RESEARCH: MUSIC VIDEO PLANNING - FINAL SONG CHOICE

Today my group and I decided the song we would sue for our music video would be Californication by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

We explored a great number of videos over the past few weeks but came to the conclusion that this song would be the best choice because we all like it and the song allows for a great amount of creativity adn we have several ideas that we want to experiment with already.

The song itself speaks about the lies and falsehoods made by Hollywood, although the lyrics themselves are often darkly poetic and can be difficult to understand the meaning often shines through when read.


"Pay your surgeon very well
To break the spell of aging"

This line refers to the expensive use of plastic surgery to keep up an image that you couldn't naturally hold like many celebrities do.

"Little girls from Sweden
Dream of silver screen quotations"

This line refers to the aspiration of being famous.

Many of the lyrics are fashioned in this way and speak of the plasticity and fake-ness of the reality of fame. The Chili Peppers are a band that was formed and based in Hollywood so it is clear they would have first hand knowledge of what California is actually like.

RESEARCH: MUSIC VIDEO CODES AND CONVENTIONS

please click here to view my presentation of the codes and conventions of a music video

RESEARCH: ARTIST LABEL ANALYIS

Please click HERE 

to view my slideshare on music video producers and some examples of their work.

RESEARCH: MEDIA THEORY - LAURA MULVEY

Today in media we began by looking at some examples of theory that we would come across in our exam. We looked primarily at how the placement of people (particularly according to gender) would affect how they might appear in media. E.g. are women primarily viewed as simply sexual objects or have the progressed?

We examined theorists Laura Mulvey and her Gaze Theory which states that film has been called an instrument of the male gaze as it produces representations of women, the good life, and sexual fantasy from a male point of view. 
This concept comes from the article Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema by Laura Mulvey, a feminist film theorist. Mulvey's theory was published in 1975 and is one of the most widely cited and notable articles in the whole of contemporary film theory. She declared her intention to make political use of Freudian psychoanalytic theory in a study of cinematic spectatorship. Mulvey argues that there are various features of the cinema viewing conditions that facilitate for the viewer, like the voyeuristic process of objectification of female characters and also the narcissistic process of identification with the ideal image and ego seen on the screen. She also states that in a patriarchal society the pleasure in looking has been split between both active male and passive female. 

This is reflected in the dominant forms of cinema. For example, narrative films in Hollywood not only typically focusses on a male protagonist but also assume a male spectator. In traditional, hollywood, cinematic films, men are presented as active, controlling subjects that treat women as passive objects. Women are treated as passive objects of desire for men. These types of films place women in relation to "the controlling male gaze" presenting them as objects of desire and as 'spectacle'for men to look at. Men do the looking, and women are there to be looked at. 

After this lesson in theory we began to plan for our music videos. While we are still trying to think of a suitable video to make we came up with a number of songs that could be viable candidates.

• Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication
• Misfits - Scream
• Aerosmith - Walk this way
• My Chemical Romance - Black parade

THE BRITISH MUSIC EXPERIENCE

At the end of the school year I went to the 02 British music experience. As a an obsessive musician this was a huge learning experience for me as I was able to see first hand the transition in music from the 50's to modern day.

At the start of the tour we were taken to a talk on music through the ages and then did a quiz on afterwards (which my team won). The talk was very interesting because it showed us how close music could be to society, e.g. in the 70's the political and economical unrest gave rise to the anarchic genre of Punk, which was dedicated to fighting against authority or "the man" as it was known.

We also saw where teenage independence
and culture came from as they began to break away from their parents norms and started forming their own identities.

After the tour we were able to go around and see the different exhibitions of the different time periods and we could record our favorite articles or items on a digital card.

My personal favorites ran through the 70's to the late 80's at the time of punk and hard rock as well as the more new wave music such as Pink Floyd.

Another great part of the interactivity of the tour was that there was a mini studio which allowed you to play instruments through a computer and learn songs from each era. This was a lot of fun and me and my friends spent about an hour just playing along to Elvis and The Ramones.

It was a real experience to see how music had evolved over the course of time and what influenced those changes and transitions, sometimes to extremes.

V&A DAVID BOWIE EXHIBITION

Last year I went with my cousin to see the David Bowie experience at the V&A. This was not only very beneficial to me as a media student as it allowed me to experience a small piece of hugely influential musical history and also as a huge David Bowie fan, it gave me an insight into his methods of song writing, his outlandish style and strange way of life.

One of the best things at the exhibition were the numerous costumes and stage sets that had been donated from Bowie's personal collection. It was very interesting to see how much thought and work went into each individual spandex jumpsuit or jacket and it was clear as to why Bowie became so influential especially in the more sexual aspects of rock. This was very interesting not only from a design aspect but also because many of the designs were so surreal and odd it was fascinating to see how far some artists were willing to go to express themselves.

As a fan of David Bowie I was delighted to be able to see several of the actual instruments he used and even a pair of boots he wore for the very last show of Ziggy Stardust he ever did!

Another very important aspect of the exhibition was being able to see the production videos of writing albums and making music videos. This gave me an insight into how a professional music video was conceived and later constructed and there were many exclusive interviews with Bowie were he would discuss were his concepts and ideas came from, e.g. the idea behind the "is there life on mars?" video came from a desire to be simplistic but perfectionist, using cutting edge camera techniques to create a cutting edge if simple video.

My favourite aspect of the tour came at the end where we were shown the last song of the last ever tour performed by Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars on a huge Imax projection screen. This was a monumental moment in music history and being able to see it as it happened first hand was an amazing experience.

The exhibition gave me a very deep insight into the world of a successful musician, how they worked, lived and breathed music. I am sure it will be very helpful to me when it comes to making my own video.

 

A2 PROJECT: MY MUSIC VIDEO

Over the course of this year I will research, plan and create a new music video for a song.

This blog will be my means of cataloging and recording my progress and any setbacks I experience or ideas I may have as well as acting as a journal for the recording and production of the final product.