New Music Video

This is our completed music video of 'Jar of Hearts' by Christina Perri.

Promotional Album Advert Analysis 3

The poster promoting Cheryl Cole’s new album uses a blur effect which could link to the audience who would be driving past the billboard and would experience the same effect whilst in the car. The blur then merges into the artist who is in the centre frame and the main focus of the advert. Many people would know Cheryl Cole as she is famous for cosmetic adverts, therefore a wide variety of audiences would have seen her on the television, making her well known.

The font used is styled to look like handwriting which adds a personal touch to the poster. The artist’s name, ‘Cheryl Cole’, is also in the handwriting style font; this could be to represent her signature which also makes the poster more individual and unique.

Another key selling point of the poster is an example of one of her songs from her new album, “The Brand New Album November 1 includes Promise This”, which is presented to the audience in a simplistic and computerised font. This suggests that the artist is more modern which would attract younger audiences. Whereas the posters from Madonna and Britney Spears are designed to attract and maintain a target audience from when they were in their primes.

In comparison to the previous adverts, this poster is plainer as the colours used are neutral with the artist displaying a relaxed expression. This informs the audience that her music will not be retro like Madonna’s or as upbeat like Britney Spears’s songs.

Promotional Album Advert Analysis 2

This is a promotional poster advertising Britney Spears’ new album “Circus”. The main focus is the artist’s name, “Britney Spears”, which shows that she is well known and her audience would recognise the artist without the use of an image.

The album name is “Circus” which links strongly to the theme of the poster as it reflects the style of a carnival. This is similar to the Madonna poster as it also uses vibrant colours to represent festivity. This theme also informs the audience on what to expect from her music and the style of her new songs. This is shown through the bold primary colours and also the design around ‘Circus’, above ‘Britney Spears’ and underneath ‘Womanizer’ which could all be acting as borders to highlight the main focuses on the poster. This draws the audience’s eyes to the most important areas and highlights the key words on the poster.

The text for the artist’s name is very bold, emphasising that this is the key feature of the poster and also reflects the carnival theme.

The poster also contains a selling point, “Featuring the #1 hit Womanizer”, and therefore targeting a specific audience and age group who would know this song and who would want to purchase her album. This differs from Madonna’s poster as no songs were advertised on her poster as a selling point.

Promotional Album Advert Analysis 1

This is a poster promoting Madonna’s new greatest hits album entitled “Celebration”. The poster seems to be located in a train station which could be because of who the advert is targeting. For example, many people would use the train station to travel to work. Therefore, the poster could be trying to sell the album to an older audience. Also adults would be most familiar with her music, particular her older songs from when she was most famous in the 1980s. This could also relate to the design of the poster which is intended resemble pop art, which was also famous in that era.

The use of vibrant colours also represents the 1980s retro style which the target audience could relate to as they would be the most familiar with this time. The use of bold and striking colours would also strongly contrast against the dull and dingy location of the train station, making the poster stand out. This is particularly emphasised on the colours used on her face which could relate to the album name, “Celebration”, as her makeup reflects a party atmosphere and relates to her style of music. However the background of the poster is faded in colour, giving it an old appearance which could relate to the age of some of her more well-known songs. The background could also be designed to look like a newspaper with hints of writing beneath Madonna. This could be representing her dominance in the media, especially in the 1980s, as she is covering the entire background which creates emphasis.

The writing on the poster is designed to look like graffiti, which links to the pop art theme. The text is also surrounded by brightly coloured paint splatters linking to the use of graffiti in streets, especially in the 1980s. This also represents Madonna’s music in this time as being rebellious. The text on the poster is capitalised and looks as if it has been stamped onto the poster, this could be highlighting the artists importance and therefore creating an impression on the audience.

The main focus of the poster is the image of Madonna because she is the selling point and she is easily recognised by a variety of audiences. The poster seems to aim to not only sell the album, but the artist as well. This is mainly shown through the amount of emphasis on Madonna and little reference to the album itself. The image of Madonna appears to be based on Marilyn Monroe, who both cultural icons in that era and also relatable to particularly an older audience. This also highlights the familiarity of Madonna as she is now a household name. Therefore, a very limited amount of text is used on the poster and there is no examples of some of her most famous songs as audiences would be aware of her music.

Editing Process

After completing all of the filming and the picture taking, we moved into the editing process. We have been editing for a few weeks now, due to the still images editing is very time consuming so we’ve spent extra hours at college to edit our raw footage. First we uploaded all of our pictures and clips from the camera to the Macs, we then added them to ‘Final Cut Express’, an advanced software which is a massive step up from the editing programme we used as our AS level being ‘iMovie’. Final cut allowed our music video to be edited successfully so it looked professional.

After we had uploaded all our footage onto Final Cut Express, we began to time line our music video together as a group on the software. We had various shots which we trailed and tested in order to find the best order for the letters journey combined with the shots of the girl’s journey. We then began to starting experimenting with various filters and different effects to make the locations of the letter flow steadily. We wanted to create an effect that would still allow the transitions to run smoothly and keep the realism.

After watching the music video ‘We Found Love’ by ‘Rihanna’ and seeing the romantic memories of the character at the beginning of the music video, we realised how powerful the opening was due to the voiceover. We decided that this would be good a technique to involve in our own music video. The voice over was then recorded on the Macs which we then overlapped on top of the flashback montage. After much consideration, we decided to change the montage to black and white to show a difference in time and clearly establish to the audience that the happy relationship is in the past. This linked back to our AS piece where we also used flashbacks to show past events, we also de-saturated and muted the colour to show time difference which added a greater effect to our video. For the background music to the voiceover and during the flashback sequence, we used a piano rendition of ‘Jar of Hearts’ to add emphasis to the voiceover. We also thought that it fitted nicely with the flashback, rather than just leaving it plain.

Once we had filmed the girl’s journey we integrated the shots onto the timeline and then we could apply the final touches of editing. We added simple things that had a big impact on our music video. For example, the scrunching of the paper we echoed to demonstrate the boy’s frustration and anger. We used a lot of slow motion in our moving shots such as when the girl walks through a puddle, the slow motion enabled us to show the water rippling which added effect. Now we have completed the music video, ensuring that it is finished to the best of our abilities, we will upload our video onto YouTube to gain feedback from our viewers.

Filming Process

During the filming process of our music video, we didn’t keep to a straight structure of what should be filmed on certain days and so we decided to film whenever our whole group could. We thought that this would be best due to the short amount of time we had to film everything. We also found that it was important to be flexible with this process as it took a long time to take all the pictures needed for the stop motion, so we had to take our time and not rush with this.

We decided upon using locations that could easily be accessed so we could film as much stop motion as possible in the area. We used the school grounds as this was readily available to us and we also used the streets located around the school. We also used more rural areas, such as the Roaches, in order to fully capture the length and scale of the letter’s journey. The main reason for local locations was the time limit that we had and also the lack of transport we had as a group. We were determined to not rely on people's schedules as we did not want to get behind and lose time on the editing process. However, we tried not to make our locations too repetitive and boring and so using places such as The Roaches and The Rudyard Track created more variety in the shots. This made it more interesting as well and it further indicated the length of the journey for the letter. Using more rural locations enhanced the idea of isolation for the letter as well, therefore creating a deeper meaning of the relationship becoming distant. This allowed the letter to represent a metaphor of the relationship, suggesting the relationship is fully broken when the girl throws the letter from the cliff and as she climbs to the higher ground.

 

It took us roughly three weeks to film the entire music video, which is relatively short considering the amount of work that was created in the time limit. The majority of this time was spent taking photos of the letter to create the stop motion sequence. During the filming process we took thousands of photos as well as gaining a decent amount of moving footage.

During the filming process, one of the biggest problems we experienced was lighting. Because the majority of our stop motion footage was taken outside, we found that the light tended to change in every shot. However, from looking at the photos, this is not as noticeable in some shots and in others we thought it actually looked quite effective. Another problem we experienced was the weather. As we were trying to stick the letter to the ground or onto objects, the wind tended to move the paper which made to difficult to shoot as we needed to maintain the continuity of the letter’s movements to make the stop motion flow smoothly.

New Narrative

Our new music video focuses around the theme of heartbreak and a sense of lost love. Therefore the meaning in our product will be displayed in a less abstract way compared with our old narrative which predominantly focused on ideas of childhood and essences of postmodernity. Our new narrative is also a lot more relatable to our target audience than the previous idea as many people have experienced heartbreak. However, if our audience haven’t experienced it they would understand the emotions and feelings associated with this situation.

Our narrative opens with a flashback with two characters, a boy and a girl, who are in a relationship. The scene will show them hugging and holding hands in a field. The use of a flashback helps to establish and depict the happy times of the relationship. This scene in particular is fairly clichéd in how we wanted to express the love between the two characters, but we knew that it would allow the audience to clearly establish that they are in a relationship. We thought that a voiceover would also be effective over this scene to give a retrospective view from the girl after the break up. This establishes the emotion of the song and video from the onset.

We also decided to use a voiceover over the top of piano rendition of ‘Jar of Hearts’ during this flashback scene. We got the idea to do a voiceover from Rihanna's song 'We Found Love' as her video begins with a voiceover which our group thought was very effective and added to the music video as whole. We thought about what could be said in the voiceover and after some research, we found a quote from Marilyn Monroe which we decided to use:
"I believe that everything happens for a reason.
People change so that you can learn to let go.
Things go wrong so that you can appreciate them when they're right.
You believe lies so that you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself.
Sometimes things fall apart so that better things can all fall together."

We thought that this quote would be ideal to use in our music video as it highlighted the girl character’s feelings at that stage of the relationship. We also believed that it was emotive and that is also begun to pinpoint the beginnings of a break up. This would allow the audience to recognise that the relationship won’t remain happy during the music video. This would hopefully be seen through the synchronous music and visual aspect. These techniques of a voiceover and a flashback were combined to hopefully notify the audience on the initiation of the break up between the two characters. The background music we chose would also add to the emotion displayed in the flashback and the piano adds to the unhappiness as pianos are typically associated with feelings of sadness.

As the song begins, we see the boy writing a love letter to the girl. After a failed attempt, he screws up the piece of paper and throws it on the desk and texts her saying 'I love you.' We then see the letter opens up by itself and crawls down the side of the desk. The letter travels down a set of stairs and into a kitchen and climbs up a fridge. The fridge has a photograph of the girl who is standing and smiling in the park. We intend to get the letter to climb into the picture using stop motion and then the letter will follow her as she walks away. We would then see a graphic match to the next shot of the letter travelling through the woods as it attempts to find the girl.

Throughout the music video the letter will carry on following the girl through a variety of different locations, such as parks and streets where it will gradually dirtier and rugged. We will also see shots of the girl walking alone in a quiet area and we will integrate the scenes of the letter and the girl together. This will highlight the isolation that the girl feels which will then suggest the tension between the two characters.  Towards the end of our music video, we will see the letter travel in a car away to some cliffs. The girl will be seen sitting on a rock near the edge of a cliff, looking out into the distance as the letter crawls up to her. She looks towards the letter and picks it up to read it. She then proceeds to the edge of a rock edge before scrunching up the letter and throwing it off the edge. The girl will then walk higher up the cliffs towards the edge and stops with a fade to black. The video will then end on a cliff-hanger, leaving the audience unclear as to what happened to the girl.

The main goal of our music video is to create emotion that could be relatable to our target audience. The idea of the travelling letter humanises it which creates sympathy for the letter as it gets battered and bruised on its journey to find the girl. We will then interject the clips of the girl to create more sympathy for the situation. The song itself also adds to the emotion that we were trying to create and highlights meaning and a message to the audience.

'Jar of Hearts' by Christina Perri - Lyric Anaysis

Lyrics:

I know I can’t take one more step towards you
cause all that’s waiting is regret
don’t you know I’m not your ghost anymore
you lost the love I loved the most

I learned to live, half alive

and now you want me one more time

Who do you think you are?
Runnin’ ’round leaving scars
collecting a jar of hearts
tearing love apart
you’re gonna catch a cold
from the ice inside your soul
don’t come back for me
who do you think you are?

I hear you’re asking all around
if I am anywhere to be found
but I have grown too strong
to ever fall back in your arms

I’ve learned to live, half alive

and now you want me one more time

Who do you think you are?
runnin’ ’round leaving scars
collecting a jar of hearts
and tearing love apart
you’re gonna catch a cold
from the ice inside your soul
don’t come back for me
who do you think you are?

It took so long just to feel alright
remember how to put back the light in my eyes
I wish I had missed the first time that we kissed
cause you broke all your promises
and now you’re back
you don’t get to get me back

Who do you think you are?
running around leaving scars
collecting a jar of hearts
and tearing love apart
you’re gonna catch a cold
from the ice inside your soul
so don’t come back for me
don’t come back at all

x2

Who do you think you are?
Who do you think you are?
Who do you think you are?

Analysis:

The lyrics to Jar of Hearts by Christina Perri seem to be based on the theme of heartbreak which is evident from the first line, “I know I can’t take one more step towards you ‘cause all that’s waiting is regret”.  The song was written after she had been through a divorce with her husband and therefore represents her feelings and emotions at that time, "I have grown too strong to ever fall back into your arms." Heartbreak is the main focus and is deeply embedded into the lyrics through the use of tone that can be sensed throughout the song.    

The song shows how much she loved her husband as the lyrics suggest how much he has affected her life, "I learned to live half alive". This could be highlighting that even though she has moved on; she has lost a part of herself which sends a very powerful message to the audience. However, there is a clear sense of betrayal and heartbreak in the lyrics, "Collecting your jar of hearts and tearing love apart". This line in particular creates a heavy amount of tone as her target audience may be able to relate to the song if they have experienced a break up. This creates a strong sense of empathy towards the artist.

She also displays a lot of hatred towards the man, “You’re gonna catch a cold from the ice inside your soul”, representing how heartless he was, whereas the singer is represented as powerful, “But I have grown too strong to fall back into your arms." Her strength is further portrayed through the line,” And now you’re back you don’t get to get me back”, showing that she has moved on and is a stronger person from it.  These lines would also be relatable to her audience if they have experienced a similar situation themselves.  "I wish I missed the first time that we kissed" suggests her resentment of the relationship. The lyrics mainly highlight around the theme of heartbreak which we will incorporate into our video.

New Artist Research - Christina Perri

Name: Christina Perri
Age: 25
Born: 19^th August 1986
Birthplace: Philadelphia

Christina Perri grew up in Bensalem, Pennsylvania, with her older brother, Nick, who formerly played guitar with Shinedown, Silvertide, Perry Farrell and Matt Sorum. She taught herself how to play guitar when she was 16 years old.

Perri moved to Los Angeles when she was 21 years old and later that year she got married and began to produce music videos. Unfortunately, she divorced 18 months later and moved back to Philadelphia by the end of 2009 and during this time she wrote "Jar of Hearts" where she eventually moved back to Los Angeles.

Perri's song "Jar of Hearts" was featured on ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ during the 30^th June 2010 show. Following its exposure on the show, "Jar of Hearts" sold 48,000 digital copies, debuting on the Billboard Hot 100 at number 63 and reaching number 28 on Billboard's Hot Digital Songs. Within a month, it had sold more than 100,000 copies. Then, her music video for "Jar of Hearts" landed on the VH1 top 20 music video countdown.

Perri's debut album is titled ‘Lovestrong’ and was released on 10^th May 2011. It follows the release of "Arms", its lead single, released on 15^th March. Her new single, "A Thousand Years" is to appear on ‘The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn’ movie soundtrack.

Changes to our Music Video

Our group have decided to start a new music video and there are many reasons for this change, one of which was the problem that we encountered after uploading our footage to the Macs.  The editing software that we would be using, ‘Final Cut Express’, didn’t allow us to successfully create a split screen which was an affect that was very important in our narrative. This was to portray the very different lives of two characters and split screen was required in order to make this as clear as possible and also understandable for the audience. However, the split screen effect that was available on the programme didn’t work out the way we had originally hoped and this would have left our video with only two very small boxes opposite each other for a large proportion of our film. This would considerably affect the meaning of the narrative and the message that our story gave which would create confusion for our audience.

A problem that we found with our footage was the mise-en-scene. We found that we had not paid enough attention to how each character should be represented through the mise-en-scene and in particular, the difference between the two houses. An error that we noticed in these scenes was that we realised that we didn’t take down the family photos that were in the background which, although were perfect for Doug, weren’t ideal for Dougie’s scenes as we wanted to portray feelings of isolation in his character. Another problem that we found was issues with lighting. As the majority of our scenes were filmed indoors, it was difficult to make the scenes with Doug appear lighter and the scenes with Dougie appear darker. We found that many of the shots appeared dull when we saw them on the screen and soon realised that we would have to re-film a large proportion of it. We then believed that the video would still not reflect our true potential and therefore after a discussion with our group and our teachers, we decided it would be best to start a new video and a new narrative.

We began brainstorming ideas that were similar to what our previous idea was based on where we discussed using the song 'Fireflies' by 'Owl City' as this song portrays themes of childhood. We debated many different ideas and eventually settled on the song ‘Jar of Hearts' by 'Christina Perri.' Although it greatly contrasted from our previous song, we found that this song had a slow tempo and sorrowful lyrics that would create a more meaningful message.

Our final idea consists of following the journey of a letter, written from a boy to a girl, that originally gets thrown away by the boy but the letter makes its way to the girl. We decided to keep our original idea of using stop motion, which we have incorporated into our new idea to make the letter travel from different locations and we found that stop motion would be the best method in which to do this. Also, we liked the idea of using stop motion in our original idea and therefore wanted to keep the technique in our final product.