Framing and Composition

Framing and Composition from Videopia on Vimeo.

Placing the subject off-center often makes the composition more dynamic and interesting.

Even if your subject fills the frame, the most important part of the subject

(for example, the eyes in a portrait) should not be dead center.

To frame the center of interest with objects in the foreground. This can give a picture the feeling of depth it needs to make it more than just another snapshot. Whether or not you use a frame for a picture will depend on each new subject. What you choose as a frame for the scene will, of course, vary as well.
Compose your photograph so that your reason for taking the picture is clearly seen. Arrange other parts of the picture area in such a way as to complement what you choose to be the center of interest

The rule of thirds

You can use the rule of thirds as a guide in the off-center placement of your subjects. Here's how it works.

Before you snap the picture, imagine your picture area divided into thirds both horizontally and vertically. The intersections of these imaginary lines suggest four options for placing the center of interest for good composition. The option you select depends upon the subject and how you would like that subject to be presented.

Rule of Thirds Video:

Video Meeting 19th Nov

After school on Friday 19th November our group had a meeting at Emily's house to discuss our new narrative ideas for our video. As I blogged before we decided to slightly change our video concept and idea after watching the Kids In Glass Houses - Matters At All. So by all going to Emily's house we were able to really think about all the different locations, costumes and camera shots that we wanted in our video.

By listening to the lyrics to Teenage Dream we decided to include a bigger twist at the end to try and go against the stereotypical pop genre videos.

We have edited some footage that we filmed on the flip cameras from the meeting. We used the track Counterpoint by Delphic to create this montage of our meeting.

Also below is the lyrics sheet that we used in our meeting, we thought that if we printed of the lyrics to Teenage Dream, then roughly planned where we thought certain shots or part of the narrative should go.

(to be added)

Editing Practice

Two members from the group attended the Enfield Town Fireworks display and filmed some footage of the fireworks and rides. Below is a short clip of some of the footage that has been editied to Katy Perry's song Firework.

Questionnaire

We have created a questionnaire to identify our target audience and what they want in a typical music video, this will make the audience feel interacted in the idea process and it will make them want to watch the music video. We are going to use the average percentage to help us decide and finalize our ideas. We are going to film people writing, answering and elaborating on the answers, below is our questionnaire that we will be asking people.

Age (please circle): 15-20, 21-25, 26-30, 31-40, 41-50 or other

Gender (please circle): Male, Female

1. What do you like to see in a Pop video?
2. What is your favourite genre of music? Pop, Alternative, Jazz, Classical, R’n’B , Rock, Dance, Country. Please Circle
3. What is one of your favourite music videos?
4. What do you expect to see from this genre?
5. What costume would you prefer; flamboyant or casual?
6. What colour do you think represents Pop and why?
7. How do you consume videos? MTV, YouTube, iTunes, Downloads. Please Circle
8. Do you like being surprised by music videos e.g. music videos with a twist?
9. Do you prefer narrative or performance videos?
10. If narrative to you prefer the story to have an ending or is a cliffhigher effective?

Alter Egos

Here is a definition of an Alter ego that I found on Wikipedia:

An alter-ego is a second self, a second personality or persona within a person, who is often oblivious to the persona's actions. It was coined in the early nineteenth century when dissociative identity disorder was first described by psychologists.^[1] A person with an alter-ego is said to lead a double life.A distinct meaning for alter-ego can be found in literary analysis, wherein it describes characters in different works who are psychologically similar, or a fictional character whose behavior, speech or thoughts intentionally represent those of the author. Similarly, alter-ego can be applied to the role or persona taken on by an actor or by other types of performers.

Alter-ego is also used to refer to the different behaviors any person may display in various situations. Related concepts include avatar, doppelgänger, impersonator, and split personality.

Beyoncé - Sasha Fierce

In 2008 when Beyonce released her debut new album 'I am... Sasha Fierce' I found an article from the Daily Mail on why she has created her new alter ego: In a recent interview with V Magazine, the 27-year-old explained that she has long felt like a totally

different person on stage, hence the name change. She said: 'When I'm onstage I'm aggressive and strong and not afraid of my sexuality. The tone of my voice gets different, and I'm fearless. I'm just a different person. 'It's a way for me to differentiate what I do onstage from who I really am - It's a way for me to not lose myself, to keep my life in perspective, because it's really hard sometimes to stay on earth when you're a celebrity.

'There's so much going on, and so many people give you whatever you want and say everything you do is great.'

Beyonce has often discussed her stage persona, previously known as simply just 'Sasha', over the years, but the singer is now bringing her to the fore and making the alter-ego more prominent than ever.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1087448/Beyonc-unveils-racy-alter-ego-Sasha-Fierce-didnt-mind-old-model-much.html#ixzz15Z9C7iG5

The image above shows Beyonce's natural, normal self and her more aggressive alter

ego on the left Sasha Fierce. I really like the idea of the girl in our video having an alter ego as we can show the realistic portrayal of the girl as quite shy, 'normal' and girlie which conforms the the pop genre and then have the girls other side very more powerful and dominant with alot more dramatic bright make up and flamboyant clothes.

Furthermore, we had the idea that we could have a split screen the girls face showing both sides of her alter ego. I made this image on the right from the other picture of Beyonce to demonstrate how the split screen idea would work.

New Narrative Idea

Today our group watched a video by Kids in Glass Houses - Matters At All, after watching this video it gave us the idea that we could have a girl that has a alter ego. By including this element it allows us to incorporate all our previous ideas of having the girl obsessed or imaging her being with this guy.

The idea of having a girl with an alter ego, we would have one side of her really flamboyant and out going and then have the other side of her very quite and shy. Also we could include

• Another girl in the video who is actually dating the boy (this could be me who would be in flamboyant clothing and make up)
• Kayla (the obsessed girl) would imagine that she is dating the boy
• Kayla's make up could be quite messy and childlike as she is trying to imitate my make up who is actually dating the boy
• I would play the girl Kayla wants to be like and we thought we could bring an element of voyeurism into the video with maybe Kayla watching herself with the boy on a TV screen. This would be her dream life.
• In order to distinguish between the dream life and reality we thought her dream life could be in colour and reality could be in black and white. This would be similar to Lily Allen's video 'LDN' which shows the audience how she sees the world but then the reality and this is a contrast of bright and dull colours.
• We also think that we will use a spiral shot to show the audience when the character has realised that she is imagining things and 'reality hits' her. We think this will go well with the part of the song when she sings a long note 'you' and then it is the chorus again. This is near the end of the song.

New Make-up & Narrative Idea

After creating the make-up collage document I had the idea of how we could include the element of the girl being depressed, aswell as including a happy part to the music video.

In the original narrative we were going to have the video finish almost on a cliffhanger and have the guy that the girl has been 'dreaming' about not even know who she is, and just walk past her without even acknowledging she exists.

However, in the new version I thought that we

could not have the video in the correct order and start off with the end or a part where everything has gone wrong and we see the girl crying. So the audience do not know why or what has happened to the girl yet.

The narrative to the story could still be about the girl imaging or dreaming about being with this guy. Although, when and she eventually builds up the courage to talk or try and be with him and she gets all dressed up and pretty, he doesn't want anything to do with her or does not even acknowledge she is there. so we could have a shot like the image on the right where we have the girl all dressed up looking really beautiful but all her make up is ruined.

The idea of this came from the image of the kids wearing make up as, little girls like to dress up and wear make up to make them feel older or more grow up.

Therefore, this could go with the theme of the song as its about 'Teenage Dream' and the girl feels young again and the song is about the girl growing up and feeling all these new emotions and feelings with this new guy she has met or is dreaming about.By including this idea you could have the girl wearing lots of bright

make up that looked really sophisticated and sexy before she

goes to try and meet the guy, But when her plan all goes wrong we could film the girl really wiping and smudging all

the make up down her face so that it looks really childlike, similar to the images on the left.

Then after this we would then be able to show how much the girl was really obsessed with the guy, and we could jumble the order of the story so the audience don't know whats real and what is the girls imagination.

New Make-Up Ideas

Below is a document I created on word of all different images, expressions and make up styles that reflect both the dark/depressed side of the girl and the bright/happy side of the girl.

On the left side we have all the dark/depressed images all from the search engine Google. When trying to find images on Google I came across the mime/clown make up which I thought could go with the lyrics 'You think I'm funny when I tell the punch line wrong' as mimes are seen as 'sad' clowns which create a contrast as clowns are generally perceived as happy and funny, therefore this reflects the same contrasting ideas with the happy song and sad emotions.

Also, the other images of the girls crying with their make up running down their cheeks again just symbolises the girls emotions or depression.

Make Up Media A2

The bright/happy images on the right are also from Google, although some of the images on the page do have very dramatic and over the top bright make up I thought that by having the bright or exaggerated make up just creates more interesting visuals for the audience and extenuates the girls happiness.

Our Changing Music Video

After you trip to the Rich-mix our group is still in a bit of confusion into what we actually want to improve or change, about the narrative of our music video.

As I posted earlier, our group had the idea that we can have the girl in the video obsessed about a guy. I do agree that this is a great concept for a music video as it creates a twist in the narrative and challenges the stereotypical 'cheesy' pop genre videos.

However, I can't see how we are going to portray this in the music video as the song and the video idea are two complete contrasts. The song itself is very happy and cheerful, whereas the obsessive teenager idea almost creates a dark feel to the video.

Therefore, in order of us to pull off the music video I think that we need to think of a clever or more subtle way to show the audience that the girl is obsessed, rather than to have her very depressed and sad throughout the whole video. To not have the video too depressing our group had the idea that we could have the guy to come and 'save' her in the end of the video or to imply that he was come to help her. This idea reminded me of the film 'Pretty Woman' when the character Edward 'saves' the woman Vivian at the end of the film.

New Ideas

I thought of some music videos that include elements that we are thinking to include when we show the girl as being obsessed with the guy.

In this Rihanna video Russian Roulette I like how the way that they have shown here isolation the the grey room, aswell as the bright spotlight that the have used to draw your attention to here, or to make it seem like they are exposing her.

Also is music video by Pink is a more abusive form of obsession and is shown in a more comical way. However, in our music video I think that we wanted to show are more depressed side of obsession rather than a psycho obsession.

Changes To Our Music Video

After going to the rich-mix trip with the media class, our group felt that we needed to make our video more unique and stand out from the crowd. After listening to Pete Frasier from the OCR examining board, he stressed how important it was to make our video interesting that it makes the audience want to watch it over and over.

Therefore our group came up with the idea that to create a more dramatic and interesting twist at the end of our video, we could reveal to the audience that the girl is suffering from schizophrenia and has only imagined the whole relationship.

However, we decided not to go that extreme to say that she has a mental illness but that she has some sort of obsession with the guy she is in love with.

Below is the trailer for the film Obsessed with is the kind of way that we want to portray the girl in our video:

Andrew Goodwin

Andrew Goodwin writing about Music Videos in ‘Dancing in the Distraction Factory’

Below is a list of characteristics that are found in music videos. A video may contain all of them or just a few. Look at a range of examples and look out for them…

1. Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics (e.g. stage performance in metal video, dance routine for boy/girl band).

genre characteristics

2. There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals (either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting).

3. There is a relationship between music and visuals (either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting).

4. The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work (a visual style).

motifs

5. There is frequently reference to notion of looking (screens within screens, telescopes, etc) and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body.

voyeuristic

6. There is often intertextual reference (to films, tv programmes, other music videos etc).

intertextual

Trip to the Rich-Mix

On Tuesday our media class attended the Rich Mix's presentation - From MTV to YouTube.

We looked at the history of music videos or music promos with Pete Frasier, then in the afternoon session we were introduced to Liz Kessler from Academy Films who spoke to us about going into the media industry. Finally, we saw Corin Hardy a music video director who works for Academy Films in London. I was really inspired and surprised that Corin had directed music videos for bands such as The Horrors, The Prodigy to Paolo Nutini and Biffy Clyro.

Below are the two music videos that Corin directed for Paolo Nutini and for The Prodigy:

I really enjoyed the whole day at the Rick Mix and it gave me and our whole group lots of points and ideas to think about for our music video. It really inspired us to really create a unique and original music video that would make the audience want to watch it over and over again.

Here is the link to the Rich Mix website: http://www.richmix.org.uk/

Audience Theory

Audience theory is an element of thinking that developed within academic literary theory and cultural studies. There is also a wide range of media theory and communication studies theories about the audience's role in any kind of mediated communication. A sub-culturally focussed and Marxism-inflected take on the subject arose as the 'New audience-theory' or 'Active audience theory' from the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies during the 1980s.Below I found a document on slide share explaining some of the effects of audience theory:

Audience Theory

View more documents from bobusmaximus.

Hypodermic Syringe Effect

There have been a number of theories over the years about how exactly the media work on the mass audience. Perhaps the most simple to understand is the hypodermic syringe. This has been very popular down the years with many people who fear the effects of the media.

According to the theory the media is like a syringe which injects ideas, attitudes and beliefs into the audience who as a powerless mass have little choice but to be influenced- in other words, you watch something violent, you may go and do something violent, you see a woman washing up on T.V. and you will want to do the same yourself if you are a woman and if you are a man you will expect women to do the washing up for you.

This theory has been particularly popular when people have been considering violence in films. There have been films such as Straw Dogs and The Evil Dead which have been banned partly because of a belief that they might encourage people to copy the crimes within them but on the other hand no-one has ever really claimed that every-one will be affected by these texts in the same way. Many people have therefore seen the theory as simplistic because it doesn't take any account of people's individuality and yet it is still very popular in society particularly for politicians looking for reasons why society has become more violent which can't be blamed on them. A good example of this is Dumblane- there has never been a real suggestion that Thomas Hamilton watched a lot of violent films but a kind of woolly thinking has allowed newspapers and MPs to link his dreadful crime to video violence