Early Period to 1960s: History of Music Videos (Task 1A)

Bessie Smith ~ St. Louis Blues (1929, Calvin)

What was innovative/important?

This music video is important because this is one of the earliest music videos as music videos began around the 1930s. It was shown in theatre in 1932. This music video was from a American two-reel short film, St. Louis Blues, which starred Bessie Smith as it is based on her song.

How is it recognizable as a music video?

Even though it's a short film, you can see a live performance of a band which make the music video into a performance-based music video, likely in a restaurant or a bar as you can see waiters walking around and the bartender serving alcoholic beverages at the bar etc. You can see the artist lip-syncing to the lyrics, you could also see the audience lip-syncing as well. No dialogue. As this is one of the earliest music video, it is one of the first music video to do lip-syncing. They used camera shots such as, long shot and medium close up.

What technological or cultural change happened during this time?

At the time, this music video only could be seen in theatre/cinema back in 1932. We are now able to access almost any music almost anywhere now (2016), that shows how much technology has changed. This music video is very different to modern day music videos because it is in black and white, you can tell it is old.

Batcat ~ Jetpack (1932)

What was innovation/ important about this music video?
Batcat was band that recorded instruments such electric guitars - jetpack 1932 was innovation because it was the first video ever made where television was invented in the 1925. Also the video was famous for their experiment with electromagnetism. Also the music video was animation and was first aircraft. This was recorded produced by gramophone. Jetpack composes, records, and performs the guitar dominated instrumental music known as surf or surf rock, that was a music industry phenomenon of the early 1960s. Although it had retained a following, especially in Southern California, surf experienced a world-wide revival in the 1990s. This means that they perform live as was also known surf rock. In that time surf rock was quite popular. In the music video you see you see footage from out of space but however the band which was shown few time throughout the music video.

How is this recognisable as a music video?
This is recognisable as a music video because it was relatable to a genre which is surf rock even though there was no lip syncing there was story behind it which is space and aircrafts. It shows footage of different shots relating to the music also the music video has effects and uses close ups. It shows that it is a music video has no dialog and shows animation and music stick over it. During the video at 2:15 it has some text which is advertising space making young ages see this and what to experience it.

What technological or cultural change happened during this time?  
There were various changes happen during this period of time for example in the 1932 they were more music video being made. Also lip syncing is being is being more occurred and live performance are being as a music video. However, music we develop over time as we go down the 1930-1960s music videos were in colour.


Marilyn Monroe - Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend (1953)

This video incorporates colour and settings. They use a piece from the film and turn it into a music video, this is done to highlight her performing the song. 20 years later we can see that this has inspired Madonna as she made her own music called Material Girl. This is very significant as it was inter-textual for future music videos. Also there are performers dancing, this also means it is a music video because it incorporates choreography. one thing I find really interesting is that, they took out it out from a film and made it seem like it was a brand new music video, it was almost as if they were experimenting. They also used different types of shots, we can see that close up is used here multiple times to state the fact that the music video all evolves around Marilyn.

Nancy Sinatra - These Boots Are Made for Walkin' (1966)

It was one of the first music videos to actually feature colour. There are many ways this video is different, it uses sexualisation a lot more as it focuses on their legs and all the other women in the background. This also has a very good dance and rhythm to the video. This is one of the first music videos to actually spark an era of female sexualised themes.

It has a very interesting video as it is set in a studio with just a group of girls dancing but follows a genre specific theme it uses Mise En scene to its effect and it also uses a wide range of dance themes and expressions. This dance sequence is known as a Choreography which really translates to a dance sequence that draws in the viewer in fact Choreography is probably one of the most effective uses in music videos as it allows the artist to get publicly noticed due to the dance.

Mise En Scene is not recognized on the set but the costume design for the girls is much sexualized in other words Voyeurism. Voyeurism is how people are sexually themed and presented in front of the audience.

One huge costume design in this is the boots, the boots are the main theme of this music video this is what made it successful in the first place. They use this to give off a not only sexy but a cool vibe which gives the audience something to enjoy as they view the music video.

1 Minute Rough Re-constructed Music Video

Summer/Transition

Rough Music Video:



Album Cover:

Your Future: Write your reference

Calvin Adisa is a forthright and capable creative student, who has the potential to excel at the subject. He has produced highly proficient creative video work, and was committed to producing this to meet deadline to a very good standard of shooting and editing. With continued effort on his learning disciplines and habits, Calvin would be an asset to any production team requiring a Director of Photography.

Calvin is quiet but creative and versatile and able to complete given tasks. This is evidence as he created his group's (GFF Productions) logo, storyboard, shot list and their title sequence. This show that he is versatile in other fields of media such as Editing, Graphic Design and Photography/Photoshop which is useful. This is also evidence as he produced his Showreel and CV all by himself which contains his Editing, Photography and Graphic Design's skills

Calvin is a hardworking student, who is able to work independently to take responsibility for his progress. This evidence as he received 3 Distinction Level for his Pitch, Draft Proposal and Film Paperwork (Group work). He is an able yet reticent student but has the potential to develop his confidence as he has received a Distinction level for his one minute short film's pitch.

"FOLLOWED": Title Sequence

Final Cut:

Rough Cut:

Evaluation

Introduction

I will be evaluating the making, shooting and editing of the film we made recently called "Followed" with my group of four known as 'GFF Productions'. Our group include four roles which were Director, Director of Photography, Production Manager and Producer. During the process, I have learnt 3 major things from the experience of managing and organizing the production of our film;

• The very first thing I learnt is meeting the deadline, which in my opinion is one of the the most important thing I learnt throughout this process. Failure to meet the deadline will obviously means my work will be marked as NYA, but in reality you could lose a lot of money. So therefore when working as a group we must plan and organised our time carefully, so each of us had their own particular job (pre-production work) to do as it is our responsibility in order to start filming and meet the deadline.

• The second thing I learnt that the producer have the most responsibility as they are responsible for everything and coordinating everyone working on the film. In reality, they manage the film's budget and keeping to a schedule, they bring together and approve the whole production team. They organised the cast and the crew, they also approve locations, studio hire and the shooting schedule etc. During the post-production, they deal with the marketing and distribution of the film. They have the power to fire a cast or crew, for example, if a Director of Photography like me didn't finish the storyboard on time, the Producer have the choice to fire the Director of Photography.

• Last but not least, the third thing I learnt was preparing for editing. I learn how to save time and prevent myself from not meeting the deadline and receive NYA for the course by following this procedure. Before professional editors edit a film, They put each footage they got from filming into specific bins which each should have a name so it would be easier for them to find the footage they want. After that they add comments to each footage so this way the editors will know if it is a good or bad shot to use for the film and then know what shot to use when they start editing and dragging footage into the timeline to cut, colour grade etc.From following this procedure, I had my short film produced before the deadline so if my audience is not satisfied with the outcome, I would have more time to re-edit to their satisfaction. This procedure can prevent wasting time and money.

Main Body

The shooting schedule was made by our Producer as it is one of Producer's specific job, I thought the shooting schedule is realistic and it approach professional standards, for example, everyone knew where they had to be and what they had to do as the shooting schedule was easy to follow. Shooting Schedule is important because we need it to make sure everything is shot on time and on the dates that were listed, they are there to keep crews organised and prepared. The reason why I thought it was realistic because it has date and time, locations, storyboard shot ref number, actors and crew, video equipment that is required, props, costume, make-up and description etc.

The storyboard was one of my job to do as I am the Director of Photography of 'GFF Productions'. The first time I created the storyboard was not detailed enough and it did not had enough shots to create a one minute short film. The second storyboard was much more detailed and it had enough shots to make it a one minute short film as I went to do the storyboard again. The storyboard is now detailed and substantial enough to fully cover the one minute film. If our group were to make a five minute short film, I will need add about 120 more shots to cover a five minute short film.

The shot list was another job I have to do as the Director of Photography, I made it detailed and easy to understand and follow as I made the shot list look organised and in correct order. The shot list contained information of shot types, angle, number, movement and notes. Without this, it will be difficult and time-wasting as, for example, we wouldn't know what shot type to use while we're filming and we have to come up with a shot type to use etc.

When we were picking our location, Southmere Lake which located in Thamesmead, we was concern about lighting and permissions but not the background noise. Unfortunately, a plane flew right above us while we were filming one of the scenes, which prevented us from hearing our actors clearly. The permissions part was no problem as we emailed the local council for permission to shoot at Southmere Lake which was accepted.

I felt our actors did rehearsed and was organised and prepared as they knew what date and time we are going to shoot a film. They knew what their roles were and they were comfortable and appropriate with the roles they were selected as.

Yes, everyone in my crew knew what their roles was and took responsibility for it. There was some issues during then but we solved it straight away in able to create a short film. I felt we done all our roles at near professional standard.

We were able to booked equipment we needed such as tripod, DSLR camera, SD card and light. Without these equipment we won't able to shoot a short film. We obviously need a video camera because it will be entirely impossible to shoot a film with no video camera. We need tripod to keep the camera still and not shaky. We need SD card in able to get the footage from what we filmed to the Apple Mac computers to edit. And finally, we would need LED lights in able to make our film look better and make it suit the genre (Horror: Low key lighting etc.).

Short Film Feedback

Calvin Adisa

16.3: M WT D editing maintains a good flow and techniques like cross cutting. There are no jump cuts. Better use of pacing here but still too conversational and tedious and not tense indulging dialogue and ruining the actual drama. The structure is clear and does has a disruption but not middle or end– there is no twist apparent or shock factor. The footage filmed is incomplete to allow you to be very creative or imaginative or maintain a sense of genre that fits the mood - but you use conventions of fades to move from scene to scene. Sound fits very well with the images the genre (Thriller) although an issue in the mix with the plane overhead.

22.3: M Some variety of shots, framed well and some examples of framing that use rule of thirds and depth. Some controlled use of low key lighting and uses available sources for some effect well. Establishing shot used and some close ups for suspense, mystery or convention and kidnap does quite well as well as hiding the attacker. Overall although the shots are steady and have some strengths in use of variety of angles etc there are not enough set ups used to give fluency and consistency to the whole sequence – the shoot is basically incomplete to tell the story or the twist effectively. You could have used non linear editing to show some of this as flashbacks. You production skills lighting, shooting etc are proficient hence Merit but the short film is under produced to be effective in the editing to make the mood or story effective/clear.