3AM Kate Nash Lyrics

The main reason we chose this song was due to the lyrcis telling a story and us as directors, being able to link visuals to the lyrics. This is important as Andrew Goodwin said it is one of the '7 Key Conventions of a Music Video'.

3AM LYRICS

How did it get to 3 am?
I wish that I could call
But I know that you're probably asleep.
Do I really have to get used
To being alone again?
I wish that you were here
You must know that you aren't my best friend
Do we really have to dream?
I'm perfectly happy here
In reality, I'm wide awake
I think about the things
That I can do tomorrow but I'm trapped
Cause it's so dark outside and everybody else is fast asleep
My hand is glued to the remote
The TV has already said
Good night, I'm frozen in my seat
I want to move but I'm afraid
I suffer from anxiety
And I don't want to be alone!
You see, I want to be with

You
You ooh ooh
You ooh ooh
You ooh ooh
Yeah baby

You are the one I think of on a night
And on a night it feels so right
I miss your arms
The way you kiss me
The way you pull me in so tight
It makes me sick the way we fight
When I want you so bad tonight
Yeah baby
You are the one I think of on a night
And on a night it feels so right
I miss your arms
The way you kiss me
The way you pull me in so tight
It makes me sick the way we fight
When I want you so bad tonight

I want to change my need to want
My desires, change my route
Passion is tricky, love is tender
Love is sweet, it hurts, it's you and me
And in one fatal jump she's
Cut off my electricity
And now I'm really stumped
I'll make forever, take forever
Leave the house, it's laugh or cry
And if you cry, you're taken out
There won't be room for mistakes here
I'm afraid this is all or nothing
And I haven't got a hope
At least I thought I had a friend
Turns out I was just a joke
I'm holding on to what I've got
I'm tryna get just what I want
I'll pick the pieces up tomorrow
Cut the pill and take my chances with a half
Yeah baby

You are the one I think of on a night
And on a night it feels so right
I miss your arms
The way you kiss me
The way you pull me in so tight
It makes me sick the way we fight
When I want you so bad tonight
Yeah baby
You are the one I think of on a night
And on a night it feels so right
I miss your arms
The way you kiss me
The way you pull me in so tight
It makes me sick the way we fight
When I want you so bad tonight
If only...

You
You ooh ooh
You ooh ooh
You ooh ooh
You ooh ooh
You ooh ooh
You ooh ooh

New Song Choice

After much deliberation myself and my co-director agreed on the song '3AM' by Kate Nash.



We wanted to keep within the genre of a pop song and we feel this song suit the style we want for our video too. We wish to include elements of stop motion and green screening. Now we have decided on a song we can start working on the content of our music video and the shot types etc.

Slight Change of Plan!

After our inspiring trip to the BFI conference my co-director and I came to the joint conclusion that, after seeing other well done student music videos, we weren't too keen on our initial ideas and/or the song choice. We knew it would be a big risk, time-wise, to scrap all ideas and head back to the drawing board but we felt that our original idea wouldn't demonstrate or allow us to use our much developed editing and directorial skills.

My co-director and I now have to come up with a better video idea that we are both happy with.

Music Video Director - Prano Bailey-Bond

AT the BFI Music Video Conference there was a guest speaker who was a music video producer and director called Prano Bailey-Bond (www.pranobaileybond.com). Here is her director's showreel featuring clips of her work from music videos to short films and film trailers:



She is a multi-award winning director and editor and has created videos for the likes of Imelda May and Morcheeba. Her works has been recognised at events and festivals including the BFI London Film Festival and the UKMVA's.

"Her works invokes imaginative worlds, touching on magical realism and fusing dark vocabulary with eerie allure, revealing how beauty resides in strange places. She is fascinated by life's ironies and contradictions."

Here is her most famous piece of work:

BFI: Making Music Videos Conference

On Thursday 26th November, my media studies class and I went to the BFI Southbank to a conference about the making of music videos. It was a really helpful day for us and gave us a lot of inspiration for our own video. Here are the notes I took:

Music Videos - What is it?

• Length of a song or longer
• Usually features the artist/band
• Can tell a story
• Has to be visually memorable

History Of Music Videos

1930s - Colour Box

• Colourful 
• Patterns in time with music
• No people in video
• Lights, textures and scratched films

1940s - Frim Fram Sauce

• Artist present
• One location
• Black and white
• Introduces the idea of a sub-story (imagination)

1950s

• Artists had their own music TV shows to perform their music
• Most artists had a film career too e.g. Elvis

1960s - These Boots Are Made For Walking

• More of a narrative
• Black and white
• Wider range of camera shots (hand held shots too)
• People i.e. dancers around artists to make them seem more popular
• Scoptiones introduced - jukebox for videos
• Narrative slowly introduced
• Simple
• Mainly filmed in studio

1970s - Bohemian Rhapsody

• More advanced
• Layered shots to add variation
• 2 different stories
• Lights/textures

1980s - Rat Race and I Want To Dance With Somebody

• MTV introduced in 1981.
• Narrative
• Artists 
• Studio
• Different locations
• Wider range of shots; low angle, pans, zoom ins, zoom outs etc.
• Reference to song title (Rat Race)
• Whitney Houston's video was the 56th video ever played, also first black artist's video on MTV

1990s - Drop

• Bigger budgets - only 40 videos hit the $1 million price to make. 
• Scream by Michael Jackson costed $10 million to make
• This video they had to learnt the lyrics backwards
• Used dollies to film.

2015 - Hello

• 485 millions views
• 27.7 million within the first 24 hours
• Fastest video to reach 100 million views in 5 days
• Different types of phones to represent the 'hello'
• Extremely detailed close ups; the steam and fire on the stove
• POV shots as flashbacks

Case Study: 'I Wanna Dance With Somebody'

• 17 out of 21 shots
• 21 seconds screen time (shots per second)
• Conventions; dancing, exhibitionism, close up and extreme close ups, irregular framing/fragmented bodies, looking at camera
• Colour changing backgrounds 
• Bright colours
• Different scene for verses
• Slow mo hair flicks
• Several costume changes
• Dance routines

Conventions

• Genre characteristics 
• Relationship between lyrics and visuals
• Relationship between sound and visuals
• Sells artist as a star
• Voyeurism 

Relationship: Lyrics and Visuals

• Dance partners
• Night time
• Key symbols - throw guys away

Relationship: Sound and Visuals

• Look changes to music to music - heat = warm colours (orange, red, yellow)
• Editing paced changes with temp

Sells Artist

• 'Lonely heart song' - object of desire
• Romantic obsession
• Obsessive close ups 

Voyeurism 

• Frames within frames
• Looking over fence/through window
• Fragmented and objectified bodies

Intertextuality 

• Film strip
• Multiple dance genres
• Costume/set changes

Making Music Videos

• Same frame, different shots
• One position for lighting and camera
• Repeat use of props
• Consistent theme/genre of characters
• Green screen/ studio performance.
• Do one idea well
• Simple narrative
• Controlled environment
• D-SLR camera
• Lights - grease proof paper to soften and gel rolls
• Fans, confetti, wind, glitter etc.

10 Steps To Making Music Videos

1. Start Performance

• Technical kit
• Locations prep
• Props/costumes
• Time frame

2.  Warm Up

• Lip sync practice 
• Photoshoot with artists
• Ancillary task practice

3. Recce

• Limit locations 
• Take photos
• Make sure location has access to lights and power
• Risk assessment

4. Pitch

• 'Treatment'
• Moodboard 
• Ancillary task (advert and website) 

5. Planning 

• Plan your ideas, don't get carried away
• Re-plan to ensure idea becomes reality

6. Plan Everything

• Story boards
• People, places and props - in advanced
• Shoot schedule 
• Technical prep - SD cards, batteries, lights
• Shoot early - not near the deadline.
• Make sure performers are rehearsed

7. Shoot

• 10 times with different set ups
• Have plenty of cutaways
• Shoot extra angles and lighting changes
• Get lots of close ups
• Motivate performers

8. Editing 

• Sync all clips
• Paper edit - storyboard
• Rough cuts and get feedback

9. Evidence 

• Show all research
• Photos of the shoot
• Behind the scenes 
• Screenshots

10. Evaluation

• Make it exciting
• Directors commentary, 'DVD Extras' 
• Interviews on Director's website

All information from this day can be found here: http://projectmusicvideo.blogspot.co.uk/

My co-director and I have had some ideas about changing our music video's story and we will meet and discuss the ideas and inspiration from the conference to finalise our ideas.

Here are some picture of us at the media conference:

Outside the BFI.

Sat in our seats.

Green Screen Error

When editing our green screen footage for our 9 frame shot, we discovered that there was a shadow in every clip to the right of the shot. This is most likely due to our performers standing too close to the green screen. However, we overcame this issue by using the 'touch-up' tool which allowed us to erase the shadow.

We also experimented with the colours in the clip, resulting in our performers looking much less washed out by the green screen and the colours appeared more 'sharp'. This resulted in our green screened shots looking a lot more professional. When we next use a green screen we must ensure to tell our performers to stand further away from the green screen.

Editing The 9 Frame Shot

After we imported all our footage from filming on 17th, into iMovie, my co director and I were keen to figure out how to achieve our aim of using a 9 frame shot. Neither of us had ever used this type of shot before so we had to experiment on iMovie to find how to achieve our aim. Aside from just experimenting, we also watched many YouTube video tutorials on how to do it. We came to the realisation that this will be a lengthy process but will be worth it when we see the final shot all put together. Here are the steps we had to take;

1. Firstly we had to choose a background for our green screen, to just experiment with, we chose a white one. At this moment in time, we are just focussing on the 9 frame shot, so only added a background to the shots for this.
2. Then we had to export all our clips (including footage we won't be using in the 9 frame shot) and save it as an MP4 file.
3. We had to then create a new project and insert a screen for text. This is a plain black screen that has a textbox reading 'text here.' We got rid of the text so we were left with a plain black background. This background is meant to have text that goes over clips. This background allows us to then place our own footage on top of it.
4. In the new project, we then inserted our MP4 file and deleted the other footage that was not needed for this frame. We then placed the greenscreened clips (with the white background) on top of the black text background, in the iMovie 'timeline'.
5. Then we clicked on the white background footage and selected 'picture in picture' and the clips then appear on the black background. We re-sized and moved the clips so the girls were in the middle column and in a line; Alicia on top, Imogen in the middle and Emma at the bottom.

My co-director and I, both learnt new skills when editing this frame and when it is complete we will upload this onto YouTube.