History of the music video

In this post I am going to be discussing the history of music videos mainly focusing on six famous stars Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Elvis, The Beatles,  queen and Micheal Jackson.

To start with the famous artist Bing Crosby. Bing Crosby was an American singer and Actor filled with many talents and successful hits. Crosby sadly died at the age of 74, however he is still living on in the name of music. Crosby was the leader in record sales, radio rantings and even motion picture grosses. Crosby was at his peak in the year of 1948 where he was declared most admired man alive from all his success. He was famously known for his big staring in the film 'White Christmas' which was as close to a pop music video being viewed a number of times you could get to star in a film. This music video which was probably Crosby's biggest biggest hit, which was first released on a radio broadcast on Christmas day in 1941,  The song was so famous that it was then reappeared in his film in 1942 'Holiday Inn' which went crazy on the charts and does every christmas season and to this day when it hits the Christmas season it repeats all over the radio and hits the charts of Christmas songs, it still remains best selling single of all time. Below the song is listed.

I am now going to be discussing Elvis Presley, who unfortunately never got the actual chance to produce a music video, however it didn't stop him from being a massive success but sadly due to this if you really wanted to see Elvis perform and you was a hard core fan you would have to go and see him in concert however sadly if you lived in certain seas like the united kingdom where Elvis never performed the only way to watch him was to get your hands on a record that someone has filmed him live on, this made copies of him performing very popular and everyone went crazy to get their hands on them. unfortunately Elvis died at just age 42. Below is a video of him performing.

The Beatles  the famous boy band the cause of music videos becoming a big thing. The Beatles are an  English well known famous band. The Beatles went on tours as the beatlemania. The tour started in the year 1963 however  it went on for so long it resulted in them not being able to stand touring any longer due to the screaming of the girls as it drove them insane and made it hard for them to perform as they couldn't hear themselves. After they decided to come up with a plan to produce a music video which was 'paper back writer' to make up to their fans for not touring and also in replace of touring so they can still be heard and earning money whilst at it. Below is two different  videos one being their live performance and second of their first music video.As you can see below wasn't the best of music videos and was seen as a bit of a mockery and music videos started of not being seen as a serious thing.  However back then this was amazing and started the generation of pop music videos as after The Beatles did this soon every celebrity wanted to do the same. 

Queen are also an English band however there genre is more focused on rock pop in 1975 queen produced a music video to their song Bohemian Rhapsody this song became a number one hit in charts after the music video was released which proved how much having a music video to a song made the song more popular. This music video was the first to be different to having a band with a couple guitars so in that case it was called a form of art in the pop world and was the first pop video to be taken actually seriously. 

   

Micheal Jackson who is the king of pop with his famous music video Thriller which was and is probably the biggest music video yet to be produced, Micheal Jackson has been in the life of fame from a young age singing well known songs like ABC it was the most expensive music video to be made, it was so popular that a 20 minute extended version of the music video was realised into cinemas. This was when music videos started to be seen as something just as important as the song itself and not just for promoting the song.

Album Art Exercise

In this lesson we used photoshop to design a album cover from a 2 random pictures, a quote and a name to combine them together to manipulate the picture with editing.  Stated below is the final completed bit of work. 

I cut the background from the first picture being the bird and made the bird smaller to where i made the second picture the background to make it look like it was flying in the air. 

Above you can see the picture of the bird before i edited it using photoshop, i did want to add colour and definition to its feathers and really bring out the blue colours however that would have taken to much time up in the one lesson we had to complete this task. Due to not being very used to photoshop i decided to try keep my idea simple and not complicate things.

I didn't really do much to this picture stated above i didn't edit it much i just added it to the background to create a simple album cover it looks like a very country themed song. I then added the colour text in the sky with the fish text box to make it look peaceful. and i used a very pastel colour which would be noticeable but not stand out majorly.      

Overall i think this could have been better and there is much space for improvements, but its good for what it is and the lack of experience with photoshop in which i have.  

Don't Go Breaking My Heart lip sync exercise evaluation

In this blog I am going to be discussing the process of our first attempt of creating a music video. Our task was to create a music video lip syncing 'Don't Go Breaking My Heart' by Elton John.

We had to take 4 shots of me and Sarah singing the song with the lyrics on the projector, the first was just a straight long shot of me and Sarah singing, the second shot the camera was placed on a dolly and focused on Sarah and the third was the same but focused on myself rather than Sarah, the final shot was of Louis rolling the camera around with the dolly doing all kinds of different shots like tracking and rolling etc.. The good thing about doing all these shots was that when me and Sarah was to mess the lyrics up in one take we could cut to the other 3 shots of our choice rather than have to re take the whole shot so this really saved time.

When we was doing the exercise at first it felt a little awkward as we actually had to sing so that our mouths would make the right shapes and it will look like we are actually singing when the music video goes up and we can't sing but in the end it was really fun and felt like we was on karaoke. We also tried to make expressions when certain things were said in the lyrics however kept forgetting to do them which was a down side. 

When editing the music video it was different to editing a normal video what we are used to however once we started we got the hang of it very well, matching the sound to our mouth movements was actually a lot more easy than I  expected it to be however it wasn't perfect although due to this being our first attempt we hope to improve drastically in the future. 

Overall i found this very helpful and gave me a bigger idea on what we are going to do on our actual music video that we are going to do. It gave us a bigger idea on what shots to use and tips to help us match our lip sync to the music as much as possible. 

Don't go breaking my heart lip sync exercise

Me and my team mates did our first lip sync music video attempt to Don't Go Breaking My Heart by Elton John, we did this and then exported the exercise to Youtube which is shown below. 

Sonny and cher evaluation

We made a music video lip syncing Sonny and Cher  ' I Got You Babe' Sarah was Sonny and I was Cher whilst Louis was behind the camera filming it. 

we didn't know the lyrics all but the chorus of by heart so we had the lyrics on the screen so we could read them whilst performing. Me and Sarah actually sang along to the record due to the fact if we did just mim it would have been very hard to match us to the lip sync. We took five different shots using five different camera techniques this way the music video would have looked more effective and also the fact if one of us messed up in one shot we wouldn't have to re shoot it because we would have four others. We used a rolling shot in which we seem to think is the most effective i think this is because it catches the best bits, we did a shot just focusing on me and also a shot just focusing on Sarah, a low angle shot and finally we used a still shot. We did mess up in a few shots however not the whole way through so having this many shots is really an advantage as it saves some time. 

I think the low angle shot was least effective this is due to low angles normally being shot to show power so it was really relevant to the lyrics and the action going on. Another trouble was Sarah's height due to this she had to stand on a chair in able to reach the mic and because of this when shooting we had to make sure in which we didn't capture the chair . 

I think the music video would be better if me and Sarah both knew the lyrics and the lighting was a bit better but overall it went rather well and helped us gain knowledge in which we are going to use in our Music video in which we will be creating. 

Sonny and Cher exercise

This is our exercise complete in making a music video to famous song Sonny and Cher, which was made with myself, Sarah and louis.

My Production Team

This post is about me and my team who i will be working with for the whole year to complette the task described in the brief.

My team consists of; 

• Me ( Shelby Poll) My role is is to be starring in the products and help with editing and will be organising everything from planning to the final product. My strenghts are acting and idea generating, my taste in music varies but the genres in which I favour the most is R&B, Hip/Hop, Rap, House and Garage. 
• Louis Russell his main role is filming an editing, his strengths are filming, editing and directing. he don't really have a certain taste in music and normally just enjoys listening to whatever is in the charts.
• Sarah Warren who will also be starring in the product and help out edit and plan, her strengths are figuring out the best possible route to make an idea better and costume/design/setting and props, Sarah's taste in music is Indie, rock and alternative.  

Below is a picture of me and my team members.

The Brief

This is the task in which I have to complete by the end of year 13 this year our biggest concerntration will be around the music video industry below is the task in which needs completing.

• Your task is to produce:
• A music ‘promo’ video
• Up to 5 minutes
• Either working on your own or in a group of up to four members
• You also need to produce:
• A ‘digipak’ (Six panels) for its release on CD
• A magazine advertisement for the digipak
• In addition to your ‘promo’ video you will have to produce:
• A critical evaluation

Welcome

• This is my A2 media studies blog. 

This is a welcoming to my music video A2 blog. In this blog i am going to be charting my progress as I research, plan, contrast and evaluate my A2 portfolio, I am going to be creating new posts explaining and showing what I learn along the way and how much these techniques improve, I am going to be making a promotional package for an new artist/band which will include producing a music video. I have learned a lot from blogging in year 12 for my AS so I know that this blog is going to be even better.