Location

We made a little poster and placed it in particular places in the school where we thought we may get some help.We asked within our group whether we knew anyone with the sort of specifications we were looking for. However looking for a location was harder than we thought. There was an idea of possibly putting a letter in the post and asking people if we could use their houses but we agreed as a group that houses on the outside may not look as nice or as bad on the inside. Therefore it was hard to find the perfect place. But the problem was quickly solved when george brought pictures in and showed us what we had been looking for the whole time. It was perfect for tracking and panning. Just what we wanted. Then We questioned each other to see what our rooms were like and Marwas was a possibility with there being alot of stuff which were in the way alot of manpower would be needed but it was the only location we had so we decided to make do and find a way to possibly make the room perfect we thought of ideas like adding photos of the couple, and changing bed covers so they were 'couply'.We were confident that we could make it work.

Yussra and Marwa.

Choice of Protagonist

After having our idea thought up and fully storyboarded we looked at the character thouroughly and started to brainstorm possible ideas of who this person would be, looking at the style of the song, the lyrics and the images and visions we had for the video. We came to the idea that he would be to some extent indie when it came to his hair style and style of clothing yet not too much as the voice of the male was quite normal in our eyes. In addition to this we needed a female who we could see as beautiful and mesmerize our male audience, making them believe that she could put a man under a spell.
Little did we know that our male protagonist was sitting right across the desk all throughout the process. Marwa suggested the idea of using Tom as our male character and it was a good idea because finding someone who is willing to give up their time for the benefit of others is quite difficult. By using someone in the group they wouldn't be losing out on anything as they would have to be there when filming. then we remebered that we needed a female protagonist to act alongside Tom. Anna his girlfriend fitted the role perfectly and this would mean that there would be no difficulty when acting intimate scenes which may be awkward for other actors.
It was sorted. Anna and Tom it was.

Yussra and Marwa.

Storyboard

Open publication - Free publishing - More storyboard

Yussra and Marwa.

Dance Idea? Part 2

It was proving to be a difficulty to try and fit in time to film this park scene as everyones schedule was colliding when it was good weather. We did not want a happy dance routine to be filmed in the rain and we also needed the ground to be dry in order to place the tripod on the grass. It was becoming clear to all members of the group that it seemed impossible. So instead of cutting it out altogether we simply adapted it to make it easier to film in the places which we were already in. Tom would now skip towards the camera dancing and spinning, happy to see his girl. This would still include the cheesyness that we wanted and show the extent to which she has control of him.

Yussra and Marwa.

Dance Idea?

I ( Marwa) introduced the possible idea of including a cheesy dance number in which the viewer would understand the male protagonists love for the female and how devoted he is. An example which I provided was a clip from 500 days of summer in which the male protagonist has recently slept with a female and he sings publicly 'you make my dreams come true'.


This clip is obviously something we could never reproduce yet it influenced our music video a great deal and built in the quirky style we want to obtain.
Another clip which I (Yussra) introduced the group provided further inspiration although does not include a continuous shot or the walking down the same street or path it involves the idea of a person singing publicly.


this clip really demonstrates the theatrical side of a dance number, to an extent where it is clear that there has been deep planning in order to construct such scenes. It is clear that the dancers in this scene are all trained professionally or have a skill where as in the other clip from '500 days of summer' the male protagonist is portrayed in a more fun way. As a group we would like to incorporate both clips in our inspiration and take things from each one. The main things we would like to include is the possible use of other people within the dance making it seem like the public are joining in. Another idea we liked was how the male character in '500 days of summer' was portrayed as over-sentimental in his actions something we want to portray in our male protagonist.
The idea developed into possible idea of having Tom and Anna walk in the park through couples sitting on benches and on 'oh how can heaven' Tom would start to turn and dance boasting his pride for having Anna at his side and showing the depth to which he is under a spell that she can physically humiliate him. With the other couples dancing in unison with Tom.
This was something that as a group we agreed to and completely loved.

Yussra and Marwa.

Similar Artists

The Lightening Seeds-Lucky You
This song has the same feel as Female of the Species and uses a main theme of performance which, develops the idea that these alternative bands are more about performance element and marketing themselves rather than a narrative. The video is extremely low budget but effective. We want to go with a low budget look because, as many critics say high budgets with masses of effects loses quality of narrative and becomes an on screen kaleidoscope which as a group we strongly want to avoid. There are many close ups of the main band member. This makes the main band member the story teller and the icon of the video which, we have decided to make of Tom. Making Tom the main band member and the protagonist of our narrative familiarises the audience with him and means that marketing will flourish in his name along with the bands. There are many aerial shots of the performance but because we don't obtain the technology to make these shots we will use a lot of movement shots- tracks, pans and crane shots.



Space/Cerys Matthews-Tom Jones Ballad
This again is similar to our song however, the duo battling with each other is what we similarly want for our own music video. Because Anna wont have any lyrics or singing parts in the song we will attempt to maximise her part in the narrative as much as possible so the audience can begin to familiarise with her as a character. The key point in this video is when Cerys Matthews tries to save Tommy Scott from falling off the cliff thus, the tables turning. We want to introduce a key point like this in our narrative so we may have Anna at the end of the song trying to seduce Tom again and as he rejects her, a true demonic female of the species comes out of her and she gets her way anyway playing along with the theme of the lyrics. The whole video is a sequence of close ups and extreme close ups of the couples hands as they fall from the car. We will use similar shots to show the importance of certain sequences such as a close up of the lock on the door as Tom comes in before he finds Anna cheating.

Yussra and Marwa.

Demographics & Psychographics- and how it lead to changes!

Media content today is a multi-platform, user generator packed world, so when we were asked to make a music video we had to keep this in mind. Obviously the platform was chosen for us (a music video) however, we did go along the path of making our music video into a sort of mini film by jam-packing narrative into it. WIth the plans of a dance scene and the dysfunctional relationship between our main character and his girlfriend, we believed this would pull a mass audience in- young and old. The demographic for the song would generally be for 20-30 year old males because of its release in 1996 and also the male of voice breaking out showing himself as the victim for the first time. Perhaps this would have even appealed to women as they would have been showed as the dominating characters rather than the stereotypical image of woman under man.
The lyrics seemed to be overdramatised so, with this we decided to create terrible mini narrative situations which would genuinely lead to empathy with the man from the audience and humour for both men and women. We also tried as hard as possible to go with a 90's image of the housewife however, we went with the ''househusband''. We did this for comic relief and it seemed to work. At first we wanted our main character (Tom) to be wearing fluffy slippers hair rollers and an apron but, after re-shooting we decided that we are genuinely discussing the FEMALE of the species so, rather than changing Tom into a female so that he would appear fragile and the loser in the relationship we questioned why he couldn't be a man and feel like this- it is after all what the song is about! So we got rid of the apron, slippers and hair rollers and the drummer pans seemed to work very well at the beginning of the sequence to soften Tom's appearance as a member of an alternative rock band successfully.
The psychographics for the song would hold a niche audience in my our opinion however, one of their key interests would be music and this song would appeal to them because of it's upbeat and almost addictive tune. They would believe modern music to be in somewhat shambles except for the rare band which would bring it back to the essence of good music (such as Moose). Activities for the psychographic would be musical such as, gigs, festivals and concerts. We would want to have an audience that knew their stuff. Values would partake in modern society and the idea that female and male are equal. They would possibly also hold a strong belief in freedom of speech- maybe a remake of the baby boom generation.

Yussra and Marwa

Inspiration

This was a video i particularly liked and appealed to the idea that we wanted to get across to our audience. The idea of the female being in control and taking over the males place in society.


This music video can be seen as one which presents males as dirty and vile creatures. It takes this stereotypical view of the "street" and subverts it showing the females to be in control. This can be seen by the continuous use of a church as a setting, the "street" has the same set of beliefs as a religion in which there are rules which cannot be broken, therefore seen as hedonistic. There is a continuous use of close up shots of different peoples facial expressions including a substantial amount of close ups of the main singer. This can be interpreted as what the street can be seen as, an intimidating battle field at which no one is welcome. Jessie J's face comes into focus and out, and at most times when out of focus it appears that she is creating a male like expression or one which is not associated with a lady. The use of focus shows how the female is changing from one who is innocent to one which is an extrovert, loud and at times rude.
At the very beginning of the video there is an initial "hey hey hey" repeated and continues throughout the video. this allows the audience to establish the theme and provides them with the knowledge that the portrayal of females within this video is rough and upfront. It continues to maintain this viewpoint throughout.
The costume throughout provides an insight into the male dress code on the "street", yet the females have adopted this dress code and shown how they can rule the "streets" and "do it like a dude". This portrayal of women is different to that which is seen within society and media. Women are suppose to be elegant gentle and well dressed showing off their body in a way which cannot be seen as inappropriate. Where as this video provides everything but the stereotypical view. The women here are viewed as brash in their movements and actions as well as provacative in their dressing and the way they dance. In addition to the clothes the use of a piece of meat in which a female attempts to eat shows the vulgar side in which men a portrayed therefore the women are portrayed in this way. Men can be seen as hunter/gatherers and here it is clear that the female is the bread winner, and sticks up for herself. The use of a cigarette and a lighter to ignite both the cigarette and the music suggests that she first of all has a dirty habit which may have led to the way in which she acts. in addition the use of the lighter to start the music suggests that this life they lead is one which has only just started just like how the portrayal of women has changed and only just started.
Throughout the song the lyrics "grab my crotch, wear my hat low like you" is repeated, this is certainly reflected within the visuals of the video as she dances them out. This relates to Goodwin's theory on the link between lyrics and visuals.
In conclusion the views of women within this video are shown as animal like and is something we want to reflect within our video to a certain extent as i believe that this may be a bit to far.


Yussra.

Possible Idea

when looking at the lyrics a constant theme drifted into our minds that the song was depicting a male who was in control of a female. The song had taken the stereotypical male who has control and women falling at his feet to one who was completely controlled by the female.
Lyrics such as:"one kiss and I'm zapped", "when a girl like you has cast a spell on me", "but first she'll conquer me discreetly", "the female of the species is more deadlier than the male" suggest the idea of the female being in complete control. We decided to take these lyrics directly and present them within our music video subverting the female stereotype showing her being the one that cheats, abuses, and controls the situation at all times. Whereas in society it came across to us that the male is more likely to commit these offences, with the female putting up because she has no choice. This was certainly something we wanted to portray in our video.

Yussra and Marwa.

evaluating of music video

I chose to evaluate "Toxic" by Britney Spears, as i felt it relfected female dominance over men and this is an idea we are currently looking at using for our music video.

The embedding code had been disabled so the link to the video is below

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9kVZ1Zperc&ob=av2el


My Evaluation is below as a soundcloud file


GEORGE ELLIS BRITNEY SPEARS MUSIC VIDEO ANALYSIS by georgeellis1

George

We Are Scientists - "Inaction"

I was searching through youtube and found this video. Is extremely funny and seems so simple to make, which makes me wonder if we could make a video like this. It's funny and original and the performance part is really something we could draw from. It location is also somewhere that is important for us to study as it is simple and another aspect we could replicate.

Overall i suppose this video just stuck out for me and loved it enough to put it on our blog!

Enjoy. George

initial idea? Part two.

After discussing the idea involving a walk down the sidewalk we found examples of in videos from other artists one which i found quite interesting, as a viewer i was interested even though it was very simplistic and at times can be seen as bland.



As you can see from Red ink their video for their songs battlescars has edits yet nothing really comes in and out of the shot to describe the lyrics or present them visually. As a viewer you are centered on the group and their characteristics and who they are as people. This idea was liked very much and one which i tried to push forward with the idea of using a car to assist us yet the flaws were too big.One issue with this idea is that in order to keep the viewer constantly interested it would have to really captivate them in the narrative. Another issue that we came across very quickly is the fact that doing a continuous track would not be easy without the necessary equipment. It would be difficult to carry the camera for that length of time especially with the trouble of trying to keep it straight and level at all times.
After debating it was clear that this unfortunately wasn't the way forward.

Yussra and Marwa.

Initial idea?

After hours of conversation and phone calls we came to the possible idea of having our male protagonist walking either down the middle of the road or on the pavement. With it being a continuous clip or maybe with a few edits. But the idea is to have him continuously walking and have the camera in front of the central character.The way we could include the performance part is to throw a guitar into shot, he could catch it and start playing and singing into the camera whilst the lyrics could be visually displayed around him through people and objects.

Yussra and Marwa.

Vision

On our initial hearing it seemed mutual within the group that we got a tropical kind of setting in our vision. Through further development it was obvious that this idea was more than just impossible it required a huge production budget, something we had no access to. The list of problems with this concept follows:
Sand
Sun
Beautiful beach looking like its in hawaii
a coconut tree
generally all the setting
creating this setting would cost alot of money and time

This idea abruptly left our minds and the brainstorm for a more appropriatte idea began.

Yussra and Marwa.

Planning

Hello!

Our group have spent the last week planning and researching many existing music videos in order to acquire a general grasp towards the style of music video we will be filming. We spent the first weeks essentially brainstorming ideas that we could use for our music video and what direction we would take it. We felt that part performance and part narrative would be most effective for the song we have chosen as this would allow us to narrate the lyrics which would engage the audience more by giving them something they've never seen and by keeping the performance we can market the band by using close ups of band members and give what we feel would be a close interaction with the fans as they would essentially feel close to the band. We want the video to have a fun feel to it and to portray the serious aspects of relationships and gender stereotypes but in an entertaining way, in this case we want our audience to enjoy the video, not have to think too much about the stereotypes of gender and the issues of relationships.

One idea we had to use the basis of the video 'Drunk Girls' by LCD Soundsystem. It is an entirely performance based music video in which the band are attacked by people dressed as pandas. We will incorporate elements by getting girls to 'attack' members of the band as they are performing.

We discussed Yussras idea of using one single continuous take of the lead singer following a women, lusting after her, but we thought that one single take would be too hard to construct and would be less feasible.

We are also looking at using this as well as a narrative which relates to the song, however we are still considering ideas to use for this.

The group liked the idea of having a 'female dominance' attitude towards the synopsis of the video using the line 'the female of the species is more deadly than the male'. The song relates alot to gender and a sense of control that we assume men typically have over women. we decided that we could flip the stereotype and this way engage our audience with something they perhaps haven't seen before.

George and Tom

Song Choice.

After listening to the long list of songs there were quite a few that stood out to us in particular the female of the species and goodbye. However as a group we decided to go with the female of the species due to the fact that we could do much more with it showing our creativity and ability to create something amazing. Not only did we like the song but we loved the ideas within the song and hope that we can bring them out within our music video.

Yussra and Marwa.

The Song

We felt that our song 'Female of the Species' by Space represented gender in a way in which we could interpret effectively into a music video. As the song talks a lot about female dominance and that the 'female of the species is deadlier than the male', we feel that gender reversal and counter stereotypes could display the lyrics of the music, one of the many theories established by Andrew Goodwin.

Having now chosen our song, we spent a brief amount of time coming up with some preliminary ideas for our video.

George and Tom

Music Video Analysis

The super iconic video of Madonna singing Vogue shows a black and white continuous sequence of her in different performance settings and expressing the beauty of woman and man. However, her costume of a suit highly empowers the woman almost making her more than just equal to the man but more powerful than the men that she portrays in the video.

The beginning sequence sets the mise-en-scene for the rest of the video with a monochrome vintage feel whilst, bright lighting highlights each of the characters in the video. The track of the men posing for the camera identifies a higher calling for fashion-something stereotypically adored by women. The slow paced edits refer back to Andrew Goodwins theory of presenting a calm relaxed atmosphere in the video through the visual editing however, it could also refer to a sultry madonna trying to seduce the audience with a track up her back as the song kicks in.

The use of the background singers being female show a lesson being taught to the males as they stand posing in different shots whilst Madonna seems to be teaching them the ropes of fashion. One of the backing singers is black whilst the other is white showing a clear aim for the appearance of multi-culture to appeal to a wide audience and to further push forward the idea of a new era of ''anything goes''.

When the mid-shot of Madonna, she appears to be wearing a full tuxedo surrounded by men equally dressed and moving the same way she does. This strips them of the identities of male and female and just makes them one, changing the stereotype completely from one being above the other to them both being equal. Madonna even has the lyrics ''it makes no difference if your black or white, if your a boy or a girl.'' These lyrics are the essence of the video and are continuously visually portrayed throughout the video yet again following through with Andrew Goodwin's theories.

The shots of the men revealing the inside of their jackets and having nothing to show until it tracks to Madonna's iconic cone bra while she 'bumps and grinds' shows her as a powerful female who is aware of the power she holds over man as a woman which, is expressed throughout the whole video with sultry shots of Madonna looking into the camera and singing in seductive costume. The various close ups allow audience to familiarise with Madonna as the lead very quickly. Uniquely this video uses medium shots successfully, possibly as mini-establishing shots.

Marwa

Hello!

We are group 13D1 and we will be spending the next months making a music video for the song 'Female Of The Species' by 'Space'. We chose this song as it appealed to the whole group because it had a slightly exotic feel and we felt we could do almost anything with the video. The lyrics are quite visual about the role of gender dominance. We will be spending the next few weeks brainstorming ideas for a video.

George Ellis
Tom Cox
Marwa Abuelgasim
Yussra Ali

Our Group

The day came where we would find the group which we had been put into. Although we had input by choosing two people who we would like to work with it was mostly a mystery. We sat down and they were called out:
Group 1 Marwa, Yussra, Tom and George.
our fate had been read out and all the work we would produce from now onwards would be created with the influences of these people. Although it may seem as something minor and unimportant our ideas would be produced by theses four great minds and influence from our worlds.We were not strangers to each other, yet not best friends. We had an insight into each others personalities from the year spent together in our media lessons. And were familiar with the style of music each of us liked. This allowed us to choose specifically which song we would like to create the best music video for. In addition to this we roughly understood each others skills and where we would most likely sit in jobs.
With Marwa firmly occupying the editing part with her previous involvement in media projects from year 10. I believe that I would mostly suit the drawing side of things including the storyboards and the development of the initial ideas of things drawing out what we would see as our visions. Tom and george were much more educated in different types of music with them being regular viewers of 'Later with Jools Holland' and attending gigs at least maybe twice a month, they provided a new depth to our group one with great knowledge of the music industry. It is this which made us believe and know that no matter what we produced it would be brilliant.

Yussra and Marwa.