following year he released another music video called "Beat It". This song was focused on the story and was the beginning of the alias white socks. The choreography in the video was very elaborate at the end of the video. Also a lot of Jackson's dancing was made up on the spot. He had a talent and he fan base was growing all over the world.

In 1983 he put out undoubtedly one of the most famous music videos of all time called "Thriller". This video cost around $500,000 to make and lasted as long as a mini-film. It had to be edited down because it was too long. Even when MTV aired the video it lasted just under five minutes with one minute of narrative. The long version was just too long and lasted a remarkable fourteen minutes. The video was so imaginative and creative that it won Best Performance Video, Best Choreography and Viewers Choice at the first MTV Music Awards in 1984. The tape became the best selling and was able to sell 9 million units. Tapes were in high demand and the video was released a few weeks before Christmas so the video were able to make a staggering amount of sales. There were also behind the scenes VHS' which included a little documentary of how the video was produced and had some exclusive behind the scenes footage.

Tuesday, 19 January 2016

Case Study - Emil Nava

Emil Nava is a British music video director who freelances for OB Management. He began his career as a runner for film production companies, but after graduating to Assistant Director he would manage the video shoots. Nava freelances for OB Management, which is an agency that matches clients with suitable directors. OB Management work as agents for people like Nava and their aim is to nurture talent, work withe production companies and record labels and to match the right director to the right artists.

After gaining recognition and signing for an academy he was given many opportunities to manage video shoots. One of his well known music videos is the song by Ed Sheeran called "You need me, I don't need you". The video had a budget of £35,000 which is quite low, but it was a success. It features a young man hand signing Ed Sheeran's lyrics in an empty drama studio. The audience are not really shown to Ed Sheeran as the production were not sure whether people would like his looks. However, after the video was put out people liked the way he looked and the video got a good reception.

Another well known music video that Nava has worked on is "Do it like a dude" by Jessie J. The video was so good that it was nominated for Best Pop video and Best Cinematography at the UK Music Video Awards in 2011. The budget for this video was even less than Ed Sheeran's video, only costing £25,000. We can see that Nava focuses more on the artist in this video to bring out the lyrics that Jessie J is singing. Unlike the Ed Sheeran video there is much more going on and there are different types of dance scenes happening.

After looking through some music videos directed by Emil Nava I have noticed that he likes to use close ups wherever possible. Nava has previously worked on adverts such as L'Oreal, but he says that it's not as enjoyable as directing music videos. Even though he receives a much higher budget, there is less room for creativity and imagination. This is because when the project is given to him the client has a specific message that they want to get across.