Construction of my Star Image

Star Image 

Social Media

I will construct my artists star image through using social networking sights such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook as these are the mediums that celebrities use to connect with the fans and to create a relationship with them. Other artists that use these mediums are well known bands like Arctic Monkeys, who post regularly on there social media to keep the fans interested and to give the fans a more personal look into their lives to create an artificial sense of a relationship between the two. 

On the Instagram account that I set up, I am going to post behind the scenes photos of my artist on the shoot, as this enables the fans to see what is going on in the background adding to the personal aspect that fans enjoy. I will also create a YouTube channel for my artist to post footage of behind the scenes such as bloopers and I will also post the official music video on this YouTube channel for the fans to see. 

                            Micro-elements

Another method I will use to construct star image is through the micro elements. Meaning through the cinematography and mise-en-scene especially. To construct star image, I will use the cinematography to create a sense of importance and to break the fourth wall between the artist and the audience. I will do this through using a large number of close up shots and using direct mode of address. On top of this a key piece of iconography in the performance shots will be the instrument as an aspect of Dyer's theory of how star image is constructed, talent is one of the aspects that is an inspiration to audiences making them idolise the star. This will be shown in my music video as the artist will be playing a guitar and singing creating a sense of envy and talent for the audience while keeping with the conventions of the genre being performance. My inspiration to do this came from The 1975 's music video for Girls, as they use direct mode of address and close up shots and I think it's really effective. 

As well as this I will use the miss-en-scene to construct star image, through costume, lighting, set design and props. For my artists outfit, I am taking inspiration from other artists from the same genre to come up with an outfit that my target audience will want to see. Through doing this research, I have found that with the rock genre people are encouraged to be unique and to dress however they want, there are some similarities between them such as messy hair dark clothing mostly greys whites and blacks tattoos and leather and denim. This is what I am going to try to replicate in my music video as I think this will be the most effective style to suit my target market. 

           Lighting 

Another aspect I want to use to construct star image is lighting. I watched many music videos and I've decided I want to use the Pit in my school for the performance shots as there is professional lighting and I can change up the colours of the lights which I have seen in other music videos like Hustler by Josef Salvat.

Artists Social Media pages

Instagram - David.Cetin

To present his artistic side to his target audience, and to create a more personalised feeling so the his audience have an in site to what he is doing and where he is, the photographs uploaded to his Instagram account run through a black and white theme which is something that other bands within the same genre such as Arctic Monkeys. Therefore through uploading images like this to his social media he automatically appeals to the stylistic side of his target audience as well as enabling the audience to feel a more personalised interaction with him as he photographs his travels as many of the images above are from New York and show him on a plane as well as a good outlet to promote his new album freely to his target market through uploading a picture of the album cover with the caption 'out now' and a link to purchase the track on iTunes.

Twitter - DC_DavidCetin

I created a Twitter account for my artist to both promote the new album as well as to communicate with the target market whilst being a form of social media that is immediate and quick in which the artist can post whenever he wants and whatever he wants. 

Equipment List

Equipment 

-Two high powered torches for when I am filming in natural light
-A reflector 
-My camera - Cannon 750D (DSLR)
-Tripod
-Dolly 
-iPhone 
-Mac Book Pro - To check the footage during to ensure the footage is as high quality as possible because just looking at the LCD screen may lead to having to re-film some parts therefore checking during will prevent this. 

Parental Consent

As my narrative is based solely on two children, I have asked the parents of the children to fill out consent forms as they are under 16 years old, meaning I need the parents permission to film them. The form below is the form I gave to both parents to ask permission for me to film them.

 Consent form for filming / photography child under 16 years of age

Child’s Name……………………………………………………………….. Age……………………………………………..

Parent/Guardian’s Name …………………………………………………

I hereby consent to Nicole Njagi using images of my above named child caught in video recordings, and/or photographs on …………………………………………………………………..[insert date]

For use in her music video ………..………………………………………………………………………….……………………………………………………………………………..
[insert details]

[I also consent to them being published on her blog. 

I understand that:

·         I give Nicole Njagi permission to use the recordings of my child for educational purposes.

·         I can ask the director to stop using my child’s recordings at any time, in which case they will not be used in future publications but may continue to appear in publications already in circulation

Signed by Parent………….…………………………………………………..

Date……………………………………….

Address…………………………………………………………………………………………………

Signed by child…………………………………………………………………………………………

Style

Music video styles

There are three different styles of music video, abstract, narrative and performance. My music video will hold two of these styles being narrative and performance as the track I have chosen is in the rock genre therefore I want to use some of the genre conventions being live performance as this will be something that the target audience will look for. 

Abstract

An example of an abstract music video is Skrillex and Diplo's music video for Where Are U Now with Justin Bieber. One definition of abstract is an art form "relating to or denoting art that does not attempt to represent external reality, but rather seeks to achieve its effect using shapes, colours, and textures." This is shown throughout the music video as drawings have been edited over the top to create an effect and create an atmosphere for the audience. 

Skrillex and Diplo-Where Are You Now with Justin Bieber

Narrative

Narrative music videos are music videos that have a plot, an example of a narrative music video is Oceans by Seafret. This music video solely focuses on the narrative, there isn't any lip syncing instead at the start there is dialogue. This music video feels almost like a short film as the audience are following along. The narrative is of a girl who is getting bullied, this is shown at 0:36 through a medium shot showing that she has looser written on the back of her shirt. She then puts on a cape which automatically makes her feel stronger and more powerful, and when she puts the costume on she has powers. This is a narrative that the audience can relate to and empathise with as they are covering an issue that has had an impact on almost everyone at some point in their lives. My music video will be a narrative based music video therefore I have taken inspiration from this.

Seafret-Oceans

Performance

 

An example of a performance based music video is Nirvana's music video for Smells Like Teen Spirit. The music video consists of all live performance as this is what their target audience wants to see because it is a convention of the genre. The music video doesn't have a narrative therefore it is purely based on the performance which is what the audience wants. This is a convention that I will use in my music video as the genre of my music video is indie/alternative rock. 

Actors

For my music video, I am going to have two actors playing the roles of the two best friends running away together. For these roles I have chosen Jake and Isaac, they  fit the roles well as they are both thirteen years old and both participate in acting in their free time and are very confident therefore they will feel comfortable in front of a camera making the acting appear more realistic to the audience.

The band - I am going to have a guitarist, a keyboard player, a drummer and a lead singer in my music video. The lead singer will be Charlie Wolf as he is a singer anyway and is confident therefore he is perfect for the role as the lip syncing will look more realistic. For the other roles, I am unsure of who to ask. 

Filming Course

On Sunday the 4th of October, I went on a filming course in London to learn more about my camera (Cannon 750D) and technique. On the course I learned about white balance, focusing, Light exposure, appature, ISO and shutter speed. 

White Balance 

The left shows when the lighting is is tungsten and the white balance setting chosen is daylight. As the white balance is set to daylight when the lighting isn't daylight, the camera picks up warmer tones which makes the white appear to be yellow to the eye, our eyes have a way of correcting this so we see white however the camera doesn't therefore I learned that you have to change the setting to          correct this. 



This shot on the right shows when the white balance setting was on tungsten and the lighting was tungsten therefore the colours appear to be white as the white balance setting corrected the yellow undertones. 



The lighting in the shot on the left is daylight lighting whilst the white balance setting is tungsten therefore warm undertones appear and the shot appears to be an off white colour. 




As the lighting on the right is daylight, the white balance setting is also daylight therefore the shot appears to be a white/blue white shade to the eye. 

Focusing 

On the course, I learned about the difficulties of focusing whilst filming on a DSLR. The first thing I learned was that while filming it is important to never have the camera on manual focus as this will mean that most of the shots filmed will show the camera struggling to focus on the subject. To resolve this while filming to ensure that shots are in focus zoom in on the shot multiple times to ensure that the area that you want in focus in the sharpest it can be. 

Light Exposure

The histogram is very useful while filming to check the exposure of the shot as it prevents you from underexposing or overexposing the shot, ideal exposure is when the histogram reaches from one side to the other. Over exposure can't be fixed in post production and when filming outside it is hard to see the LCD screen therefore I will use the histogram to measure the exposure to ensure that my shots are at an ideal level of exposure. 

ISO 

The ideal ISO is from 100-400 anything above can cause noise to occur and the quality of the shot to decrease. I tested this with my camera from 100 ISO to 8400 ISO to see how the volume increases throughout. This has shown me that when filming my music video I need to make sure that my ISO is set to 100-400 as this is the safe zone and anything higher will cause some disruption to the shot. This is shown in the video below as I tested out how the noise increases as you increase the ISO.

Shutter speed

In Europe, the number of frames per second is 25 therefore the shutter speed should always stay at 1/50 unless for stylistic purposes you want to change that. I did an experiment to see what happens when you change the shutter speed. As shown in the video below the shutter speed begins at 1/50 and increases throughout to the end showing how the motion blur disappears with the increase of shutter speed and noise also appears creating shot that isn't so sharp. 

Artist Research: X Ambassadors

X Ambassadors

X Ambassadors are an American alternative rock band, they have three albums such as: Love Songs Drug Songs released in 2013, The Reason EP released in 2014 and VHS released in 2015.