Performance location set up

In order to have the lighting and other technical elements that we desire for our production we have spoken to Harry Stocking and our narrative actor Jay Khatri, as they are both part of the school lighting team. The good news is that they have both agreed to be on hand at our performance shoot to take control of the lighting for us so that we can concentrate on getting apt and correct shots. This set up is almost perfect as both Jay and Harry are familiar with the lighting controls in the location we are filming, due to them having organised gigs in their previously. In fact the gig which we filmed as part of our location recce was one of those, and because the lighting routine seen in that is already saved, and matches well with our track (our track and the music at the gig were of the same and similar genres) we have agreed with them to use this for our own performance.

We will be shooting our performance footage (fingers crossed!) on Thursday, December 15.

Shoot Cancelled

Due to an unforseen circumstance we were unable to film today. Acting quickly though, we have been able to arrange Tuesday, 13 December for another shoot. Everyone who we require is available so here's hoping we'll have more luck then!

Storyboard

Weather Check

To make sure we are not caught out, myself and Frank have both viewed the Met Office weather information for our outdoor shoot date - Wedensday, 7 December.

As you will see if you look at the screen shot the weather looks good enough for us to film without too many problems. Frank is of the same view and so we are all ready to go.

Change of Actor

Unfortunately our first choice actor, Martin, is no longer available for filming at any time, and so we have contacted our reserve actor Jay, who thank the lord is available!

This should not affect anything. As we are shooting a music video there are no pre-prepared scripts or the like so we simply need to ask him to wear the correct clothing, give him a bit of direction and we shall be away.

Representation of domestic violence in the media

As we are dealing with such a sensitive issue, we feel the need to research a little into the representation of domestic violence within the media. From a quick Google search looking for ‘domestic violence statistics UK’ we have encountered a website which appears frequently with different pages of information called www.womensaid.org.uk. The site is dedicated wholly to female victims of domestic violence. The ‘About Domestic Violence’ page is particularly handy and gives us a wealth of information for us to explore, before making decisions on various aspects of our production such as clothing, character type and so forth, from the results of our findings. The screen shots to the right show this information.

The key points we are taking from this information are that: -

1 - The reasons why a women might not leave a relationship where they are being
abused, including that ‘she may feel ashamed’, ‘she may feel too exhausted’ and ‘she
may be isolated from family or friends’, are indicative of the expressions and body
language that should be displayed by the female in our production. This information
also helps us to determine what we should and shouldn’t include as part of our mise-en
-scène. For instancethe last point from above suggests that there should be no family or
friends of the female character in our production, as this would therefore provide a
more realistic representation of the female and her ‘isolation’. This can be reinforced
by returning to the video for Eminem, Love The Way You Lie, which in its own
representation of domestic violence does not at any point feature on screen friends or
family of the victim.

2 - ‘Abusers choose to behave violently to get what they want and gain control. Their
behaviour may originate from a sense of entitlement which is often supported by
sexist, racist, homophobic and other discriminatory attitudes.’ This information
basically indicates how the male should appear in our production as opposed to the
female. Obviously we really need to ensure we get across to the audience the male’s
need to for dominance in the relationship. We shall have to consider how we can do
this, perhaps by use of props or by varying shots. We could also take from this that the
male could be of a different, say ethnicity, which would perhaps enforce or maximise
that this is a narrative concerning domestic violence.

3 - 'Abusers come from all walks of life. They can come from any ethnic group, religion,
class or neighbourhood. They may be older or younger. However, whilst they may also
be any gender, the majority of perpetrators are men.’ This point really backs up and
makes viable the comment that I just made about how the man could be different to
the women in some way if we decided that that was what we wanted to do.

A final piece of research that was not taken from the Woman’s Aid website is an interesting quote from a report/study into the representation of domestic violence in the media (http://newsblaze.com/story/20090318125318garr.nb/topstory.html) by Garrett Godwin, who writes that in the gospel play ‘Love Lifted Me’ that one of the female characters exclaims “if a man hits a woman, then the woman can either leave or hit him back.” This gives us almost a choice of two endings to our narrative.

Questionnaire Results

List or requirements for filming

• 2 cars (for lighting)
• 2 cameras (to film the same piece of action from different angles/distances)
• 2 tripods
• 1 dolly (for the tracking shots)
• 2 SD cards
• 1 storyboard
• Narrative actor – to provide own clothing based on what we tell him.
• Narrative actress – to provide own clothing based on what we tell her.
• Performance actress – to provide own clothing based on what we tell her.
• 1 half of a smashed bottle – as the weapon for the female to ‘hit back’ at the male.

Costumes

The costumes of our performers, particularly the two narrative performers, we have had to give a fair bit of thought to. Both Frank and I agree that this particular aspect of mise-en-scène is key to clearly establishing the roles of our two characters. Those two are a vulnerable and frightened woman, as well as a man who needs to be in control and so feels the need to abuse his partner. The reason clothing can help establish the roles of the characters is that there are certain costumes which are stereotypically associated with their character types.



The sorts of clothing we would like our narrative performers
to wear.



One of the make-up styles we would like our performer to base upon.

The type of woman we would like in our video has, in past productions, been classically shot wearing fairly shabby sorts of clothing. This perhaps connotes the torment that they are feeling in their ‘relationship’. Specifically for ‘our’ woman we would like at least one item of white clothing to be worn, as research shows this shade to be a typical symbol of ‘Innocence’ (The Encyclopedia Americana: A Library of Universal Knowledge. Encyclopedia Americana Corp. 1918. p. 329).

Our man has, in past productions again, also been shot in, well ... just not particularly upmarket clothing. The connotations of this are that the male is quite possibly out of control (of his mind). The clothing of our male we would like to be quite dark as stereotypically, darkness connotes antagonists.

For our singer we would prefer for her to be shot with a variety of different make up styles, however due to time constraints (i.e. getting people together and the amount of time we can spend together) this may not be possible. The reason we would like differing make up styles is that the singer could show off multiple colours of eye liner and so forth, which are typical conventions it seems, of both Nero videos and dubstep videos in general.

The costumes we would like our performers to wear are nothing glitzy or glamorous, or anything really out of the ordinary, so we will simply be asking our actors/actresses to provide their own, which will not be a problem as we told each person when we 'roped them in' that this might be the case.

Actors/Actresses

As our narrative concerns such a serious subject, and one that has the potential to upset audience members who have been affected by it in their own lives, we feel we need to get the most experienced actor and actress we can. Frank is friendly with many of the Drama students in our school and so has made enquiries about who could help us. By chance, Drama students need as much evidence as possible of them practising their acting for their own course, and so this is seemingly a ‘perfect’ arrangement so to speak. It was therefore not difficult attracting interest.

The two students we have decided to use are Amy McGregor (middle right) and Martin Baldwin (top right), who, from watching them in action, both appear to be comfortable working with each other and so should find it easier to act out scenes of the nature we are looking to shoot. Another actor whom caught our eye was Jay Khatri, and so we approached him about being our ‘reserve’ actor, as myself and Frank both know we have busy schedules in the coming weeks and so will need to film when we are both available, meaning our first choice actors/actresses will not necessarily be available as well.

For our performance shots we have been looking out for a good looking girl who has some sort of singing background. Luckily for us, a student whom Frank works with in Art fits the bill perfectly. That student is Emma Jenkins (bottom right), so she will be the singer in our video.

Declination of CCTV Footage Use

We have now heard from the store we enquired to about potentially using CCTV footage. Unfortunately they have turned us down.

The good thing is that this shot idea was not key to the meaning of our production and there are other shots we can take to get across to the audience what we want.

Location photos to come

We have been out scouting various locations that might fit the spec we have in mind, taking pictures of the places we wish to film in. Unfortunately due to technical issues we can't upload these photos at the moment however as soon as it is possible for us to do so, they will be uploaded.

Lighting Enquiries

We would like to film some of our scenes during the evening and so will require some form of lighting. We had a search on the internet to see if there were any portable lights available for hire. What appeared to be the cheapest we could find were from a company called Mammoth Holdings Limited (see right) and so we sent them an email and got a quick reply which can all be viewed below.

Having received this reply we decided that it would be easier, and frankly cheaper, to light our scenes using the headlights of cars. Frank has a car and it is possible for us to call upon a mutual friend to bring his car along so the scenes are well enough lit.

From: Webgroup[SMTP:WEBGROUP@MAMMOTHGROUP.CO.UK]

Sent: 29 November 2011 12:09:07

To: The Mammoth Hire Team

Subject: FW: Customer service enquiry from Mammoth Hire Auto forwarded by a Rule

Thank you for your enquiry. In order to give you a quote we would need to know how long you wish to hire the equipment for.

The floodlights are plugged into a transformer then would need to be plugged in to the mains.

Delivery & Collection is charged  @ £7.50 +VAT each way

If you require any further information or wish to book, please call our central number on: 0843 308 2301

Regards

Nicola

Nicola Hill
Hire Controller

8 Warren Road
Trafford Park
Manchester
M17 1QR
T:  0845 66 77 999
F:  0845 66 88 999
E:  nicola.hill@vpplc.com
http://www.hirestation.co.uk/

-----Original Message-----

From: Michael Jarvis [mailto:05jarvis_mi@swchs.net]

Sent: 29 November 2011 12:08

To: Mammoth Holdings Limited

Subject: Customer service enquiry from Mammoth Hire

We are interested in hiring your product - Floodlight with tripod Double

1000watt - and wondered whether you could tell us how long the normal

battery life is and how the pick up/delivery process works and the costs of

this?

Audience Research Questionnaire

This is a screen shot of our school's Sixth Form Daily Bulletin which is sent to all sixth formers every day via email. As you can see we were able to add our own post and ask people if they wouldn't mind completing an online questionnaire which we set up and looks like this: -

Intertextuality

In a recent lesson we took an in depth look at intertextuality. There are two types. Vertical intertextuality is where there is cross referencing between two different mediums. For instance, if you click through to this link, there is referencing of a film, The Godfather, in a television commercial. Horizontal intertextuality is the opposite, where cross referencing occurs between two texts of the same medium. A good example of this type is actually two music videos I analysed further back in my blog - Michael Jackson's Smooth Criminal and Alien Ant Farm's cover of it.

Frank very soon after this lesson, was able to use his musical knowledge to come up with both a vertical and a horizontal reference that we can quite easily include into our video.

For our vertical reference we will shoot our performer close-up in a half light, which, as you can see (right), can be referenced to Example’s 'Playing In The Shadows' album cover. This shot does not really encompass a great deal of meaning (i.e. it does not connote ideas that we want to get across and so forth), however it was one we had thought about using to show off our creativity and willingness to explore different shot types. Example is an artist that is known for performing songs in the dubstep genre and so the reference should be easily recognisable to a fan of the genre.

For our horizontal reference, we have decided that we will add text to our video which flashes up on screen in multiple colours. If you view the video from this link, Kanye West, All Of The Lights, you will see exactly the type of shots I am referring to, as our idea is based heavily upon the video for West’s song. We feel it makes sense to incorporate a reference such as this because there are very few words in our song and so those that are should really have their importance conveyed across to the audience, which, as you can see, is why this flashing text effect has been used in the All Of The Lights video.

CCTV Shot Idea

Having watched a few exemplar shots (like the one above from Lady Gaga ft. Beyoncé - Telephone) of one camera filming the image being filmed by another  (so for example filming the screen a CCTV camera is relaying images back to) myself and Frank both agree that this could potentially be a worthwhile shot, which could add something different and interesting to our music video.

To begin our enquiries we have asked a small store, local to us both, whether or not we could film their television screen which shows the CCTV images they are collecting. By telling them what it’s for we hope that perchance they might suggest a method where by they could actually give us the footage they have, however we recognise this is probably long odds, hence why we are not asking straight away about this possibility. The Store Manager has taken our query on board and will deliberate upon it, before, she says, getting back to us as soon as possible.

We feel shots such as the ones we are deliberating upon using would simply be helpful in connoting the ‘troubled’ theme of the narrative, as CCTV is stereotypically, and actually first and foremost for, helping to catch criminals and prevent criminality. The shot of course would also be quite unique and inventive and so would be a prime way of demonstrating our creativity and willingness to try new things.

Representation of Gender in Nero's music videos

I decided to carry out research into gender as there are a number of interesting representations, varying by video. This decision was also based on the fact that my own video's two main characters will be a person of each genre. The information I have drawn together will be helpful in choosing how to represent the characters in my own production.

If I Found Love, The Strangers

This is the final edit of our production.

Notes on filming of the Strangers performance

Problems encountered -

- Absent and late crew members
- Late change of staging position
- Only three SD cards (we had planned for more)
- Different song version
- Framing and lighting was difficult because of spatial restrictions
- Inadequate training for certain members on use of cameras
- No direction of choreography which meant cameras had to move with the performers, which proved difficult

Strengths -

- Choice of high and low angles
- Multiple members on cameras
- Organisation beforehand of crew members was assured

As you can see the problems we encountered outweighed the strengths of our filming. Perhaps what allowed us to battle around the problems was our organisation. We were ready to go in the small allotted amount of time that we had and so got enough shots that we were able to produce a half decent video. Unfortunately one of our camera 'crew members', the one we had on the floor, mistakenly pressed the record button twice and so failed to capture any footage, however our filming from above meant we were lucky enough to get away with it. Our camera nearest the band had a little trouble framing due to the late change in staging however again our organisation meant we had time enough to sort this. Further to this, once we got the footage back to the editing suite, we realised that the band had played a slightly different version to the recorded song we have to put the footage to. Fortunately our editors have managed to work around this and we have produced a worthy video.

Of course all of the trials and tribulations we experienced here, as well as the successes, will help to ensure we experience maximum success when it comes to producing our actual project.

The Strangers

On Wednesday (9/11) a band called The Strangers came into our school to play a gig. Beforehand they allowed us Media students, in small groups, to practice our filming of a performance by shooting them as they rehearsed their gig line up. This gave all of us I think, further insight to how to shoot a performance and the problems that can occur along the way.

I was assigned as the Director of my group and so I had to make sure everyone knew what camera they were working and the types of shots they were expected to take. Due to the late arrival of the band we had only one chance to shoot our footage. With the plans we had put together before the filming session we were quietly confident that we could do a good job, however the stage was at a slightly different angle to what we originally had thought and so suddenly framing became difficult from the angles we had positioned our cameras. With one shot and a small timeframe though, we simply had to make the best of the situation.

At the moment we have not begun editing, however it is at this stage that we will see just how well our plans pulled through. I will blog again on this issue after seeing our footage.

In the mean time this is the tune and original video of the song we filmed, called If I Found Love

Storyboards and the like are absent due to the small amount of planning time we had for this project.

Acceptance!

Below is the correspondence between myself and MTA Records. We have permission!


Hi Michael

Thanks for your email.

Providing that it is not for public domain and you will not be exploiting
the recording of Nero 'Innocence' in a public performance or earning any
revenue from such performances in any way, we are happy to grant one off use
on this occasion.

Good luck!

Thanks

Sophie





On 10/10/2011 17:34, "Michael JARVIS" <05JARVIS_Mi@swchs.net> wrote:

> To whom it may concern
> 
> My name is Michael Jarvis. I am writing on behalf of myself and Frank James.
> We are both Year 13 students at Saffron Walden County High School, currently
> taking a Media Studies A-level.
> 
> For part of our A-level we are required to produce a music video. I am writing
> to ask for permission to use Nero's track 'Innocence' for our's. The track
> would be used solely to examine myself and Frank's ability to construct a
> music video.
> 
> I do hope this proposition is acceptable.
> 
> Many thanks for your time
> 
> Michael Jarvis

Track Selection

I shall be working with Frank James to produce my final music video. We worked together successfully on producing a two minute film opening last year and so saw no reason not to work together this year.

When thinking about what track to produce a video for, we first told each other the types of genres we both like listening to, in order to see if we both enjoy a certain genre, having agreed that it will be hard to work with a track that we don't particularly enjoy listening to for the length of time we will be required to. The genres, it turned out, that we had a mutual liking of were Dubstep and R'n'B.Our primary thought when considering what tracks we could use from the R'n'B genre was that many of the tracks we prefer are produced by black artists and so we would need a black person to perform in our video to make it look authentic. As neither us knew of anyone who 'fitted the bill' so to speak, we decided to look more into the Dubstep genre.

When thinking about artists and songs we like, it quickly emerged that we both enjoy the music of the band Nero, who recently released an album earlier this year called Welcome Reality, from which has come five singles, one of which was even number one in the UK charts for a small period.

We both liked the thought of producing a video to one of the singles from the album but were weary that our production could be compared with Nero's own. Having watched the videos of each single on YouTube though, it occurred that one video was of the animation genre. This video was for the track 'Innocence' and so we decided to write to MTA Records, the record label with whom Nero are signed and ask for their permission to use this track.

Analysis of other Radar Love videos

Having watched each other's Radar Love videos together as a class, there seemed to be some definite collective positives and negatives.

In the case of almost everyone's videos there were times when the action wasn't quite synchronised correctly with the action and when single shots were held for too long. There were also numerous instances of the incorrect guitar being used (a lead as opposed to a bass), as we had originally done, and the volunteer performers not displaying enough energy.

All of the videos featured some sort of innovative shot, with split screens and tracking shots in particular being used to great effect. Mise-en-scène seemed to have been considered quite thoughtfully by most groups, which was maybe something myself and Josh could have thought about as it was pointed out, correctly, that a bottle of washing up liquid could be seen in one particular shot where I am playing the tambourine. This sort of thing of course one would expect to pick up upon when location scouting, some of the more finer parts of the production process that we did not carry out for this practice task.

Radar Love - Final Production

This is our final video. Unfortunately we weren't able to spend as much time editing as we had wanted due to technical errors in converting the files we filmed. In any case, as a first attempt at producing a performance video I am generally quite pleased with with we managed to produce.

Elements particularly pleasing include the effort put in by the performers, which helped to give the video a certain energy, and the choice of instruments and innovative shots, such as the close up of the foot tapping, which were a major part of matching the tempo of the song with the action. Together these points meant our video was quite successful in meeting the needs of the audience.

Things I would pick out to work on include the length of the shots, as on occasion they were held for slightly too long which took away from the energy of the performance, as well as the framing, which sometimes didn't give the full picture, and therefore the full energy of the performance.

Radar Love - Reshoot

After getting our footage back to the editing suite, we decided, after discussion with our teacher, that there were some basic technical elements which we could improve upon in our video. The elements we picked up on were quite minor details, like locating a proper bass guitar to make the video more realistic. These sorts of things we will have to be mindful of when producing our actual videos. Having got our filming done quite quickly we decided we had time to reshoot.

Here is the further correspondence I had with Mr. Broadbent then, in order to organise a second shoot

Friday lunchtime would be better, we will be full tomorrow.

MrB

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael JARVIS
Sent: 12 October 2011 12:43
To: Mr Broadbent
Subject: Practice Room

Dear Mr Broadbent

Myself and Josh Leek used one of your practice rooms a couple of weeks back to film some shots for our Media Studies project and wondered if there might be the opportunity to film some further footage either tomorrow or Friday lunchtime?

Thanks
Michael Jarvis

Due to the unavailability of one of our performers from the last shoot, Josh found another, meaning we had to reshoot the whole performance.

Radar Love - Production Photos

Radar Love - Location Organisation

Myself and Josh decided that I would organise a location for us to film in and he would round up some volunteers to star in our video.

Here is the dialogue, via email, that I had with Mr. Broadbent, the Head of Music, at our school. The first correspondence  is at the bottom.


Ok - come over at the start of lunch and we can find somewhere.

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael JARVIS
Sent: 28 September 2011 13:10
To: Mr Broadbent
Subject: RE: Music Video

We would indeed like to film on Friday if that's possible.

Thanks
________________________________________
From: Mr Broadbent
Sent: 27 September 2011 11:58
To: Michael JARVIS
Subject: RE: Music Video

All the music rooms tend to be very busy at lunchtime - your only hope is for Friday when I might be able to find some space. Let me know if you want to pursue this option.

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael JARVIS
Sent: 27 September 2011 11:39
To: Mr Broadbent
Subject: Music Video

Dear Mr Broadbent

My name is Michael Jarvis. I am writing on behalf of both myself and Josh Leek.  We are Y13 students currently planning a music video shoot as part of our Media Studies A level and were wondering whether it might be possible to film in a music room one lunchtime? If at all possible we would also like to use a drum kit, electric guitar and tambourine as props.

We hope this seems reasonable and your cooperation would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks
Michael (13NMA)

Radar Love - Storyboard

Radar Love, Golden Earring

Over the last few weeks updating my blog has been taking secondary priority in order to produce a performance video to the first 31 seconds of Radar Love, Golden Earring. I have been working with Josh Leek from my class, going through all the stages we will have to when filming our own videos, including storyboarding, taking location photos and so forth. In a sense we have been producing a preliminary task like last year. Anyway, I am now going to post the various stages we have been through in filming and editing our video. If you are  not familiar with the track, here is the section we have been reproducing

Genre Conventions

This is a comparison of my AS level video and The Taking Of Pelham 123, films of the same genre. I produced this using Adobe Illustrator. As you can see it is not perfectly formatted as this was my first use of the program, which may well be required to help with the production of my ancillary tasks.

The comparison is a small one but practice for something I may need to do in the exam at the end of this year.

Jennifer Lopez, Papi

I saw this new pop video, Jennifer Lopez, Papi on MTV yesterday and thought that there were a number of codes in this video similar to other pop videos I have seen, suggesting that I have a knowledge of the conventions of a pop video should I decide to do a song from this genre.

The most obvious is the big, group theatrical production, like something out of a Michael Jackson video, the 'King of Pop'. Another is the setting. It's somewhere urban. Many pop videos seem to take place in more urban areas. I also picked up on some cultural codes, which I have also picked up on in pop videos studied previously in this blog. The one that popped into my head immediately was of the Lynx advertising campaign, where the male appears irresistible to women after spraying himself with deodorant. In this case the gender roles are reversed and the cookie is representative of the deodorant.

Video Sharing

One member of my class has been sharing videos with the rest of us at the start of each lesson, telling us about the particular aspect(s) of that video they like. This practice has been helping to develop my knowledge of a range of music genres and the codes typically found within their videos.

Tomorrow I will be sharing Ed Sheeran, You Need Me, I Don't Need You

I find this performance video to be fascinating viewing. The most outstanding and striking feature is that the performer is someone concerned only with fast hand movements, whilst Ed Sheeran does not actually appear on screen until the closing seconds of the video. The camera cuts away rarely to make some loose cultural references, though other than this the audience is shown just the performer from a few different angles. Normally I don't think such a production could work but the unique performance makes the audience interested in what is going on. Of course the video is also shot in black and white which offers connotations which have been discussed in previous posts.

Similar

I also want to make a quick comment on this video Will Young, Leave Right Now which my teacher shared with the class. The video is similar to Ed Sheeran's in that it is a performance featuring one main character on camera throughout. The difference between the videos though, is that it's what is going on behind Will Young in his video that captures the interest of the audience.

These are two different ways of filming a one-person performance and will be very useful going forward should I decide to produce such a video.

Audience Theory

Today my classmates and I considered various theories related to audience including: -

- Hypodermic Needle Theory

We are all affected by the media in the same way.

- Reception Theory

Text has no inherent meaning because meaning is created by the audience during consumption of a text.

- Two Step Flow Theory

'Opinion leaders' influence the thoughts and interpretations of media texts by others.

- Uses and Gratifications Theory

The audience is very much active and can determine their own interpretations of texts.

What I found interesting in relation to creating a music video, hence why I'm blogging about this, was Blulmer and Katz's four purposes that might make an audience consume a text. These are: -

- Diversion - to escape from everyday problems and/or routines.

- Personal Relationships - using a text for emotional and other types of interaction.

- Personal Identity - finding themselves reflected in texts, helping them to learn about their own behaviour and values.

- Surveillance - retrieving useful information such as weather updates and news bulletins.

I feel these four purposes could be particularly useful in the research and production stage of my music video. Taking these into consideration could help to determine the audience our video is aimed at, which in turn could help us come to decisions about the design of our ancillary tasks.

Research Exercise

To demonstrate skills in research we have been asked to find a video similar to Pink - Fu**kin' Perfect and explain the similarities. Firstly, here is Pink's video

I believe that Eminem - Not Afraid is of great similarity to this. Here it is

The similarities are in the genre and more interestingly the narrative. Pink's video is all about her making a change in her life that takes her away from the brink of suicide. In the same way Eminem's video is about him, to quote from the lyrics, "tryin' to put my life back together right now". Looking at genre, both are hybrid videos, featuring elements of both narrative and performance.

Also this week ...

My classmates and I conducted exactly the same sort of analysis on The Buggles - Video Killed The Radio Star that I did singularly on Love The Way You Lie. This was to further practice our analysis of music videos in terms of narrative, as well as ensuring we all have a secure knowledge of each of Barthes' Narrative Codes. I learnt that the work I had done on Love The Way You Lie was very much along the right lines.

If you would like to see the video we analysed click here.

Considering Audience

The Media Student's Book
by Branston & Stafford

As my class will be taking a closer look at 'audience' next week, I have briefly read 'From 'Audience' to 'Users'' from The Media Student's Book by Gill Branston and Roy Stafford. I made the following brief notes, as I felt they could be useful in helping me to understand how certain audiences can be targeted and so forth.

More 'Performance' tips, considering I Will Follow by U2 at Glastonbury

In continuation of the tips I picked up on Wednesday, I and my class have just been considering U2's performance of I Will Follow at Glastonbury earlier this year.

Extreme long, establishing shot at the
beginning of the performance.

- Opens and closes with extreme long shot of the stage and the audience to remind the target audience (BBC viewers who couldn't make the festival) that they are watching a performance from Glastonbury.
- After the establishing shot, there are close up shots of each band member, in order to introduce them one by one. They are taken from a low angle to give you the audience's perspective, which is one of the ways in which the 'whole experience' is conveyed across to the audience at home.

Perfect framing

- The tempo of the music is matched by the editing, with fast cuts during high tempo parts of the song and transitions that overlay during low tempo parts.
- When we see close up shots of the performer's faces, the framing is almost perfect, with the head of the microphone and the mouth of the singer, or drum kit and hands, what ever it may be.
- The drums are the main instrument involved in introducing the chorus. At this point the camera pans up the kit before cutting to a long shot to help create the energy that is part of the experience at that point.
- Crowd shots throughout also help to show the energy of the performance.

Crowd shot

- The audience feels they're there through the selection of point of view (POV) shots, extreme long shots and close up shots, which all contribute to conveying the 'whole experience'.
- Camera focuses on instruments during instrumental parts of the song.
- POV shot of the band gives the televised audience that little bit extra. There is influence here from the BBC.
- Tracking and panning shots give the audience an idea of the scale of the gig.