Lip Synch Tutorial

Boogie Nights

In today's lesson my group and me were given a task of performing a a song called "Boogie Nights" which was a song released in the 70's, the song is a good karaoke song to perform to and make a video for because the lyrics are clear and easy to remember. My group was given a CD player, a still camera, a large sheet of lyrics and a video camera so that we could begin to practice lip-syncing. We had been through a short lip-syncing editing tutorial a lesson before but in this lesson we had only around 2 hours to film and edit the sequence together also we only had one video camera which made it a lot harder to get all the shots that we wanted in time so that we would have enough time to get into the editing room and start editing what we had.

We used Final Cut Pro to edit the video clips together with the song, which proved to be quite hard because we had to match the lip movements up with the song and caused a few problems by not having some shots that we need to match up with the different vocals.

To edit all the video clips together you first mark all the video clips with markers on a certain note which you want to use then add all of the clip in the time line so that the markers are in line and start to cut out which parts you do not want to use which sounds a lot easier then when it is put into practice along with adding the music over the top and muting the video clips, which was the easiest part in editing.

We used a lot of varied shots from mid range shots to close up's so that we would have enough video clips and shots so that it would make it a lot easier to edit and so that we could make the main artist stand out by giving him more video time than the other actresses.

Here are some of the still images taken from the shoot of "Boogie Nights":

 

We have used a variety of shots and angles in the picture with the different poses in which we have used within the video clips.

Letters requesting copyright clearance

Obtaining copyright clearance from a British artist or band by the A&R Manager

 

During the summer I have done my best to try and get clearance for the copyright of a couple of different songs from British artists and bands so I can use one of the songs in my media project which is to make a music video based around a British artist/band. I have written a few letters for the permission to use one of the songs that I have chosen, I have chosen a variety of songs so that my group can select one of the songs to do.

Here are a few of the songs and letters that I written down below:

Coldplay: Fix You

Dear A&R Manager,
(Parlophone Record Label)


I am a student of A Level Media Studies and for my Advanced Portfolio I will be working in a group to produce a promotional package for the release of a new album track. I would like to request permission to use the band “Coldplay” song “Fix you” for this project.


The finished project will not be made available publicly and will be used solely for coursework purposes. The holder of the original copyright will be fully acknowledged in the finished project.


If you do not hold the rights for this song I should be grateful if you could forward this request to the appropriate person or return it to me with the contact details in order that I might approach the copyright holder directly.


Yours faithfully




Keith Drew

Coldplay: Yellow

Dear A&R Manager,
(Parlophone Record Label)


I am a student of A Level Media Studies and for my Advanced Portfolio I will be working in a group to produce a promotional package for the release of a new album track. I would like to request permission to use the band “Coldplay” song “Yellow” for this project.


The finished project will not be made available publicly and will be used solely for coursework purposes. The holder of the original copyright will be fully acknowledged in the finished project.


If you do not hold the rights for this song I should be grateful if you could forward this request to the appropriate person or return it to me with the contact details in order that I might approach the copyright holder directly.


Yours faithfully




Keith Drew

Editors: An end has a start

Dear A&R Manager,
(Kitchenware Records Label)

I am a student of A Level Media Studies and for my Advanced Portfolio I will be working in a group to produce a promotional package for the release of a new album track. I would like to request permission to use the band “Editors” song “An end has a start” for this project.

The finished project will not be made available publicly and will be used solely for coursework purposes. The holder of the original copyright will be fully acknowledged in the finished project.

If you do not hold the rights for this song I should be grateful if you could forward this request to the appropriate person or return it to me with the contact details in order that I might approach the copyright holder directly.

Yours faithfully


Keith Drew

Editors: Papillon

Dear A&R Manager,
(Kitchenware Records Label)

I am a student of A Level Media Studies and for my Advanced Portfolio I will be working in a group to produce a promotional package for the release of a new album track. I would like to request permission to use the band “Editors” song “papillon” for this project.

The finished project will not be made available publicly and will be used solely for coursework purposes. The holder of the original copyright will be fully acknowledged in the finished project.

If you do not hold the rights for this song I should be grateful if you could forward this request to the appropriate person or return it to me with the contact details in order that I might approach the copyright holder directly.

Yours faithfully


Keith Drew

U2: I still haven't found what i'm looking for

Dear A&R Manager,
(Mercury Records Label)

I am a student of A Level Media Studies and for my Advanced Portfolio I will be working in a group to produce a promotional package for the release of a new album track. I would like to request permission to use the band “U2” song “I still haven't found what i'm looking for” for this project.

The finished project will not be made available publicly and will be used solely for coursework purposes. The holder of the original copyright will be fully acknowledged in the finished project.

If you do not hold the rights for this song I should be grateful if you could forward this request to the appropriate person or return it to me with the contact details in order that I might approach the copyright holder directly.

Yours faithfully


Keith Drew

Analysis Of A Still Image

COLDPLAY

This Still image of Coldplay is a conventional image of a modern boy-band. The group of four will usually feature the lead singer in this case (Chris Martin) at the front because he is the immediately recognisable character, and the drummer in this case Will Champion. The other two; right of Martin is Guy Berryman the bassist and behind Martin Jonny Buckland lead guitarist.

I can easily match this image in recognition of the stance and their clothing and even hairstyles that this is a contemporary rock/ pop group. The dark colour they all wear represent young rebellion and this is also backed up by the way Berryman is standing with his arms crossed, but there is also another mean as we can see Martin looking fragile and vulnerable fiddling his hair also representing that they are a rock band with the musical roots of the genre however their lyrics also have deeper meanings and connotations.

Again in this picture we can see the group adopt similar positions with Martin leading, Champion at the back and Berryman with Buckland in the middle. This image incoporate features from the first as we can see they still have a similar dark colour scheme and a ruggered look which plays on the voyeurisms of their target audience.

The representations of these photos show the lead singer Martin in front as he is the one audiences will recognise immediately because he is the groups focal point in their music videos. I will have to pay that in mind when advertising my groups artist.

final song choice

Coldplay - Fix You

Below is a Youtube link for anyone whose not familiar with the track or for those of you who love it and would like to listen for FREE! This beautiful contemporary pop rock song by Coldplay is our final song choice for Group 16's video. Click on the triangle in the centre of the video below to listen. Enjoy ;)

shortlist of potential songs

Potential Songs

My group and I have decided not to do the ordinary genres such as R&B and hip hop, firstly because we simply don't have the budget for re-create a decent looking video featuring big houses and flash cars, and also because we don't want to be too typical.

When brainstorming ideas for genre/s and artists we narrowed it down to the following:

- Pop

- Indie

- Soul

- Soul2Soul

- Coldplay

- James Blunt

- Tom Jones

- The Verve

- James Brown

- James Blunt : three wise men

- James Blunt : goodbye my lover

- Coldplay : fix you

- Coldplay : yellow

- The Verve - bittersweet symphony

analysing previous student videos

Analysing previous videos

As a class, we watched a number of good and bad examples of last years students music videos, and discussed the strengths and weaknesses of each project. I have picked my favourite video to analyse further, which is video number 24 by Adam, Lisa, Nasima and Sayvita. And also video number 8 which I thought was really bad and had not much effort put into it.

#24

Adam, Lisa, Nasima & Sayvita from 283goswell on Vimeo.

This group present us with an excellent model of a well planned and produced pop video. The catchy, upbeat song Everybody by retro pop indie artist VV Brown gives the message that everybody is the same and that we all need love in our life. Lyrics include 'we're all a part of human race'. The narrative in the lyrics closely match the action, making this video an illustration video as Andrew Goodwin would say, and even getting shots of random people holding up their sign with lyrics from the chorus. 

The large variation of shot types, shot distances and shot transitions are all technical skills which keep us as the audience interested. Such as wide shots where the location (for example popular West London high street and well-known Bond Street station) has been established. This is a really good way to begin their video as many of us can instantly relate to the setting and already be very interested. Also the profile (side) close ups her face and the extreme close ups of her red lips and the close up shot near the start of her red shoe are also very interesting shots. The fact that she looks into the camera is really good as she captures us with our eyes. As one of Goodwin's theory's to 'invlove' the audience at home, which shows they'd thought about this when filming.

It seems as if this group have really kept in mind the representation of the artist in the video, linking her style, clothes, hair etc to the audience and music genre very well. A teenage girl wearing a funky black coat with black leggins, give a simple indie/pop look especially after adding the greyscale effect to tone down everything except her red lips, red heart earrings and red shoes which adds a sharp contrast making an amazing effect. 

As its a very upbeat dancey tune, the editing is quite fast paced with quick cuts that match the beat of the music very well.The lip syncing is also very impressively on point, which is unlike most of the videos we watched.

I honestly cannot identify any weaknesses or faults with this video. I really like it and think they done very very well and deserved an A!