Media A Level: 2018

Monday 18 June 2018

In the single album is Let's Dance, Fame and Kooks, all created by David Bowie. This helps create a wide variation of music for the artist to build a more believable backstory for the artist.

This is my artists logo.

This is the website.

https://zoealexsanders2001.wixsite.com/johncassidy

Plan Statement Of Intent

Let's Dance

Artist Name

John Cassidy.

Genre

Dance-Pop.

Music Video Plan

Combine both traditional filming and rotoscope animation.

Narrative

A person leaving school and dancing their way through life.

Conventions

Begins with a fade from black and also a title screen for the music video.

Filming

It's just a boring old day in Lutterworth with nothing really happening.

Rotoscope

All of the colours show up and a new, bright scenery is used.

Actual Statement

Let's Dance is the title-track from English singer David Bowie's 1983 album of the same name. It was also released as the first single from that album in 1983 and went on to become one of his biggest-selling tracks. I have chosen this song because it perfectly encapsulates the attitude that dance music has, as it says 'Let's leave life behind and just dance!' In the music video, I plan to show the renegade running away from life, as a student jumps over the fence of their school and leaves dancing away from his awful school life. The difference in this music video is the media types and how I implement them. The plan is to have the type of media change every other time the song says "Let's Dance" or "Let's Sway". The difference in the film and the animation is that the film looks like boring England, whilst the animation turns into a wonderland of colours and expression, as the teens normal looking clothing turns into extravagant fashion. The idea is that in the chorus, the person walking joins a band as the singer with all of them looking the same in both real life and in animation. This will express the self expression that dance music wants from people and will also create a visually appealing video. The mise-en-scene will change with each style of animation, showing the inner hope and joy the teen has in head even though he can't fully express it in real life. Beginning with a title card and the album cover will show that the artist is well established and has more songs than just this. The title card will have a space theme, as will the whole album cover. The rotoscope style will be realistic, with the colours being the only thing cartoon-esque about it, this is because the animation is drawn over the film to create a smooth transition between the animation and the filming aspect. The direct juxtaposition between animation and filming will create a unique effect seen in the video by A-ha called Take On Me which is actually similar to the style of animation I want to do, except with colour. To conclude, this will be effective because of the diverse use of animation and real life filming to encapsulate teenage life, much like MGMT's Time to Pretend music video, which was a big influence in the music video including Daft Punk's Harder, Better, Faster and Girls and Boys by Blur.

These are the looks that inspire the artists fashion style.

For this I'm going to have to dye my hair multiple colours, to do this I will have to bleach blonde my hair and use hair chalks to dye it to all the different colours. I also want to capture the gender bending style that David Bowie has created, as all of the songs are alternative in style. In the music video, however, it will change from casual mens clothing when inside the school and leaving it with blonde hair to the female style of clothing when he meets the band and a yellow orange hybrid hair colour.

I will have to take 11 pictures with 7 different styles, including glam rock, soul, swing, etc.

Tuesday 10 April 2018

Representation of Radiohead - Burn the Witch

Radiohead are a classic of the alternative genre and follow each convention in different albums, such as grunge in Pablo Honey and Art Rock in The Bends. A Moon Shaped Pool is their latest LP and follow songwriters Thom Yorke's perspective on life and society in the modern era. Burn the Witch is the first single and song on the album and represents this. In this essay I will analyse both the music and the music video to show the beauty and terror of the song and the video and how, although drastically separate, how they both follow the same meaning.

First of all, an analysis of the music of Burn the Witch, the chords chosen and the instruments used, and to what effect these certain things have on the audience. Now to begin heavier, the key chosen for the songs. Looking at it, it would seem quite simple, F Sharp Major is used. However, the chords used do not follow F Sharp Major, and instead follows the chords of F Sharp Minor but all the chords are major. This technique is hard to explain but easy to explain the effects it creates. As a listener to the song, you have a sense of creepy happiness, out of place happiness. The instrumentation changes the feeling of the song, and emphasizes this weird choice of musical theory, as the full orchestra sounds more horror than the happy major sound of the chords. This, as an audience, enhances the effect of the songs choices. However, as a critic, I prefer the live version, as the light instrumentation creates a sense of subdued foreboding I haven't seen a band do ever. The lyrics of Burn the Witch perfectly fit the instrumentation, showing and creating parallels of a hidden happiness which seems odd and out of place. In my opinion, the song shows the alienation of British culture and the fear of standing up to injustice seen in our modern society.

It is therefore interesting that the music video creates a clear link between the song and The Wicker Man, a film entailing the demise of a man who was alienated by a community of crazed fanatics. However, this music video isn't all connected by theme. A huge juxtaposition of the music video is the use of animation seen in the video and the content this music video explore, such as religion, alienation, surveillance and hatred, as the video shows graphic material from the Bible and satanism with a bright, childlike animation style. This form of animation actually refers to the Trumptonshire Trilogy, a childhood series at the time of Radiohead's singer Thom Yorke. This could be to market to a certain audience for Radiohead. However, I see it more as an oxymoronic style of animation the songs content and context that really shows Radioheads style of plain old bizarre. The colours used with the disturbing imagery also show a drastic juxtaposition in the video, with the bright colours and hue tinted filter on the video leaving a sense of oddness and leaves an uncomfortableness much like the music. This video, and its representation, appeals to the interesting demographic of Radiohead, which enjoy a weird and bizarre adventure that is psychedelic in nature, seen in other videos like Paranoid Android. The fact that you can tell it's Radiohead without having Radiohead in it says something about the music and the video that accompanies.

Overall, the music and the accompanying video represent the new type of music Radiohead are trying, depressing ambient art rock. This is done successfully throughout the whole song and leaves the audience with a sense of learning something that they lacked before.

Monday 22 January 2018

REVIVAL is a brand focused on the "revival" of the punk movement. We want the true morals and ideology of punk to be "revived". Because in our current culture, punk attitude is lacking and this has created a stagnant approach that the people in our modern world have adapted. Our main idea is to unite and spread a message more incline with our modern society. To ignore the past of punk and move on to a new individual style for people to rally under. We want a progression in the culture and ideas and a new sense of DIY and freedom.

Brand Font:

Brand Logo:

Brand Slogan:

Ready to make change...

Photo Mock:

The idea is to show a group of people wearing the clothing as they are resting after a protest for a fair trade and eco-friendly world.

The idea is to show band playing music to with a fair trade poster and a vegan poster in the background.