TECHS - Gimbal

I did not use a Gimbal in my AS coursework, so I watched this tutorial video made by last year's Media Students Johny and Kristan on the Media TechTipps blog.

This use of steadicam was made famous in the opening film of the archetypal 1978 slasher film Halloween, however was also used in Psycho.

DEVELOPPING IDEA #2: Fuelled by I Feel You

Narrative of siblings being separated at birth and finding each other:

• Twelfth Night
• The Importance Of Being Earnest 
• (based on Apolonius and Silla)
• Blood Brothers
• Two Brothers
• Prinz and Bottel 

Norman would either be this guardian angel or the father figure, or an uncle.

These family reunions, twists and discoveries are typical of Shakespeare and Charles Dickens (Bleak House)

*Add the recording burst of ideas I had*

Maybe have the female character taking over the lead singer. Are there examples of sibling reunions ending in one killing the other? The women playing the typical male singer while the male singer she just replaced has been androgynous would be perfect as a reference to Twelfth Night.

ARTIST VID #4 - We Are The Pigs

POSSIBLE POINTS OF INFLUENCE

• Screens within screens
• Filming at a rubbish tip

TRACK: We Are The Pigs
ALBUM: Dog Man Star
YEAR: 1994
GENRE: Art rock, glam rock
DIRECTOR: David and Raphael Vital-Durand
LABEL: Nude Records
SINGLE?: Yes, first.

BACKGROUND/CONTEXT

• A shift away from Britpop
• Bernard Butler had left the band, so it's suitable none of the other members perform in the video, as they won't either in the next one
• So this is the first appearance of Richard Oakes

PERFORMANCE, NARRATIVE OR CONCEPT?

EXTRA SOUND:

Very easy to miss, they play a split-second of the previous released single, Stay Together while on black. 
The end of the song: "We all watch them burn" is cut off earlier.

TITLES:
No titles. 

NARRATIVE ENIGMA:

The ominous figures at the beginning, kept unclear through the lighting and smoke.

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LYRICS AND VISUALS:
"Police cars on fire" - Later we see this multiple times.

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SOUND AND VISUALS:
The darker sound in the album is reflected in this video, more than later videos.

GENRE SIGNIFIERS:
The band aren't glamorized, typical indie.
Through the intertextual referance to 1984 you have a simulacrum of the dystopian/post-apocalyptic genre, although this could still be apocalyptic as the carnage is going on right now.

INTERTEXTUAL REFERENCES:
Reference to Nineteen Eighty Four film through the screens.

OTHER NARRATIVE THEORY:
TODOROV
All classic dystopias represent, so the equilibrium can never be restored, the restoration ultimately is a tragic ending like the death of Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four.

LEVI-STRAUSS BINARY OPPOSITION
The vandals and their victims

KATE DOMAILLE'S 8 NARRATIVE TYPES
4. The chase between the spider and the fly, we see the spiders mainly here, actually chasing like mobs.

BRANDING:
Continuous use of the black leather for the band's look.
The fire was used during the live performances.

REPRESENTATION:
GENDER: The perputrayers of the dystopia are male, males as the more violent.

SEXUALITY: Very little representation of sexuality

REGIONAL IDENTITY: Set in London, Suede is still quite metropolitan despite being outsiders in the Britpop era.

AUDIENCE REPRESENTED/TARGETED:
Arthouse characteristics as was the whole theme of the album.

MV RESEARCH: Directors #1 - Jonas Akerlund

Jonas Akerlund in music video compared to film:

"Three levels of creativity"

Akerlund influenced by horror films 

Akerlund started out doing commercials when it was about to become big in Scandinavia, before they even properly 

He was mainly inspired by big commercial directors:

Jo Pitt, Tony Kaye (article in The Independent, showreel), Jean-Baptiste Mondino, Sean Paul Good

"Very inspired by how they told stories in a short time, there even shorter than music videos, with 30-60 secs"

Go the idea for the Smack My Bitch Up Video.

When shooting Smack My Bitch Up he was holding his back against the door to keep out the angry owners at him filming this violent sexual imagery, threatening to call the police.

The Prodigy rushed him to get a quick edit, which totally ruined the cut he showed them. They didn't want to use the video.

Thinking that the band would never like the video he just went on to finish it to perfection in his image, and added extra diegetic sounds of kicks and glass breaking. Says that back then that was never done, that the artist was too protective of the track (Vernallis being right in these cases of the dominance of the track).

However eight months before Anton Corbjin had done something similar with smashing bottle sounds in It's No Good.

However the band ending up loving the true cut, however it was met with controversy and first restricted then banned from MTV.

Says that the disruption of TRL's Number Ones and the exploding of the internet, music videos seemed pointless and they were about to give up on them..

and then Lady Gaga showed up. She changed how we look at music videos, and how to create a profile for an artist.

This also encouraged them to make really long videos

POSSIBLE FILM INFLUENCES

FRENCH NEW WAVE


TERMINATOR

The third film entry in the sci-fi action franchise, this takes place before the actual nuclear holocaust which leads to the dystopian post-apocalypic world. 

The protagonist sleeping near a fire. Can't maybe have a fire like that, but could fake the remains of one?

The cinematography used here in an urban location at night as the female antagonist starts walking on the street from the clothes shop:

BLADE RUNNER

How the dystopian design of Blade Runner was inspired:

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/10/blade-runner-2049-production-design/amp

Influence of sci-fi on fashion, could have some of that fashion in my world:

https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2017/10/sci-fi-fashion?intcid=inline_amp

28 DAYS LATER

Starts with using the found footage technique.

The use of the camera in worm's eye view which then tilts up in an abandoned location, just like with the intro of the female Terminator in Terminator 3.


REPO MAN
Trailer:



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POSSIBLE TRACK - Suede's Can't Get Enough

INSTRUMENTAL INTRO

00'00 - 00'35

VERSE 1

00'36 - 01'04

I feel real now walking like a woman and talking like a stone age manI feel real now talking like buddha and doing it againI get kick I rip it up kick it up take it like a teenage toughI feel real now talking like sugar and shaking that stuff

01'05 instrumental

CHORUS

01'06 - 01'19

Singing I can't get enoughSinging I can't get enough

- 01'19 - 01'22 instrumental -

VERSE 2

01'22 - 01'52

I feel schizo every so psycho kicking at an old tin canI feel real like a man like a woman like a woman like a manI make dead space feel like a headcase take it like a teenage toughAnd feel real now watching those wheels and shaking that stuff

CHORUS

01'53 - 02'05

Singing I can't get enoughSinging I can't get enough

BRIDGE

02'06 - 02'27 instrumental

02'28 - 02'41

One, twoSinging I can't get enoughSinging I can't get enough

02'41 - 02'45 instrumental

VERSE 3 

02'45 - 03'14

I feel real now walking like a woman and talking like a stone age manI feel real now talking like buddha and doing it againSo give me this and give me that smother me and give me some of that bad stuffI feel real now talking like sugar and shaking that stuff

CHORUS

03'15 - 03'44

Singing I can't get enoughSinging I can't get enoughSinging I can't get enoughSinging I can't get enough

INSTRUMENTAL OUTRO

03'45 - 03'59 

(fades to silence in last 5 secs)

IDEAS

• More upbeat, crazy but still dystopian world 
• Have a slow. Creepy, subtle diegetic intro as a juxtaposition to the more celebratory track, like in the video for  Ivy Levan's Hot Damn
• At multiple drum beats around beginning of second minute quick cuts.'
• A character in the narrative looking back, could be the lead singer playing a different character or the main female one.
• Have them suffer some sort of amnesia, but don't make it look like a cheap hangover like in Taio Cruz's video of the same name.
• Use found footage and scratch film style used in Suede's New Generation 

DYSTOPIAN MV #2: Halsey - New Americana

POSSIBLE POINTS OF INFLUENCE

• Use of found footage recording
• Narration, to hint at location
• Diegetic interruption of Halsey screaming for help
• The trailer, and the extra interference interruptions added

Halsey

New Americana

Badlands, 2015

DIRECTOR: Jodeb

SINGLE?: Yes

LABEL: Astralwerks

MARKETING:

Trailer:

INTERTEXTUALITY:

Comparisons of the dystopian setting with The Hunger Games

This article on the trailer:

it looks like the newcomer is going with a Hunger Games-themed scenario

The latter is on the way, however, and :

But as the good-looking group is sprinting to safety at the end, one can’t help but think of the typicality of it all. The video straight up looks like it’s from “The Hunger Games”  if Urban Outfitters had been the executive producer. In a time where sexy sci-fi tales of young-adult upheaval are more than overdone, Halsey’s originality is best suited to a far less clichéd format.

The guards look similar (white uniform and helmets) to the Peacekeepers in the franchise:

...

POSSIBLE MV INFLUENCES - Found Footage

Wikipedia
My YouTube Playlist

Halsey used it as a diegetic intro, where in a voice-over she narrates an abstract futuristic society, in the first 27 seconds before the track starts and we get her name as the first title.



THE PIXES'S RING THE BELL

Link to theme of surveillance, connect it to Ballard:

he took a fear of unknown futures – "the deep currents beneath the surface" – and brought them into the present day. Whether that was the paranoia that surrounded nuclear warfare in the 60s and 70s, the emerging CCTV culture of the 80s and 90s

VOYEURISM:



This is where the character of the photographer comes in.

Can achieve a very similoar effect with the Vignette Mask effect in Final Cut Pro X.
There is also a Security and Camcorder Effect Function, I have experimented adding Lighting and other effects as well. Find sound like the similar one at the beginning of the New Americana video.

PEEPING TOM
The opening scene:

SUBMARINE

...

MUSICVID #15: Miley Cyrus - Wrecking Ball

POSSIBLE POINTS OF INFLUENCE:

• Close-ups of the performer
• Close-ups of the feet

ACT: Miley Cyrus
TRACK: Wrecking Ball
RELEASE DATE:  2013
ALBUM: Bangerz 
DIRECTOR: Terry Richardson 
GENRE: Pop
LABEL: RCA Records (owned by SME)
SINGLE?: Second single, still before the full album has been released.

BACKGROUND

• Miley Cyrus started her rise to fame through acting in, at the age of 14 being a teenage star in the Disney children's TV series Hannah Montana, which
• The year after the series started she already released her debut studio album
• This was the second single of her fourth album, prior to this despite having a loyal following of young female fans, she wasn't well known with male audience

Description of the YouTube Video, promoting links to buy the full album through Amazon or Google Play. Other music videos are mentioned, and Miley Cyrus's website and social media accounts. Despite being able to subscribe on the red button right above, it's stressed again with a link towards the end. 

Themes 

• Classic post-feminist vs feminist debate
• Hammer as Freud's phallic symbol, very explicit sexual acts

PERFORMANCE:

31 seconds of close-up:
- Thick, Glossy Red Lipstick, sexual connotation. The Rule Of Thirds is followed as Miley's face is in deep focus.

Following this unconventional long take, there are three short takes for 6 secs.

Parodies

The male in female make-up is laughable, carrying on the hegemonic image that Miley Cyrus's look is normative for women. Clearly thinks that the hammer is a phallyc symbol



An old man, half naked waist upwards.



...

DISTRIBUTION - Fundraising Platforms

POSSIBLE POINTS OF INFLUENCE:

• In their current point in career Suede do not need to raise money in these ways to fund visual output

For indie bands a very useful asset are online fundraising platforms.

PLEDGEMUSIC
A direct-to-fan music platform
The band The Fat White Family made use of this to fund their tour at a festival.

Some more examples (full list here):

Several egs where the label is PledgeMusic itself, another example of convergence

...

KICKSTARTER
Has been used for films, such as the film sequel for the TV series Veronica Mars, and the Warp documentary All Tomorrow's Parties.

AUDIENCE THEORY #9 - Primary + Secondary Audience

When analysing audiences they often fall into two groups, primary and secondary audiences. 

EXAMPLE

Halsey has an established, loyal following of fans after her successful debut studio album Badlands (Vevo trailer).

As usual there is high anticipation especially after the first album is a surprise success, (and thereby there is huge pressure on the second album), so that will be her primary audience that the album "Hopeless Fountain Kingdom" will be marketed on.

The narrative is based on a film adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. People who here that might watch it due to this intertextual reference of the both the film and the play ,the play having a more a cultural and high art status, it may also be of interest in English Literature at school or university.

However the primary core audience may also share interest in this intertextual reference, as a devoted Halsey fan stated in this Unboxing Video:

I'm a sucker for like literature, and Shakespeare, and plays, and all of that, it just interests me SO MUCH...I just think it's AWESOME. 

POSSIBLE IDEA/ARTIST #2: People Are Strange

This song by The Doors was originally released in 1967, and has been covered on multiple locations by various bands.



In 1987 it was covered for the horror comedy film The Lost Boys, with the length being extended



Johnny Hollow



This cover by Tribe Society is not available on YouTube



This one I quite liked the rough sound, and that both a male and female artist are singing, and I could have both voices be performed by the opposite gender like in the Soothe My Soul video by Depeche Mode



Guitar playing at beginning, and whistling at the end?