Welcome to my A2 Media blog. On here you will find my music video, CD packaging and Tour poster. As well as the planning stages that happened prior to production and evaluation.
One of the things that myself and the rest of my group had to do was to produce a storyboard to illustrate the ideas we had for our music video. There are a few things that the storyboard needed to include:
Small sketch of what is going on in the scene
Type of shot
Type of camera movement (if any)
Audio (what part of the song is playing in the scene)
This helped the group decide what we wanted the video to look like and how we wanted the music video to be. We now know how the video is going to be filmed and what camera angles/movements we are going to use to help us.
I have decided to post the lyrics to the song that my group will be doing for our music video, I am familiar with most of the lyrics anyway, but I will need to know all the words from memory as I will be the one who is lip syncing in the video.
My lover's got humour She's the giggle at a funeral Knows everybody's disapproval I should've worshipped her sooner If the Heavens ever did speak She is the last true mouthpiece Every Sunday's getting more bleak A fresh poison each week 'We were born sick,' you heard them say it My church offers no absolutes She tells me 'worship in the bedroom' The only heaven I'll be sent to Is when I'm alone with you I was born sick, but I love it Command me to be well Amen. Amen. Amen
Take me to church I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies I'll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife Offer me that deathless death Good God, let me give you my life
Take me to church I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies I'll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife Offer me that deathless death Good God, let me give you my life
If I'm a pagan of the good times My lover's the sunlight To keep the Goddess on my side She demands a sacrifice To drain the whole sea Get something shiny Something meaty for the main course That's a fine looking high horse What you got in the stable? We've a lot of starving faithful That looks tasty That looks plenty This is hungry work
Take me to church I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies I'll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife Offer me that deathless death Good God, let me give you my life
Take me to church I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies I'll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife Offer me that deathless death Good God, let me give you my life
No masters or kings when the ritual begins There is no sweeter innocence than our gentle sin In the madness and soil of that sad earthly scene Only then I am human Only then I am clean Amen. Amen. Amen
Take me to church I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies I'll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife Offer me that deathless death Good God, let me give you my life
Take me to church I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies I'll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife Offer me that deathless death Good God, let me give you my life
This is what I wrote about our music video, regarding my opinion on the approach that my group should go with.
I first highlighted the literal meaning of the song, which is two gay men being discriminated for being gay. This is related to the artist as he is Irish and Ireland are stereotypically known for discriminating against homosexuals.
However I have also included my interpretation of the song. I think that the song is about challenging religion and their beliefs, and has a more universal meaning rather than just discriminating against homosexuals.
So I think that myself and the rest of the group should look at different ways in which the Catholic church discriminate against. This is so we can go through all the forms of discrimination and then pick one that we can relate to the song and then use this as the subject matter in our music video.
This is our first brain storm of ideas for our final plan of how we are going to create our music video.
We have already narrowed down the roles that each person will play. Nathan Kearns is going to be the camera man, I am going to be the main actor and Michael Hickey is going to be the editor / director (editing will be something we all help with).
We printed off the lyrics for our song (Take me to Church) so that we can see some symbolic meanings that we missed before in the lyrics.
We also all gave our first ideas on how we thing that we should approach our music video, and we will be comparing all of the ideas on the group blog soon.
Indie Rock is the genre of the song (Take me to church - Hozier) that myself and my group have chosen to do for our music video. The genre is form alternative rock which originated in both the UK and United States in the 1980's. It was in the early 2000's that the music industry started to change and the technology adapted to allow indie rock bands to enjoy commercial success, despite many indie rock labels being formed in the 1980's and 1990's.
The term 'indie rock' describes low-budget labels with artists who have a do-it-yourself attitude that makes the success of the artist his own doing. Artists from this genre stereotypically like to explore new sounds and emotions making the artists extremely diverse, which enables them to strike distribution deals with major corporate companies.
The typical instruments that feature in an indie rock song:
Guitar
Bass guitar
Drums
Keyboard
Vocals
The indie rock genre adopted a wide variety of styles which differ from grunge-influenced bands, experimental bands and punk-folk singing. Early indie rock bands are thought of to be attempting to replicate the success of Nirvana after their success in the 1980's and can be seen as the band that founded the indie rock genre.
After deciding to use Take me to church by Hozier for the music video, I decided I need to identify a potential target audience for the music video.
The genre that the song belongs to is indie rock, so there will be indie rock fans that will listen to this track as Hozier is an up and coming artist and is currently trying to make his name in the music industry.
People who listen to indie rock music are unique, in the way that they are and the way that they dress. This is what a typical indie rock listener looks like.
As you can see their unique image is quite distinguishable from the rest of society and they stereotypically wear the merchandise of their favourite bands too. I conducted some secondary research to find out the potential target audience for my music video, and I think I have been able to narrow down the findings:
Gender - Both
Age - 16-25 year-olds
Annual salary - £21,000-£25,000
The research also informed me that distinctive characteristics about the target audience is that they are likely to be a student, listen to music on the go via iPod and be readers of NME magazine. This shows me that if any indie rock artist wants to be successful, then they would need to get a spot in NME magazine.
Overall this shows me the potential target audience of my music video, this will benefit the production/planning stages of the process; as I will be considering the target audience's preferences when I am making decisions and creating the music video.
Hozier (Andrew Hozier-Byrne) is an Irish musician from Bray, County Wiklow. The musician was born 17th March 1990, and his music belongs to the indie rock genre.
Hozier has only been writing his own music for two years and is mostly known for his song "Take me to church" the song that my group have decided to do for our music video.
Hozier began a degree in music at the Trinity College in Dublin before dropping out to record demo's for Universal Music. Before he was a solo artist he was a part of a band he met whilst in Trinity college, called Anuna.
He belonged to the group in the years 2009-2012 appearing on an international tour with group and appeared as a soloist in the song "La Chanson de Mardi Gras".
"Take me to church" was Hozier's breakthrough song after it became viral on Youtube, causing the song to top the Irish iTunes singles chart and second place on the official chart (25th October 2013).
I was first made aware of this song when one of my friends when to Leeds festival and he performed this song there. He has also toured in the United States, earlier this year (June) the artist announced that he will be releasing his debut album called "Hozier". The Album was released in September in Ireland and has recently just been released globally this month.
Myself and the rest of my group have started working and researching for our music video. This prezi presentation I have created will explain and show what we have been doing since we started our group work. I think we have made excellent progress as we already know the song that we are doing for our music video, as well as a strong idea on how we are going to create it. Some of the information has been cut off because of the way the photograph has been taken.
The song that is cut off by the circle with C inside (Connor) is Pompeii by Bastille
The second con for "Take me to church" says "if we go with the same message behind the song our video may be controversial."
The cons for Lego House were the artist is famous so straight away people will know who it is which kind of wrecks the video because people will be comparing our video to the original and the second con was we did not have a strong idea on how to make our video based around the song
Each person in my group has been asked to pick three songs that they would like to do for our music video. The other two people in my group are Nathan Kearns and Michael Hickey. After we pick our three songs we will each narrow them down to one song choice each and then go through the pro's and con's of each song and then decide which song we will use.
The first song that I have chosen is Pompeii by Bastille. I used this song as my second lip sync video and believe it is one I will be comfortable with if I am put on camera. I also believe it is a nice upbeat song that my group can have fun with when it comes to directing the video and editing it. I also think that we can make a unique video from this song if we base our video on the lyrics of the song.
This is a popular song as it is a recent song that is played a lot on the radio. This shows that if we chose to this song it is a song the audience will like and will enjoy watching just on the song alone. This gives my group a good base to work on to make our video unique and enjoyable.
The second song that I have chosen is Take me to church by Hozier. This song was released last year and is one I have been listening to constantly since I first heard it. I think that this song would be enjoyable to do and I have already thought about how we could it. I already know the message that Hozier was trying to make through this song, giving me a good idea how to create our music video based around the song.
We would only need to shoot in three locations to make this music video look professional. They would be in a church, a bedroom and a park. This would not take long to film and the editing would not be time consuming either. So I think this would be the perfect choice as it is the type of slow paced song that the rest of my group said they would like to do, with a really catchy chorus.
The final song that I would like to do is Demons by Imagine Dragons. This is a song that starts slow paced like the way that my group want the song to be. But it kicks in during the chorus which I think is needed in a slow paced song to make it more enjoyable.
This is a song that is popular at the moment as the band are releasing songs frequently. I think this song would be very enjoyable for my group to do because it is a song I know we all enjoy, it is just down to the fact of how we will base our music video around this song.
After looking at each of the three songs that I have chosen, I have decided that the song that I have narrowed it down to will be Take me to church by Hozier. This is because it is the only song that I have an idea of how to make the video around the song and how to make is successful. Also because this song fits the criteria of the type of song that my group said that they wanted to do, it is now just down to doing the pro's and con's of doing this song against the songs that they others in the group put forward. But I really do hope that we decide to do this song because I know I can make this song look professional whilst enjoying the video making experience.
I have completed and and fully edited my first lip sync video that I have done myself. I decided not to go with the same song that I chose in my previous presentation, this is because I thought that the song was too slow paced and I felt more comfortable doing a fast paced song. This is also because I think when I present this to my peers this will entertain them more than a slow paced song.
This is the first time that I have used iMovie to use the green screen effect and apply it to a video. The video isn't the best made but it was a learning experience and will benefit me when I continue to use iMovie to learn new skills.
I added a title which starts off the video and combined the credits in the video, so the girl is still dancing when the credits climb up the screen to make it look more immersive.
There are few things that I need to do in my next time using green screen:
Stop the gaps and jumps and make it look like flowing movement
Add transitions to the video as it wasn't working
Apart from them two negatives I don't think there is much more I would need to do to make my next attempt look better. I will use my own video and film something short and then use a background of my choosing to make a video that looks more professionally made than this one. I will have a look at using other effects to experiment with the skills that I can use.
Some music videos do not have a traditional music video where they are performing, doing something that represents the message behind the song or just doing a video that people will remember. But I am going to be looking at music videos that just display the lyrics on the screen.
This is a unique approach that only some artists use and it does has its benefits:
Saves time as you don't have to film anything
Saves money as you don't have to spend as much money
Can still be effective as it helps the audience learn the lyrics
I think that this is a very unique way to make a music video because by just displaying the lyrics in a creative way you don't have the risk of damaging the credibility of the song by creating a poor music video. By displaying the lyrics you can let the music speak for itself and that is how some artists want their music to be. The cost of these type of music videos is very cheap Ian Harrison who works for Hopeless Records says it's "rare for the label to spend more than $800" for a lyric music video. This is astronomically cheap compared to the $2.5m it cost to produce a music video for the Puff Daddy song "Victory". These facts emphasise that this is a very cost-effective method in creating a music video as you can reach millions of people who match the songs target audience on Youtube for less than $1000.
However by doing so there are some negative drawbacks:
A successful music video can make a song more successful
Displaying lyrics on a screen can be boring so you need to get it right
By examining this method of creating music videos it gives me a better idea of how I want my music video to be created. Through analysing all the methods I can expand my knowledge on music videos and what methods can make a song more or less successful. I believe that this method is a risk worth taking as there is a chance the video will be unsuccessful if it is not produced effectively. This will be a method that I will be pondering as it will be an interesting route to go down if my group do not feel confident being filmed.
