T-shirt War

T-shirt war is a very good example of how stop motion can be used effectively and creatively and it was a big inspiration when coming up with my idea. It was created as a viral advert for Macdonalds by Rhett and Link.

Treatment

The video will begin with the protaganist standing in front of a blank background, his tie crawls up his arm and ties itself whilst his jacket put's itelf on, a guitar slides into his hands and he starts to play it. Throughout the first verse, whilst the character stands still and plays the guitar subtle changes occur in his clothing and the area around him, becoming more and more noticable as the song nears the chorus. When the chorus starts, the shot cuts to a live action scene of the character playing the guitar. The second verse follows much the same idea as the first. The last chorus and outro will be a mixture of shots from the verses and chorus.

Audience research

I sent out a questionnaire about music videos, here are some of the answers:

What's your favourite music video and Why?

• The Scientist-Coldplay because the storyline is quite good and the idea of the story playing backwards is interesting.


• Praise you-Fatboy Slim because it is quite funny and different.


• Telephone-Lady Gaga because it's like a film and has a proper storyline with dialogue unlike other videos.


• Here it goes again-OK Go because it's a unique idea that hasn't been done before.
  

What would you expect to see in a music video?

• Lots of music videos have stories about couples breaking up which is a bit boring.


• Some footage of bands playing as well as a storyline.


• sometimes the bands are playing in the background of the storyline.

What makes a good video?

• Something interesting not just a boring storyline.


• A mixture of the band and the story.


• A unique idea that hasn't been used before.


• Good special effects.

What makes a bad video?

• Boring typical storylines that have been overused.


• having just a storyline or just footage of a band playing, there needs to be a mixture of both.


• If the video doesn't really go with the song's mood.

From the answers I've been given I can see that people like to see something original and not just a boy meets girl story that has been done before, but it doesn't always have to have a proper storyline as long as it keeps the viewer interested.

Stop motion within non animated films

My music video is a mixture of stop motion and live action, another example of this is James and the giant peach, originally a children's book by Roald Dahl, it was adapted into a film in 1996, it was directed by Henry Sellick, the man responsible for The Nightmare Before Christmas. The film starts off completely live action but then, as James enters the giant peach, the film becomes predominantly stop motion animated. This was a very successfull film because the idea of stop motion and live action together hadn't really been done before.

Stop motion

Stop motion is a form of animation which uses lots of still images put together to create moving image. The first recorded use of stop motion was in 1898 in a film called the humpty dumpty circus by Albert E. Smith and J. Stuart Blackton. Stop motion isn't just used for animated films, it is also used in Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Robocop 1 and 2. One of the most famous stop animators around today is Nick Park, creator of Chicken Run, Wallace and Gromit curse of the were-rabbit, and many others.
Stop motion is also very popular online on sites like YouTube, one notable online stop motion video is her morning elegance by Lavie and Yuval and Merav Nathan, the video is very successful and has over 10 million views.

What I need to do before filming

• More research into stop motion animation.


• Treatment for my new idea.


• Audience research.


• Storyboard.


• Shot list.

I should be able to complete most of this over half term and be ready to film when I return to school.

Ancillary task

For my ancillary task I have to create a digipak and a double page magazine article advertising the album. I have looked at some iconic album covers and digipaks for inspiration.

This is one of the most iconic and easily recognised album covers ever. It is quite effective because the picture is in black and white, making the text stand out.
This album cover was mimicked by The Clash for their 'London Calling' album cover.

'Abbey Road' by The Beatles is also a very well recognised album cover, much like the previous Elvis Presley one, it's very effective because of the simplicity and boldness of the images. Both album covers show pictures of the artist. This album cover has also been parodied a lot.

Joy division unknown pleasures album cover is very famous. Unlike the other covers I have looked at, it doesn't feature pictures of the band, I think it's quite good because the image is very simple but striking.

The Sex pistols were a very controversial band in their time mainly because of the content of their songs. They got to the number one spot with their song 'God save the queen' but the BBC refused to play it on top of the pops because of the controversial lyrics.

The album cover is also controversial in a way because it doesn't share the same form as most album covers at the time.

After looking at some of the most famous album covers, I have noticed that whether they show the artists or not, most of them are very simple but powerful images and the cover is not too crowded.

Music videos and the internet

As music channels such as MTV started to move away from music videos and more towards reality TV, people started using the internet to view music videos. This phenomenon really took off in 2005 with the launch of YouTube, this meant that people could not only view music videos, they could also create their own and post them for people all over the world to see.
Artist began to use YouTube celebrities in their videos for example Feeders video for ‘Just a day’, and some artists launched a career from videos that only aired online.
The internet is a very important tool in the distribution of media and I will have to take that into consideration when creating my media text.

A brief history of the music video

The music video began with people like Elvis and his video jailhouse rock, when they first started out they were very low budget but in August 1981 the launch of MTV changed everything. Music videos became a lot more popular and people started to spend millions on making their videos.
Eventually people got bored of big budget videos and went back to using simple ideas and low budgets, these were known as anti videos, for example fatboy slims 'Praise you'.

Audience research questions

The next step in my research process is to survey the public about their view on music videos, I have come up with 5 questions:

• What is your favourite music video?
• What makes it so good?
• What would you expect to see in a music video?
• What makes a good video?
• What makes a bad video?

As well as conducting video interviews I could also create an online poll using social networking sites and post the results on my blog.