Research and Planning: Pitch and Feedback

Teacher Feedback

Mr Escott: "Don't get caught in the trap of just visually translating the lyrics!"

Peer feedback

• 30 second lip-sync was visually appealing
• Lots of ideas for digital convergence
• Thorough explanations
• Cast are comfortable with camera and play an instrument
• Evidence of past editing experience - good!

Commentary: What I learnt

    Due to a lack of planning, when I began editing my 30 second lip-sync test, I had realised that I hadn't really stuck to the narrative route I was going for. I know it's not that significant since it was just a 30 second test but it reminded me to - as Mr Escott had said - not "get caught in the trap of visually translating the lyrics". So, during the period between September and December where we are editing, I'll bare this in mind!

    Just a note: I hadn't actually included ideas for the 30 second video that goes on the website in my pitch, but I was asked verbally by Mr Escott to which I threw in my ideas of a 'Meet The Artist' video or an artist interview.

NEA Brainstorm

Music Video Plans

My three song options for the music video (alternative/indie):

• One Time - Beabadoobee
• Make Me A Better Man - Malcolm Todd
• M2M - Cody Jon

    One Time and Make Me A Better Man are more angsty, and fit more into the "alternative" label. My vision for those two songs are gloomy weather, night-time scenes, but the setting would be more domestic like a house or local places as travelling far may potentially get impractical if reshooting is necessary. If the weather isn't gloomy during the summer, then I'll rely more on the night-time to get more of that angsty vibe.

    One Time is about a girl who is reminiscing about a previous relationship "one time". She does this one time because she has moved on, and there is no explainable feeling behind this song - not even regret, nor wonder of what it could have been. Moreso disappointment! There is lots of bleak imagery, but other than this, there isn't really much guideline for narrative. This could be a good song to choose if I am feeling confident and if I can properly storyboard each line. 

    In a similar fashion, Make Me A Better Man is about a guy who is experiencing unrequited feelings for a girl who seems to completely disregard his feelings. This is more descriptive, with lyrics like, "there's something 'bout the way you're looking around // you're looking bored, you're looking at me like you look at the ground" - overall, the lyrics have lots of narrative potential. This also requires bleak weather, a domestic setting, and I can use my local town for this.

    This is a bit of a curveball in my three options - M2M by Cody Jon is less alternative and more indie pop, upbeat and lovely jubbly. It's 2000s inspired with very descriptive lyrics, and in all honesty, I am leaning towards this the most. With lyrics like, "dance in the park in the night // go into every cinema 'til we find what we like" really fits my vision of a cute little summery music video of two friends coming to a realisation of feelings for one another. It aligns with the Gen Z/young adult audience that we are meant to be aiming towards with our NEAs, too, as romance is very popular in this age group. To me, it gives the vibes of a classic feel-good movie. As a music video, I have already envisioned taking creative liberty by overlaying various doodle animations and whatnot to my clips and ultimately personalising it to give it a personal teenage diary/scrapbook feel. Writing this now, I am certain that I will pick this song and will begin storyboarding to prep for filming in the summer!

    M2M, however, already has a music video - but it's literally just the artist lip-syncing in various locations. There is not a single ounce of inspiration that I could get from it, nor could I plagiarise anything (intentionally or by accident) as it's a bit dull for a music video. So hopefully I can bring it to life. 

Richard Dyer and Andrew Goodwin - Star Theory and Paradox

 

In Twice's "What is Love?" music video, many many examples of intertextuality can be found. The video opens with the group at a sleepover, then depicts each member as a popular and/or iconic piece of media. Some examples of intertextuality included are The Princess Diaries, Lapland, Pulp Fiction, Ghost, Romeo and Juliet, etc. 

Richard Dyer's Star Theory can be seen in Twice as the group are very carefully styled and done up, showing how carefully manufactured they are as stars - this is point one. Point two concerns stars as a commodity: these girls are selling themselves as commodities, dancing, and overall serving as entertainment value rather than selling themselves with their singing talent alone. For point three, we could say that Twice represents the ideology of teenage hood, especially for young girls, which can be seen in the whole sleepover thing. And the intertextuality in itself also helps to feed the idea of the ideology of teenage hood as the films they have chosen to reference are films that typically, young girls would watch.

The paradox of the star by Andrew Goodwin can also be seen in the music video as Twice are simultaneously being represented as teenagers having a sleepover, as well as main characters in films and celebrities dancing to promote their music. What this does is create a sense of relatability and the idea that they are ordinary, while also positioning them far away as idols to be looked up to as figures of entertainment. Twice, in this music video, are also very present in their fan base as they regularly do interviews and game shows, but are also absent in their higher nature of being an idol. This generates fandom very effectively as fans are likely to be hooked onto the fact that these girls have charming personalities despite the fact that these personalities are carefully engineered and crafted specially for the camera.

So, in short, Richard Dyer's star theory is: stardom is a construction, manufactured purposefully with a specific persona extremely different to how the person may be in their private lives; stars are a commodity, a product, whose purpose is to make money with their existence; and that the star is an ideology, and promotes a certain perspective on life.

Music Videos

 

In 'It's A Malcolm Todd Christmas', there is an iconic example of intertextuality 17 seconds in of the artist and his band on a crossroad - a clear reference to the Beatles' album 'Abbey Road'. I think this is humorous as the artist, Malcolm Todd, is American and just used whatever he associated with England in his music video as it was filmed there.

'Chest Pain' by Malcolm Todd largely makes reference to the film 'The Notebook', wherein the male protagonist sends 365 letters to his ex-partner. The iconic quote from the film, "I wrote you 365 letters. I wrote you everyday with a year" is intertextualised in this music video with the voiceline, "I dm'ed you 365 times. I dm'ed you everyday for a year!". Malcolm Todd turns the 2004 film into a charming 2025 rom-com all condensed into 3 minutes and 54 seconds, aligning perfectly with a Gen Z audience. The entire music video is a reference to The Notebook.

In 'Take A Bite' by Beabadoobee, there is a lyric "wanna do it all over again" followed by the same clip of her replaying again. Although this isn't some sophisticated film technique, I do really like it and think it serves a purpose enhancing the meaning of the song too, with lyrics like "moving backwards", and "stuck in reverse".

History of Music Infographic

 

Big Issue Cover

In my cover, I tried to capture the pop culture side of the Big Issue. I chose a story that was controversial, and that had been appearing on my social media feeds most prevalently during the past week.

Following the release of the Netflix show, 'Simon Cowell: The Next Act', questions were raised about the boy band that Cowell had formed in the show - in particular, his choice of name. At the end of the show, it is revealed that he had named the band "December 10".

When considering boy bands, one that comes to mind after One Direction is BTS - that is why Cowell's boy band has recently gained traction for "shading" BTS, saying, "If BTS can sell flipping Wembley stadium, we can sell the flipping Pluto in five minutes".

The Big Issue often focuses on issues like power imbalances in society. Simon Cowell represents Western, mainstream music power, whereas BTS are an untraditional, fan-driven phenomenon. This is not just pop drama — it’s a comment on Western media arrogance, cultural bias, and a resistance to globalisation in music. I think this is quite on brand for The Big Issue, as it frequently critiques mainstream institutions. 

My cover brings about the big question: why is a big, globally successful group being talked down to? Well, BTS are often framed as outsiders, and are not taken seriously compared to Western acts. The Big Issue is known to champion those dismissed or misrepresented by powerful industries.

So, what I aimed to achieve in creating this cover (although the execution… is questionable!) is to align with The Big Issue’s socially aware, critical tone by using celebrity conflict to expose the deeper issues of power and inequality. However, next time I’d improve my execution as it just looks kind of tacky.

SHSG Advert

 

This was my first time working with Photoshop, and this project was mostly to familiarise myself with the program and experiment with the tools that it offers. As a result, the completed poster is quite scrappy, not to mention that I've had to use a screenshot of the image because the jpg file was too large to put here. However, I chose to doodle on the advert, playing with the various pen features on Photoshop, and I put drop shadows on the images and the text. I think my main concern was the composition - everything is a little bit all over the place, but the photographs that my group and I took came out great, and I'm proud of our first attempt. If I could change anything about this advert, I'd change the font of "Choose SHSG"; I wasn't aware that we could go beyond the default system fonts already included with Photoshop.