Research Into The Website

We decided that we were going to create the home page for our website for one of our ancillary tasks. I decided that it was going to best if i researched into the bands and artists websites that we were idolising through our music video. This was Lady Gaga, The Saturdays and The Pussycat Dolls. As i was researching i found that there was a major difference between Lady Gaga's website and the Saturdays, this was because Lady Gaga's was very dark and all of her pictures were in black and white, along with the heavy dark black background. Her website was very weird and dark and mysterious. This contrasted that of the Saturdays, who had a light blue background and their images and colours that they used were very girly and exactly what you would expect a garlands website to be like.

I think that they are so different because the views and belief of the two different acts are very different. Lady Gaga aims to be very different and controversial, this is shown through her feminist side with the picture of her body covered in raw meat - this is to show how women are viewed by men, and she is showing that she does not believe that it is right, and if men are going to treat and view women as meat, then they she will dress like it. However there is also the anti feminist side to Lady Gaga which is all of the images and videos where she is barely dressed. This shows that she does not mind about men looking at her dressed in barely nothing.

the Saturdays aim to be more family friendly and by aiming their image to be more friendly and beautiful as apose to being sexy makes their target audience range a lot wider. The fact that Lady Gaga's main image is her with red lipstick this shows that she is sticking to the theme of sexy, and relating her pictures to do with sex as the red and black colours that are consistent through the website could be to do with brothels and sex, this shows that she believes that the sex appeal that she sticks to works and sells this is why show uses it.

18th February 2011
Recording and Editing

We started some of the recording today but due to the fact that we couldn't use our original setting that we wanted to which was the dance studio at the Northwood campus due to the exam desks being up. Therefore we decided that we were going to use the drama studio at the Foxley campus, this similarly to the dance studio at the Northwood campus had dark black curtains and was a similar setting so we would be able to achieve what we wanted to from the room.

When we got into the drama studio at Foxley, t worked to our advantage as we found that there were 4 podiums that we were going to use, this was good as we could make our music video look more professional and then this would also be following the conventions of a already famous girl bands music videos. As we first originally did not plan on using the 4 separate podiums we decided that we were going to have to practise our little routine that we had made up as when we choreographed it we did not plan to have a confided space that we had to stick to. We had to make sure all of our poses that we did were confide to a small space so that they could be performed on the little areas we had each, however we found out that we did end up looking more professional and more like a garland.

This part of the filming did take us longer than anticipated, it took us about 2 hours to gain this little piece of routine footage as we kept having to re shoot the footage as we were not happy with the way it turned out the first times. Also we found that with there being four of us it was difficult to get take where all four of us were doing it perfect without any mistakes.

We decided that because there was not stage lighting in the drama studio we were going to try and create our own lighting, we did this by turning off the main lights and positioning 6 strong lighted lamps around us to make it look like spotlighting, we found that we had to position some of the lamps pointing outwards as if they were landing straight on us they were washing us out and making the colours look weird.

Also there was a smart board in the dance studio which we did not know was there, therefore we had to cover it up using black blankets, this was because there was not a black curtain covering it like the rest of the room. As this was not our original filming location, there was a lot of things that we had to do to make it to the standard that we first wanted, but in the end we were successful.

After we had finished recording we decided that we were going to edit it straight away so that we would not have lots of footage to edit all in one go if we waited until all of our recording was done. Therefore we went back to our Media class room and uploaded the footage onto the Apple Mac Computers, we decided that we were going to edit the footage in iMovie, this was because we researched into other programmes such as Adobe Premier and Studio 14 but we decided that we were going to stick to iMovie as we used this for our AS Media project and found that this was the easiest to use, and we were already familiar with the software.

For the first 20-30 seconds we decided that we wanted a lot of flashing images and fast cuts, this was to create a shocking effect at the start of the video, therefore we decided that it would be best to use the effects tool on iMovie, this meant that we could change the saturation swell which would make it look better and more professional. For the first bit of filming that we did the camera quality was not the best therefore we decided that we would change the contrast and the saturation so that it looked more rusty and rough. We went for this effect so that it still looked very professional. iMovie also gave us the options in where we were able to slow down our clips, this for the walking towards the camera bit, made it look a lot more professional and made it look more like it was a proper girlbands music video.

2nd March 2011
Recording and Editing
On the 2nd of March us as a group decided that we were going to record the second part of our music video, when we got to school and was about to begin our recording, we faces the problem that our main location that we intended on using was being used for exams. This was the main hall at the Northwood Campus. However luckily we mangaged to gain access to the Drama Studio at the Northwood campus, in this room we were able to gain the same effect that we wanted from the Main hall, this was because there were large black curtains that could be drawn all around the room so that we could create the same dark effect that we wanted to with the main hall. Also there were proper stage and performance lighing in there so we were about to create a spotlight effect or dim or brighten the lighting so that it would make the video look more proeffesional, also we were able to enhance our better features using the lighting, this was then conforming to the male gaze that i mentioned we were going to in the previous blog posts.
Also in the drama studio there are massive full length mirrors that aided us to be able to practise our routines and make them very precise before we began recording it.
I think that because of the lighting facilities that we have in the Northwood Campus Drama studio, the quality of the camera and the video cam out a lot better and a lot more proffesional looking, we were very please with how well it looked when we uploaded the footage.
We set the lighting up so that it was spotlighted in the exact place that we were going to be performing the routine, we then set up the camera so that we were exactly in the middle and we were the main attention of the whole shot. We then performed out fixed routine from many different angles, this was so that we could see which one was best and we could the edit the footage so that there were fast cuts and slow cuts of us from all the different angles.
When we watched the recorded footage back after we had uploaded it to the macs, we found that as a group we liked the routine performed from a face on angle best, therefore this is the one that we used the most of in our actual video.
On the day that we recoreded all of this footage, Charlotte who is one of the members of our group had been in a car accident, this meant that she was unable to attend the recording session, but as it was a main priority that the recording and editing needed to be done, we persisted as we always intended to do and only used the 3 of us as perfomers in the music video. We found that this still worked and we were more than happy with the footage that was produced.
Throughout this recording we all decided that we were once again going to stick to wearing black. However Me, Kirsty and Christie decided that because throughout the routine Kirsty is doing the majority of the miming and is positioned in the centre, it would be best if she wore grey leggings, this was so that there was a contrast in the colours, and to mix it up a little, from always sticking to black.
At first we were going to stick to us all performing the whole of the routine together, but then throughout the research that we did we found that solo parts from different members of each girlband was very popular, therefore this is what we did, and we all had an indiviudal part so that our music video would look and stick to the conventions like all the other girlbands do.
As Christie is very good at the editing part, she did a lot of the editing whilst me and Kirsty included our input when needed and occasionly. However we struggled as a group to make the song track Beautiful, Dirty, Rich to fit over the top of the recording and to make it fit to the music so that it all worked and fitted properly. However after myuch cutting and trimming of each clip individually we found that we made it work and achieved what we wanted to from the start.

Laura Mulveys Theory - The Male Gaze


The theory that has been developed by Laura Mulvey on the male gaze is the concept of how people are viewed by an audience. There are 3 different perspectives of this theory, these are how a male views a women, how a women sees herself or how women view other women. All of this is how an audience views people in film, how they view models or even music artists.


The male gaze is where certain lighting and camera work is used so that an audience will be made to view the certain good features of a model, actor or music artist. the camera crew will use certain lighting on certain different parts of a females body to enhance curves or make it so that lighting lingers over a certain part of the females body that willbe attractive to men.


The Male Gaze theory will not be something that appeals from a femanist point of view, this is because the women in the films, music videos or the models are being seen as sex symbols and are only being used as objects for men to look at. However magazines will be a lot more likeley to sell with a semi naked attractive woman on the front as this will then appeal to the male sex. Also if a product or film is being advertised then it will be a lot more likely to rise in sales or views if there is an attractive woman or actress on the front cover of magazines or on the poster advertising the film.


Laura Mulveys theory shows that some of the women actuallu enjoy to be looked at for the reasons that they are, this including their beauty and their clothing. In an American Society, the gaze also works through beauty pagents, where other women can also admire the other womens natrual beauty and the way that other women view other womeans natural look and the way the dress.


In our music video the Male Gaze is very apparent as we are conforming to the workings of already famous Girlbands, we are doing this as we can see what works and what is attractive to mena and what works for the bands. We are trying to look like popstars and a already formed girlband in the way that we dress and the way that we are performing and the pictures that we have taken.


Throughout our video and the pictures that we have taken we have used a lot of black clothing, this is because this colour is seen as sexy and slimming, from this you can see that the male gaze theory is apparent as we are doing it so that we look attractive to the male sex and the female sex that are going to be watching the video. We also made sure that the clothing that we were wearing was quite tightly fitted this was so that we were sticking to the conventions that the other girlbands were sticking to. Also these clothes are seen as quite revelaing, this look has worked for the famous girlbands for a lot of years so we are going to stick to the conventions.

The image that i have found above was taken from a lads magazine. From the image you can see that she is very scantily clad and from the positioning she is seen as a sex symbol. Also from the shape that her body is in and the way that she is positioned we can clearly see it is edited to great lengths as the position that she is in is not possible without a great deal of pain. This image has been changed greatly from the original to make her look more appealing to men and lads and to make her look a lot more sexy.

In our music videos and the images that we have taken we have conformed to the male gaze but not to anywhere near the level that this image has. We have not gone to the lengths of edititing where we are actually changing the way we look and taking away the oringinality from the image. We also decided that we were not going to conform to the male gaze to the depths of this picture because i disagree with the way that this image makes woman on a normal level feel. Images like this that are editied to this depth for lads magazines, will make all other normal working class women feel insecure that their body does not and will never look like this. However males now have such a high opinion about what women should lok like and this is all from images that are used in the public like this, and these are being thrust upon them daily so that a mans perspective on women is completley changed.

Lip Syncronization

As we are going to be a girl band, we needed to research into Lip Syncronization, this is also known as Mimeing. We had to research into the art of lip syncronization because this is what we were going to have to do in our music video, we wanted it to look professional and to the standard that all of the other girl bands do it. It is very important that it is done right as if it is to a poor standard then the music video will look very poor.

In this video we can see that Lady Gaga is miming, this is because she has to dance at the same time as singing which is a hard task to do. Also we can tell she is miming as when she sings live you can tell her voice sounds a lot harsher and broader and does not sound as if it is edited.