Rule of Thirds

The Rule of Thirds

Centrally placed subjects tend to focus attention in the middle of the image and leave it there, making pictures feel flat as a result; if you're trying to create an abstract or graphic representation of reality, this might be exactly the effect you're looking for, but you can strengthen your compositions with a subtle shift of the focal point.

Knowing the rules

The idea is to imagine that your frame is split into nine equal sections by two horizontal lines and two vertical lines. Then, by placing your subject, or a key part of your scene, at or near a point where the lines cross a point of power you'll lead your viewer's eye through the image, and create a more balanced composition; you'll be surprised at how dominant smaller subjects can become in a much larger scene.

Breaking the rules

Not every image in a shoot should conform to the rule of thirds ─ otherwise you'll end up creating a series of similarly paced pictures. Sometimes, all it takes is a slight nudge of the main subject off-centre to create a more balanced picture.

The Rules of Thirds states that there are certain “hotspots”, areas of intensity that exist within any given image, and if one were to align the subject within the range of influence of these hotspots, it will make for a more energetic and interesting composition.

I watched the Film Se7en Last year in an AS Lesson and the rule of thirds was used by it's director David Fincher and the film was shot by the brilliant cinematographer Darius Khondji.

The image above illustrates the rule; the four “hotspots” where the red lines intersect, and where Detective Somerset ( Morgan Freeman ) stands.

Example 2 : Tracy Mills (Gwyneth Paltrow) lit by a soft, beautiful rim light and composed within the hotspots. Her frame is supported by the various vertical lines formed by the two pillars and the windows in the background.

Editing to the Beat

Editing to the beat is one of the most challenging experiences we have had to deal with when editing our music video. To make our production look professional we have tried our hardest to keep the scenes in the music video in synch with the music itself to avoid confusion for the viewer and to allow a smooth continuous viewing experience.

I think it is more effective when the actions of the characters and speed of the editing are in synch with the beat of the music and makes it more interesting to watch.

Sad Montage

Above is a practice edit of the sad montage, we experimented with having it black and white, however then we could not use the symbolism of the red top and would have to use the grey. However the black and white effect adds a melancholy tone to the video and futher opposes it to the happier times.
Howver the point of a video is that the audience are not aware of the cuts, changing half the video to black and white would.

Rich Mix

Above is some edited footage of our day out on a trip that our media teacher had organised for us to go to to give us some inspiration and help for the production of our music video.

Going to the Rich Mix media seminar made us aware of the simplicity of our video. Our music Video Idea was too similar to the original songs and not be considered as an individual product. However as a group we feel confident in our idea and will perhaps rearrange some shots so they do not fit with the lyrics exactly but still connote key ideas such as 'train on a track'.

Also we feared our performance narrative idea was again too simple for our song after seeing some examples of work, and as the song is not in the pop genre which is where most of the performance/ narrative/ love base videos are. However again we felt confident in our idea and that whilst challenging the conventions of our film we could make it edgy and captivating enough to our audience so they would enjoy and re watch.

A key theme raised at RichMix was voyeurism, which is the artist looking at themselves as seen in Nat King Coles video. We therfore had the idea of her looking in a mirror however we felt this connoted 'pop' rather than the alternative/indie genre of our song and so had the idea of her reflection in water e.g. a puddle with someone casting ripples again showing the turbulence of her life in the bad times.

The seminar made me realise the changing/ modernising market of music videos. Due to the popularity of the internet the focus is now on youtube instead of Television with about 95% of participants agreeing that they primarily use YouTube for music.

The Trip was very insightful and has had a major impact on our ideas and will hopefully improve our end result.

Practice Films

Here is the part of the footage from the iphone. The unsteadiness of represents the racing emotions she is feeling and that she is uncertain of her future and what/where to go/do at this point.

Here we practised our lip syncing editing skills with practise footage from our happy location in Cuffley. We found that we could reuse locations and time of shot, however we would need it from another angle or perspective something we found in other videos that they return to narratives or use cuts to narrative but of a different angle of the same shot.

Costume planning

Happy Times - Field/ Performance

After we went to look for a dress in TKMaxx we discovered that the natural, floral style of dress we wanted was unlikely to be in any shops therefore so we could have complete control over the look, length and style of the dress we have decided to buy material and make the dress.

Here is a sample of the kind of pattern we were hoping to find. The white background denotes purity whilst the blue floral reveal her feminine side which is not as present in the sad times the blue flowers show her femininity without being too 'in your face'. Also as the dress is not completely white but patterned it symbolises how she herself is not as clean or pure as she was prior to the relationship but has been changed because of it.

Sad Times - Narrative - Rooftops

To symbolise her feelings of sadness and the 'darkness' of the relationship we have dressed her in black clothing.We also decided to have her in dark boots to show both the influence he had on her but to conform to typical violent relationship stereotypes. Also the dark clothing make her look both a stronger character as a female and weaker when he pushes her as she is all in black on the floor belittling her.

Below is a still shot of Eleanor running, I like the connotations of the red top as it symbolises danger and anger which she is subject too but also makes her stand out from her dark surroundings giving her a greater visual impact on the audience and symbolising her strength to move on from the 'dog days'.

Below is a still shot of one of our practise shots of Eleanor running through the car park (video to follow), we feel wearing the black leather jacket if effective, however as you can see she is in grey in this shot. We chose to experiment with grey as it shows how she does fit in to those surroundings and shows how she is very humble and defenceless in the relationship it also is between white (happy) and black (sad) and so could be used to show the transition of her emotions. Therefore we must decide as a group if we prefer the protagonist to wear a red top or grey top as they both symbolise different aspects of the narrative.

First Fitting

A friend who is an aspiring fashion designer offered to create the dress so that we could use a unique prop in our music video.

Extension of story board

Here we have been able to extend our storyboard to include the rooftop scene and develop some of the narrative ideas.

Storyboard Music Video.ppt Recovered]

Audience Theory 2

Audience Theory

What effects do media texts have on audiences?

In many ways these can fall into two camps:

Passive and Active.

The Hypodermic Model

Here , the media is seen as powerful and able to inject ideas into an audience who are seen as weak and passive. The Nazis were experts at using this model using propaganda in advertising posters for example. It suggests that a media text can inject ideas , values , and attitudes into a passive audience.

The Cultivation Theory

The Cultivation Theory is another model that treats the audience as passive it suggests that repeated exposure to the same message such as an advertisement will have an effect on the audiences attitudes and values.

Two Step Flow Theory

This suggests that messages move in two distinct ways

1. Opinion leaders receive messages from the media

2. They pass it on to a more passive audience

3.The audience mediate this received

Reception Theory

This is an active theory. It suggests that social and daily experiences can affect the way an audience reads a media text and reacts to it. The theorist Stuart Hall suggests that an audience has a significant role in the process of reading a text and this can be discussed in three different ways.

The Dominant or Preferred reading

This claims that the audience shares the code of the text and fully accepts it preferred meaning meaning as intended by the producers.

Negotiated reading

This claims that the audience partly shares the code of the text and broadly accepts the the preferred meaning but can change the meaning in some way according to their own experiences.

Oppositional reading

This claims the audience understands the preferred meaning but does not share the texts code and rejects this intended meaning.

The beginning of our story board

Our Group went to look at a possible filming location in Cuffley, here we took photos and short films on our phones of possible shot ideas and locations also we practised composing the shots, below is the beginning of our storyboard with analysis.

Storyboard Music Video.ppt Recovered]

Practice filming and Location Searching

Here we are practicing filming the opening shot, it is the first shot in our rooftop location, it is a mid shot of the protagonist singing, in naturally dark lighting so the urbanisation of her surroundings. However we are going to have to film on a windy night as we all agreed we loved her hair blowing showing how out of control and turbulent she felt.

We liked this location as it has connotations of both urban (graffiti) and rural (lighting, trees, leaves e.t.c.) locations. We felt this symbolised her inbetween decisions or beginning to move on from her life. Therefore the symbolism of the next shot (her running out under the bridge) symbolises that she has made a decision and is running from her old life, into the new.

This is a wide practise shot of me in the performance side of the video possibly cutting from this wide shot to a close up so the audience could see the lip syncing.

Audience Theory

Audience is a key concept through out media studies, because all media texts are produced with an audience in mind that they aim to appeal to. In other words the audience are those who will receive the text and make some sort of sense out of it.

In media Terms the audience is any group of people who receive a media text, and not just people who are together in the same place. They receive the text via a media carrier such a newspaper or magazine , television , DVD , radio or the internet. It can also be a mobile phone, I pod or any other device that stores or receives media messages.

Television producers and Music Directors need an audience for their productions other wise their would be no reason for the input of work into something that would not be viewed or appreciated by the public. Once their creations have been viewed by audience with a successful outcome they can then finance their programmes or music videos that the audience likes supplying for the demand.

Below is the audience for the Rocky Horror Motion Picture Show. As you can see, there's a strong desire to "believe" in the fantasy of the movie.

A* Grade

In class we had a look at the Specification for us to become aware of how to gain the highest marks, we will incorporate all these features into our storyboard to the best of our ability so we can do so.

Magic Bullet Perspective

Hypodermic-syringe model or "Magic Bullet" perspective

This model is rooted in the 1930's and today is considered obsolete and has been replaced by newer and more up to date theories.
The hypodermic-syringe model implied that the mass media (newspapers, films, music e.t.c) has a direct, powerful and instant impact on audiences the model describes it as becoming 'injected' with information through a medium. For example a person who uses the medium of tv to watch violent films would eventually become desensitised and their opinions and views on the topic changed through the medium.

Meeting - Band Name

This is a picture of us having a discussion on what we would like the name of our group to be, after researching bands we found that many solo artists are simply known by stage names such as Lady Ga Ga , Pink and Will I Am.

Even though the type of song we chose to do a music video for has a lead singer singing the song we do not want to isolate them from the rest of the group so the band name we would like to have will generously acknowledge all the band members.

Examples of Bands with a lead singer yet perform under a band name include The Killers, The script and the Pussycat Dolls.

In our group however there is one singer and due to the problem with the harp we will not have a band performing which is something all the bands above have in their music video, therefore similar to our song choice we are considering using a name like

Florence and the Machine

Marina and the Diamonds

Selena Gomez and the Scene

meeting

Here we are producing our treatment, we have decided that we will have to simplify our ideas as some are unachievable with the resources we have. However we are still keen to pursue our imagination vs reality concept and are looking at ways of simplifying this. A possible idea was not so much imagination more twisted reality however this would not contrast as well as imagination and with the obvious contrast in the song we do want to reflect this in our video.

Imagination vs Reality

Imagination vs Reality

The concept we have developed for our video is imagination vs reality, we developed this from the lyrics and meaning of the song as although we do not want to follow the lyrics exactly we want some similarity to draw links and strengthen the video.

Above is Gwen Stefani's video for "What You Waiting For" this video includes many of the ideas we came up with including Alice and Wonderland with the main characters of the white rabbit and queen of hearts it also brings in symbolic features of the story for instance the maze and the tea party.

.However in this video Gwen Stefani doesn't oppose reality and imagination in the same way we hope to. We want to represent reality with dark clothes, urban/ industrial settings, smudged make up and the "dark side" of teen life. Opposing this with a brightly coloured imagination sequence would keep the audience hooked and encourage them to enjoy the song.

Reality Sequence

We hope to represent reality by filming in a rooftop looking over an urban landscape with the opening scene involving the main vocalist surrounded by the dark side of teen life possibly the only one concious. The picture below shows the kind of landscape we hope to achieve however we will film it later in the day and possibly

add post production effects to make the whole scene seem drearier. We can hopefully achieve our opening sequence as we live in an urban area and could hopefully get permission to film on top of one of these, however we would have to recruit some extras meaning we would have to get this sequence right quickly or our extras may not be willing to co-operate.

Meeting

Us mind mapping ideas for stone cold sober with our concept of Imagination vs Reality Our ideas for this include an 'Alice and Wonderland' theme we had the idea of using drab colours for the reality idea possibly with industrial connotations this will be contrasted with the imagination theme which will have bright colours and a more natural setting.

Practice Story Board

In class we decided to practice story boarding and to analysed a music video of an Artist from our Pop-soul music genre and we chose Paloma faith. As a group we watched her music video on repeat and observed the camera techniques , lighting , camera framing etc. in order for us to story board the scenes. We story boarded up to did 30 seconds into the music video after noticing that story boarding the whole video would be a long process.

As some of us in the group pointed out the filming techniques used in the video we paused the video screen in order for another member of the group to draw the still image.We used aStory board layout that was already prepared with boxes to fill in making the story boarding process easier. And it aslo made us think about the layout of our own story board for our music video. It was good practice and prepared us for story boarding our own music video.

Story Board - Page one

Story Board - Page two

Story Board - Page three

Story Board Example

STORY BOARD

I decided to scan in this example of a story board that my group will be using to plan out the scenes of our Music Video.

Our story board will be similar to this and will include the same features like this one has.

This story board is an example of a good professional one as it allows us to decide on the type of shot , framing , Angle and duration of the clip helping us to be alot more organised and prepared for filming.

As we are filming a music video we will need to get shots right first time if we are filming in difficult or complex locations, therefore we will analyse the video shot by shot in time with the lyrics of the song and decide when the narrative begins so we do not have to lip sync all of the song each time.

Band Name

Another Group meeting was organised for us to Gather ideas on band names.

We came up with the idea that the main girls name of the group should be 'honey'. Initially we liked 'honey and the libertines'. However there is already a band called 'The Libertines' therefore we dealt that if we were trying to establish ourselves as a new band we would not want to confuse our target audience between the two bands.

Therefore we looked up synonyms of Libertines as it means 'rebelious' which we liked as it was a juxtaposition between honey which symbolises sweetness and smoothness with rebellious which symbolises possible darkness and violence, the opposition also ties into the message of our video a contrast of good times (high key lighting, natural settings, sweet/ innocent dress), and the bad times (low key lighting, urban settings, dark clothing and connotations of destructive relationships).

Synonyms of libertines or rebellious:

1. Harlot
2. Little virtues
3. Loose morals
4. Anarchist
5. Radical
6. Resistant
7. Restless
8. Revolutionary
9. Turbulent
10. Ungovernable
11. Unruly
12. Warring

We particulry liked anarchist as it has the word 'kiss' again contrasting rebellious with sweetness, also adding sexuality to the group which will be necessary to appeal to the target audience of indie rock/ soul music, particularly as we have a lead female singer (see mood board for more details on sexuality of women in the media).

Dog days are over lyrics

Dog Days Are Over Lyrics

Happiness hit her like a train on a track
Coming towards her stuck still no turning back
She hid around corners and she hid under beds
She killed it with kisses and from it she fled
With every bubble she sank with her drink
And washed it away down the kitchen sink


The dog days are over
The dog days are done
The horses are coming
So you better run

Run fast for your mother, run fast for your father
Run for your children, for your sisters and brothers
Leave all your love and your longing behind
You cant carry it with you if you want to survive

The dog days are over
The dog days are done
Can you hear the horses?
Because here they come

And I never wanted anything from you
Except everything you had and what was left after that too, oh
Happiness hit her like a bullet in the head
Struck from a great height by someone who should know better than that

The dog days are over
The dog days are done
Can you hear the horses?
Because here they come

Run fast for your mother, run fast for your father
Run for your children, for your sisters and brothers
Leave all your loving, your loving behind
You cant carry it with you if you want to survive

The dog days are over
The dog days are done
Can you hear the horses?
Because here they come

The dog days are over
The dog days are done
The horses are coming
So you better run

Audience feedback

After showing our treatment slide show to the class they wrote their opinions of it on sheets of paper and we gathered them in to read to have an insight on what they thought about our idea.

We decided to Make a wordle making us aware of the strengths and weaknesses of our idea.

Here is our wordle showing our audience feedback from our treatment, the inspirational tag refers to our use of videos in our treatment and analysis of them.

Treatment Pitch

Treatment for 'Dog Days are Over'

A treatment is an outline of a media production which is designed to give a client or a production team an overview of what the production may be based on in an overview. The treatment will include written descriptions about the production, it may have sketches, photographs and videos which are designed to demonstrate the production. A media treatment is used to sell the production to a client or a production company. A treatment is a long process but it is a major aspect of the pre-production process.

Wordle

I have made a 'worldle' that displays words I think Describe the Pop Soul Music Genre

Meeting 2 : Problem / Change of Idea

Final Song choice Discussion

As a group we decided to change our song choice from

Paloma Faith - Stone Cold Sober to Florence and the machine - Dog days are over.

Some of the members of our group suggested a better song idea that we were all happy with.

We discussed this song change as a group and we were all happy with the change and came to a final decision that 'Dog days are over' will be the new song we will use for our Music Video.

Getting Permission

To be able to use the song we have chosen in our video, My group will have ask the Music Producers of the song for our permission to use it in our music video to avoid being persecuted for Copyright. In order to ask we will have to contact them and after doing some research on the internet the we were able to gain the names and personal details of the people involved in the production of the song we would like to use.

Name of Artist:Paloma Faith

Name of Song:Stone Cold Sober (Sony Music)

Prod co: Factory Films

Director: Sophie Mulle

r

Producer: Rob Small

DoP: Simon Chaudoir

Art director: Alison Dominitz

Offline: Sophie Muller

Online: Uncle

Telecine: Tom Russell at Prime Focus

Commissioner: Mike O’Keefe

email 'Factory Films':post@fictionfactoryfilms.com

The email shown below is what one of my Group members composed and sent to the email above,

we are all patiently waiting for a reply.

FINGERS CROSSED!

Dear Factory Films,

My name is Elizabeth Kennelly and I am studying Media Studies at an A Level standard.

This year me and a few of my peers have been set a project to create a music video to a song of our choice, and we have decided that we would like to possibly use Paloma Faiths 'Stone Cold Sober'

We have no intent to sell the video in any way, this is purely for educational purposes.

I would greatly appreciate if you could get back to me.

Thank you.

Your Sincerely

Elizabeth Kennelly

Chosen Songs Lyrics

Stone Cold Sober Lyrics

I'll be the late night lady you won't recognise
I'm a chameleon I'm always in disguise
I'd read your future but it's written in the past,
Take a good look might be your last

Don't try to show me, cause you don't know me,

Stay away!

I can be wilder than the wind,
119 miles an hour,
I'm in a whole other dimension,
Dancing doubles on the floor,
You think I'm crazy, a little bit hazy,

But I'm stone cold sober

You're telling me something
But there's nothing cheap as words
I'm walking away before I do affect the birds
Excuse me Mr I've got other things to do
Than to stand here listening to you

Stop talking at my face
Take a rocket out to space and...
Stay away!

I can be wilder than the wind
119 miles an hour
I'm in a whole other dimension,
Dancing doubles on the floor
You think I'm crazy, a little bit hazy
But I'm stone cold...

I can be wilder than the wind
119 miles an hour
I'm in a whole other dimension,
Dancing doubles on the floor
You think I'm crazy, a little bit hazy
But I'm stone cold sober

In the madness of the storm,
I'm the one to carry on,
I don't need no medicine,
If you're looking for a cure,
Don't be knocking at my door,
I'll never let you in
Take a rocket out to space
And stay out of my place

I can be wilder than the wind
119 miles an hour
I'm in a whole other dimension,
Dancing doubles on the floor
You think I'm crazy, a little bit hazy
But I'm stone cold...

I can be wilder than the wind
119 miles an hour
I'm in a whole other dimension,
Dancing doubles on the floor
You think I'm crazy, a little bit hazy
But I'm stone cold sober

The words in Italics and Bold are the references in the lyrics we are considering using to build our music video, the idea of disguises, future, and stay away/ rejection.
Therefore we are considering merging these themes into the narrative side of our video, with the idea of disguise in the performance side of our video.

Chosen Song

My Groups Chosen Song is

Paloma Faith - Stone Cold Sober

Our Final Song Choice is 'Stone Cold Sober' by Paloma Faith, We have chose this song because we love the beat, and the lyrics. We feel we can create a good music video with it. Our own ideas can really come out as we can be very creative , imaginative and adventurous with the song.

Stone Cold Sober was released on the 15th July 2009 and entered the UK charts at number 17. It is the debut single by British singer Paloma Faith.

Stone Cold Sober is based on the predicament of appearing to be one thing but in reality being quite another. Paloma Faith told the June 2009 issue of Q that, "My vocal style suits the subject matter of my album. It's about the human condition, the constant striving for love and companionship. I've thrown my heart at many a wrong man in my time, I can't tell you. I'm the queen of tragedy. Melancholy informs everything I do."

The song also featured in Rimmel London commercial.

Intertexuality

INTERTEXTUALITY

In Class My media teacher suggested various editing and filming techniques that we could use in our music videos to add a touch of professionalism to the production.

She mentioned the Use of Intertextuality and this technique appealed to me the most because it was unusual and different and would be more entertaining for the viewer watching.

Intertextuality is The way in which texts refer to other media texts that producers assume audiences will recognise.

One of the pleasures that audiences experience in the consumption of media texts is the

joy of recognition. One form of this pleasure comes in recognising the reference in one

media text to other media texts. This process of referencing is called intertextuality.

MIMICRY

This means that a text will mimic or otherwise copy certain stylistic features of another text. Usually this is done in order to create a particular impact, although there may be instances where this borrowing may seem simply a matter of convenience to give a music video, for example, a particular look.

Here is an example of Mimicry in a Music Video

Weezer - Buddy Holly

Meeting

Today we had a small meeeting to discuss what we're going to do about our music video, and how we will set about to create what we want. to do this we have come up with a few things we need to do to make sure that we can get the best from what we want;

1) We will need a committed 'band' who will come and film when we need them to.

2) We need to check out the music studio in our school to see if we would be able to make a successful 'set' that would be good for the auditions and the performance.

3) We need to see if enough people would want to be in the music video to get the effect we need.

Once we have looked at doing these things we will them make a decision to what we want to do, go along with this idea or think about another one.

Chosen Genre

POP SOUL

The music genre that my group and have chosen to do a music video for is 'POP SOUL'

Pop-Soul is soul music that has been polished slightly and given a commercially viable, crossover production. The vocals are still raw, but the material and the sound of the record could easily fit onto pop radio stations' playlists. Motown was the pioneering label of pop-soul, and through much of the '60s, it was one of the most popular pop music genres. In the '70s, pop-soul became slicker, and it eventually metamorphosed into disco.

Examples of Pop-Soul artists are;

Duffy

Natasha Bedingfield

and Maroon 5

Pop soul is consdiered to be music that sounds ' black 'and urban that is sung by white people.

The main Generic Characteristics of the Pop Soul Genre are emotional ballads being sung by the artist and the music video's are often serious to back up the lyrics that are usually about heart break or difficult relationships. Pop soul videos are often narrative to portray the visual element that the lyrics in the songs depict

The iconography The Pop soul genre uses are extravagant images that can sometimes be over exaggerated or it can be very simple and basic depending the nature of the song.

For example here is a screen shot from Duffy's Music video - Warwick Avenue

The tempo of this song is slow and has a sad feeling as the song is about break-up. The lighting is dull , grey and pale to represent the negative emotions reflected through the lyrics.

The video is very simple and hasn't got a lot of change of scenery as she is shown in the back of a cab contemplating throughout the journey as she lip-synch's the lyrics.

Where as Natasha Bedingfield's Music Video for - Unwritten

The tempo is upbeat and fast, the song sounds bright and positive corresponding to the happy and optimistic lyrics in song. The lighting is done with a natural light from rays of sunshine and Natasha is often smiling whilst singing the lyrics in the video.

One similarity between both videos is that the Artists are shown singing the lyrics in the video with variations of close-up's to powerfully display the emotion that they are trying to get across in the song with their facial expressions.