My name is Ella Budgett and my candidate number is 8120. The other two candidates I am with in Group 1 are Eleanor Lynch (8450) and Pru Carter-Phillips (8128). Our group photo can be seen on the right. To see my portfolio evidence, please click on the three labels on the right named A2 Research and Planning, A2 Construction, and A2 Evaluation.
Music genre is important in the music industry because it helps determine who the target audience will be, which leads to the decision of what sort of the image the artist should have.
I'm interested in a variety of different music genres and listen to different music depending on my environment for example, when going out with friends I would probably listen to UK garage and jungle music but when at home I enjoy hip hop.
UK garage is becoming more and more popular among the youth, with many artists on the scene such as Oxide and Neutrino and DJ Luck and MC Neat. A garage song which I particularly like is called 'A Little Bit Of Luck' by DJ Luck and MC Neat. Below is their song on SoundCloud.
I also really like Chase and Status who have produced UK garage songs as well, such as one called 'BLK & BLU' which has a music video that actually ended being one of my group's reference points. Chase and Status' music often gets played at parties and is popular among people of the same age as me so we thought it would be a suitable reference point. Below is their song on YouTube.
As a group, we researched Chase and Status' music a little bit more and discovered that they also have songs of the electronic genre and this led to us looking into this genre a bit more, until we came across AlunaGeorge's songs which are mostly electronic and synthpop.
AlunaGeorge's songs all have a similar electronic instrumental to them which I find very catchy and fun to listen to and so now I listen to more of this kind of music in my daily life, whether I'm on the bus or at home. A song that we all liked a lot is called 'I remember' and the music video for it also intrigued us as it shows the relationship between a girl and boy which is something that we are incorporating into our video as well and so we can take ideas from it. Below is her song 'I remember'.
The Uses and Gratifications Theory has a component called 'Cultural Transmission' and so the electropop genre appeals to me precisely because of this. It is an upcoming music genre in UK music culture and is becoming more widely known which is the reason I discovered it in the first place and now listen to it daily.
Music consumption is such an important part of my day to day life, as it is for many other people, particularly young students who like to go out a lot and are up to date with all the different methods of downloading and listening to music.
When do I consume music?
EVERYDAY!
On public transport, including to and from school each day
Whilst working, eg. doing homework both in and out of school
Whilst relaxing at home or driving places
As I fall asleep, using a particular playlist
At concerts/gigs/clubs/festivals
Who do I consume music with?
By myself if alone or with friends when I have company
Often when I get ready to go out I listen to upbeat music with my friends to get us in the mood for the night ahead of us
When at social gatherings, music is always being played, catering to everyone's different tastes in genres
How do I consume music?
Majority of the time I listen to music on my phone with headphones or my laptop via SoundCloud
I also play the radio when in the car, with the station normally tuned into Capital Xtra
Why do I consume music?
It helps to set the vibe or mood in different scenarios for example when getting ready to go out or when at a party, it creates an upbeat environment and allows for people to dance and have fun
It can also help me relax, for example when going to sleep I play Loyle Carner to allow me to feel calm and eventually fall asleep
Not only does it build a certain atmosphere, but it can also lead to friendships between people that enjoy the same kind of music and they can bond through their love of music
Childhood:
S Club 7 - Reach
This song used to be played at all the hall parties that I would go to as a child and I have fond memories of jumping on bouncy castles with this song being played in the background! I think that perhaps the reason I loved it so much is because the group S Club 7 wrote many songs aimed for kids and so they were very poplar among my friendship group at the time.
Early Teens:
Justin Bieber - Be Alright
I was an avid Justin Bieber fan during my early teens (and still do have a great love for him). I went to both his My World concert and his Believe concert with friends, and even bought a merchandise shirt. Despite his good looks, the main reason I loved him so much is because his music is mostly pop, and this was my favourite genre at the time.
Now:
Loyle Carner - Florence
About a year ago I discovered an artist called Loyle Carner who produces music in the hip hop genre and often raps about his family life or hardships that he's been through which makes his music relatable to people of my age. I've seen him preform about 5 times in various environments and his stage presence is so great that it makes him an even more likable character.
In class we presented our version of this post to each other and it enabled us to see what people of our age are into at the moment in terms of music. This is important to my group as our target audience is people aged 16-25. We found that everyone has a different taste in music so its hard to choose one genre that everyone will like, however, both of the other girls in my group have the same music taste as me which is useful because it means we will all actively enjoy making our video and it also made us realise that our chosen song is possibly more catered towards girls.
The Uses and Gratifications Theory explains why I enjoy music so much, with the main concept for me, being entertainment. I listen to music for the purpose of escaping everyday life and having feelings provoked in me.
As a group I think we will work well together because we all enjoy the same types of music and often go out together, so have an understanding of each other's personal music consumption. We have arranged to meet frequently throughout the week to allow us to make steady progress on planning our own music video. We're all committed to making the video the best it can be and all share a enjoyment in the task.
We have created a notebook to jot down some of our ideas for the research and planning and we each take it in turns to add our thoughts and ideas. Along with this, we have set up a group chat so that we can arrange our meetings.
On the left is our notebook and on the right is a screenshot
from our group chat.
I thoroughly enjoyed the workshop shoot day mainly due it being so energetic and everyone getting involved in order to create the best video remake that we could. Despite the day getting very tiring towards the end as we had all been dancing and singing for many hours on end, it still proved to be very fun and particularly rewarding when the director, Dom, finally called "And that's a wrap!!"
GIF of Street Taylor
The Taylor roles that I had to play were; Street Taylor, where I had to joke around and shake my hips pretending to be sassy; as well as Band Taylor, where I had to sing into a microphone with a band playing instruments behind me. I also had to be a back up dancer in the Cheerleading, Hip Hop and End Dance scenes. I enjoyed being Taylor as it meant I had to create an alter ego and work on my confidence in front of the camera, which is something I lacked before the shoot.
I particularly enjoyed playing the Street Taylor because it was funny having to create facial expressions that matched those of Taylor in the real music video and dancing badly on purpose to fit the theme that Taylor can't dance but takes the mick out of herself anyway!
Time lapse of workshop day to show how chaotic and busy it was. The lighting setup is also clearly shown.
From this task, I was able to gain a good understanding of what would be expected of us on the main shoot day in terms of dancing and energy. I had to watch the Taylor Swift music video repeatedly in order to learn the lyrics and from this, I picked up an idea of the amount energy that is required from the performers. I'm not a very confident performer and felt uncomfortable about this lip sync task but I soon found that it was fun and built up my confidence performing and dancing in front of the camera, which would be needed in the main shoot.
Above is our audition video - Pru, Eleanor and Ella
Editing the video proved to be slightly challenging due to the amount of cuts that there needed to be and different shot angles, in order to make the video look interesting. As a group, we had to spend time cutting different clips and editing them together in a sequence that matched the lip sync perfectly to the actual Taylor Swift track. It gave me insight into how potentially challenging it would be to edit the main shoot in our A2 prelim final edit and taught me how to go about it, eg. editing back and forth between two clips of the same lyrics to create a nice flow.
Task 2: Learn and practice your performance
'Shake It Off' chorus lyrics
The first session taught me just how much effort and energy goes into making a music video as I found the dance moves and whole exercise routine physically exhausting. Despite not being a very good dancer, I enjoyed learning the moves to the last part of the video which is the final chorus to 'Shake It Off'. In Taylor Swift's video, there is a bunch of people free-styling and dancing however they like, yet for our video we have been given a routine as a guideline, which we can add our own moves to if we like. We also had to rehearse our lyrics over and over so that we were confident with signing them on the main shoot day and so that the words could seem articulate which would make it easier when it came to editing the lip sync clips.
Above is our dance coach, Tasha, doing the end dance routine to 'Shake It Off' that we all had to learn. It was difficult at first to get the moves but eventually we all knew the routine perfectly, it was just a matter of providing the right amount of energy. Our performance coach, Jaz, helped us to be energetic and focused by playing games with us that both worked on our liveliness and concentration, such as 'Woohah'.
Task 3: Help to plan and organise your costume
This task involved rummaging around our closets to find clothes that best matches the roles we had to play as well as begging, borrowing and stealing in order to find the perfect costume! It taught me how to analyse a specific role and what items/props are essential in order to bring a character to life. For example, when watching the street/twerking clips in the actual music video, I paid close attention to the heavy gold jewellery that Taylor was wearing and the sassy style of her clothes. These are things that I don't normally pick up on when watching a music video but be responsible for my own outfit meant that I learnt how to focus on small but important details, which will be vital when we come to male our own music videos in year 13.
Holding my street costume which consisted of a leopard print jacket, bralet and socks, along with small denim shorts and gold chain necklaces.
Task 5: Complete the remake edit
The editing of the remake video was quite challenging at times as it involved very frequent cuts between shots, as well as perfection on the lip sync clips. As a group, it taught us how to manage out time efficiently and how to work together as a team to make sure we completed the task as quickly and well as possible. We decided that we wouldn't work on separate bits of the video, but instead edit it in chronological order to allow us to oversee what each person was doing and made sure that we were all pleased with every edit that was made.
Finished edit of 'Shake It Off' remake video by Ella, Eleanor and Pru
When it came to editing the rushes that we had, we were all really keen to see the footage from the shoot day and to start editing them in sequence. We soon discovered that although the footage looked good, there were a few shots in the real 'Shake It Off' video that we didn't have and so we would have to work around this and put in other clips to replace them. The takes from the day prove our abilities to dance and act in front of the camera and we were all really pleased with similarities to the real video in terms of costume and style.
On the left is a shot form the real video and on the right is what we had to replace it with
Overall, I didn't expect the finished edit and the real video to look as similar as they do but as a group we used our editing skills to match the shots and lip sync as best as we could, in order to produce a good outcome. We had to pay specific attention to the movements of Taylor and match the actions that were the most obvious, for example in the finger tutting shot of Taylor, although her hands come up at different times, we focused on matching the nod. We managed to successfully edit all the lip syncs perfectly which was a key area of the remake, as we had previously learnt how to do this in the audition video.
Finger Tutting Taylor
The main area of our final edit that I would further improve, is the grading of it. The background we took all shots against in thew studio was white, yet in the real video the background colour is changing all the time. So if as a group we wanted to match the backgrounds more closely, then I would try to work on grading and build up my skills in this editing area so that the remake is as similar to the real video as it can be.
The left image is a still from our music video remake that hasn't been graded and right is the final graded edit. Despite the right image being closer in comparison to the real video, the background still isn't dark enough and the glossy feel isn't quite there. I would like to develop my skills in this area of editing so that for our coursework next term, all the grading is to perfection.
Next term's coursework follows the brief that we should construct a band or a fake artist and create a 3 minute music video, an album cover/sleeve and a website.
This prelim task has therefore taught us one of the main aspects of next years coursework which how to bring an artist to life, as we all had to take on the role of Taylor (or in the boys case, the role of dancers) and we learned how to adopt a celebrity persona. Being in
the music video and playing such active roles has taught me how to lip sync well and raised my confidence hugely, so that when it comes to making our own music video, I will be able to perform in it without hesitation.
We also made maximum use of the Seaward Studio for our shoot day, using a white backdrop, lots of lighting and camera equipment, costume rails and the changing rooms. Discovering all the possibilities that come with the studio will allow for us to utilise these next term in order to create the right atmosphere for our music video.
Furthermore, the vast amount of preparation that went into this prelim task in terms of styling, dance, rehearsals, movement, influences, costumes and performance has made me realise just ho much time goes into music videos and how much work needs to be done for them, which has prepared me for next year. The performance aspect of the preparation is key to making everyone look comfortable and good on set, and so next term, myself and my group will have to help our actors/artists become performance ready, like Jaz did with us for the prelim video. This involves vocal warm-ups and playing active and energetic games.
