First Filming

Last lesson we started on our filming by taking our very first shots. We went into the studio to set up and take shots of one of our performances dancing in front of the green screen and also lip singing the song while doing this. She had created a routine for this, which had taken a week to put together and this was to show we took our time in completing these shots.

Three different cameras were used in doing this shot. We had cameras 1, 2 and 3. Camera 1 was taking the mid-shot of out performer while camera to was in the centre, taking the long shot. This meant camera 3 was focusing on the close up shot and a little bit of the extreme close up shot. All the cameras were set on record and camera 1 and 3, which were at either sides of camera 2 had two of the people in the group on them.

The final person on the other hand was working on mixing up all the shots on the computer. She chose which shots would be better use, mixing all three in the process to come up with a full recording. She was very good at this as she was a bit more experienced than the other two of us as she works in a studio in her spare time. At the end of the lesson, we had come up with the completion of our shots all put together but with no editing on the green screen because if we recorded the green screen being edited then it can’t be changed while trying to put it on the music video.

At the end of the lesson we had our shot fully done and also the three different shots on their own from cameras 1, 2 and 3. So this means when editing we could add it from jus that seeing as it wouldn’t change cameras as it would on the full long one this is why the fully recorded one will not definitely be the best to be used in the editing so it was in our best interest to take all the different shots as it could make the video better at the end of it all.

Music Video Details

Our music video falls into two groups, performance clips (meaning that we are mostly going to show our artist singing and dancing with the females dancers)
and conceptual clips (showing actual meaning to the song). We did some research on music videos and found out that ‘’music video is a form of audio-visual communication in which the meaning is created via carriers of information such as :1-the music 2-the lyrics 3-the moving images

The music
The music video is composed by adding images to music.

The Lyrics
The lyrics and images interact creating meaning. In many music videos new meanings are added to banal lyrics

The Image
The visual form is close to the musical form.





Music video pictures can be a interpreted as a merging of three traditions of moving images: singing performance, visual story-telling, and the non-narration of modern art
Singing performance
Basically this is where the main singer/performer is filmed performing/singing and placed in a setting suggested by the song’s lyrics or directors choice of setting.

Visual story-telling
This is when basically when the audience is able to follow the story of the music video.

Non Narration of Morden Art



Most of our video is based on filmed performance which therefore makes it a performance clips, our video is going to show the main vocalist in more then one setting. The performances are going to take place in the green screen and dance studio. There are three types of performances: they are, song performance, dance performance and instrumental performance. In our music video we are going to be using the different types of performances. The music video is going to be combined with both song and dance performance.

Music Video Ideas

Today we are looking at the different types of shots that could be in our music video for example fast cutting etc, we will also be looking at different types of videos for different types of ideas for the type of dance routine, storyline, and any other things that could be related to our video so we can link it into our video. We have been looking at videos like Stolen by Kelly Roland for the sad storyline and how the picture were interpreting the music. Another video we watched was Sweet Dreams by Beyonce Knowles, as this had a lot of different types of dance routines to choose from and try to bring into ours and we also looked at the music video Long way to go by Cassie to see how she interpreted the music with her video to see the similarities it has with our video since we are making a video to the same song. All these will help us differentiate from the original music video but still make a good video that can illustrate what the music is saying in a different way and the types of shots used and context of which it is done in those music videos will also help us in our video very much.














Looking at current videos from Shontelle to 50cent helped us gain inspiration for our music video giving us ideas. A lot of close ups are used on both females and males, but we noticed that they tend to use a lot low angle shots on the males to make then appear bigger/stronger on screen.


And for example a girl group such as Girlicious we noticed that on almost all videos most of the girls in the videos tend to be wearing tight or short clothing showing skin. Where as males tend to be dressed with formal clothing e.g. suits/t-shirts etc, which is helping us on the types of clothing that our main female singer should wear.





































Beyonce on the other hand, in her videos there’s usually a lot of long shorts of her dancing either by herself or with backup dancers, also close ups are used to show certain parts of her body which would make her videos to appeal to both females (wanting to look like her) and males (finding her attractive). So therefore it appeals to a wider range of audience, which is what we are aiming to do with our video.



















We really like the shot bellow because it’s a close up of the two and it allows the audience to see the chemistry between them, we are thinking of using something similar to the short.

















Here is a great low angle shot of Ciara from her video ‘Ride it’, we can see both her facial expression and what she’s wearing, which is something we need to consider for our video. She is known for her amazing dancing skills and is one of the most sexiest women in the music industry.

What We Think Makes A Good Music Video

It is very important that our videos turn out good, so here are some few ideas on what we think makes a good video. A music videos usually has nothing to do with whether or not a song is good or bad, it is only a marketing tool. Presentation of the video is extremely important. Popularity, usually popular artists make popular music. Good music requires someone who cares about what they listen to. Most known artist usually make good music videos are more likely to be successful e.g. Beyonce. The lyrics can really inspire a listener and put across the emotions of the writer. For example Keyshia Cole’s song ‘’Sent From Heaven’ in the song/video itself you can feel the passion, the lyrics to this song can move the listener to experience a range of emotions just by simply listening to the song. This song is good and passionate because of the lyrics and also because they actually mean something and it has been portrayed in the videos itself.

This is the video Keyshia Cole-Sent from heaven





This is an image from the video, from this we can see two images and we can see the passion through the artists face expressions and body language, therefore the audience are more likely to feel it aswell.






This song is slow, and has a basic rhythm, the pace reflects on how the artist is feeling which therefore draws the listener into the music, which makes it a good song and video. Creativity is very important when it comes to videos.

Analysis of Lyrics

Songwriters: Leslie, Ryan Anthony; Ventura, Cassandra;

[Verse 1:]
I love it when they try to get intimate
Even though they know I really ain't into it
looks into the camera

(You're not into it?)

I'm not into it
I already know the game and I've been through it
See I buy my own bags, my boots, my jeans
Wear La Rok with my Rebel Yell underneath

You wanna step to me?
Said you gotta long way 2 go (Rock wit me now)

[Pre-Hook:]
You claim that you're so hot
And you say you got skills in the bedroom
You try to flirt when you're so not
Had a chance you still never come through
You say you wanna come and see me
Cuz you know your girlfriend wanna be me (Uh)

shows girl looking in hatred and dance routine

I'ma tell you why you can't
Said you gotta long way 2 go
Say you wanna love me?

sings pre hook to man

[Hook:]
Wanna love me? Wanna touch me?
Think twice cuz you gotta long way 2 go
Don't know howda act, bettah fall back
It's like that cuz you gotta long way 2 go
It's not that deep, take it easy, you wanna please me?
Got a long way 2 go, I'ma bad girl
You wanna get close? Ease up cuz you gotta a long way

[Verse 2:]
I love it when they try to get scandalous
Even though they know they really can't handle it
(They can't handle it?) man asks again

They can't handle it
Try and take me out to dinner, I'll cancel it
If you really wanna know me first of all
You should never try to get to personal
Cuz I'm in it when I say:
That you gotta long way to go

[Pre-Hook:]
You claim that you're so hot
And you say you got skills in the bedroom
You try to flirt when you're so not
Had a chance you still never come through
You say you wanna come and see me
Cuz you know your girlfriend wanna be me (Uh)
I'ma tell you why you can't
Said you gotta long way 2 go
Say you wanna love me?

dance routine

[Hook:]
Wanna love me? Wanna touch me?
Think twice cuz you gotta long way 2 go
Don't know howda act, bettah fall back
It's like that cuz you gotta long way 2 go
It's not that deep, take it easy, you wanna please me?
Got a long way 2 go, I'ma bad girl
You wanna get close? Ease up cuz you gotta a long way

looking and smiling to new guy

[Pre-Hook Breakdown:]
You claim that you're so hot
And you say you got skills in the bedroom
You try to flirt when you're so not
Had a chance you still never come through
You say you wanna come and see me
Cuz you know your girlfriend wanna be me (Uh, yeah)
Said you gotta long way 2 go
Say you wanna love me?

sings pre hook to man and stays

[Hook:]
Wanna love me? Wanna touch me? (Touch me)
Think twice cuz you gotta long way 2 go (Way to go)
Don't know howda act, bettah fall back (Oh you got a long way)
It's like that cuz you gotta long way 2 go
It's not that deep, take it easy (Take it easy) you wanna please me?
Got a long way 2 go, I'ma bad girl (I'ma bad girl)
You wanna get close? Ease up cuz you gotta a long way

dance sings to the guy and stays

Wanna love me? Wanna touch me?
Think twice cuz you gotta long way 2 go
Don't know howda act, bettah fall back
It's like that cuz you gotta long way 2 go
It's not that deep, take it easy, you wanna please me?
Got a long way 2 go, I said you gotta long way to go
Rock wit me now, you gotta long way to go
Bettah fall back, said you gotta long way to go

dance routine again then switches to her walking away with the guy

written in red = annotation

written in black = lyrics

Finally Made A Decision - Cassie- Long Way To Go

The song that we have chosen is ‘Long way 2 go’ by Cassie who is an American recording artist, model and dancer. ‘Long way 2 go’ is an upbeat hip hop song featuring prominent R&B characteristics with a laid-back and imperious theme to it. The reason we have chosen this song is because of its cool and playful nature which therefore will attract our target audience which are teenagers.

We came up with different ideas on what we should include in the video for example
Idea one- A girl who has a crush on a boy but is playing hard to get telling the guy he has a ‘long way to go’
Idea two- A group of girls dancing against the guys. More like a battle between the two groups.
Idea three- A beautiful girl who is liked by every guy she meets. All the boys try everything to get her attention because she is the hottest girl in the block.


So in the end we decide to go with idea THREE because we had a lot of different ideas for the video, we all had different versions for the video so therefore we put our ideas together to develop a full idea that we are all satisfied with. To help us with ideas on what to do in our video and ideas on different camera angles that we can use we looked at a couple of Hip Hop/ R&B videos such as Beyonce- Single Ladies, Sweet Dream. The reason we got ideas from Beyonce- Sweet dreams is because her video has ‘spark’ and ‘energy’ which is what we want for our video. Beyonce’s video has amazing female dancers and we got some ideas from it, we planning on having two female dancers dancing with our main video girl.

(image of beyonce and her 2
main back up dancers)













Our plan is to make the video sexy but not too sexy, and as well as show how desperate guys can be and how they should never under estimate a girl, which will be seen at the end of the video (A little twist for our audience)

Different Music Genres

Music can be divided in many different types of genres. There are varies genres of music as people have different tastes, but the main objective within these genres remains the same, the aim of all music is to touch the core of the heart, people listen to music everyday its part of our everyday life and different music is loved by different kinds of people. In the music industry there are many types of music genres such as the following:

*Rock -soft/heavy/classic
*Pop
*Country
* Western
*Electronic
*Blues
*Classical
*Folk and Traditional
*Jazz
*R&B
*Hip Hop
*Rap
*Religious
*Latino
*Salsa
*Metal-heavy/dark/gothic
*Tribal
*Disco
*Dance
*Rock'n'Roll
*Punk
*Funk
*Opera
*Acoustic
*Soul

The two main genres we chose to look at are Hip Hop and R&B. Hip hop music always includes the use of instruments such as guitar, piano, bass, drum etc. In hip hop music usually the bass is the main instrument, which can be used in different intensities to emote feelings of anger, pride, happiness, sadness etc. I did some research and found out that ‘’the roots of hip hop are found in African American and West African music, it was first played by a group of travelling singers and poets of West Africa.

R&B (Rhythm and Blues) on one hand was originally termed race music which basically meant that it included any form of music intended for black audience. The term R&B was originally coined in the late 1940s in the United States to be used as a ‘less offensive marketing term’ . As R&B progressed throughout the decades, R&B music started to be known as soul music, it was no longer only made by black artists.

We have looked at videos that include R&B And Hip Hop example of videos that we have been looking at are the following:

Ciara-NEVER EVER


Kelly Rowland-CANT NOBODY



These two videos have things in common, for example they are both R&B genre and both songs are sang by a female lead, and a lot of close ups are used on the female's faces and bodies

Different A2 Music Videos We Looked At

In class we watched music videos from previous years, which gave us ideas on what we might want to consider in our own videos. Watching the videos from previous years also gave us ideas on things that we wouldn’t do for our own video. We also did our own research on video e.g. we went on www.youtube.com searched for A2 media studies music.
Here's an interesting video that we found:



The video is interesting, not something that we would do but there some interesting things in it such as the different shots that they have used and the editing. In this screenshot, we like what they have done with the editing and its possible that we might do something similar.



















This is another interesting video done by some A2 GROUP that we found on youtube.




Although everything in the video was done on the green-screen, from the video you can tell that they did a lot of preparations towards the video, they haved used a lot of different shots, and have though carefully on how everything was going to be put together, for example they used over the shoulder shorts and close ups.





Close up on the girl. As we can see from this shot in most music videos close ups are always used on the main person. In this video the female character is the main character and we see a lot of close ups on her.


Now this was one of my favourite videos that we found on you tube, these A2 students did a video to Rihanna’s song Distubia. We enjoyed everything in this video and its obvious that they prepared this. They though about the song choice, and costumes.




The song itself is quit disturbing and they managed to make the video disturbing as well, all though out the video its dark and they portrayed the characters well

Task Given!!!!!

For our A2 Media Studies this year we have to produce our own music video, and in order for us to achieve the best we can and do better then we did last year, we have to make sure that we use the time that we have wisely. For this lesson we have been told what we need to include on our blog such as:

Research and planning (20marks)

Evaluation (20marks)

Our aims for today is to research into different types of videos, then write a detailed analysis of a music video which is similar to our project video genre. Here are the following things we need to do before filming.

1-Animatic storyboard for a particular sequence from our video

2-Detailed analysis of music video of a similar genre to our video

3-Treatment of our music video, detailed piece explaining what our music video involves

4-Shot list for a particular sequence from our music video

5-Photographs of props, costumes, locations with analysis of why these are being used

6-A LOT OF RESEARCH!!!