Filming

Just a shot that Alice managed to capture with Rosie of the sky at dawn.

Alice In Wonderland theme

Today, Alice presented the idea to Athena and I about incorporating a Alice In Wonderland theme to our music video. Alice came up with the idea due to the fact that Rosie was wearing a Alice In Wonderland jumper when they recently went filming. So we all agreed with the idea, and thought of ways in which we can subtly show a theme of Alice In Wonderland, which included props such as tea cups, a top hat and a pocket watch.

Filming

Very early this morning, Alice and Rosie began filming in Forty Hall at dawn. They got some excellent shots of Rosie and landscape panning shots that we could use in our music video.

Album Cover Task

Our task was to create an album cover, which will help us in the future when creating our band artwork.
These are the steps to creating my album cover :

1. To start off I had to find a band name and so had to use a random link on Wikipedia. 'Present Arms' the musical was my first option, and I thought it wasn't too bad for a possible band name. 

2. The next step was to find an album title, and to do so I used a random quote and had to use the last four or five letter. Luckily the quote was ' lead us to good actions' which I think could be seen as quite a happy and youthful title for an album.

3.I then had to find an image to use for the front cover of my album artwork, so I used a random image from Flickr. The photograph that I used was very simple yet quite unusual so seemed quite suitable for an album cover.

4. Using Photoshop I created my final artwork, putting the album title, artist name and image all together and here it is :

Filming

We have decided to begin shooting in the next two weeks. We are hoping to film the dinner scene with 'Rosie and her family', therefore there are a lot of people involved in this shot and so needed to find a time that would suit everybody. The scene involves Rosie, Alice's brother Billy, my parents and Sinead who are all acting as a family and will take place at my house.

Vlog

Here's just a quick vlog that Ms Foster took of Alice and I creating our storyboard.

Plan

Here is a quick plan that Athena created about the various shots and order of scenes within our music videos.

Mood Board

Permission

This email has been sent to Polydor records, asking for permission for Alice, Athena and I to use Ellie Gouldings 'Starry Eyed' for our music video.

Location

So Athena, Alice and I were thinking for the setting of one of the scenes in our music video. This shot is to show Rosie with a family ( who will be played by my parents, Alice's brother and Sinead) and to portray and her unhappiness when she's even with her family and how she does not feel she fits in with them. This scene will include the family having dinner, so a dining room is needed, and we're going to use my dining room...and here it is.

Starry Eyed

Alice recently found this quote on DigitalSpy about the song 'Starry Eyed' . Ellie Gouldings description of the song is very similar to the feel of our music video that we wanted to create !


When asked what 'Starry Eyed' was about, she replied with:

"It's about letting go. As opposed to all the sad and depressing things I write about, I decided to write something about the joining together of people in some kind of euphoric state—be it at a festival, at a show or in a club. I wanted a song that would reach out to people of every background and every enjoyment, whether you enjoy a natural high, taking drugs, drinking or whatever."

Underwater Shots

I came across this music video which uses a lot of underwater shots, shots which are similar to the ones we
want to use. I love the use of the colour in this video and the creativity, hopefully our shots will come out as good as these !

Ellie Goulding research

Ellie Gouldings debut album 'Lights' was released in 2010 and managed to reach number one on the UK chart. Singles released off the album included 'Starry Eyed' and 'Guns and Horses', which both were huge hits in the UK. Through the success of both her album and singles this gained Ellie Goulding a huge fan base, selling 1.6 million copy's of her album worldwide.
However Gouldings biggest success was her cover of 'Your Song' that featured on the famous John Lewis christmas adverts. The cover reached number two in the UK and Ellie was also asked to sing it for the Royal Wedding reception in 2011.
Ellie Goulding has performed at numerous music festivals through the years including Glastonbury and Itunes festival and has also toured in the Europe and the US.


In 2012 Ellie Goulding released her second album Halcyon which was released by Polydor Records, and debuted second on the UK album chart. 'Anything could happen' was the first single released from the 'Halcyon' album and peaked at number 5 in the UK. Promoting the album further, Goulding began a tour in the UK and performing a few shows in the US. Recently, Ellie Goulding has released her first number one single 'Burn' from the album and has also became a hit in Australia, Germany and New Zealand.

Star Project : Christina Aguilera

I have chosen to base my ‘Star Project’ on Christina Aguilera. Christina Aguilera has had a variety of images and styles throughout her singing career which started in 1999. She previously starred in ‘The Mickey Mouse Club’ alongside Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears in 1993-1995.

When Christina Aguilera first entered into the singing world her first image (stylish at the time) portrayed a teenager wearing colourful clothes and crop tops with various colours in her hair, a typical look for a pop star in the 1990’s. Her star image seemed to help her as her first self-titled album became number 1 in both America and Canada. Aguilera also gained 3 number ones including ‘Genie In The Bottle’ and ‘What A Girl Wants’, furthermore this album managed to add a Grammy to her name for ‘Best New Artist’.

                                                                                                       
  Throughout the coming years Aguilera quickly gained attention and popularity for her unusually powerful voice including 80’s American soul singer saying “That little girl can sing her face off, she’s phenomenal”. Her voice and success also gained her a huge fan base, with thousands attending her sold out tours.

To maintain her fan base, Christina Aguilera has been very diverse with her image. After the release of the first album, Christina then did a cover of ‘Lady Marmalade’ alongside Pink, Lil Kim and Mya. The video to this cover grabbed some attention and showed a very different side to the ‘Pop princess’.
Walking around in a corset and suspenders with huge hair seemed to work however as the song became top of the U.S. charts for 5 weeks running and gave Christina yet another Grammy.

The Lady Marmalade success was then followed by Christina’s new album ‘Stripped’. Aguilera seemed desperate to get rid of her ‘pop princess’ image and successfully managed to do it through the first single released from the album ‘Dirrty’. The raunchy music video which included Aguilera wearing leather chaps and dancing provocatively in a boxing ring initially had a negative reaction, however despite that the single was a hit reaching number one in the UK and Ireland and was a hit worldwide. Through this album an alter ego was created for Christina..Xtina. This included Christina dying her hair black, getting a tattoo of ‘Xtina’ on her neck, and several piercings.  

                                                                                               
Christina Aguilera’s second release from the album ‘beautiful’ is possibly her most famous song. It gained another Grammy for ‘Best female pop vocal performance’ and the song itself reached number one in several countries and number two in the US. The video itself showed a much less raunchy and more vulnerable side to Christina and gained her a more positive reaction. The following 3 singles including  ‘Fighter’ maintained the albums success’ by staying on the charts for the next two years, a four time platinum album in the US, over ten million copies sold worldwide, and Aguilera being named the ‘Best female artist of 2003’.

In 2004 it appeared that Christina Aguilera was moving away from the ‘Dirrty’ image that she had previously portrayed. Aguilera had dyed her hair platinum blonde and cut it short to show a Marilyn Monroe-like image. Christina continued to show this image throughout her album ‘Back to Basics’ which was released in 2006. Product endorsement by Aguilera included many interviews with her commenting on how the album was "a throwback to the 20s, 30s, and 40s-style jazz, blues, and feel-good music, but with a modern twist." Aguilera successfully did this through the release of her first single ‘Ain’t no other man’ (which reached number two in the world chart ).
‘Back to Basics’ debuted at Number one in the UK, US and eleven other countries, and sold 4.5 million worldwide.  Through 2006 to 2009 Christina maintained the Marilyn Monroe, old Hollywood image at various red carpet events and her following music videos. One of these being ‘Candyman’ which showed her create a World War II theme, which included swing dancing and a pin up girl costume.
Richard Dyer created a theory on Marilyn Monroe saying “Monroe's combination of sexuality and innocence is part of that process”. Suggesting that maybe Monroe created that image for the motive of success, and so Christina followed.

A few years later Christina returned to the music industry with again a very different image. Aguilera seemed to now be going towards an electro-pop, futuristic genre and image. Her following
album named ‘Bionic’ which was released in 2012 helped confirm this star image, however was not as successful as her previous albums. Christina Aguilera’s first release from this album was ‘Not Myself Tonight’. Both the song and video gained some controversy, as many critics commented on the fact that she was returning to her ‘Dirrty days’ just when Christina seemed to mature out of them, having just been married and had her first child.
Many critics said how she was trying too much to be like Lady Gaga. Due to the fact of Gaga’s success at the time, and with a large scale fan base many people moved on from Christina Aguilera, and commented on how ‘Christina begged to be like Lady Gaga’.
Commenting on the albums lack of success, Christina Aguilera said "I was really proud of that record. I think there was a lot of promotion issues. Nothing is ever a setback. If anything, it just motivates you for what’s next “.
A lot of the critics commented on how the album was a flop so due to this many people started calling her ‘Floptina’.

                                                

Since then Christina has embarked on an acting career, playing the lead role in ‘Burlesque’ and released another album named ‘Lotus’. Through 2011 to 2013 Christina was continuously slated in the media on her weight. It was clear that Aguilera had gained weight, however the media started portraying more of a negative view on her. The media manipulated Christina, constantly showing her on the front of magazines and various sites online, commenting on her weight and how her life was a ‘wreck’.

                           

                       

There were many articles on how Christina Aguilera had to fight her record company to gain weight.

Since the constant criticism, Christina has now drastically lost weight, possible due to the media manipulation she has been gaining and now says she feels ‘sexier’ than ever, and admitting that the criticism on her weight was difficult. Aguilera is apparently hoping to return to the music industry with a successful album, and get rid of the ‘floptina’ image.

                                                           

To sum up, Christina Aguilera’s image has been extremely diverse over the years, from raunchy leather chaps to Marilyn Monroe-like. Some of the star’s images have been controversial and negatively criticised, however Christina has had great success over the years, even if it is dimming down now.

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Song Choice Lyric's

Ellie Goulding

"Starry Eyed"

Oh, oh, starry eyed
Hit, hit, hit, hit, hit me with lightning

Handle bars, and then I let go, let go for anyone
Take me in, and throw out my heart and get a new one

Next thing we're touching
You look at me it's like you hit me with lightning
Ahhh

Oh, everybody's starry-eyed
And everybody goes
Oh, everybody's starry-eyed
And my body goes
Whoa oh oh ah ah
Whoa oh oh ah ah
Whoa oh oh

So we burst into colors, colors and carousels,
Fall head first like paper planes in playground games

Next thing we're touching
You look at me it's like you hit me with lightning
Ahhhh

Oh, everybody's starry-eyed
And everybody goes
Oh, everybody's starry-eyed
And my body goes
Whoa oh oh ah ah
Whoa oh oh ah ah
Whoa oh oh

Next thing we're touching [x8]

Hit me with lightning

Oh, everybody's starry-eyed
And everybody goes
Oh, everybody's starry-eyed
And my body goes [x2]

whoa oh oh ah ah [x3]

Blog Task

Two Door Cinema Club : Eat Up That's Good For You
This was one of our first choices for a song, we liked how the song was quite upbeat and worked well with some of the ideas we had at the beginning of decision making (powder paint). Another positive point towards the song is that Two Door Cinema Club are my favourite band and I absolutely love this song.
However we decided not to go with this song for the following reasons.' Eat Up That's Good for You' is sung by a male lead, and so we found that that would be difficult to portray and work around in our video. Also after a while of listening to this song we found that it may have been too fast paced, and once we found Starry Eyed we realised that that had a beat that we thought would suit better to our ideas. Furthermore even though being my favourite band that could've been a negative, as I may have not wanted to take risks with it and will have wanted to just do it justice !

The Joy Formidable : Wolf's Law
We originally found this song due to the video, as it included a montage of fast paced shots. We also liked the variety of beats throughout the song, and  the build up nearer the end.
This song we found was very different to TDCC's, as the beat was a lot slower and the song itself seemed quite sad and mellow, which was not what we were originally aiming for.Furthermore the song didn't match with our idea's (powder paint) as we were basing our video around being fun and colourful and this song was quite the opposite of that. Also despite having a build up of the beat nearer the end of Wolf's Law, as a group we decided we didn't want to wait that long to show a more fun and creative side of our video.

Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros
When we first heard this song we really liked it and thought that maybe it had some potential. However we couldn't decide on an idea or storyline that would fit with this song. The only creative that we could think of was to show random montage shots into our film, which we thought wouldn't be as creative or fun to work with. There's also male vocals included in this song and that is something that we previously realised we didn't want, so therefore thought this song would be too difficult to work with.

Powder Paint

 So here is a music video I found by Madeon which has similar creative idea's to ours. From the very beginning of brainstorming ideas we were sure we wanted to use powder paint and now have decided on some shots around the use of powder paint. Hopefully we'll be able to accomplish all of our plans !

Plan

So this is just a quick first plan that Alice and I did of our music video. Seen as we finally have chosen our song we decided to jot down a few ideas about what we actually want in the content of the video (possible shots, lip syncing, location).
We also already have shots that we have taken from when Alice and I were away during our summer holiday and so will hope to find a way to include them into our video in a possible montage.

Creative Ideas

This is probably one of my favourite music videos at the moment, it's very simple however I love the contrast
of the colours, and the powder paint !
We discussed using powder paint when we first spoke about our music video, and I think we are pretty set on using it. The contrast of the dull and bright colours is also something I think would make the music video look more effective, even though its quite a simple task to do.

Song Choice

Even though this song is a little bit more upbeat than Wolf's Law it's still not 'fun' enough for our ideas.
However researching for a song is giving us more and more of an idea of what kind of audio we want
to create our music video around !

Video Inspiration

 Recently found this music video which I love. It gives us some creative ideas about all the random shots just moulded into one, however all the shots are linked.
However we decided we didn't like the song as we thought that maybe it was a bit too slow for our music video and ideas. This does give us more of an idea about what song we would like to choose though !

Song Choice

I think Mac 1 have finally settled on a song to create our music video around. We thought that it had a lot of potential and suited with some of our previous ideas about the video itself.
We wanted to choose a more upbeat song instead of a more mellow and sad one so we could be more creative with it, and also have more fun !

The song we have chosen is Ellie Goulding 'Starry Eyed' :

Song choice

Our group have been discussing what song to use and we've almost settled on a song choice and
we've got a few ideas about what we could do with this song (various shots and concepts).

Its a song by my favourite brand Two Door Cinema Club 'Eat that up it's good for you', here it is..


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Prelim Video

 Hannah, Sinead and I decided to recreate a clip of 'Hit Me Baby One More Time' by Britney Spears. I think its incredibly similar to be honest.