Searching for Music - Unsigned Music/Newgrounds

There are two main websites we used when searching for the music we were going to use for our video. The music had to be non-copyright and so we looked through the websites, Unsignedmusic.com and Newgrounds.com. These websites specialise in the copyright free market. They contain various genres of music by many unsigned artists and bands.

Unsigned.com is a website specifically dedicated to promoting unsigned artists and bands. This is a sort of networking site where artists try to gain some recognition. This website was a very good one to use to search for copyright music as these unsigned artists/bands would most likely not have copyright on their music and they would be more willing to allow us to use music for non-profit purposes.

This website does not just specialise in music. It has many other sections that do not include music, however on the website they have an audio section which is where you can find the copyright free music. We also used this website to search for music however we did not find a song that suited our vision.

Unfortunately we did not find the music we were going to use for our video on either of these sites, however they were very helpful in giving us a stronger idea of what direction we wanted to take this video in. For people looking for easily accessible copyright free music these websites are very useful.

Emil Nava - Case Study continued

OB management work as agents for music video directors.
Their aim is to:

• Nurture Talent
• Work with production companies
• Work with record labels
• Match the right director to the right artists

Some of the companies OB Management are involved with are as follows:

• Pulse films
• Rocket
• Agile films
• Friends
• Wonda

Some of the music videos Emil has directed are listed below.

Paloma Faith - 30 minute love affair
Client - Sony

Paloma Faith - Picking up the pieces

Client - Sony

Cost - £80 000

Ed Sheeran - Lego House

Client - Atlantic



Jessie J - Do It Like A Dude

Client - Island

Cost - £25 000

Rita Ora - R.I.P

Client - Roc Nation

Ed Sheeran - You need me

Client - Atlantic

Cost - £35 000

Jessie J - Price Tag (ft B.O.B)

Client - Island

Emils Top Tip

• Use ECU on faces wherever possible.
• Do not shoot whole of video in medium shot/long shot.

Example - Sinead O'connor - Nothing Compares to U.

Emil Nava - Case Study

Emil Nava is a music video director. He began working as a runner for various film production companies, eg Blink Productions and he currently freelances for OB Management. After working as a runner he eventually graduated to the role of Assistant Director where he would manage the video shoots. He then signed to Academy, who are the biggest music video production company, and then worked for between the Eyes and now works mainly for pulse.
Emil has now begun to make adverts, which generally have a far higher budget and production values but which allow for less creative freedom. At his busiest Emil has made 24 music videos in one year. When he began shooting videos for independent labels the budget would be as low as £5000 to £10 000. His most expensive movie to date has been for Jessie J and the budget for that video was £160 000.
His first ever budget was for the band Kid British and the track was called 'Our House', the budget for that video was £20 000. The video was shot in manchester with a cast of the local residents. It was shot over a period of a day and took 2/3 days to edit. Emil only had 10 days pre-production before he had to film, which demonstrates the tight timescales directors have to obide by.

Preliminary Task - What I've Learned

I feel that I have learnt a vast amount from the preliminary task. I learnt about the aspects of filming such as Mise-en-scene, camera angles, editing and sound. I learnt from our preliminary task that when faced with complications I need to act quickly and intelligently to avert the problems in the best way. In the filming process I will need to use a wider variety of techniques, which I feel will improve the final outcome of the actual music video. I will implement much more shots, camera angles, movement and edits than I did in the preliminary. In conclusion, I strongly feel that I have learnt a lot from doing this preliminary task and I will make a large improvement. I will improve the quality of my work and I will also improve my creativity when producing the storyline. Due to the experience gained from the preliminary task I feel that I know how to cater to the audience and make the final product into something I know they would want to see.

Preliminary Task - The video

Preliminary Task - Editing The Video

Editing the video

This shot is of the different clips that were captured to use in the video. These clips were placed and cut to fit with the backing music, it is important that the music clip is added first so the editing can be done to fit the music.

These are screen grabs of the editing of the video.
This shot (to the left) is of the audio and video clips, the black lines show where I used the toggle clip overlays tool and the pen tool to cut and fade the different clips that were used. I also used markers to indicate where the lyrics start on the song and where the person being filmed starts singing to ensure they were in time. I also had to lock the music layers to ensure they didn't move out of place.






This screen grab shows part of the video. This was used for watching the video and seeing where it needed to be cut and to ensure the lip syncing was in time.









This shows the end of the video. It shows how I faded out the music and the top clip of the video. Once this was done the video was completed and I rendered it and exported it, before uploading the video onto YouTube.

Preliminary Task - What I Did

We filmed our preliminary task, which was a practice for the actual music video we are going to create. We filmed a video to the song 'Don't Go Breaking My Heart' by Elton John (shown below).

Over a period of a day we filmed our preliminary task. We went out to the Robert Clack Lower School playground, which was the setting, and we began to film the shots which were needed. Myself, Michael, Simon and Sofiyat created and edited the film, with Myself and Simon behind the camera and Michael and Sofiyat acting out the task.

   When editing the task we had to ensure that the music was in time with what was being shown on the screen, and in time with the lip syncing. Also as it was a male and female duet we had to ensure that the male parts were sung by Michael and the female parts were sung by Sofiyat, with the duets sung by both.

Jamie Thraves Case Study

Jamie Thraves is a british film writer and director. He began making short films at his university and tried using these to break through the doors and get into the film industry. After trying for a long while to succeed his short films began to get recognition and he won numerous awards at film festivals. He used this to get his foot through the door, and joined the video production company Factory Films.

He started out making very low budget music videos costing about £5000 each until he got a 'big break' and was chosen to do a big budget video.

Radiohead - Just
£100,000 budget

Shot in three days





He then got the chance to do a second big budget video.




Coldplay - The Scientist
£200,000 budget
Shot in three days




These videos made him a well known and respected name in the music video industry.

Jamie has used the music videos to get into the film business, so far he has shot 3 feature films:
The Low Down
The cry of the owl
Treacle Jr.

Key music video conventions

There are various factors that make up a music video.
These are:

• Lip syncing
• Dancing
• Product placement
• Instruments - Piano/Keyboard, Guitar, Drums etc.
• Narrative
• Props
• Settings
• Costumes
• Girls
• Lighting
• Facial expressions/Body language

Music video success criteria

There are many methods and factors that can be used to measure the success of a music video.
These Include:

• Word of mouth
• Number of hits on you tube
• Newspaper articles/TV Reports
• How many times the video has been shown on television
• The amount of publicity (e.g. Rebecca Black - Friday.. Bad song but received a lot of publicity due to this)
• The amount of downloads the song receives
• The chart position of the song
• The CD sale
• The amount of awards the video wins

These are all factors that are considered when measuring the success of a music video, they all contribute to how successful the video is.

In the recent years there has been a large switch in the importance of you tube from television channels such as MTV, Kiss etc.. You tube is now the dominating force in showing music videos as most viewing of music videos is now done online meaning television is used less and less are the online technology improves.