http://www.myspace.com/lilymusic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=he5fpsmH_2g "Charlie Bit My Finger"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXIk696BlVg "Twilight trailer spoof"
http://uk.filmtrailer.com/
http://www.shortfilms.com/
http://autos.yahoo.com/2009_porsche_911_turbo_cabriolet-virtual_tour/ "Porsche virtual tour"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhfEGKc7PLQ "Skoda Cake Car"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lx9sPQpjgjU&feature=pyv&ad=4646120574&kw=call%20of%20duty "Mass Effect 2 trailer"
Friday, 5 February 2010
Wednesday, 3 February 2010
Tuesday, 2 February 2010
Evaluation of "Memories" Music Video
My responsibilities during this project were ensuring all pre-production paperwork was completed before filming, directing the shoot and editing the final product. I tried to make sure I got involved in all aspects of the project, so in future projects I knew what to do for each section and could do it myself without too much help.
During the making of the project I felt that I contributed in everything and gave my opinion and help to our crew when it was needed. I did a lot of the filming and editing of the production, and felt I did a good job in getting our idea and plans across in the final edit using all of the footage we took. I felt that I used a variety of shots during filming to make it more interesting on screen, and I understood exactly what was wanted from each scene and thus tried my hardest to ensure this scene looked good and matched what we wanted it to look like. For the post-production side of things I wanted to keep things simple, yet effective in telling the story, so I chose not to include lots of effects, which I think was a good decision as we wanted our production to tell a story and I felt it would detract attention if we added lots of effects. I think that I could improve on the framing of some of the footage I took, as watching it back I could see that some shots weren't as "tight" or "neat" as we would of liked them to be.
I learnt a lot during this project as there was so much work to be done using programmes on the computers, which I have never come across before, so I definitely attained some new skills this term. I struggled with some pre-production aspects as none of our crew knew how to complete a stripboard and we relied heavily on the tutors to help us complete this, but having done it this term I feel I could go back and do another one without too much help. Another thing I learnt this term was how to use GarageBand to create our own music track to use for our music video. I was immensely surprised at how easy it was to use! I really got into making the music and knowing lots of musicians who talk about timings of songs, I understood how to make everything in beat and to a certain time pattern. I also felt I improved my knowledge of filming techniques (angles, shots, etc) during this term and can make them more effective in the future due to this. Post-production also taught me new skills as I haven't done too much editing before, and I was suddenly thrown into it and felt I did a good job. I learnt how to put our final product onto a disc after exporting it, and also how to compress the final product so I can upload it to YouTube to embedd on my blog. I feel confident that if I was to do this project again I could do it just as well, even better probably, as I now know exactly how to go about the project and the programmes used.
Looking back on the final production I think that we could have improved on some of our locations. Our original idea was to have the Indian scene in the dance studio and have lots of extras fussing over Arti, but this idea had to be scrapped and re-located at the very last minute because we could not book the dance studio as there was lots of rehearsals and dance students that needed it more than us. We should have had a plan B just in case, but poor planning in that area meant we had to use the photography studio which looked unprofessional in our production. A lot of our locations were based around the college because our crew live in different areas, and it would have been inconvenient for us to travel or stay around each others houses.
I think our ideas came across well on screen and all the feedback from our fellow classmates was positive; they all understood the story and what was going on in the music video. The flashbacks worked really well and looked really good in black and white with a soft focus effect, which we used to try to achieve the scenes to look more dream-like; as if Arti is looking back on her time with Dean. I also think that the stop-start photography and the scenes where photos are dropped in front of the camera were effective and helped to tell the story and give it a little more depth and meaning. The characters we came up with were portrayed on screen how we originally planned for them to appear; Arti was upset in her scenes by herself, but happy in the scenes with Dean. She comes across as heartbroken and struggling to know what to do with herself. Dean comes across as a nice guy, until he leaves her, and then it leaves the audience wondering why, and feeling sorry for Arti.
Overall, I think our production went well and that we did a good job in working as a team and getting our ideas onto the screen and making this project a success. I feel very proud of what we achieved together, even though we didn't think we would be able to do it and didn't believe in ourselves. I think our production went well and that we achieved what we were asked to achieve and did this to the best of our ability.
During the making of the project I felt that I contributed in everything and gave my opinion and help to our crew when it was needed. I did a lot of the filming and editing of the production, and felt I did a good job in getting our idea and plans across in the final edit using all of the footage we took. I felt that I used a variety of shots during filming to make it more interesting on screen, and I understood exactly what was wanted from each scene and thus tried my hardest to ensure this scene looked good and matched what we wanted it to look like. For the post-production side of things I wanted to keep things simple, yet effective in telling the story, so I chose not to include lots of effects, which I think was a good decision as we wanted our production to tell a story and I felt it would detract attention if we added lots of effects. I think that I could improve on the framing of some of the footage I took, as watching it back I could see that some shots weren't as "tight" or "neat" as we would of liked them to be.
I learnt a lot during this project as there was so much work to be done using programmes on the computers, which I have never come across before, so I definitely attained some new skills this term. I struggled with some pre-production aspects as none of our crew knew how to complete a stripboard and we relied heavily on the tutors to help us complete this, but having done it this term I feel I could go back and do another one without too much help. Another thing I learnt this term was how to use GarageBand to create our own music track to use for our music video. I was immensely surprised at how easy it was to use! I really got into making the music and knowing lots of musicians who talk about timings of songs, I understood how to make everything in beat and to a certain time pattern. I also felt I improved my knowledge of filming techniques (angles, shots, etc) during this term and can make them more effective in the future due to this. Post-production also taught me new skills as I haven't done too much editing before, and I was suddenly thrown into it and felt I did a good job. I learnt how to put our final product onto a disc after exporting it, and also how to compress the final product so I can upload it to YouTube to embedd on my blog. I feel confident that if I was to do this project again I could do it just as well, even better probably, as I now know exactly how to go about the project and the programmes used.
Looking back on the final production I think that we could have improved on some of our locations. Our original idea was to have the Indian scene in the dance studio and have lots of extras fussing over Arti, but this idea had to be scrapped and re-located at the very last minute because we could not book the dance studio as there was lots of rehearsals and dance students that needed it more than us. We should have had a plan B just in case, but poor planning in that area meant we had to use the photography studio which looked unprofessional in our production. A lot of our locations were based around the college because our crew live in different areas, and it would have been inconvenient for us to travel or stay around each others houses.
I think our ideas came across well on screen and all the feedback from our fellow classmates was positive; they all understood the story and what was going on in the music video. The flashbacks worked really well and looked really good in black and white with a soft focus effect, which we used to try to achieve the scenes to look more dream-like; as if Arti is looking back on her time with Dean. I also think that the stop-start photography and the scenes where photos are dropped in front of the camera were effective and helped to tell the story and give it a little more depth and meaning. The characters we came up with were portrayed on screen how we originally planned for them to appear; Arti was upset in her scenes by herself, but happy in the scenes with Dean. She comes across as heartbroken and struggling to know what to do with herself. Dean comes across as a nice guy, until he leaves her, and then it leaves the audience wondering why, and feeling sorry for Arti.
Overall, I think our production went well and that we did a good job in working as a team and getting our ideas onto the screen and making this project a success. I feel very proud of what we achieved together, even though we didn't think we would be able to do it and didn't believe in ourselves. I think our production went well and that we achieved what we were asked to achieve and did this to the best of our ability.
Monday, 1 February 2010
Tuesday, 5 January 2010
Task 1 - Purpose of Music Videos
Research is mainly used to understand information given. It can help answer questions and to get to know the target audience. Primary research is research that has been carried out by you. This can be in the form of questionnaires, feedback, interviews, etc. It involves careful preparation and analysing something yourself. Secondary research is research that has already been carried out by someone other than you. This is generally found on the internet or books. It is a good place to start so that you can begin to understand what you may need to think about when conducting your own research.
It wasn't until the 1960's that music videos started to become made with any sense of regularity; the fisrt band to really do this was The Beatles when they made promotional films for various tracks. But it would not happen on a regular basis until the Queen song "Bohemian Rhapsody" became extremely successful that record companies would shoot a video for nearly every song released. In the late 1970's TV shows were being created that were dedicated to music videos, and in 1981 MTV was launched, the first 24-hour music television. The first video shown on this channel was "Video Killed The Radio Star" by The Buggles. After this turning point music videos became very important in an artists career; not only does it promote their album and track, but it creates an image for them which helps to raise their profile and get people interested in them. A huge example of this is Madonna, who uses her music videos to reinvent herself countless times and keep herself in the public eye.
Music videos are extremely effective in raising the profile of artists and their most recent released tracks. Record companies use music videos in a number of ways to get as many sales as possible and to help get back some of the costs from production back in order to make a profit. A high profile example of this would be Lady Gaga, whose work I am going to be analysing in task 2. She uses music videos to cause controversy and to grab the attention of the audience by shocking them and using the weirdest ideas she can come up with.
The point of music videos is to cause a stir before the release of the single, ending in them getting the maximum amount of sales possible. Record companies want to keep their artist in the public eye for as long as they can – sometimes its months after the release of an album! Other ways that help keep the artists profile up is dedicated music video channels (The Hits, Kerrang, etc). The song will be played a few times a day and therefore everyone watching that channel will hear it; this will help people remember the song and buy the records. The more interesting the music video, the more likely the audience is to remember it. Interactive media platforms mean that we can also view the videos on the internet, which means the video has a higher chance of being watched. Examples of this include Youtube and iTunes, where you can also download the videos and put them on your iPods, PDA’s, etc.
Music videos are much easier to consume in this century due to the new technologies, downloadable and streamed content. This is very powerful in helping to raise sales as the publicity and views of the video is greatly increased by the internet and this generation’s usage of it. For example, a lot of the generation download music videos and put them on their iPod, or they watch it on Youtube. Lady Gaga exclusively aired her “Bad Romance” video on her official website before releasing it to the music channels and the TV.
Linking the music video to a film will also help to raise the artists profile as they will hear the track in the film, and may go out and buy it due to this. Soundtracks are great publicity as the track is getting itself stuck into another aspect of the media and making it get noticed even more than it would have on its own. Appearances on TV programmes, such as Dancing on Ice and XFactor, are also a popular way amongst artists to get publicity for the track.The main point of music videos is to entertain their target audiences. Every music genre has their own target audiences, and they all expect different things from their videos. For example, an R’n’B track has different codes and conventions to what a heavy metal track does; R’n’B tracks would use lots of women in little clothing dancing around a man wearing a lot of bling, whereas heavy metal tracks would have long haired, hairy men head banging and shredding on guitars. The point is that every genre of music has their own codes and conventions for what they need in a music video, and the target audiences like what they get and expect the same thing in each music video they watch; they know what they are getting and they like exactly what they are getting.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Some-History-Facts-on-Music-Videos&id=85854 January 14th - 3:30
http://www.articlesbase.com/art-and-entertainment-articles/what-is-the-history-behind-music-videos-1318869.html January 14th - 3:40
http://mercurie.blogspot.com/2009/07/history-of-music-videos-part-six.html January 14th - 3:45
Music videos are extremely effective in raising the profile of artists and their most recent released tracks. Record companies use music videos in a number of ways to get as many sales as possible and to help get back some of the costs from production back in order to make a profit. A high profile example of this would be Lady Gaga, whose work I am going to be analysing in task 2. She uses music videos to cause controversy and to grab the attention of the audience by shocking them and using the weirdest ideas she can come up with.
The point of music videos is to cause a stir before the release of the single, ending in them getting the maximum amount of sales possible. Record companies want to keep their artist in the public eye for as long as they can – sometimes its months after the release of an album! Other ways that help keep the artists profile up is dedicated music video channels (The Hits, Kerrang, etc). The song will be played a few times a day and therefore everyone watching that channel will hear it; this will help people remember the song and buy the records. The more interesting the music video, the more likely the audience is to remember it. Interactive media platforms mean that we can also view the videos on the internet, which means the video has a higher chance of being watched. Examples of this include Youtube and iTunes, where you can also download the videos and put them on your iPods, PDA’s, etc.
Music videos are much easier to consume in this century due to the new technologies, downloadable and streamed content. This is very powerful in helping to raise sales as the publicity and views of the video is greatly increased by the internet and this generation’s usage of it. For example, a lot of the generation download music videos and put them on their iPod, or they watch it on Youtube. Lady Gaga exclusively aired her “Bad Romance” video on her official website before releasing it to the music channels and the TV.
Linking the music video to a film will also help to raise the artists profile as they will hear the track in the film, and may go out and buy it due to this. Soundtracks are great publicity as the track is getting itself stuck into another aspect of the media and making it get noticed even more than it would have on its own. Appearances on TV programmes, such as Dancing on Ice and XFactor, are also a popular way amongst artists to get publicity for the track.The main point of music videos is to entertain their target audiences. Every music genre has their own target audiences, and they all expect different things from their videos. For example, an R’n’B track has different codes and conventions to what a heavy metal track does; R’n’B tracks would use lots of women in little clothing dancing around a man wearing a lot of bling, whereas heavy metal tracks would have long haired, hairy men head banging and shredding on guitars. The point is that every genre of music has their own codes and conventions for what they need in a music video, and the target audiences like what they get and expect the same thing in each music video they watch; they know what they are getting and they like exactly what they are getting.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Some-History-Facts-on-Music-Videos&id=85854 January 14th - 3:30
http://www.articlesbase.com/art-and-entertainment-articles/what-is-the-history-behind-music-videos-1318869.html January 14th - 3:40
http://mercurie.blogspot.com/2009/07/history-of-music-videos-part-six.html January 14th - 3:45
Task 2 - Contemporary Music Video Research
Lady Gaga - Bad Romance
Bad Romance was released on October 25th 2009, the cover art for the single having been released on October 15th 2009. The single was the first release from her re-vamped debut album, The Fame Monster. It was directed by Francis Lawrence and reached number 1 in this country on December 13th, making her the first female artist to have 3 number 1 singles in one calendar year. The single was number 1 in 11 countries, including Austria, Italy and Russia.
The song was inspired by the paranoia she felt whilst touring the previous year, and the various "monsters" she faces. The lyrics in general talk about the joys of a bad romance, but it changes in the bridge when she sings about fashion. Whilst appearing on "It's on With Alexa Chung", she said that she was listing Alfred Hitchcock films in one verse "I want your psycho, your vertigo shtick / Want you in my rear window, baby you're sick". She also said that she was trying to say that she wants the "deepest, darkest, sickest parts of you that you are afraid to share with anyone because I love you that much"
The concept of the music video was that Lady Gaga is kidnapped by a bunch of supermodels, who then drug her and sell her to the Russian Mafia.
At the very beginning of the Bad Romance video, you hear some "twinkling" music, and you see Lady Gaga sitting on a chair posing with lots of extras surrounding her. She is wearing razor-blade sunglasses, which she uses to symbolise the inner strength of women. She pushes a button on a black box next to her and the track begins to play. The same "twinkling" music is played at the end of the track, when Lady Gaga is lying on a bed next to a man literally burnt to death.
Throughout the video there is very little mise-en-scene, mainly props, as I think the video is showing us that Lady G is the actual prop; she's the one they are after when she is sold to the Russian Mafia. The main props you do see is a mirror (0:47), coffins which Lady G and extras crawl out of at the start of the track in latex suits, vodka bottles, a bed, and a bath where a freaky big-eyed Lady G is kidnapped from. The impression I got from the music video is that Lady G wanted herself to be the main focus, and she lets her outfits (or lack of) be the main attraction of the video; she's an exhibitionist. The scenes all appear to be in one room that gets changed for each of her appearances; or a number of rooms decorated exactly the same. The interior of the room is bright and white, and, to me, it looks like a large padded cell situated in a mental institution, but we were told at the beginning of the video that it is the "bath haus of Gaga" Again, simple and not taking attention away from the lady herself.
The room starts off dark as they crawl out of the coffins, and is only light for the scenes of Lady G in the bath. It gets light as the chorus comes in, where the lights turn on and off in time with the beat. All of the scenes from here on in are bright and lit up (with the exception of the cage scene) until the bridge, where it goes dim again and continues on until the end of the track. The edits change between fast and slow depending on the tempo of the music; it also flickers between different images of Lady G. The video itself is very clever, as Lady G manages to make it, in my opinion, more of a work of art than just a music video. She uses fashion and poses to make the video look theatrical and change it from a performance based piece to a fashion show. The outfits and accessories aren't what you would see in normal day-to-day life, more like what you would see on a catwalk; this adds to making Lady G the main focus of the video. There are shots that you can see of just her shoes, and parts of her outfit that again point in the direction of the video being more like a show. There are a wide variety of shots in the video which make it visually interesting (establishing, MCU, LS, etc).
There are quite a few subtle visual effects in the video which are very creative, but aren't always the most noticeable thing about the video, which is a sign of an effect that has been used brilliantly. There were a few examples that really jumped out from the video, and made the video as interesting and shocking as Lady G could think up. One effect was Lady G's eyes in the scenes where she is sitting in the bathtub (1:25). It isn't obvious that it is an effect, and you may be like me in not entirely knowing whether it is an effect or not, but I think it is as it isn't her normal appearance. It is very effective as it adds to the overall feel of the video without taking anything away from what they were trying to achieve. Another example that I noticed was the scene where Lady G is in a cage-like cylinder naked; her spine sticks out (2:15, 2:27) further than you would expect, and it makes you feel uncomfortable to watch. Her body also appears to have been photoshopped to make her appear extremely thin at the waist, but with a lot of curves (2:41). It's all very odd, and does seem like subtle hints at being a monster. There is also a beautiful scene where Lady G is dressed in black lingerie wearing hundreds of diamonds, and all around her are diamonds suspended in the air around her (3:04). When you watch all of this together, it is very clever and creative; you want to see what she does next. In my opinion it is a brilliantly put together video, and is very subtle in what it is trying to tell you.
As far as I could work out, there isn't much of a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals; it's more about putting on a show and looking beautiful than actually linking to the lyrics (as it is in previous Gaga videos). It does link to the lyrics when the bridge hits and she sings "walk, walk fashion baby, work it, move that bitch crazy" (3:28), she does walk in some HUGE heels and it's all about fashion. I also think that the end scene on the bed is her "revenge" for the bad romance (4:33). Although there isn't an obvious link between lyrics and visuals, there is a strong link between the music and the visuals. Throughout the video the dance scenes are all in beat with the music, they all clap in time with the music (4:49), Lady G taps on the bathtub in time to the music (1:20). The editing also cuts to the beat on certain occasions, like in the bridge (3:28 - 3:44).
The video itself is a mixture of concept, narrative and performance based. There is an underlying story to the video (drugged, kidnapped, and then sold to the Russian Mafia), but at times it is also concept based as it can appear to be a bit random. It is most definitely a performance based piece because of the dance routines (1:26, 2:47, 4:00), and I think Lady G's whole appearance in the video is a performance to some extent, because in all of her live performances she likes to put on a show, and that is exactly what she is doing in this video. The video itself is completely unique, exactly Lady G's style and aim, and hasn't really taken a lot from other genres. I did notice that featuring in the video is previous images of Lady Gaga. It's like all of her images from previous videos are the monsters, and they are joining together in this video for Bad Romance to prove a point. For example, there is an image of Lady G from her Just Dance video (0:47), one from Poker Face (2:16) and one from Paparrazi (3:20). The new and improved Lady Gaga for 2010 is the one at the end (5:06), whereas the real Lady G, when she's at home and not performing, is the one stripped of all her make-up with tears running down her face (1:47). This, in my eyes, makes the video even more clever and imaginative.
Rihanna - Russian Roulette
Russian Roulette was released on November 20th 2009, having premiered on the radio on October 20th 2009. The video was directed by Anthony Mandler and it took 2 full days to film. The single reached number 2 in this country, and was number 1 in two countries. It is the lead single from her fourth studio album, Rated R.
The song was written and produced by Ne-Yo and Chuck Harmony, it is a fictitious metaphor about love, whilst also being a theatrical story.
The concept of the music video is Rihanna having several flashbacks, one being of her playing Russian Roulette. She has several post-traumatic heart murmurs, run over in a car and shot underwater.
The video is set primarily in two rooms; one where she is playing Russian Roulette, and one where she is being interrogated for information. Both rooms are dark, but you can see that one is more "controlled" than the other. The interrogation room is like a padded cell, with dark panels and lights from above; whereas the Russian Roulette room is dark and appears to be a bit "grubby", somewhere you would associate with drug users. There is little mise-en-scene throughout the video; in the interrogation room it is empty, just Rihanna singing to herself. In the Russian Roulette room there is a table, chairs, a gun and a fan. The main attraction of this video is Rihanna herself; you're supposed to look at her and concentrate on what she is doing throughout, whilst trying to piece together what she is trying to tell us, which isn't always clear.
The video is mainly narrative, a series of flashbacks of her life, the main one being a game of Russian Roulette. The story is that some Kashi's are trying to extract some information from her, presumably about a man's death, whilst she has numerous heart murmurs and remembers moments of her life. Sometimes the video doesn't make sense, it's as though Rihanna has short-term memory loss and is just seeing a few flashbacks of her life, which don't really make sense to her.
There are various visual effects including the scene of Rihanna being shot underwater (3:45), the scene itself is very clever, as you can see all of the bullets as it enters the water and it is very effective and subtle in telling the story. There is also another scene where Rihanna is sitting in another room (similar to the interrogation room, but with lots of red also included in the colour palette) with blood suddenly appearing from her chest (2:13). This scene is also linking to the lyrics because as she sings "you can see my heart", the blood is shaped like a heart on her chest, which I thought was a subtle but nice gesture. There is another scene that caught my eye towards the end of the video where it appears like you are looking through the gun's barrel at Rihanna (4:04), and as it moves in a clockwise rotation, it clicks like a gun would.
The video revolves around the flashbacks Rihanna sees as she is being questioned. The flashbacks are always in time with the drum beats, and are very short and quick, which makes it even more confusing when watching. They also appear when she sings the line "as my life flashes before my eyes" (2:51) there is a series of flashbacks that appear very quickly on the screen. The lyrics do link to the visuals you see on screen, for example, when she sings "take a breath", she does. Little things like this do help to make the video seem more realistic and are very subtle. It works well in making the video more visually interesting to watch; more like she is singing in her head and only the audience can hear her thoughts.
Generally the edits are quite slow and long, excluding the flashbacks, which fits with the tempo of the music and Rihanna's new style of music. The lighting is very minimal, and it usually comes from above Rihanna, like a spotlight on her (interrogation room, underwater). The flashbacks are quite dark, which adds to the mystery of the story and what Rihanna herself actually remembers. The overall feel of the video is dark and mysterious, just as you think you know what's going on and what has happened, another scene pops up that throws you and makes it even more confusing (car scene in the forest). There are various dark colours throughout the video, which add to the feel and enhance what you are watching (red, brown, black, dark blues).
The relationship between the music and the visuals is quite significant because as the song gets "bigger", Rihanna seems to get more stressed and have more flashbacks. She gets herself worked up and appears extremely distressed as the chorus hits. The flashbacks also appear in beat to the music at all times, and are edited to the beat. Some of Rihanna's actions are also in beat to the music also, so it is very important in order to keep the video going and to make it exciting to watch.
Rihanna's appearance is also significant to the video. During the flashback scenes she looks very glamourous, beautiful and tidy; whereas in the interrogation scenes, she is very unkept, her hair is a mess, and she looks as though she's in shock and suffering from some sort of stress. It's as though the final scene in the video changes her life and is actually very traumatic to her; like she loves him and is heartbroken that he's now gone.
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1625927/20091110/lady_gaga.jhtmlJanuary 13th - 9:40
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Romance February 1st - 8:40
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Roulette_(song February 1st - 8:40
Task 3 - Music Video Director Research
Francis Lawrence
Francis Lawrence was born on March 26th 1971 in Vienna, Austria. He grew up in Los Angeles from age 3 and quickly became interested in filmmaking as he grew up. He is an American music video director and film director (I am Legend, Constantine). He has worked with big name stars on over 100 videos such as Britney Spears, Black Eyed Peas, Lady Gaga, Gwen Stefani, Justin Timberlake, and so on.
Prior to receiving his bachelor degree in Film Production at Loyola Marymount University Film School, he worked as a 2nd assistant camera on the feature "Pump Up The Volume" which was directed by Allan Moyle. He then went on to work as 1st AD on the feature "Marching Out Of Time" directed by Anton Vassil. After graduation, he began shooting videos for an independent label owned by an old friend; in just 5 years he was shooting videos for some of the biggest artists in the business. He shot his first music video for Tidal Force "A Man Rides Through", and he soon became known for his original music video scripts and became a success. By 2004 Lawrence had established his own name and a good reputation as one of the most visually talented music video directors around.
His debut feature film was Constantine, released in 2005 starring Keanu Reeves, and the follow up was I am Legend, released in 2007 starring Will Smith, with who he had worked with on a music video.
Along the way Lawrence has won numerous awards for his work, including MTV awards and the 2002 MVPA Director of the Year award. He has also directed adverts for big name companies, including that of Covergirl and McDonalds. Doing these adverts are which helped to break him into the film industry and show the critics that he is capable of directing big movies along with music videos.
His music videos are all of different genres, which shows he is versatile and capable of putting his ideas and knowedge of the music industry into tracks of different genres and still manage to make them look good on the screen. An example of this would be Aerosmith "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing", compared to Gwen Stefani "What You Waiting For?". In my opinion, the fact that Lawrence can create two videos of a high standard from different genres makes him stand out from the crowd. There isn't many music directors that can successfully direct videos of different genres; for example, Chris Cunningham directs the same sort of videos every time he directs one. They are always theatrical, weird and not what you would expect. Whereas Lawrence's videos are all different in style and concept. Gwen Stefani's video is completely different to Black Eyed Peas video for "Let's Get it Started". His work is always different in every video, which I think is a rare talent. I think he is extremely talented in what he does, and I think he's extraordinary.
One of my favourite videos Francis Lawrence has directed would be Pink's "Just Like a Pill". This is because there are so many different shots in this video, and I find it very interesting to watch. This video itself does not simply cut from scene to scene, it will move around in a clockwise / anti-clockwise way in time with the music. This is a very clever technique because it is not something that every director uses; it makes the transitions very smooth and keeps your attention hooked. Lawrence also uses a similar technique throughout the Black Eyed Peas "Let's Get It Started" video.
Comments from the audience of Pink's video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wi8_CsjCtCg&feature=related) include:
This video is really artistic! Love it!
LOVE THE VIDEO ONE WORD AWSOME!!!!
Fantastic video, one of the best I have seen, the camerawork is awsome!
The audience responses from Lawrence's videos are mostly positive, but sometimes they don't understand what the video is trying to tell them. The videos don't always link to the music, which I think is what can drag down Lawrence's work at times; the audience aren't seeing a connection, and therefore they aren't going to love the video as much as they could.
After researching Lawrence, I decided that his recent music video for Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" (researched in task 2) was my favourite, hands down. I loved the way he made an unusual concept come to life and make sense; something that other directors may not have been able to do and make it look as brilliant as it does. The amount of views the video has received on YouTube is amazing (over 100 million) just goes to show how his work alongside Lady Gaga has impacted and made a huge impression on people from all over the world.
This man is a genius.
Of his video for Black Eyed Peas "Let's Get It Started" I saw a number of varied comments about the video:
Cool song but bad video
LOVE THE SONG, LOVE THE VIDEO!
Great song, weird video
The songs good but I don't get the vid
This was a small selection of user comments from the video. It's very mixed, and I think this was partly due to music channels asking them to censor the songs actual title (let's get retarded), thus the video had nothing to do with the song. Sometimes this can work, but I think that in this case, it didn't and could have benefited from a video that had some sort of link to the music.
Another music video I particularly like that Lawrence has directed is Aerosmith's "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing".
The song is from the soundtrack to "Armaggedon". It starts off in space, and pans forwards towards the Earth, and begins to get quicker just before the lyrics kick in; this is where it continues faster and ends up in a performance room with the band performing their song to the camera. It comes back to this scene repeatedly throughout the video, alongside scenes from the film. Other things I noticed about the video would be that Lawrence has taken scenes from the film and put Aerosmith's images across them (1:23), giving a link from the video to the music. He has made it as though the characters are watching Aerosmith perform the song (1:32), which was another nice link from video to music. Comments from users include:
This is a awesome vid.
Awesome song with an awesome vid.
Wonderful song, wonderful video.
As you can see, this video has positive comments, and the video is well loved. I do think that this is contributed from having a video that links to the music and has a connection; it's more likely to make sense and get people interested. It also helps that it's a well loved song and film, so the video would probably get good comments even if it wasn't this good.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1349376/otherworks
http://www.moviefone.com/celebrity/francis-lawrence/2043958/main January 15th - 1:45pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Lawrence January 15th - 1:45pm
http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/contributor/1808537229/bio January 15th - 2:10pm
http://www.tribute.ca/people/Francis+Lawrence/11902 January 17th - 6:40pm
http://imdb.com/ February 1st - 8:40
http://youtube.com/ February 1st - 8:40
Francis Lawrence was born on March 26th 1971 in Vienna, Austria. He grew up in Los Angeles from age 3 and quickly became interested in filmmaking as he grew up. He is an American music video director and film director (I am Legend, Constantine). He has worked with big name stars on over 100 videos such as Britney Spears, Black Eyed Peas, Lady Gaga, Gwen Stefani, Justin Timberlake, and so on.
Prior to receiving his bachelor degree in Film Production at Loyola Marymount University Film School, he worked as a 2nd assistant camera on the feature "Pump Up The Volume" which was directed by Allan Moyle. He then went on to work as 1st AD on the feature "Marching Out Of Time" directed by Anton Vassil. After graduation, he began shooting videos for an independent label owned by an old friend; in just 5 years he was shooting videos for some of the biggest artists in the business. He shot his first music video for Tidal Force "A Man Rides Through", and he soon became known for his original music video scripts and became a success. By 2004 Lawrence had established his own name and a good reputation as one of the most visually talented music video directors around.
His debut feature film was Constantine, released in 2005 starring Keanu Reeves, and the follow up was I am Legend, released in 2007 starring Will Smith, with who he had worked with on a music video.
Along the way Lawrence has won numerous awards for his work, including MTV awards and the 2002 MVPA Director of the Year award. He has also directed adverts for big name companies, including that of Covergirl and McDonalds. Doing these adverts are which helped to break him into the film industry and show the critics that he is capable of directing big movies along with music videos.
His music videos are all of different genres, which shows he is versatile and capable of putting his ideas and knowedge of the music industry into tracks of different genres and still manage to make them look good on the screen. An example of this would be Aerosmith "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing", compared to Gwen Stefani "What You Waiting For?". In my opinion, the fact that Lawrence can create two videos of a high standard from different genres makes him stand out from the crowd. There isn't many music directors that can successfully direct videos of different genres; for example, Chris Cunningham directs the same sort of videos every time he directs one. They are always theatrical, weird and not what you would expect. Whereas Lawrence's videos are all different in style and concept. Gwen Stefani's video is completely different to Black Eyed Peas video for "Let's Get it Started". His work is always different in every video, which I think is a rare talent. I think he is extremely talented in what he does, and I think he's extraordinary.
One of my favourite videos Francis Lawrence has directed would be Pink's "Just Like a Pill". This is because there are so many different shots in this video, and I find it very interesting to watch. This video itself does not simply cut from scene to scene, it will move around in a clockwise / anti-clockwise way in time with the music. This is a very clever technique because it is not something that every director uses; it makes the transitions very smooth and keeps your attention hooked. Lawrence also uses a similar technique throughout the Black Eyed Peas "Let's Get It Started" video.
Comments from the audience of Pink's video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wi8_CsjCtCg&feature=related) include:
This video is really artistic! Love it!
LOVE THE VIDEO ONE WORD AWSOME!!!!
Fantastic video, one of the best I have seen, the camerawork is awsome!
The audience responses from Lawrence's videos are mostly positive, but sometimes they don't understand what the video is trying to tell them. The videos don't always link to the music, which I think is what can drag down Lawrence's work at times; the audience aren't seeing a connection, and therefore they aren't going to love the video as much as they could.
After researching Lawrence, I decided that his recent music video for Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" (researched in task 2) was my favourite, hands down. I loved the way he made an unusual concept come to life and make sense; something that other directors may not have been able to do and make it look as brilliant as it does. The amount of views the video has received on YouTube is amazing (over 100 million) just goes to show how his work alongside Lady Gaga has impacted and made a huge impression on people from all over the world.
This man is a genius.
Of his video for Black Eyed Peas "Let's Get It Started" I saw a number of varied comments about the video:
Cool song but bad video
LOVE THE SONG, LOVE THE VIDEO!
Great song, weird video
The songs good but I don't get the vid
This was a small selection of user comments from the video. It's very mixed, and I think this was partly due to music channels asking them to censor the songs actual title (let's get retarded), thus the video had nothing to do with the song. Sometimes this can work, but I think that in this case, it didn't and could have benefited from a video that had some sort of link to the music.
Another music video I particularly like that Lawrence has directed is Aerosmith's "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing".
The song is from the soundtrack to "Armaggedon". It starts off in space, and pans forwards towards the Earth, and begins to get quicker just before the lyrics kick in; this is where it continues faster and ends up in a performance room with the band performing their song to the camera. It comes back to this scene repeatedly throughout the video, alongside scenes from the film. Other things I noticed about the video would be that Lawrence has taken scenes from the film and put Aerosmith's images across them (1:23), giving a link from the video to the music. He has made it as though the characters are watching Aerosmith perform the song (1:32), which was another nice link from video to music. Comments from users include:
This is a awesome vid.
Awesome song with an awesome vid.
Wonderful song, wonderful video.
As you can see, this video has positive comments, and the video is well loved. I do think that this is contributed from having a video that links to the music and has a connection; it's more likely to make sense and get people interested. It also helps that it's a well loved song and film, so the video would probably get good comments even if it wasn't this good.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1349376/otherworks
http://www.moviefone.com/celebrity/francis-lawrence/2043958/main January 15th - 1:45pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Lawrence January 15th - 1:45pm
http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/contributor/1808537229/bio January 15th - 2:10pm
http://www.tribute.ca/people/Francis+Lawrence/11902 January 17th - 6:40pm
http://imdb.com/ February 1st - 8:40
http://youtube.com/ February 1st - 8:40
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)