This is nothing to do with Media work, but we made Ralph look more festive.

(We had to use a Hulk sticker because the clear tape was in my kitchen and that was just too far to go)

The Wilderness Downtown (Part 2).

In my last post, I raved about The Wilderness Downtown by Arcade Fire. In that post, I basically said all the reasons it was amazing and the meaning behind it. But, what does this mean (or could potentially mean) for the music video industry?

First off, let's look at Chrome Experiments as a whole.

"Chrome Experiments is a showcase for creative web experiments, the vast majority of which are built with the latest open technologies, including HTML5, Canvas, SVG and WebGL. All of them were made and submitted by talented artists and programmes from around the world." - http://www.chromeexperiments.com/about/  

Google Chrome wants to show off how amazing it is and what fabulous things you can do on it.

Now, let's look at the technologies used.

This video was created using only things that could be used on Chrome. This included:

• Google Maps & Streetview: these were used to generate the image of your hometown and house you grew up in. The Maps are rendered, zoomed and rotated in a scripted way to suit the song. Maps API is also used to create the route the camera takes to get to your house.
• HTML5 Audio: this is what plays the music and keeps the timecode, so everything plays in order. This is probably the most important part of the 'film', as without the music, it is nothing. It also keeps the whole thing in time, so you get what you see when you should see it.
• HTML5 Canvas: this is what they used to create the flocking birds simulation.
• HTML5 Video: this allows the videos to be played at custom sizes and allows the viewer to watch the videos. This, along with the audio, is one of the most important aspects of this video, as without this, there would be no videos. Without this, the videos would all be too big, and the audience would have to scroll through them, which would make it harder to watch as they wouldn't be able to watch two or more alongside.
• SVG path reader: this helps to create the handwriting. The SVG path reader, along with individual canvases for each letter, creates a generative typeface which is triggered by keypress.
• Sequence system: synchronises the videos to play at certain times during the film.
• Colour correction: this made the videos look prettier, as Google Streetview and Maps are just satellite pictures and not very visually appealing.

Does the interactive interface work?

In my opinion, I don't think the interactive music video will be take off. Whilst it is a good, innovative idea, that will be a novelty for a while, there is not enough substance to it for it to be a successful music video. At first, I was too busy being amazed by the use of technologies that I didn't realise the music video is actually not very good. It's just a boy running around for two minutes. If they could get a balance between showing off new technology and actually having some substance to the video, it could work.

There is also the impracticalities of this only really being accessible through individual websites. From my audience research, a lot of music videos are watched on YouTube and television. Whilst watching these kind of videos on YouTube may not be a massive obstacle, as Google own YouTube and could adapt it if it wanted to; however, these videos will definitely not be accessible on the television. 

TL;DR: these videos are definitely technically brilliant and use a lot of technology I would have no idea how to even look at; however, they are a novelty which I think will wear off quickly (if they even take off).

Wilderness Downtown - Arcade Fire (Part 1).

I found this fab music video the other day and I've been meaning to make a post about it all week. It's The Wilderness Downtown - Arcade Fire, although the song is actually called We Used To Wait. It's called The Wilderness Downtown, though, because the music video is actually an interactive film.

And that's what makes this music video post-worthy.

http://thewildernessdowntown.com/ - this is the link to the website. What you do when you go on it, is you type in the address of the place you grew up in, allow pop-ups and then let the website do the rest. It's an interactive Chrome experiment which involves Chrome, Maps, video and HTML5. 

The premise of the music video in itself is quite simple: it's a boy, running through streets, for the entire time. Simple, right? Yes. Boring? Not quite. What makes this video interesting is that fact that it incorporates your hometown into it. The album this song came from, The Suburbs, is about disillusioned youths and detachment from society as they come of age, and so this video is especially effective in achieving this message. The boy in the video is running away from something, although it is not clearly explained what.

The best thing about this video is that it makes the message accessible to anybody.

All of these pop ups are part of the interactive experience. The pop up in the bottom right corner is the house I grew up in. The tree isn't actually there, it's superimposed over the top, to make it appear as if the boy is actually running through my hometown. The camera pans out to show the street at bird's eye view and a small black dot is visible, adding to this experience.

And that's the thing that makes this music video so personal and the message so easily accessible. The character is where you grew up; he's running past your house, down your street. This immediately transports you back to your childhood, and makes it easy for the audience to connect with the main character, as having them in a familiar location makes them relatable. It takes you back to where you grew up and puts you in the right frame of mind to really consider the meaning of the song and video. The teenage boy (from the looks of him, nearly a man) is running through the place of his childhood, trying to relive it and soak in as much as possible before he has to become an adult. Putting it in the viewer's hometown makes them remember as they were coming of age and having to grow up, when they were longing to be a child again.

TL;DR: THIS VIDEO IS FABULOUS ALL HAIL ARCADE FIRE.

The History Of Music Videos.

The History Of Music Videos. from Sarah Byard

Conventions of a pop music video.

Conventions Of A Pop Video from Sarah Byard

I made a Powerpoint. It's about the conventions of pop music videos, seeing as we're making a video for a pop song. I will make another blog post (maybe even in the same post as this, exciting times) about how we will utilise or dismiss these conventions. IT'S ALL COMING TOGETHER.

Representation Of Women In Pop: Katy Perry.

Women needing make-up.

In this image, taken from screenshots of the music video for E.T - Katy Perry and Kanye West. These two are shown as binary opposites, with Katy Perry being colourful and very made-up and fake, whilst Kanye West is shown in monochrome. wearing sunglasses.  These contrasts portray Katy Perry, and women, as needed to be very made up to be attractive. It also gives the impression that they are very fake, and make up and other accessories are esstential for beauty. In comparison, the message given from Kanye's picture is that men not need make an effort to appear attractive (because I think he's going for that in this picture...)

One of the main colours on Katy Perry's face is pink, which is traditionally considered a 'feminine' colour, whilst Kanye West is completely blue, which is traditionally considered a 'masculine' colour.  Katy Perry also has blue on her, but it is paler and more of a baby blue, to feminise it. It shows her as weaker than Kanye and more frail because her blue is lighter, unlike Kanye's which is bold and in your face. These colourings reinforce traditional gender roles. BAD KATY.

Women as over-emotional and obsessed with love.

Katy Perry's video for Hot N' Cold fuels the stereotype that women are overly emotional, especially when it comes to love. This image in particular portrays this, because her make up is smudged, as if she has been crying, and she is wearing a wedding veil, suggesting that she is emotional over love. This is also reinforced by her facial expression, in which she is wide eyed and looking crazy. The whole plot of the video is Katy Perry imagining her husband to be saying no at the altar and then chasing him on a bike in her wedding dress, which aids the stereotype. BAD KATY.

Women as sex objects.

I think this picture speaks for itself. BAD KATY.

Her costume here is revealing, exposing her midriff, legs and arms. It is basically underwear, and this sexualises her because she has no real clothes on. She also has whipped cream cans on her bra, which is an obvious sexual metaphor. Naughty Katy. It is also red, which signifies lust and love. In the video, there are many other women dressed similarly, and they are have the same facial expression: happy. This suggests that the women are happy to be considered as sex objects, which doesn't exactly promote good vaules for her target audience of young girls.



In contrast to Katy Perry's "clothes", Snoop Dogg is wearing a suit that doesn't expose any skin except for his hand and his face. This is because, supposedly, men don't get sexualised. As Berger said on the male gaze, "men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at", so there is no 'need' to sexualise the man in this video because the women will not be looking at him in a sexual manner.

Logistics 2.0

I have improved my logistics presentation so it has up to date locations, more information on cast and now includes crew. I think it's must better than the other one, but I'll keep the other one up to show development of our piece. Okay.

Logistics 2.0 from Sarah Byard

I'd just like to give a shoutout to insomnia because without that I might have (foolishly) been asleep when I had the thought to improve the presentation. Top fella. I also had the idea to make a post about how we've been utilising social media websites to get audience feedback. I'll start that now. I do my best thinking at 4am.

Digipak Analysis 4: This Corrosion

Digipak Analysis 4: This Corrosion. from Sarah Byard

My laptop has decided that Slideshare can work now. Hooray. Here is an analysis of the digipak for This Corrosion by The Sisters Of Mercy. This is an example of a 4-pane digipak.

I have one more analysis to do. It's for a Duran Duran digipak. My taste in music is fabulous.

Digipak Analysis 3: The Black Parade Is Dead!

This is my analysis of The Black Parade Is Dead! by My Chemical Romance. I love My Chemical Romance so I got really into this one. I'm certain I think way too much into things, but I can't help it because English Literature has done that to me.

Digipak Analysis 2: Curtain Call - Eminem.

Here is my analysis of the digipak for Curtain Call - Eminem.
I won't hear one word against Eminem on this blog.
I make a reference to my Black Parade Is Dead video here but I can't post the Black Parade Is Dead yet because it takes 7 hours (no exagerration) to upload so I am going to attempt the upload at school.

Digipak Analysis 1: The Long Road - Nickelback.

Digipak Analysis: The Long Road - Nickelback. from Sarah Byard

Here is my first digipak analysis. I also have two more digipak analysis videos that I made last week but I forgot to post them. I will upload them to YouTube and post them asap. I also have more 'similar product' posts but Slideshare is deciding to delete the pictures I put on my Powerpoints (this took six uploads before it would stop it), so I will wait for Slideshare to calm down.

Purpose Of Music Videos

Music videos are made for a variety of reasons. Here are the main ones:

1. To make money:

This one seems to be the main reason for the creation of music videos. The music video is basically a promotion for the song, the artist and the album, because all three are represented in the video. Creating a music video increases the target audience's chance of hearing the song, and so increases the chance of the target audience buying the song. This means that the company makes more profit, which is of vital importance to the record company.

2. To give a deeper meaning to the song:

A music video can help to give a deeper meaning to the song, especially if they have confusing lyrics. Conceptual videos usually do this the most. Symbols shown in the video can reflect and complement the lyrics, which can help the audience to understand the message of the song. If someone doesn't understand a song, they might not like it; having a music video give it more meaning or to help the audience understand it may actually sway a person's opinion on it.

3. To entertain:

This is the purpose of nearly all media. The audience watches music videos, films, TV etc. to be entertained. They want to escape for a little while in the reality of whatever they are watching. However, it would be quite naive to assume that this is the main reason for the creation of music videos. There are artists who make music just for the love of it; however, it is also a job, and therefore they need to make money.

I'm very cynical and can link all three to making money, so I am going to say the main reason behind the creation of music videos is money and profit. The music industry is a business like any other and it needs to make a profit to continue. A music video is just a medium to advertise a product.

Similar Products: Lips Of An Angel (Hinder)

Lips of an angel from Sarah Byard

I chose this song because I thought I'd do a couple others in the genre, and three from the same genre would be boring because I'd just go on about pop videos all the time and I don't really like pop music so here is Hinder. That didn't explain why I actually chose the song. I chose the song because its video goes along the same vein as ours, with a narrative including cheating (or considering it, in this case). I also just so happen to love this song.

Filming/Storyboard Updates.

This is just a quick post to inform that we have filmed. We have only filmed bits we've already storyboarded. We will post the storyboard when it is finished. It went well. I have been awake a ridiculous amount of time. Goodnight.

Preliminary Filming.

We are doing preliminary filming on Monday and Tuesday. I say preliminary because we're testing the shots out and seeing what everything's going to look like.

We're filming the scene in the pavilion from midday, and it'll probably take an hour or two.
We're then going to film a scene at Livvy's house, or possibly at Hannah's house. I have forgotten.

Logistics.

Logistics. from Sarah Byard

Similar Products: Little Mix.

Similar Products: Little Mix. from Sarah Byard

One Minute Extract Storyboard.

More love for the spinny chairs.
A storyboard for our one minute extract Wuthering Heights video.
See, we actually do serious work sometimes.

The Machine Ate Florence at their best.

Reasons why Mr N should give us a personal key to the Mac room:



My niece loves this video (well, I think she does, she keeps shouting 'Sassy funny! Nana funny!' [she calls me Sassy and she can't quite say Hannah yet...]) so I think that's a thumbs up to do this for our final piece. Might just snazz up the chairs a bit.


[I'm kidding].

Dragon's Den Pitch.

Today, we had to do a sales pitch about our music video/band image to Sir and the rest of the class. We decided to film them and edit them together for research and planning evidence. After taking about half an hour for us all to work out how to put the camera into the new tripods, we finally got going. Harry went first, then Ben, then me and Hannah, and lastly (BUT NOT LEAST, WE LOVE YOU JESS) Jess. All in all, I think it went quite well; me and Hannah didn't completely forget everything we wanted to say and managed to not be awkward.

Here is the video (which took almost 3 hours to edit it, hate my life):


Here are the powerpoints we used in today's presentation (love me a good Powerpoint)

Reasons For Our Song Choice from Sarah Byard

Dragon's Den Pitch. from Sarah Byard

The Shining is FABULOUS.

I thought maybe once in a while I could actually post a relevant independent post rather than write about Johnny Cash. Seeing as one of Godwin's points is that there's intertextuality in videos, I thought I'd look at a video and look at the intertextuality in it and see whether it works. I am very tired (and Red Dwarf X has just come on [they're all looking so old now, aren't they?!]...), so this may not make much sense but bear with me because I will fix it if it's absolute rubbish first time.

The video I will be look at in this post is the video for The Kill (Bury Me) by Thirty Seconds To Mars. Don't judge me for loving this song. 

I think you can tell why I've picked this video to do. The intertextual references are clearly references to The Shining and we all know that I LOVE THE SHINING. If it were up to me, everything would be based on The Shining and everything would be perfect. I absolutely love the book and the film and the fact that this video is based on it makes me happy. Thus, I picked this video.

Location.

The setting for the music video is clearly influenced by The Shining. They are both set in abandoned hotels (which are established as abandoned in the first scenes of both) with a ballroom. The use of the ballroom is the distort reality in the film, as there are people there even though the hotel is abandoned. Because the film has hours to distort reality; however, the music video only has a few minutes. One of the elements of Gothic (heh heh heh English Literature) is dopplegangers or doubles, something the music video has picked up on to quickly distort reality. I'm not saying that twins are freaks of nature, but it's always weird to see two identical people, let alone a whole room full of them. The film distorts reality because of the themes; the video wants to distort reality possibly to fit the lyric 'this is who I really am inside', which suggests a facade put on by the singer to distort people seeing who they really are.

The room.

In both videos, characters are warned away from a certain room. Here is only one of many personalisations from 30STM in this video. In the film, the room is 237 (even though it's 217 in the book, but the hotel didn't want people afraid to stay in the actual room 217...), but in the music video it's 6277. This is a good example of not just stealing, but changing it to be personal. If you type '6277' into a predictive text phone, 'Mars' should come up. Clever, right? Well, I thought so.

Copying for the sake of it.

This is where I start to not like this video. It seems like it's actually being very clever, making The Shining references, but it actually just becomes lazy. Each band member copies an iconic moment from the movie, but the video relies on the viewer's knowledge of The Shining to fill the gaps that they leave out. I appreciate the music video is extremely short in comparison to the film, but relying on another text just seems lazy. The copying of the 'all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy' is an example of this. There's no reason for it. It's just the band wanting to re-enact The Shining. Go do that in your own time, boys, and make a video that doesn't rely on previous knowledge of another film. And, considering their main fanbase are 14 year old "alternative, RnAdOm, NOBODY UNDERSTANDS ME" girls, most of them won't have seen The Shining and probably won't even know who Jack Nicholson is.

I'm going add more to this post, I'm just way too tired to finish this right now.

YOU GOT A BLACK HEART.

This is what our video is going to contain.
Enjoy.
Ignore my face.

I had a really good idea for a post at about 4 o'clock this morning but, in my sleep deprived state, I've forgotten it. So here is an information post.

Me and Hannah were thinking the other day, and we've decided to scrap Gotye and use a different song for various reasons, the biggest one being the fact that we don't have enough friends to help us out. We're now going to use Black Heart - Stooshe. We emailed their management and they have given us permission (we used Hannah's email account so I can't post a copy of the email here yet) to use the song, so it's all gravy.

It's quite exciting. 

We've got a lot of ideas, which are written in a book and look like a mess but we understand them so that's okay. We even have ideas for a digipak, which is great. We think we're going to keep the name The Machine Ate Florence, because our audience feedback seemed to like that one the most (I'll make a post about that when my laptop doesn't freak out when I try to printscreen). We're also going to rename the song to Dirty Heart (which are other lyrics in the song) and we're calling the album Monsters. But I'll go into that in more detail when we figure it all out.

One minute extract + filming diary.

Reason #1 Why Johnny Cash Is Amazing.

(I'm very tired so this may not make much sense. I will go over it when I'm not this tired.)

Seeing as I picked on narrative last time, I should use a different element this time. Although I won't be talking about how awful the conceptual elements are, because Johnny Cash is flawless.

I don't know why I love this music video so much, but I just do. You hear the song and you think 'oh, that's a pretty sweet song, he's done it justice' but then you see the video and you think 'OH SWEET JESUS THIS SONG IS GREAT AND THIS VIDEO IS GREAT WHAT IS THIS PERFECTION?!' It's quite a sad video, really, and full of symbolism. And I do love me a bit of symbolism. Here comes the English student in me...

These two pictures show rotting fruit (above) and rusting, decaying objects (below). At the time of the video, Johnny Cash's health was very frail, in fact he died 7 months after the making of it. These images of decay and rust reflect Cash's decaying health. The big bowl of fruit also represents indulgence, if you think of all those Roman things with the huge bowls of grapes. The decaying indulgence can be seen to represent the end of his decadent lifestyle.

The general dark lighting in the house (above) completely contrasts the lighting in the outside (below)/performance shots (below-below), which show how dark he views his life at that moment in time, in contrast to the light outside and how the old days were. I'm sounding really harsh. I don't think Johnny Cash's life sucked towards the end, that's just what he's giving off from this video.

Here's a lovely picture of Jesus. Johnny Cash was pretty big on religion, and the meaning I got from this whole video was that he's looking back on his past, near his death, and is realising none of it was meaningful except his faith. I don't know, I could be wrong. At first, I thought Johnny Cash was comparing himself to Jesus, but then it made more sense when I remembered he was Christian. It also could show how Cash realises he is near meeting his maker.

And then there's this bit...

If it's not clear, he's pouring his wine into his food. My analytical mind went mental here yet I couldn't find any plausible reason that he does this.

But here's what he could be doing.

1) If wine is a symbol of wealth and status, then pouring it away is showing how little it all means to him now, because he has his faith. None of his riches are worth anything to him, and he may as well just pour them all away.

2) Johnny Cash had a problem with drugs and alcohol, so pouring the wine into his food could be a symbol of how absorbed in everything he did it was. On the flip side, it could also be him symbolically denouncing his alcoholism and throwing his alcohol away.

3) Something to do with Jesus and religion and Communion wine and absorbing his food in the blood of Christ. My knowledge of the Bible or Christianity or Church things is very, very, very limited so this one is probably the least plausible and I probably have just made myself look silly by even suggesting it.

I have nothing to say in conclusion, so here's a picture of Johnny and June Cash:

I FOUND A COOL WEBSITE.

Click here to take survey

It's called Survey Monkey and it let's your write surveys and it's fab and stuff.
Here's a survey about band names.
DO IT.
Thanks.

I received an email today.

An email from Lunatic Entertainment, which read:

"Hey Sarah and Hannah,

Thanks for getting in touch.

No problems from us as long as you don't try to monetize the video :)

Good luck.

--

Travis Banko

Lunatic Entertainment & Rockin Roll Circus

Level 1, 490 Crown Street, Surry Hills NSW 2010"

This email gives us permission to use Somebody That I Used To Know - Gotye, should we so choose. I like this song and Hannah likes this song so I thought we could put it on our list of maybes. Now we can definitely put it on that list.

Hooray.

Initial feedback.

Here are some questionnaires:

This told us what kind of music our target audience (15-25) would like to see in our video; the consensus being pop or rock. The questionnaire also informed me that people enjoyed narrative videos, without it being too detailed, as they felt this drove away from the music. I gathered around 20-30 answers, enough to perceive what people of the target audience would want. It wasn't a massive number of people because it was slightly impractical for me to gain numbers in triple digits, as I don't know that many people and posting online doesn't always get you as many answers as you think it will.

Here's a summary of my findings:

• Pop and rock were the most popular genres of music.
• Narrative aspects were popular as long as they weren't too detailled.
• They didn't like too many special effects.
• They wanted the artist to be in it.
• They didn't like voyeurism.
• They didn't like purely performance based videos.

Second storyboard video analysis.

This is extremely late, and I apologise for this. I completely forgot about the analysis part of this task. 

This animatic is more successful than my first because it has a clearer, more realistic, narrative that doesn't just follow the lyrics nearly word-for-word. I thought more about the narrative for this video and, maybe because it was a song of my choice, was able to come up with a better idea for this one. This animatic also included performance elements, something that my last one did not. From my audience research, I learned that audiences preferred when the artist is in the video, so I decided to include this so that it would be a more appealing music video.

I feel the most successful part of my animatic was the narrative, as it sustains throughout, unlike my first animatic, and is clear and simple. Another thing I discovered from my audience feedback was that audiences don't particularly like complex narratives which detract from the song, so I decided on a simple narrative which kept to the theme of the song, but didn't require too much concentration to follow.

The least successful part of my animatic is (apart from the awful quality and my inability to get onto Serif to convert it to a higher one) the lack of variety of performance shots. They are generally either a close up of a long shot, which makes the performance element slightly dull after a while. To improve this, I could include more shots, such as mid shots, shots from different angles, etc.

In doing these preparation tasks, I have learnt a lot about music videos. I have learned that: I will need to include a good variety of shots, because otherwise it will become dull; it is going to be a lot more work than last year, as it is going to include a lot more shots; music videos are generally more well-received when they include a good balance of narrative, conceptual and performance shots; lip syncing is incredibly important to get right, as when it is wrong, it looks awful and that music videos are more important to people than I realised, so it's important to do them well.

There is more of this to come, I will get onto it immediately. After I sleep.

A lesson in narrative.

As much as it pains me to do this, I am going to discuss and berate the video to 'Payphone' by Maroon 5 ft. Wiz Khalifa. I am a huge Maroon 5 fan, and I have loved them for years, but lately I feel that they are making bad choices, bad songs and bad videos and they should feel extremely bad. For example, Payphone. Not only is this a bad song with repetitive lyrics which try to appear deep and meaningful, but it also has a bad music video. 

The general basis of the narrative is this: Adam Levine is at a payphone; FLASHBACK! Adam Levine and woman work in bank; bank gets robbed by the rest of Maroon 5 and a ridiculous amount of other people; Adam Levine and woman escape; Adam Levine leaves woman behind and gets pursued by police; Adam Levine escapes police; EXPLOSIONS; Wiz Khalifa stands by a fire (as if there isn't enough already there) and raps; Adam Levine goes to a payphone, bringing the thing nicely full-circle. This narrative may not sound bad, but when watched you realise it actually makes no sense, plus it has no relation to the song.

Right, so, here is my analysis:

Oh, hi, Adam Levine! What a nice long shot to get not just you, but the exploded car in the shot, too! Why are you throwing your phone away? Why are you standing next to a car on fire? Why are you all dirty? THIS IS INTERESTING, I WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THIS INTRIGUING PLOT.

Oh, they're going back in time? That's cool, I guess this is like a Blood Brothers thing. Here are some nice establishing shots of a bank to establish location and character. This is the first thing wrong with the music video: THERE ARE 40 SECONDS OF NO MUSIC. All that we get for 40 seconds are shots of the banks and Adam Levine at a payphone by a fire. Don't worry, I didn't go on to YouTube and search for this video to hear the actual song, I wanted to watch shots of a bank and Adam Levine at a desk. Thanks a lot, guys.

Finally, the music kicks in and we once again see Adam Levine at a payphone, trying to call home; all of his change, he spends on you. The many close ups and midshots of Adam Levine in this damned phone box are the only shots of relevance to the lyrics, really, which is the second problem with this video. None of the rest of the video has any relevance whatsoever. I can't find any reference to bank robberies, explosions, being chased by the police or being stalked by Wiz Khalifa (don't worry, I'll get to it) in the lyrics.

Now that we've established Adam Levine's character as the nice and ordinary banker, we need to establish his love interest. The woman on the left is this love interest. However, as you can see in this shot, Adam Levine is staring up at her like 'oh, love me, woman whose name isn't established' and the woman is clearly not looking at him, staring straight ahead and going about her bankly business. REJECTION. This is the third problem of this video: CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. I understand that there isn't much time to develop character in a music video, as there's only four or so minutes, but this is ridiculous. This, right here, is clear rejection (although, how she could ignore Adam Levine, I will never know). However, about a minute later (after the bank has been robbed): 

'LOVE ME, ADAM LEVINE, I'VE SUDDENLY REALISED HOW IN LOVE WITH YOU I AM. SORRY I REJECTED YOU EARLIER'. Fickle woman, ADAM LEVINE DESERVES BETTER THAN YOU.

However, I will give it to her, she can take her shoes off bloody quickly.

This signal is given at around the 1:26 mark, and by 1:30, she's up and running and ready to go.  , even though she was wearing these shoes:

That's just not possible. I don't understand. I am in awe of her.

And that is where reality is suspended. Apart from the shoe thing, the rest of that was at least believable. Fourth problem: IT MAKES NO SENSE. So, the bank gets robbed by the rest of Maroon 5, but Adam Levine decides to go all Chuck Norris on these robbers. Whilst running away with the woman, the robbers start shooting at him. He and the woman avoid ALL THESE BULLETS. Now, I counted the amount of robbers in the room at any one point:

There were at least 6 robbers in that room when they try to escape. I find it hard to believe that SIX PEOPLE with automatic weapons couldn't hit two people, even if they were moving. You have to be a ridiculously bad shot. Also, there is at least one of them at near point-blank range, yet he can't hit them. WHAT KIND OF ROBBERS ARE YOU? WHY DO YOU EVEN HAVE A GUN IF YOU ARE THAT BAD A SHOT? 

And then, after Adam Levine and woman escape the bank, they are confronted by police. Adam Levine stole a gun from one of the robbers and so he drops it when he meets the police. Here is how this scene should have gone down:

Here is how it actually went down:

Adam Levine steals Wiz Khalifa's car and then EVERY POLICEMAN IN THE COUNTRY goes after Adam Levine, even though there is still a bank robbery in process... Reality: gone.

Then, Adam Levine drives the car and out of nowhere appears Wiz Khalifa:

Stalking Adam Levine. But does he come to reclaim his car? NO. He comes to stand by a fire and rap a little bit. Priorities, Wiz, you have them.

And there's lots of explosions, just for good measure.

So, overall, this video is irrelevant, meaningless and awful.

GO BACK TO SONGS ABOUT JANE, ADAM.

The quality is AWFUL
JUST
AWFUL
I will have to re-export it. 
SERIF SUCKS.


This is Tired Clichés by The Watchmen, from the album Next In Line.

Conventions of a hip hop music video 2.0!

Today, you lucky things, you're getting two pieces of homework.
Not because I'm lazy and couldn't be bothered to upload them until now or anything, but because I thought I'd store it all up so you could have it all in one go to maximise the intensity.


Here is the first of them, the updated conventions of hip hop music videos: 

Conventions Of A Hip Hop Music Video 2.0 from Sarah Byard

I've not posted a fortnightly rant in a while. I apologise and will try to rectify this as soon as possible. 


My excuses are pretty lame: I was on holiday, I've been ill and I haven't slept properly in weeks.


I will try to have the storyboard animatic up on time, but I had to download some software for it and it hates me and decides not to do things I ask it to.

Conventions of a rock music video.

I uploaded this to Slideshare yesterday, but I'm a cretin and forgot to put it on here.

Conventions of a rock video

View more PowerPoint from Sarah Byard

THEY CHANGED MY AWESOME FONT. THIS IS NOT COOL, SLIDESHARE, NOT COOL.

This one goes out to our terminology loving teacher.

So me and Hannah filmed out Wuthering Heights one minute extract today...
We made you a little trailer.


If you have not seen Mean Girls, you won't get it.






And we can't be friends.

Track research!

Okay, here is some of my research on tracks. These are opinions on Superstar - The Dead Famous. I did try to use social networking, but my friends are AWFUL, so I had to jump on people, play it for them and see what they said. 


My mum said: "it's quite good, it would make a good music video."
My stepdad said: "it's not my cup of tea, but if you like that music then it's a good song."
Livvy said: "I LIKE IT"
Harry said: "It sounds a little generic, but that's more than likely because I'm untuned to this kind of modern-style popular rock stuff."


There are more, but they were pretty short answers and I want to wrangle them for more.


Watch this space.

Lip Sync Montage 2.0

Devoid of blank grey space and cackling.

Today was the last Media lesson of this year.

In other news, we managed to mute the lip sync video so you can't hear our maniacal laughter, but YouTube is taking an absolute age to upload it.


Also, I have started on my second storyboard, and we are filming our second minute extract this weekend. Just keeping you updated.