4. How did you use media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stage?

CD magazine cover research

Beside developing and finishing of our final draft of our music video, we were told to design a magazine advert to promote our CD and our music video it self. Firstly. which is obvious, we drew inspiration from the cover of the original artist of the song. From here we took the techniques of using a 'pencil drawn' effect, using it in the way of outlining the main performer. However our group decided to input our own original ideas. The ideas we came up with derived from the 'happy' feel that runs through out the music video and to also incorporate the 'hippy, carefree' theme. Looking at other magazine covers we noticed that most are simple but yet send a very effect message of the style of music being portrayed. For example recent No 1 album chart hitter Tinie Tempah released 'Disc-Overy' with one of the most simple covers but yet sends out big signals of his type of music. Below you can see a picture of this :





As you can see, in the centre and enlarged, is an image of himself. He is then holding New York city round his arms, this showing the type of music as being 'urban'. Fianlly the 'stary' background with his dress code shows the contempry and modern style his music also possesses.




From these ideas we can then go on to develop a magazine cover that will incorporate the feel, genre and style of our music video.

Below is a link that will go on to show a range of magazine covers: *click here*

2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Due to the fact we split tasks between the group by having one person working on the CD digipak and magazine avert and others working on building our music video to its highest standard it was a effective technique not only because it was more time efficient rather than us all focusing on one task it also helped each individual gain experiance in using the different media technologies and techniques. This was also effective as we were able to enforce complimentary features within the main product and ancillary texts. For example the idea of the cartoon theme came from research into different CD covers gaining from the abstract style from the theme used by Eliza Doolittle.

We then took this idea and incorporated it into our music video by taking the footage of Matt walking through market  street and used a faded black and white filter to give an almost drawn image, we did at first use a line art effect on final cut pro which gave a strong cartoon effect in black and white this idea we gained from the Bruno Mars song 'Just the way you are'

However we found ourselves at a debate as one member of the group really did not like this effect as he claimed it looked tacky so after some consideration we decided to meet half way and just use the filter as it still complimented our cartoon theme. We also used brightness and contrast in the video to heighten the colour especially in the beach scenes this therefore makes it similar to our abstract colour used in the CD cover in which we have chosen to focus on particular aspects of the photograph and picked out colour this alongside our use of soft focus is similar to the famous  atherial effect used in the 70's, with the 70's being the time of the hippy era in which we have based our music video on. This enables us to bring our main product and ancillary texts together.

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop of challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Luckily we as a group generally have the same music taste therefore we were able to come up with plenty of ideas for inspiration when it came to music videos similar to ours. Although we aimed to make our music video as unique as possible this could be sometimes difficult as the video is also based on typical romance stories which include the girl and the guy, he serenades her with his written song and they are surrounded by beautiful scenery. We incorporated this stereotypical romance into our music video using feminine clothing and a guitar for the mise en scene and using location shots such as the beach and the park. Aside from the stereotype I think we made it unique and more personal by the use of handheld shots when filming the performers looking at one and other in the tree this made the video seem more of a home video than a panned production this is something we intended on doing as our plan was to make the video seem as carefree as possible.


Another aspect which we hope will be original is the use of stop motion to narrate the lyrics although we have seen other groups use this we hope our use of writing it in the sand adds to the idea of romance stereotypes as its a typical thing for couples to write in the sand therefore we hope  this adds to our music video being more personal. In addition, we wanted to carry on this originality by incorporating different aspects of saying 'I'm yours'. As i just mentioned we wrote it in the sand which was our first initial idea, however as production was going on our group got inspired of using a 'homeless person or a busker'. This is due to most romantic films use this whereas in the music world this is very rare and only some songs choose to use it because it only fits certain genres, like our own. So in the end we decided to use this idea and we gave a piece of cardboard having the words 'I'm yours' written on it to a busker in town. This added a different feel and dimension in the sense of a comical feel which deviated from the on-going narrative feel. There was a final  'I'm yours' near the end of the song and we wanted to carry on with this using different techniques of showing 'I'm yours'. It took a bit of time to think but one of our group members again got inspiration from another film 'The last song' of where the the guy writes 'forever' on the girls trainers. In our case instead of writing 'forever' we changed it to 'Im yours'. 
































Me and my group  also feel that our music video is original and does go against conventional music videos, due to the fact we don't only get inspiration from music videos, but we also get inspiration from different media products such as movies. This enables us to come up with different ideas, such as going to Southport beach, which no one has done. Also using inspirational movie pieces adds to the narrative side of our video.  


Finally comparing this to a similar video such as Eliza dolittle's 'Pack up', they are many similarities. Such as the beach style look, the happiness that runs throughout and the overall  sunny and bright look. However the difference between our video and Eliza Doolittle's video, is the urban feel we also brought in. This added our own feel, by mixing an urban vibe with the hippie style that runs throughout the video. 

We have mentioned Eliza Doolitle earlier on in our blog as we used the music video for 'pack up' as a form of inspiration in our detailed analysis. Eliza's music genre is very similar to that of our chosen song in the way that it has a care free vibe giving off a 'feel good' atmosphere because of this we thought it would be a good idea to research into her CD covers as it is more than likely that hers will bring some inspiration for our own.
Confirming our original assumption, Doolittles CD cover presented aspects which were exactly what we wanted to incorporate in our CD cover.
The picture on the left shows Eliza's album cover which is an example of abstract art, it includes different photographs of things obviously close to her heart such as Brooklyn and Manhattan bridge in New York (the place to make it big), London's Big Ben therefore showing patriotism as Eliza is from England and also a leg with a hightop sneaker Eliza's signature piece of clothing. The picture on the right is for Eliza's Pack up single, this also includes different aspects of Eliza's personality such as the sneakers and the tribal print yet this cover gives off more of a hippy theme with its inclusion of sunshine, flowers and rainbows.
We have taken ideas from both of these CD covers as the first one has inspired us to use a photograph of Matt (the male performer) taken on the bonet of an abandoned car at the Rusholme mansion. We intend to make the whole picture black and white and then through the use of photoshop we would like to create a 'cartoon' image of Matt making him look almost drawn and then taking aspects of the photograph and adding in some colour. The photograph on the right inspired us to find photographs on the internet of things such as suns, cartoon like flowers and signposts and adding them into the photograph therefore creating an abstract and hopefully unique theme.

Potential CD Covers

We then looked at the above CD Cover by our chosen artist Jason Mraz, the theme throughout his album was in fact similar to that of ours which is to run a 'cartoon' theme. Although the overall effort put into the cover is probably minimal because it is high in simplicity we believe it is very successful because it is something we as a group have never seen before. Even the use of the slogan "we sing, we dance, we steal" adds to this simple intelligence. The triple structure of the verb phrases are striking to the audience therefore making the CD cover even more appealing. By looking at this CD cover it has definatly confirmed for us to go forth with our idea of a cartoon almost hand drawn look.

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Audience feedback
We asked several members of another group to give feedback on our music video, judging it on overall impression, three positive points about the video, one area to improve on and to analyse one technical area. This is the feedback we received.

Overall Impression
The overall impression of the video was that it was very creative in terms of performance and lighting. It is a cheerful video that reflects the mood of the song well. There is also a good use of locations, and effects to create a summery feel to the beach scenes especially.

Positive points about the music video

• "The lip-syncing is accurate and on time"
• "I like the soft focus effect used as it creates a softness to suit the tone of the song"
• "In terms of mise en scene, the location was successfully chosen in order to fit well with the theme of the song"
• "The costume was well chosen and thought through"
• "Good ideas such as writing in the sand and on the converse"
• "Use of stop motion with writing in the sand to make it look as if it just appeared"
• "The filters used work well with the camera and mise en scene"
• "Camera work has been well thought as it cuts to play well in combination of the music"
• "The pace of the music and video is a very good combination that work well together between scenes"

Area to improve

Could use more point of view shots to show what the focus of the characters is. Another point was that the stop motion with the sand, the shots move to much which draws away attention from the writing. 

Analyse a technical area

In terms of camera work, there is lots of handheld to make it personal and allow the audience to empathise and see things through the eyes of the performer; this was good. As well as this, the different camera angles used helped to emphasise this. Also, the camera work in the video was of very good quality. There were creative ways of following the action like when they fall to the floor. This gives a very professional feel to the video. The editing is very good, in particular the work with filters. It certainly adds to the video.

Evaluation of Audience Feedback
The members of the group who gave this feedback saw our finished version of the music video with our finished effects added. However, before we added the effects to the music video such as soft focus filters we got feedback and constructive criticism from some of our teachers. One of our teachers suggested we think about some effects to enhance to the romantic nature of the narrative and that it was a good song with good locations but we definitely needed to enhance to romantic quality by adding effects. Other teachers agreed that there was something missing and that it should be more `music video like`. We therefore, took advantage of the possible effects we could add to our video such as soft focus which created a more etherial look. We also brightened the scenes on the beach to give more of a `California beach` feel to it, even though we were filming in October! This brightened the atmosphere and emphasized the summer theme of the music video. After we added these effects, one of our tutors then told us that "The addition of the effects have greatly added and enhanced the music video".

We then asked for audience feedback from members of our class. In their overall impression of the video, they clearly picked up on our added effects of brightness of the beach and and thought this created a more summery feel, which is what we were aiming to create. The added brightness just emphasized this, which is noticeable in our video. Other good points of our music video commented on; were things such as the soft focus creating a softness, which suited the song and the filters worked well with the mise en scene. This was shown particularly in the park scenes as the autumn style filter fitted in nicely with the leaves on the ground and bare trees creating an overall autumn style memory.If we hadn't have changed our music video before hand, these comments would not have been made. Another comment was that there is a good use of locations. One of our best locations was filming around Southport and on Southport beach, which took a lot of organization an advance preparation. This comment proves that our precise planning and going out of our way to travel to Southport payed off. In one area to improve, it was suggested that the stop motion of im yours in the sand went too fast; therefore taking the focus of the words. In response to this we slowed the stop motion down slightly to make it more visible, as we appreciate that those who have never watched the video don't know whats about to happen and therefore may not have enough time to take in what the words in the sand say. When asked to analyze a technical aspect of the video someone made a comment about the parts of the video when we used handheld camera, saying that it was like they were seeing what was happening through the eyes of the performers. We were happy with this comment as we intentionally filmed it like this as we wanted to create a personal feel to our video allowing the audience to gain a closer insight into their relationship. Someone also mentioned that the way we showed action in the video was very creative which shows that our filming and editing was very precise when trying to create and highlight a certain action.

Overall, our music video received extremely positive comments. The comments confirmed to us that if we hadn't had added the effects to our video we would have received perhaps slightly less praise in terms of the technical aspect of it and the overall mood of the song. However, putting the effects aside, the comments were still very promising in aspects such as creativeness in terms of mise en scene - location, costume and camera work and our use of stop motion. We also learned that it helps to have an outsiders view on our music video to help with the creative process, as they can discover something that people working inside the group can not. An example of this would be when we were told that the stop motion in the sand went to fast, therefore taking the emphasis off the writing. Because of this comment we slowed the stop motion down, but we would not have addressed this issue if it had not have been raised to us from some one who is not part of our group.

16th November

Although scheduling to film on Friday we were unable to do to due to one members personal priorities this therefore became another hurdle in our music video making marathon this however metaphorically gave the group a 'kick up the butt' in which we concluded to spend the 4 hours we all had free on Tuesday to bring our filming to completion.

After meeting in Manchester town centre we headed to the top of the Arndale car park to produce one of our favourite ideas of the entire music video which was to reinact the line in the song 'open up your eyes and then your free' by filming the Male performer holding his hands over the eyes of the female as they both walk towards the camera and presumably towards the edge of the roof top. We then walked around the carpark in search of the best view (much to Fawaz's dismay as he is terrified of heights!) once we were satisfied with the view we had found we carried out an establishing as the male performer held his hands over the camera and opened them up therefore turning the shot into a point of view from the female performers perspective. After this we carried out a few more different angles of the two performers looking over Manchester. We not only included this estanlishing shot of Manchester to create a romantic setting but also to show a sense of patriotism to present where we come from. After this scene we departed the carpark and headed to market street in which we proceded with the filming by doing a hand held tracking shot of the male performer miming the words and playing his guitar. We will use this particular sequence in the part of the song where music heightens and it seems as though people are singing along with Mraz therefore we chose to do the market street scene at 12 mid-day when we could certain that Market street would be at its busiest. The hand held tracking shot was particularly difficult due to the 'hand held' aspect as even the steadiest hand is going to begin to shake after 3 minutes of constantly holding your hand in the same position whilst walking backward through a chaotic croud however after we later reviewed the footage we found the obstacle had hardly affected us as we had done quite well in keeping the camera still.
We then headed towards the gardens in search of a busker willing to be involved in our music video and hold the 'Im yours' cardboard sign which we had made earlier. After we found a kind guitarist who was more than happy to participate we filmed the male performer continuing his walk through the town centre but from a side shot therefore getting a long shot of the grinning busker (who got a nice tip for his participation!)

The last location of the day was the abandoned building in the heart of Rusholme. On the journey to the mansion the group was slightly apprehensive over whether the building would still be remaining abandoned as scaffolding and builders isnt exactly the scenery appropriate for our 'natural' theme or whether it would be private property there for forbiding us to film on the land. However our luck was in as the location was fitting Matt's description exactly therefore making it perfect for our music video.
We began the shoot by filming some solo shots of the male performer miming the lyrics of the song whilst perched on the bonet of a doorless neglected car amongst the trees. We then used the the holes where the doors would be as a framing for the couple as we then filmed the section where 'im yours' is written on the sneaker. We involed the make converse into the music video because Converse is typically a brand wore by the younger generation therefore relatable for our target audience. This section involved a tracking shot of the male peformer walking towards the car, then a close up of the male performer holding the female performers shoe, in the same way the prince holds cinderella's when trying on the glass slipper and then to finish an extreme close up of 'im yours' being written on the toe of the sneaker.
We felt the day was very succesful as we accomplished all tasks we had set out to do so now we aim to focus fully on the editing aspect of the production.

It has become apparent that we have a little more than two weeks before the music video deadline and although we cracked on early with our filming and have been consistent with thinking up new ideas and going out to follow them through the panic has still set in to get this project done to the best of our ability.
Due to deadlines for other subjects and other personal priorities we have scheduled times that will suit the group best,  on friday afternoon we aim to visit a location suggested by Matt which is an abandoned mansion in Rusholme which has natural run down surroundings and apparently abandoned cars which we can also use as props.
We will film one of our stop motion repetition clips at this location of the "im yours" on the converse sneaker. On Friday we will also revisit Plattfields park to film the "im yours" carving on the tree in which we were unable to complete last week.


We understand that this filming with be a challenge due to the rush and panic of so little time but we are sure that through working as a team and the hardest we can we can get it done.

2nd November

In preparation for the filming we chose to meet at the main entrance of Plattfield's park, Fallowfield at 9 o'clock. We deliberately chose to film at such an early time to capture the crisp morning sun in which we needed to portray the image of a perfect autumn day which continues the theme of seasonal changes. Although we have chose the location we haven't chosen particular locations within the park as we thought it would be more success full to take the place as it comes and be spontaneous with our shots.

Entering the park we immediately came across a location perfect for a solo guitar piece, which was a table and chairs obviously made from the stump of a tree amongst a grassy scene this added to the natural hippy look in which we aimed for within the video.

Firstly we started with a two second long shot which could also be considered as an establishing shot of the location of the performers being framed by branches of a tree to symbolise the idea that the hippy couple are constantly surrounded by nature to follow we then used a mid angle panning shot that focused upon both performers this then lead to a mid shot/ traveling shot of both performers walking towards the railings in which surround the park's lake. We all agreed on introducing this part of the park to our autumn scene due to the picturesque lake in the background. The shot in which followed this was an eye line shot of the performers looking into the lake being framed by the trees in the background, this therefore increasing the autumn feel of the scene.Although we were aware that this kind of shot will have been used before we thought it would be useful to ensure the stereotypical scenes for a music video of the romance genre.

We then decided it could make for a unique shot if the male performer was to climb up into a tree along with his guitar to mime a section of the song. The first shot of this scene was a low angle shot of the male performer playing his guitar. Throughout these shots we have used natural lighting due to the fact all of our shots have been filmed in outdoor locations. The male performer then held the camera and carried out a free held low angle shot following the female performer as she walked around the tree, this shot resulted into giving the impression of a point of view shot from the males perspective this therefore showing a romantic connection between the two. This was then presented as visa versa when the female performer then took the camera and conducted the same shot just the other way around so therefore a high angled shot into the tree.

We then performed a running scene of the male performer chasing the female as a consequence of her playfully tugging him out of the tree. We chose this kind of narrative as we discovered that when editing the beach scene the performers were unable to portray the giddy youthfulness of the young love in which we aimed to present as the overall shots were quite still and almost motionless in our opinion which we found very unrealistic. However when carrying out the chase scene we found it was very time consuming as it was hard to keep tracking the performers without making them appear jumpy. We then realised that an autumn scene wouldn't be an autumn scene without a shout of the performers playing amongst the leaves so with aims of not letting it look cheesy we carried out a 360 degree shot following around the outside of the male/female performer.

Then finally we continued with the chase scene finishing it with the pair playfully tumbling to the ground with the female performer falling on top of the male, finalizing with them both lying down amongst the autumn leaves.

After sudden realization that the summer months have passed and the English weather in temperamental we decided our best option would be not too base our music video so much on the summer but to present the changing seasons and therefore portray the narrative of the performers progressing relationship. 

To make this clear to the reader not only will we change the mise en scene of what the characters wear and focus on the falling leaves to show autumn and the frost and snow to show winter  but the group will also edit a overlaying time code effect into the movie which is generally found on home videos therefore making the footage more personal as well as helping us with the weather predicament. 

12th October

Due to the short time we had to get to the beach we decided it would  be more time efficient to go to Southport rather than Lytham St Annes, therefore we planned to get the 8.45 train from Manchester Victoria. When on the train we had the spontaneous idea to film a train scene although this was unplanned it still worked effectively. The shots in which we captured was an establishing shot of the train traveling through the beautiful countryside landscapes and as the sun was beaming through the trees this image added to the cheery atmosphere in which we aimed to portray. Also we filmed different shots of the main performer including medium shot, high angled and a close up eye line. Even though these shots were spontaneous it was a great learning experiance as we could improvise and see what worked best.


After departing from Southport station we headed towards the beach and during this time we came across a war memorial location which wasn't in our planning however we realized we couldn't leave this out as it could be a crucial part of our movie due to the pillars which would frame the performer through different shots such as a wide shot of the main performer, a tracking shot in which we found a steady hand is essential and also we filmed from one end of the memorial we filmed the performer walking towards the camera with the pillars framing him on either side. The group then spotted another unplanned location of a fountain with one member of the group noting that it could be possible to recreate the stereotype of 'the serenader' who sings love songs whilst looking into the tranquil water. 


When we finally reached the beach we came across a obstacle which could essentially ruin most of our original ideas- this dilemma was that our initial ideas regarded filming the performers playing in the sea however this was impossible when it became apparent that the tide was out and the majority of the sand was wet and slushy therefore not appropriate for our idea of a summer music video therefore we had to make the best out of what we had to work with and stay within the confines of a small strip of dry sand at the front of the beach. It was here that we began using the stop motion technique in which would portray "Im yours" being written in the sand, we knew that we could simply just film one of the performers writing in the sand however we wanted to push ourselves into using more technical approaches. We achieved a successful stop motion by writing different segments of "Im yours" and for each individual segment we filmed for a few seconds therefore created the effect of stop motion.


After this we focused more on the narrative shots of the performers as we wanted to make sure that the happy vibe of the young love was presented clearly to the audience. In order to do this we included a medium long shot of the female performer walking down a set of beach steps towards the male performer- we took a variety of different angled shots from this sequence. 


The final shots we captured of the day were shot beneath the pier, we chose this location due to the criss- cross metal framing of the characters. This scene portrayed a romantic connection between both performers in which we hoped to look as believable as possible. This connection lead to the two performers entwined on the ground as the male performer teaches the girl performer to play guitar- the guitar being one of the main mise en scene used throughout the video.  

Animatic StoryBoard

This is our Story Board for a early sequence of film, they are filmed fast cut and with a yellow filter throughout in order to give our film a summer feel. There is variety of shots and camera angles and these are an example of some.

Sequence 1 - Shot 1

mid shot, panning up. 
mise en scene - guitar, costume
Lighting - yellow filter. summery













Shot 2
landscape shot
mise en scene - blanket
Lighting - yellow filter













Shot 3
long shot
mise en scene - guitar, costume
lighting - yellow filter

Shot 4
long shot / extreme wide shot
mise en scene - guitar, people













shot 5
close up
mise en scene - costume (hat, guitar)













Shot 6
wide shot
mise en scene - homeless extra, sign "im Yours"













Shot 7
long shot - panning/ following
naturalistic lighting
mise en scene - beach

Shot 8
long shot
lighting - yellow filter
mise en scene rocks

Shot 9
high angle mid shot
naturalistic lighting

Shot 10
long shot
yellow filter/ sunset lighting













Shot 11
mid shot
mise en scene - old mansion, dilapidated cars
guitar














Shot 12
mid shot - stop motion "im yours"
mise en scene - wall

Well you done done me and you bet I felt it
I tried to be chill but you're so hot that I melted
I fell right through the cracksNow I'm trying to get back
Before the cool done run out
I'll be giving it my bestest and nothing's going to stop me but divine intervention
I reckon it's again my turn to win some or learn some

I won't hesitate no more, no more
It cannot wait, I'm yours

Well open up your mind and see like me
Open up your plans and damn you're free
Look into your heart and you'll find love love love love
Listen to the music of the moment babay sing with me, were just one big family
And It's our God-forsaken right to be loved love loved love loved

So I won't hesitate no more, no more
It cannot wait I'm sure
There's no need to complicate
Our time is short- yhis is our fate, I'm yours

Scooch on over closer dear
And i will nibble your ear

I've been spending way too long checking my tongue in the mirror
And bending over backwards just to try to see it clearerBut my breath fogged up the glass
And so I drew a new face and laughed
I guess what I'm be saying is there ain't no better reason
To rid yourself of vanity and just go with the seasons
It's what we aim to do
Our name is our virtue

But I won't hesitate no more, no more
It cannot wait I'm sure

Well open up your mind and see like me
Open up your plans and damn you're free
Look into your heart and you'll find that the sky is yours
Please don't, please don't, please don't
There's no need to complicate
Cause our time is short
This oh this this is out fate, I'm yours!

Production Treatment

The music video : I'm yours by Jason Mraz
Duration: 4 minutes
Audience: The video is going to be targeted to people of the ages 14-24 (younger generation). To people who are interested in pop/rock/reggae. It would fall under the popular music genre due to that it will appeal to a mass audience including both males and females. However it also may appeal to a maybe slightly older audience between the ages of 30-40 year olds because some older audiences could appeal to the reggae style of music.
Resume: The video that we are going to produce will consist of a romantic tale of two lovers, in which one, the main performer will acoustically preform the song in the sense of showing his love. It begins with the male performer miming playing his guitar in a field, it then cuts to a shot which the both male and female are eating a picnic. Then it goes to different shots of the male performer performing in allocated urban areas. After this it cuts to a shot of both performers walking on a beach together holding hands whilst the song plays in the background. Finally theres a long shot of the pair on the egde of a hill holding hands.
Suggested Elements: The performance element of our film is going to come from the main performer miming the song and playing his guitar whilst going to different location shots. He will visit an array of locations that link with the lyrics, so therefore each will have significant meaning.
The costumes of our video will link with the sunny reggae feel of our video. This will mean wearing clothes that symbolise a beach styled look, for example a shirt with jeans shorts whilst wearing a straw trilby hat. For the female performer, she'll be wearing a varied amount of items such as a summer dress or a shirt with short-shorts.
Special FX in our video will include, stop motion. This is going to be seen when the slogan of our song 'i'm yours' is written in different areas of the locations.
Some of our key locations, are the beach which is a major influence to our video. The beach we are deciding to film at is Lythim, St.annes.

Recording Days:


Lytham St Annes

The beach was our first choice of location as we feel its the most romantic setting for our music video. We wanted to create a chilled California feel, this idea came from an image presented to the group by Beth when she told the group about a young couple she had seen on Venice beach whilst on holiday in California. She explained how she distinctly remembered how they appeared so content and mellow just sat in the sand playing guitar by a fire. http://www.venicebeach.com/ Due to the fact that this memory had stuck with her we decided it would be useful to portray these characters in our music video.

Production: This stage in the making of our video will approximately last 3-4 weeks due to the visiting of the different locations.
Post production: This stage in the making of our film will approximately last 2 weeks. This will also include the production of our cover and poster.

Mise - en - scene

We intend to take the Jason Mraz song 'Im yours' back in time to the 1960's hippy era to therefore emphasize the carefree atmosphere. We intend to incorporate floaty beach wear, big hair and other bohemian fashions into our music video to display the venice beach persona's.






Guitar

Matt's guitar is the most essential out of all our mise en scene as without that we would be unable to succesfully mime the song and give the impression of the acoustic genre.
Also our aim was to give the male performer the image of the serenader, the stereotypical serenader is one who generally strolls around a picturesque area presenting a complimetary song to express effection.

Clothing is also very important for our music video as not only did we want the performers to look fashionable and suited for our chosen theme so therefore floaty 'hippy' style clothing but also it is main criteria to present the changing seasons.

Summer

The summer clothing was based mainly on a typical california beach look so therefore floaty feminine dresses for the female performer and then trilby and jean shorts for the male performer.

The trilby hat wore by the male performer is a symbol of mystery, in all movies/novels the stereotypical serenader always has a subtle mystery about himself therefore by wearing the hat the male performer is covering some of his face hiding his eyes which are said to be the gateway to the soul.

We intend to use dress colour of the female performer to represent certain aspects for example she will wear a white dress in the summer scenes shot at the beach not only because white is a very fresh summer colour but also because it symbolises purity and innocence. The female performer will then wear a green 'country' style dress in the autumn park scenes this will relate highly to the theme of nature this therefore adds to the idea of our outdoor'hippy' image in which we are aiming to create. The final costume is the one used at the mansion and top of the arndale carpark which is jeans and a hollister shirt (with hollister being a currently very fashionable trend) with a pair of converse sneakers which is an essential piece of mise-en-scene as we are using it to present 'im yours.' This costume is very youthful in appearance with the pink shirt reflecting feminity.

Detailed Analysis

The video that my group has chosen to do a detailed analysis upon is the recent video of Eliza Doolittle – Pack up. The reasons this video was chosen was the feel good atmosphere it induces to the viewers, the summer time when the sun is shining on your face etc. The video is set in the country of Jamaica. As the video starts you see a person throw a suitcase from an old farm yard truck, instantly the artist opens this suitcase and then emerges from it. This was an original, twist which was never seen before in any music video. The view that surrounded this scene was of long dry grass, also high key lighting was incorporated creating the happy and fresh look. Using this, it helped to portray the theme of the video from the start as a ‘hippie’ and reggae style of music.

As the video goes on you see the artist use a number of old time vehicles associated with mainly the 60-70’s era where again being ‘hippie’ was the in-thing. She enters a old looking bus transporting local people. She was also seen riding on the back of a 70’s vespa Italian scooter. The use of these vehicles helped with the mise-en-scene to again create the time of the era I mentioned before, to show viewers that the artist is in a time period where ‘there wasn’t a care in the world’. Which moulds in with the whole theme of the video. Finally on this point the whole filming was done outdoors using natural lighting and maybe inducing high key lighting to brighten the shot even more.

The location of the different scenes varied from an open field to a laundrette to a stage. The use of a laundrette was to show an important meeting place and milestone in many old communities, as washing machines were not invented. In this scene the lighting is semi natural due to the light coming from the windows. You also see the first performance of the video were a young worker at this laundrette picks up a broom and starts to dance to the chorus of the song, he is framed by two walls either side holding laundry. The camera shots are varied in this shot from extreme close up to see the expression of the dancers face to medium-long shot showing the framing and finally it’s a canted angles shot from a tall corner of the room. These variation in shots helps show different angles of the performance.

The final scene is a performance on a stage. So far throughout the video there is no narrative or hardly any. Firstly there is a wide shot showing the band that is playing the song, then you see the artist on the step of the stage being framed by the band themselves. It then cuts to a high angled shot showing the artist mingling and dancing with a crowd of people in the dance hall were the performance is being carried out. It then fades to scene on the beach were she then dances and shows a long shot of her in a boat sailing off as the song fades.

As with any music video there are a lot of fast-cut editing. The editing is mainly traditional, to that focusing mostly on the artist. There are few or no transitions between each shot due to that none is needed because of the theme of that its different shots of the artist being happy whilst singing the song.

The lip syncing is of a professional due to the video is a professionally made, there are no mistakes and it fits perfectly with the words of the song.

In the end you notice that the video is mostly illustrative more than performance based, even though some performance elements are incorporated more so are the illustrative elements. You see more of things linked to the music being portrayed than that of the artist herself performing.

Some of these ideas are going used as inspiration pieces for our video as we are also doing a song that bases around the ‘feel good era’.

Initial Planning Meeting

Initial ideas for video

Throughout the early stages of our group discussion we quickly decided that we wanted to choose the perfect song which would create a 'feel good' mood as this genre reflects the personalities of our group well.

Initially the boys in the group wanted to use the song 'the girls' by Calvin Harris due to its electropop genre and extremly male biased attitude throughout however the girls thoughts on this song choice were much different. Other than the fact we had aimed to choose a song that no one else will have chosen to therefore create an original video but also the inner feminist inside of us came out with neither girls wanting to parade around scantily clad performing to lyrics such as 'I like them blonde hair girls I like them big girls I like them skinny girls I like them carrying a little bitty weight girls' as we believed there was no gender equality.

After this slight disagreement we carried out what seemed to be endless searches over youtube to try and find a song that was a little less obvious when eventually we came across the song ‘I’m yours’ by Jason Mraz which was perfectly fitting to our groups brief.Everyone in the group agreed that this would be the right song to fit our preference; with a pop rock, reggae genre to it and an up-lifting theme throughout.

At the last minute Matt came across a song on his ipod 'if i had one day to live by nujabes' which he prefered to our chosen Jason Mraz song. Although we had already started noting down ideas for our current idea we didnt want to totally disregard Matt's choice incase it was infact a worthwhile change however after a few repeated listens of the song we found it would be too difficult to recreate due to such a small budget and standard filming equipment- although the Nujabes song had much more of a stronger meaning which would of been therefore more challenging and furthermore more rewarding to narrate than the Mraz one.

As a group we spent some time trying to figure out something we could do to create a sense of repetition throughout the video and realised that the song repeats 'Im yours' several times. From this we followed the idea and tried incorporating the lyrics into different scenes.

We each thought up an idea those being: to carve 'im yours' into a tree, to write 'im yours' on a converse sneaker, to do the stereotypical romantic thing of writing 'im yours' into the sand and also writing it onto a steamed up bathroom mirror and using continuity editing with each to challenge our editing skills rather than just filming a character writing it.

As one of the main tasks to accomplish when making the music video is to ensure that the miming is perfect we decided that when Matt is playing the guitar rather than just randomly strumming he should learn the main chords of the instrumental this way the overall outcome will be more believable.

http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/tabs/j/jason_mraz/im_yours_acoustic_crd.htm

We then printed out the lyrics for Im yours so that we could focus upon the words of the song so that the performers could use aspects of the lyrics to narrate the song. We found this was a good excerise as it immediatly made us feel on track with our planning and also helped us bounce ideas off one and other.