My Evaluation Video Link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9tjCJD5dlY

My Digipack

Permission Letters

Story Boards

A Few Pictures From The Filming

This is a picture of Lauren testing out one of her costumes.

Lauren wearing her mask and Feathered Angel wings.

In the process of Graffiti-ing around the dart board.

Pictures of Kane (LV's boyfriend) on the dart board.

In the empty swimming pool, filled with balloons.

Lauren lying face-down on a glass floor, I am on the floor below her to take the picture.

Filming Day 3

On Saturday 16th January, I filmed the third and final part of my music video.

This was filmed at my house, on this day I filmed Lauren lip syncing the whole song, each time from different angles. I did this so that when it came to editing i had many different angles of the same shot so that when it comes to fast paced cuts it could used different angles, so that it was not boring.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Lauren for being so Helpful and co-operative, throughout the filming of this video.

Filming Day 2

On Saturday 9th January, I filmed the second of three parts of my music video.

This day consisted of a change in location, which was Lauren's house this also  meant change of costume.
Filming began late on that day due to complications with my filming equipment but everything was sorted then things began to run smoothly.

Day 2 of filming consisted of , Lauren's bedroom 'rave' scene, all the shots in the car and of her driving through the roads of her local area.
All of the shots of her walking through the woodland areas. And the climbing frame scenes.

Filming Day 1

On Saturday 18th December 2010, I began filming my music video.

I started filming with Lauren who is my actress in my music video. I needed Lauren to have a large variety of costumes, simply to keep things interesting and different, as opposed to the same outfit the whole way through. Some music videos are the same location and the same outfit the whole way through the video, which is ok , because it may suit that type of song, but in my case, the song in which i have picked is a very up-beat, exciting , colorful and so i decided that i would use are variety of locations and a variety of costumes to keep things interesting.

Considering that Lauren and I woke up and were on the go from the crack of dawn that morning, i was very pleased with how the filming went that day, she is a very co-operative person and very enthusiastic which really helped.
There was some negatives to the day, such as very poor weather conditions, such as the temperature going down to minus one,and very strong winds, Lauren had to wear a leotard and no jacket, but we did not let the weather ruin our strict schedule for the day.
Another negative was, that we forgot that it was getting dark earlier now due to it being winter, which meant that any external shots had to been done sooner rather than later because we wouldn't be able to shoot them in the dark, due to poor visibility.

All of the filming of my music video would be done in three parts and  1/3 of my video had now been filmed.

Locations Of Filming

My house in which we used- the garden, an empty room, in which we did the graffiti
an empty swimming pool filled with balloons.

In Laurens car-driving around her local area.

At Laurens house- In her bedroom, and in her Garden (her climbing frame)

The Plot of My Music Video

I have One Character in my music video, she is my very Good Friend Lauren Vietro.
Lauren is playing a character called LV. She is a Pop star and the plot line for her Music video, is that she is in a relationship with her boyfriend and whilst she was away, he cheated on her.The main focus of the song is that her boyfriend,'Did The Deed' and then went and told all of his friends about it, thinking that it would not get back to his Girlfriend hearing about it.
Hence why I chose the song "Kiss 'N' Tell".

During this clip you do no see her boyfriend in person but there are shots of Lauren stabbing a dart Board which is completely covered with pictures of her boyfriend. You also see her waving a very large kitchen knife around, and she is stabbing balloons. She almost looks psychotic!
As for the pictures on the dart board I used my friend Kane Wise.

Songs That Are Also Related To Cheating (Within Relationships)

The reason why am posting this is because the message from this music video is very similar to my video, its all about cheating and unfaithfulness within relationships.

Grenade- Bruno Mars



Adele-Rolling In The Deep




Radio-Alesha Dixon



Hurtful-Erik Hassle



I want you back- The Jackson 5



You should have known-Laura white

Research Continued.....Music Video Directors

Michel Gondry:

Life and career

Michel Gondry was born in Versailles, France.
His career as a filmmaker began with creating music videos for the French rock band Oui Oui, in which he also served as a drummer. The style of his videos for Oui Oui caught the attention of music artist Björk, who asked him to direct the video for her song "Human Behaviour". The collaboration proved long-lasting, with Gondry directing a total of seven music videos for Björk. Other artists who have collaborated with Gondry on more than one occasion include Daft Punk, The White Stripes, The Chemical Brothers, The Vines, Steriogram, Radiohead, and Beck. Gondry has also created numerous television commercials. He pioneered the "bullet time" technique later adapted in The Matrix,[citation needed] in a 1998 commercial for Smirnoff vodka, as well as directing a trio of inventive holiday-themed advertisements for clothing retailer Gap, Incorporated.

Gondry, along with directors Spike Jonze and David Fincher, is representative of the influx of music video directors into feature film. Gondry made his feature film debut in 2001 with Human Nature, garnering mixed reviews. His second film, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (also his second collaboration with screenwriter Charlie Kaufman), was released in 2004 and received very favorable reviews, becoming one of the most critically acclaimed films of the year. Eternal Sunshine utilizes many of the image manipulation techniques that Gondry had experimented with in his music videos. Gondry won an Academy Award alongside Kaufman and Pierre Bismuth for the screenplay of Eternal Sunshine. The style of Gondry's music videos often relies on videography and camera tricks which play with frames of reference.

Gondry also directed the musical documentary Dave Chappelle's Block Party (2006) which followed comedian Dave Chappelle as he attempted to hold a large, free concert in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. His following film, The Science of Sleep, hit theaters in September, 2006. This film stars Mexican actor Gael García Bernal, and marked a return to the fantastical, surreal techniques he employed in Eternal Sunshine.


Mark Romanek:

Music video career

After a few years writing screenplays, Romanek decided to focus on music videos and signed on with Satellite Films, a boutique division of Steve Golin's Propaganda Films. His subsequent work has come to be regarded as among the best of the medium. He has worked with many top-selling recording artists from different genres of popular music, and his videos have been given credit for making stars out of some.

One of his notable videos was for the Nine Inch Nails song "Closer". Its critical acclaim was only matched by its critical controversy, many accusing the video as being disturbing, demonic and demented (a big reason why the video was so popular among fans). Romanek would again work with Nine Inch Nails for the song "The Perfect Drug".

Romanek was given his first Grammy Award for Best Short Form Video in 1996 for "Scream," a collaboration between the pop superstar siblings Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson. The video, which cost $7 million to make, is cited as one of the most expensive ever made. Romanek won his second Grammy two years later, again with Janet Jackson, for her video "Got 'Til It's Gone."

In 2002, Romanek shot a video for Audioslave's "Cochise" in which the band performed in the midst of a prolonged pyrotechnic display of the intensity usually seen only during fireworks finales. The explosions were so loud during the night shoot in the San Fernando Valley that local police and fire departments received hundreds of calls from residents who feared that a terrorist attack was underway.

Romanek's 2002 music video for country music icon Johnny Cash's cover of Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt" has been hailed by many critics and fans alike as the most personal and moving music video ever made. The song expresses self-loathing and the futility of worldly accomplishments; this content took on a new poignancy when sung by Cash near the end of his life, quietly performing in his memorabilia-filled home, with shots of the flood-ravaged "House of Cash" museum and archival shots of a younger, cockier Cash edited in. The video was nominated for seven VMAs, winning one for cinematography, and also won Romanek his third Grammy.

Other Romanek videos that have received accolades and awards include the VMA winners "Free Your Mind" (En Vogue), "Are You Gonna Go My Way" (Lenny Kravitz), "Rain" (Madonna), "Devil's Haircut" (Beck), "99 Problems" (Jay-Z) and "Criminal" (Fiona Apple). Many others have also received nominations. In 1997, Romanek received the VMA Video Vanguard Award for his contribution to the medium. Two of Romanek's music videos, "Closer" by Nine Inch Nails, and "Bedtime Story" by Madonna, have been made part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

David Fincher:

Propaganda Films

Set on a directing career, Fincher joined video-production company Propaganda Films and started off directing music videos and commercials. Like Fincher, other directors such as Meiert Avis, David Kellogg, Michael Bay, Antoine Fuqua, Neil LaBute, Spike Jonze, Mark Romanek, Michel Gondry, Paul Rachman, Zack Snyder, Gore Verbinski, and Alex Proyas honed their talents at Propaganda Films before moving on to feature films.

Music videos

Fincher directed big budget music videos for artists such as Madonna (including "Express Yourself", "Vogue", "Oh Father" and "Bad Girl"), Billy Idol ("Cradle of Love"), Paula Abdul (including "(It's Just) The Way That You Love Me", "Straight Up", "Forever Your Girl" and "Cold Hearted"), Aerosmith ("Janie's Got a Gun"), The Rolling Stones (including "Love Is Strong"), Nine Inch Nails ("Only"), A Perfect Circle ("Judith"), Jody Watley (including "Real Love" and "Most of All"), Rick Springfield, Steve Winwood, Neneh Cherry ("Heart"), George Michael ("Freedom '90"), The Motels "Shame", Michael Jackson ("Who Is It"), The Wallflowers, Wire Train and The Outfield, including "All the Love (in the World)", "Every Time You Cry" and "No Surrender".

This information, I gathered  from the internet, but selected parts that I found relevant to my research into famous successful directors.

Music Video History

Music videos have been around since the 1920s where they were called Promotional videos. In 1923 these short films were made by Lee De Forest, featuring bands, vocalists and dancers.


In 1929 Dziga Vertov made the 40 minute Man With the Movie Camera, an experiment filming real events, paired with a musical score.


In the 1930s Max Fleischer introduced a series of sing-along short cartoons called Screen Songs, which allowed audiences to sing along easily.


In the late 1950’s a new format of filming live performances came about, such as Stravinsky’s orchestra or Tony Bennett singing becoming popular.


In 1959 the Disk-jockey/singer J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson coined the phrase “music video”, as the rise of television allowed popular music to gain exposure through programmes such as “The Ed Sullivan Show” and “American Bandstand”.


In 1960’s one of the earliest performance clips in 1960’s pop was released. It was the “promo film” made by The Animals for their breakthrough hit House of the Rising Sun (1964).


This high-quality colour clip was filmed in a studio on a specially built set and features the group lip-synching and walking around the set in a series of choreographed moves.


The video depicted the group through an edited sequence of tracking shots, close ups and long shots, and was a new form of the music video medium.


In 1964 The Beatles took the music video further, and began starring in a series of feature films which interspersed comedic dialogue with exciting and innovative musical sequences. These films helped cement their international fame and exerted a massive influence on the style and visual vocabulary of the genre.



In particular, Help! (1965) is considered one of the prime archetypes of the modern performance style music videos.

It employs rhythmic cross-cutting, contrasting long shots and close ups and usual shots and camera angles.


In 1965 The Beatles began making promo clips, known as “filmed inserts” which were distributed and broadcasted in other countries (primarily the USA) so they could promote their records without having to make in-person performances. Soon after, other British artists began to follow suit and the popularity led to the pop music phenomenon known as the “British Invasion”.


This included such artists as: Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones, The Byrds, The Kinks, The Who, etc.


In 1966 Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” deliberately eschewed the attempt at performance or narrative and simply presented Dylan standing in a city back alley silently shuffling a series of large cue cards with lyrics from the song in time to the music. The cue-card device has since been imitated in numerous other music videos.


In the 1970’s several TV shows became significant in developing and popularizing the music video genre.

In the UK, the long-running British TV show Top of the Pops began playing music videos in the late 1970’s which was extremely popular with many.


In 1975 Queen had a major hit due to their promo for Bohemian Rhapsody, and Pink Floyd’s confrontational and apocalyptic The Wall helped transform their image. In 1980, David Bowie scored his first UK number one thanks to his eye catching promo for “Ashes to Ashes”.


The 1980’s was an important decade in music for many reasons. MTV debuted in 1981 and began the era of 24-hour-a-day music on television. With this new outlet for material, the music video would grow to play a major role in popular music making by the mid-1980’s.


In December 1992, MTV began listing directors with the artist and song credits, reflecting the fact that music videos had increasingly become an auteur's medium. Directors such as Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze, Mark Romanek and Hype Williams all got their start around this time; all brought a unique vision and style to the videos they directed.


Some of these directors, included: Gondry, Jonze and F. Gary Gray, went on to direct feature films. This continued a trend that had begun earlier with directors such as Lasse Hallstrom and David Fincher.


2005 saw the release of the website YouTube, which made the viewing of online video faster and easier; MySpace's video functionality, which uses similar technology, launched in 2007.

Such websites had a profound effect on the viewing of music videos; some artists began to see success as a result of videos seen mostly or entirely online.

Other Bands and Artists websites

http://www.michaeljackson.com/us/home- Michael Jackson
http://www.beyonceonline.com/uk/home-Beyonce
http://www.ndubz.com/-Ndubz
http://www.britneyspears.com/-Britney spears
http://www.pcdmusic.com/-Pussycat dolls

Generic Conventions of Music Videos

I have been watching  a lot of music videos over a period of time, both recent and older videos, in order to establish some general rules that they all seem to follow. In the more recent music videos, the cutting is usually faster-paced so as to keep their audience interested. 

In terms of story lines and plots, they obviously vary hugely, to suit the artist and the audience that the video will be targeted towards.

Dancing and extras are a type of convention in many videos, but not all.

The main person singing has always been a convention but recently, some videos have been created as if they are films to branch out from lip syncing videos.