Shot By Shot guide

-        Establishing shot of art studio (0-3 s)

-        printing out the advert (close up) (4-6)

-        pan across other paintings (7-12)

-        close up of sticking the advert up (13-15)

-        shot focusing on the advert (16-24)

-        shot focusing on Rachel reading advert (25-29)

-        ellipses to him interviewing other girl (30-35)

-        Girls entering one after other (36-42)

-        POV shot of boy seeing girls (43-49)

-        frustrated due to not finding right girl (50-53)

-        crumbling up paper (54-55)

-        close up of crumpled pictures on the floor (56-63)

-        shot of blank canvas (64-65)

-        Rachel walking in (slow motion) (montage) (66-76 – 1 second interval with quick cuts)

-        shot of Brandon looking up and being amazed (slow motion) (77-80)

Change costume (different day)

-        Close up of art equipment (81-85)

-        Close up of Rachel’s face (86-89)

-        Cut to painted face (90-93)

-        Close up of Rachel’s eye (94-97)

-        Close up of painted eye (98-101)

-        Close up clock (102-106)

-        Close up of paint brushes and water (107-112)

Following day

-        Doing his hair in the mirror (113-120)

-        Putting on after shave (121-124)

-        Changes to tight t shirt (125-130)

Ellipses to in the Art Studio

-        Flicking her hair (131-133)

-        Smiling back at each other (134-136)

-        More of clock (137-139)

-        She leaves (140-143)

-        Crest fallen look on Brandon’s face (144-147)

In evening

-        Brandon lying on his bed (148-152)

-        Picks up his phone and texts girl (153-158)

-        Girl in her room texting back (159-161)

-        Brandon decides to head towards the girls house, puts on jacket (162-165)

-        Walking down the street different angles (166-175)

-        Brandon arrives at Rachel’s house, close up on face (176-177)

-        Establishing shot of house, him going up steps (178-182)

-        Brandon thinking of knocking on the door, but doesn’t decide to (183-190)

-        Establishing shot again, walking down steps (191-194)

-        Walks over to the window (195-197)

-        can see Rachel and her Boyfriend snuggled up (198-202)

-        Cut back to Brandon’s face through the glass (203-207)

-        Dripping paint from his painting (208-214)

Star Image

Richard Dyer is a professor in the department of Film studies at King's College. Dyer said that a star is an image created by music companies through advertising, magazines, music videos etc and not a real person. His theory is that they are made simply to make the company money by advertising to a specific audience.

Dyer's theory can be supported by looking at artists such as Miley Cyrus, this is because when Miley Cyrus started out in the industry she was a young pop performer, performing to the young teens who watched her show 'Hannah Montanna'. Looking at her at the time we could not know for definite that she was not herself, but as the show was ending people began to see a different side to the cute and joyful teenage Miley, and began to see a darker side with the release of the song 'Can't be tamed'.

Once the show was over she changed her style, music and record label. This shows that the record label before was trying to keep the teenage image of Miley but it's not what she wanted. She began to wear different outfits and have different styles, she cut her hair extremely short and dyed it. Her fan base has changed completely with some of her old fans sticking with her and a lot of other types of people beginning to like her. Her portrayal of a lack of clothing and inappropriate behaviour has drastically changed people's idea of her. This illustrates her lack of control within her old record label, and how she is reflecting who she truly is with the style she pereceives now.

Some people say, this change of style and persona is actually all a publicity stunt. People have made this accusation because her drastic change of style and very provocative and crude attitude has created a huge buzz about her, and people don't stop speaking about her. Miley has changed her image because as well as her growing up, so has her fans. This means that they have matured and therefore have different interests. The young boys who watched her in Hannah Montana , weren't interested in her being innocent and coy, therefore meaning she had to mature her image and make it applicable to her fans and audience. With the significant change in style, Miley has attracted many new audiences to people praising her outrageousness and appreciating how far she was willing to go to stay successful. This is similar to Kylie Minogue, who was innocent and coy on the TV show 'Neighbours' and came back very sexy in her singing career. The new image that Miley perceives is extremely different to her old one. Her hair, provocative clothing, outrageous stage stunts and rebellious attitude has kept the audience intrigued and keeps people talking about her. This is because it was completely different to her innocent and little miss perfect attitude that she perceived whilst on Hannah Montana. Now she appeals to a wider range of audiences, which helps her career significantly.

Miley is a prime example of how synthetic artists need to change their image to keep up with the times. Madonna changed her star image frequently to keep the audience interested and intrigued. People don't like the same old so anything that is rebellious and breaks the rules is what they like. Due to the increasing number of singers in the industry, the successful ones need to change their image and keep up with the times to determine they stay successful.

Despite being slated by the media, Miley still has a army of fans known as "smilers" and has over 20 million followers on social media site twitter 

Learning photoshop

In today's lesson we learnt how to use photoshop. This was very helpful as it portrays the star's image and allows you to see how stars want their image to come across.

It also shows whether an artist is organic or synthetic by the way they present themselves on their cover. By having a raunchy/aesthetically pleasing photo of the artist/band it is more likely to be portraying a synthetic artist. This contrasts with an organic artist which will typically portray the artist with their musical instruments and usually represent the passion that is in the song.

The band's target audience is predominately male, due to the dark colours and retro picture of the woman on the front. You will notice that the band do not feature on the front cover on their album, unlike a group like One Direction. This is because they are selling their music, not their looks or their image. This means 'Vulture Street' are an organic band, as their main focus is their music and not their image. The font on the front cover is very qwerky and electric, portraying the band's image as a rock band. The dark colours portray that their sound isn't happy and all smiles, but rather about more intricate matters. This tells us that their target audience would be predominately men in their 20s and 30s, which highlights their lack of interest in a star image. The bands star image is very low key, and probably don't feature very much in their own music videos, linking back to the fact they are a organic artist. Additionally, the woman in the picture is almost in the shadow and you cannot really see her clearly. This could link to the band wanted to leave their looks and personality to peoples imagination, and not flaunt it to sell records.

Music Video in pictures

Love Is Easy - Mcfly lyrics

Do do do do do do
Do do do do do do
Do do do do do do

Today I'm laughing the clouds away
I hear what the flowers say
And drink every drop of rain
And I see places that I have been
In ways that I've never seen
My side of the grass is green

Oh I can't believe that it's so simple
It feels so natural to me

If this is love then love is easy
It's the easiest thing to do.
If this is love, then love completes me
Cause it feels like i've been missing you
A simple equation,
With no complications to leave you confused.
If this is love love love,
Oh it's the easiest thing to do

Do do do do do do
Do do do do do do
Do do do do do do

Do you, feel the way that i do
Do i turn your grey skies blue
And make dirty streets look new
And the birds sing
tweehe hee hee hee
Tweedily dee dee dee
Now i know exactly what they mean.

Oh I can't believe that it's so simple
It feels so natural to me

If this is love then love is easy
It's the easiest thing to do
If this is love then love completes me
Cause it feels like I've been missing you
A simple equation,
With no complications to leave you confused.
If this is love love love,
Oh it's the easiest thing to do

Do do do do do do
Do do do do do do
Do do do do do do

If this is love then love is easy
It's the easiest thing to do
If this is love then love completes me
Cause it feels like I've been missing you
A simple equation,
With no complications to leave you confused.
If this is love love love,
Oh it's the easiest thing to do

Do do do do do do
Do do do do do do
Do do do do do do
Oh this is love love love love
Do do do do do do
Do do do do do do
Do do do do do do

 

Synthetic artist vs Organic artist

Organic artists are often sold on their authenticity, both musically and socially. Their image is infact not constructed, and do have a say in their image. For example, the band Mumford & Sons are sold purely on their musical ability, and not visually. Their music videos usually highlights the fact they are a band and play their own music. They also usually show them performing. In contrast, synthetic artists are often sold on their look and personalities, for example One Direction are sold on their good looks and young charm. Their image is carefully constructed and emphasis is put on the sales of merchandise, rather than them performing live. Their target audience is usually less sophisticated and younger. The profits generated by this kind of artist tend to be of an immediate short term strategy by the record label.

One Direction's music videos solely focus on them looking nice and lip syncing to the audience, rather than Mumford & Son's proving their sound and musical ability.


Mumford & Sons write their own lyrics, and their passion is evident in their music videos when they lip sync with true passion, whereas One Direction get their songs written for them, and their songs/music videos are majorly based around superficial things such as love, girls and girlfriends which contrasts what Mumford & Sons write about real life events.

Moreover, as we can see in these photoshoot pictures below, Mumford & Sons are still with their instruments. This portrays the image of a proper band that they want to give off. Additionally, their outfits are more casual and less stylish, displaying their main focus is their music. In contrast, One Direction are usually all smiles and very happy in photoshoots/single covers. This illustrates their synthetic look and how they are extremely controlled and manufactured. This links to one of their main focuses being memorabilia and merchandise, rather than Mumford & Sons main focus being their music.

Their logos also portray their image. Mumford & Sons is not brightly coloured as it their intention is not to jump out at you and catch your eye. The colours are dark and dull, which displays their logo and 'brand' is not their main focus. Whereas One Direction's logo is very bold and eye catching, and immediately makes you want to know more.

Additional narrative strand

Due to our teacher giving us constructive feedback on our idea, we decided to add an additional narrative strand to make our video more interesting. We felt that we needed to add additional narrative element as our music video ran the risk of being dull and boring. Rather than having just the artist painting one girl throughout the whole video and being very tedious, we're going to have several girls coming to be the model to be painted, but the artist just doesn't feel like they fit well or suit the painting. It is only until mid way through the video that our main girl comes in, and it is then when his infactuation is shown with the girl, and when his love starts to blossom. This makes it more in keeping with both the genre of music and our need to attract a target audience who would repeatedly watch the music video and buy the music.

Criticism of our idea

After pitching our idea to our peers and teacher, we had some constructive criticism from everyone. A few things they said to take into account are : - is there enough material for 3 minutes? - is the location good enough? - needs to be a sub narrative So after much deliberation, we decided to add a sub narrative of having several girls coming to audition to be the model for the artist, but the artist just doesn't seem to think they make the cut. He then meets our main girl (blonde girl - Rachel) and falls head over heals for her. Due to this sub narrative, we feel we would have enough material for 3 minutes and also keep the audience captivated.

Inspiration for video

One of the main inspirations we got for our idea for the music video is from 'Titanic', when Jack draws Rose. This is the first instant where they meet eye to eye and when their love flourishes. This is what we want our video to be like and the same affection to be met.

The reason we found inspiration in this video is because the target audience is similar. Both our music video and 'The Titanic' are centred around love, and similarly, to different extents tragedy. We thought if we had a similar aspect in our video to 'The Titanic' the audience will relate and notice as it is so well known and popular. Having such a well recognised film intertextually linked with our video means we will have all different types of audiences watching, not just our specific target audience, teenagers.

Actors/Actress

We have chosen our actors/actress according to the character we want them to play. For the main character, the painter, we wanted him to be quite a casual, typical boy. We decided this because we wanted to make it as realistic as possible. Our girl actress fits into the character we adapted for her very well, because we wanted her to be like 'the girl next door'. This means, very innocent, sweet and simple. Our final actor is the girls boyfriend. We chose this particular person because we thought he suited the macho look of 'the other guy' and the harsh reality of falling in love with someone you can't have.


We chose these actors, because we felt they are appealing to our target audience of teenagers. We chose two attractive boys so they would appeal to the audience. Additionally, the girl was chosen due to her good looks as well. This links to our genre being pop and being clean cut and attractive.

We also chose these actors because they are the same age as our target audience. This is effective due to the video being realistic and almost part of them, not just them acting. This links to why One Direction are so popular, because they are young and similar ages to their fans, meaning they relate to them, and the experience is first hand.

Synopsis of idea

Possible songs for final piece

After doing some research, I have narrowed it down to a few songs which I am considering for my final piece. Here is one of them below; Mcfly - Love Is Easy

Analysis of Frontier - Psychiatrist

This video of another school's A2 work. At first watch, the video seems very complicated. However, after dissecting the video, my class and I decided it was not as complicated as it seemed. The opening scene is an intertextual reference to the TV Show 'Breaking Bad'. It is clear that the TV show was a big influence as there are many close ups of science equipment, portraying the idea that these two men are making an illegal substance (as they are in Breaking Bad). Additionally, there are close ups of the student in the 'dunces hat' who goes in and out of close ups of the camera. this is also an intertextual reference to artists such as 'The Prodigy' and 'Eminem'. The video is very well edited and the music video is in time with the beat of the song. This is done by speeding up certain clips of the video.

Analysis of Telephone - Lady Gaga

This video is a synthetic video. This means it is about the artist selling themselves to the public, and not their musical talent. This music is a pop video. This is evident in the opening prologue, where we see text appear on screen in bright colours such as yellow and red. This allows the audience to identify that the video is a pop video. Straight away we are introduced to the theme of the video in a prison. We are watching through CCTV camera's, which is referencing Murray Goodwin's theory of scopophilia, and us being voyeurs. There is then an intertextual reference about the media making false accusations of Gaga being transgender. The whole video is discontinuity editing, it doesn't flow nor make any sense. There is a lot of cross cutting, leaving the audience wondering what was happening in between. Once again Murray Goowdin's theories are put to use by there being a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, for example Gaga singing about a telephone whilst being on the phone. Additionally the music video is in sync to the beat of the song. Moreover, the video includes lip syncing, which, according to Murray Goodwin is a very key feature. There are many more intertextual references, including the car called "pussy wagon" as seen in 'Kill Bill', as well as Beyonce being in a yellow dress, as was Bill. The ending shot with Beyonce and Gaga holding hands and driving off is a reference to the film 'Thelma and Louise. There are also aspects to the video that can be interpreted as male gaze, including a close up of Beyonce's cleavage, and Gaga's provocative dancing. This reiterates my point of the video being synthetic, and how the artists are selling themselves, and the main focus isn't the song itself.

Analysis of lip syncing task

I really enjoyed filming our lip syncing task. However, one thing I found quite challenging was actually making sure your lip syncing looked genuine. To help make it as authentic as possible, we played the music on our phones in the background, so we could actually sing along to the song, therefore keeping in time with the track. Despite this negative aspect, everything was great and I thoroughly enjoyed filming it. Editing went really well and my group and I managed to get the editing done all in one day. Some positives for me was that myself and my group worked really well together. We all had the same ideas and knew exactly what we wanted to do. Additionally, we all focused on our strong points and took advantage of them, e.g the most confident singer to do the lip syncing and the most confident filmer to film, but we did rotate just to give everyone an equal chance. Moreover, we also tested out different edited techniques for example split screen. (see image below) Finally, we also chose different scenery to make the video more interesting, and did a diverse range of shots for the same effect. See Our Lip Syncing task below!