Role Model Task

In our group, we set Alice as our manager, and she created "Cara", who was half Mexican, half English, had green eyes, wore dresses, and loved travelling. She had a tattoo of the world map on her back, and she played in small venues like York Hall.

This task was really interesting, because as consumers, we generally consume what we're given, instead of creating things ourselves. It made us understand our audience in a different way, and consider what they would like to see in an artist, what is different from what we normally see and what there is a gap in the market for. Cara was half Mexican, which showed the big gap in the market for a music artist that is popular in the West, but is not Caucasian (as the only female, non-Caucasian artist we could think of was Selena Gomez). Our artist was also not sexualised, something that is extremely uncommon for a female pop icon in our generation.

For our music video, we want to have a range of people in our band that a variety of audiences would identify with. Our lead singer is Asian, but not stereotyped, which is fairly refreshing. Overall, this was extremely helpful for understanding our audience, and we will use this to shape our own band's identity.

Possible song choices

I liked the idea of having a female fronted rock band, but kind of challenge genres and are a bit different. It could have a fairly dark video, but I think there's a lot of scope for what we could do, and I just think it could make a great music video.

This is fairly different to the songs above, but again I think it could make a good music video because it works really well for cute love stories and the music video we could make could be something to do with wildlife (but of course that would complicate a lot of things).

This is quite slow, so it may not lend itself as well to music videos, but I had an idea of like the girl and guy in a completely white room and then throwing paint at each other, or something like that, but slowed down, but it's quite long and could get boring.

I had a weird idea of a girl like getting obsessed with a male celebrity to the point where she breaks into his house and sleeps in his bed and is really creepy





(I couldn't find the recorded version on YouTube so this will have to do)

"What music means to me" homework

Song from my childhood:


This is the first song I remember really clearly from my childhood, and it takes me back to when I was really little and I would learn the dance routine from the video with my sister and my cousin. It started my curiosity about music and made me watch music video channels, as I would wait for it to come on, and then I discovered the music world and the variety of genres and songs.

Song from my early teens:

For a really long time in my early teens, I was completely obsessed with the Jonas Brothers, and I remember seeing this song on Disney Channel and thinking that Joe & Nick were so good looking, and I loved how energetic the song was and how funny the video was. They were also the first band I saw live, and it got me to fall in love with live music. 

Song that means a lot to me today:


Whilst being bored and browsing music channels, I stumbled across this song when I was having a really rough time, and Young Guns became extremely important to me. They also introduced me to some other bands like The Swellers and Tonight Alive which I really love as well. Young Guns really helped me (obviously indirectly) when I was really struggling, and to be really cheesy, gave me hope and made me feel better about everything.

Prelim Evaluation

1) Did you enjoy the workshop day? What were your best bits and why?

Me lipsynching

I really enjoyed the workshop day, although it was very long and stressful having one of the main roles. This did mean that I had a chance to see what making a music video was like for the performers and the crew. The best part of the day for me was the last dance shot, because it was really fun and the crew were all really supportive. Being one of the main band members was very out of my comfort zone, as I'm not a confident person at all, so it helped to build my confidence. It gave us all a unique experience that we would probably have never had without this opportunity, and will definitely help me when I make my own music video next year.

2) What have you learnt from participating in each of the prelim tasks?

Task 1: Analysing a performance video. Analysing a music video of our choice meant that we learnt the typical format for a specific type of video, so it would be easier to create our own.

Task 2: Making our lipsynch video

From our lip synch video, I learnt how to edit to music and how to perform to a camera, which were helpful whilst editing the remake. Making it with close friends was definitely a highlight, as we all had fun filming and editing it. It also taught me how to be more confident in front of a camera and how to make a lipsynch look believable.

Task 3: The workshop day. The actual workshop day was probably the most informative of the preliminary tasks, because I learnt how a real music video shoot worked, and how each role of the cast and crew was extremely important in different ways. Because I was a main band member, I also learnt how to direct a performer, because I now know how it feels to be on camera, and how to get a convincing performance out of a performer.

Task 4: Editing the video. Editing the video taught me how to edit to music, especially breaking out of continuity editing and starting discontinuous editing, which is crucial for a performance music video. It also taught me how to do certain special effects (such as the radial blur at the end of Jesy and Perrie's verses), which I may want to use for my own music video next year.

Me as Leigh-Anne

3) Are you pleased with your footage and your edit? Is this how you expected it to be?

I am very pleased with our footage, because I think each shot looks really similar to the original video, especially the sets and the costumes, and the footage looks very professional. The edit is very similar to the Little Mix video, and due to us working in a group of 7 people, we can all bounce off of each other's ideas and have more time to edit the video, so the editing process is a lot quicker. It is more professional and slicker than I expected it to be, but I am extremely happy with our final edit.



4) How do you think your prelim experiences will impact on your approach to next year's music video coursework?

Emily learning how to use the track

I think it taught me what each person's strengths were, and how we can work to those strengths next year to create the best music video possible. It also gave me the experience of how a shoot works, so next year our shoot can be as efficient as it was on the workshop day. I also learnt how professional a music video can look with only a fraction of the budget that real artists get, and how to create and gather sets, costumes and props, so hopefully my music video will look more professional with the knowledge I have gained from this experience.







Here's our final edit:

Music Video Analysis

The video for "Bones" by Young Guns is the first single from their new album, so the video is very stylised and shows their band's identity by the style of the video, their costumes and the dark grading of the whole video. The band are seen performing the song with their instruments, which is typical for the rock genre. There is a lot of camera movement with the performance shots, which combined with the close up shots of the band & their instruments, immerses the audience into the video, and makes the video visually striking. The performance drives this video, but also includes a few narrative shots of 2 girls, but the main focus is on the band. The narrative shows a sense of development, as it shows the binary opposites of the girls being stressed and then finding solace in dancing. There are many close up shots of the lead singer, and the video has discontinuous editing. The video is also polysemic in nature, because it could be interpreted in different ways (e.g. empowering, depressing, etc.) and provokes a strong audience reaction as the video involves the audience, and can empathise with the girls and feel a connection with the band.