Kinga Burza

Im going to talk about Kinga Burza as a music video director and how she could be very influencial in our own work. Okay so here's a brief biography, Burza was born in Australia before moving to London in 2005. Shortly after, she signed with film company 'Partizan' of Michel Gondry fame in 2006. Whilst at university, Burza began to teach herself by making amateur films of her boyfriend (Sydney musician Jack Ladder) and other friends she had with bands.

Since being in the UK, she has created music videos for artists such as; Kate Nash, Ladyhawke, Katy Perry, Calvin Harris, La Roux and Noisettes. All of which I would say have elements of originality and huge creativity, and I feel that Burza portrays this in their music videos with kitsch costumes/sets and playing with animation and frame compostion.

Burza directed Kate Nash's 'Pumpkin Soup' in 2007, I like the way she plays with kitsch elements in all of her videos for example in this video I have taken this still from the line, "You're chatting to me like we connect" I particularly like the concept of them both sitting on the oversized telephone rather than something simple like a shot of a basic phone call conversation.

Another example of Burza playing with the surreal ideas of oversized objects is shown in the picture below of the exaggerated love heart sweets, once again it's a recurring theme in her work, especially with Kate Nash.


I've been looking at a few of the Kate Nash videos by Kinga Burza, in the video for 'Mouthwash' i really like this shot of Kate in the mirror singing the opening line, "This is my face. Covered in freckles..." I like the relationship between lyrics and visuals as she sings to herself in the mirror, and we can see this due to the positioning of the shot.


The final video I looked at for Kate Nash was 'Caroline's a victim'. The stills below show Kate putting the cassette into the player at the start, and pressing the stop button at the end. I like this idea because it's almost as though this is just a girl in her bedroom having a sing a long listening to her favourite song :) It is also marks the start and end of the song very clearly but once again with a kitsch twist of the retro cassette player.



We are hoping to get layering into our music video via experimenting with final cut express, I think this shot in the bedroom has worked effectively with the layering, to show Kate three times over, each time playing a different instrument. When we try this out we will have to make sure the camera is perfectly still so we get the perfect shot!!


I love this close up from 'Caroline's a victim' as she walks across the bedroom floor, it's simple but adds variety within shot types, which is important in any pacey up-beat music video! Once again keeping with the kitsch elements by having 'Caroline' in cloloured tights and colourful mise en scene surrounding her.

These are just a few inital videos by Burza that stick out to me for inspiration when looking at ideas and concepts for our own video. I have mostly looked at her work with Kate Nash, because we also are creating a video by a stong independant female musician (Santigold) with exciting artistic visions! :)

Licensing Request

Helloo, as part of our coursework we have to had attempted to make contact with the record company that owns the song we are using. So we wrote an email to both Downtown Records (UK) and Atlantic Records(US) to ask them. We weren't really sure which one owned the rights to the song so we emailed both to be on the safe side. Here is a copy of the email we sent:

To whom it may concern,

We are a group of students from Thurston Community College, currently studying Media Studies at A level. We are contacting you to ask your permission for use of the song L.E.S Artistes by Santigold. We would be using the song for educational purposes only, so as to create a music video as the coursework part of our A level. If you are interested in finding out more about how we will use the song, we have compiled a blog as part of our coursework. You can find it at : http://www.lhj-blogathon.blogspot.com/

Thank you for your time,

Hannah Ridyard
Jessica Gladwell
Lorna Buckle

I'll blog again soon with some video analysis and to put up the further more detailed ideas we've had for shots and storyline and stuff. Byee :D xxxxx

Ancillary Task!!

We have been thinking alot about what to do for our Ancillary tasks! So far after some research and thought we have decided on a DVD Music Cover and a Web Page. We are very eager to design both and show off our creativity skills! Below is a picture of an DVD Music Cover which we thought worked well, obviously the music genre is different to ours, but we really liked the use of photos and thought it might reflect well with our ideas for split screen within our music video.

As well as this we are interested in a Web Page, however we do not currently maintain the skills to produce one, therefore we are very excited about learning to use iWeb on the Apple Mac's at 6th form, we hope it'll be a skill we can hold for future at university too :) Below is a screen capture of The Wombats Web Page, which is promoting their new single 'My Circuitboard City'...

As you can see these are only a couple of our ideas, but we are feeling positive and can't wait to get stuck into learning new things and creating some fanstastic Ancillary Tasks!

Jess :)

Having decided on our song choice, L.e.s Artistes by Santogold im going to discuss some initial ideas we all put together last lesson for our music video.

• In the opening of the video we have thought about rapid straight cuts between the performance by the artist and another image because there is roughly a 10 second intro with a strong drum beat and guitar.
• The performance element of the video we could film in the auditorium in front of the curtains and use special lighting for this, maybe some parts with different coloured light.
• We want to look into colour manipulation and black & white when it comes down to the editing, and maybe film some parts with obscure/colour lighting effects.
• As we are going for a performance/concept based video we are playing with some kitsch ideas/props such as a retro style microphone possibly, polariod camera to experiment with (providing we can get hold of some film! shame they stopped making it *sad face*), riding a bicycle for some part and seeing how that would look on camera!, other props including retro umbrellas/parasoles if we can get hold of them also.
• When it comes to the performance we've had ideas for dramatic makeup, maybe Lady GaGa, VV Brown style. I've also got make up ideas building up from previous photoshoots! so, will upload a few of these photos to demonstrate!

• We like the idea of mixing some animation in with the moving images (like we've seen in the Biffy Clyro video earlier)
• Experimentation with split screen is another idea!
• A lot of direct address to camera and movement
• Fish eye lens effect in some direct address shots, we are liking this image of VV Brown for Ray-Ban

• Keeping with the kitsch idea, we immediatly thought of some of Kate Nash's music videos, which we may look at later!

Anyway that is about all for now!
Lorna :)

Santogold - Lyrics

Hey all :) Jess here just posting after our Media lesson today. It was very productive and we brainstormed a lot. We decided on our song which Hannah has already told you about!! I'm here to show you the lyrics and I've highlighted in bold some parts which I feel could be related to within the video, by using the reletionship between 'lyrics and visuals'.


What I'm searching for
to tell it straight, I'm tryin to build a wall - I feel this could be metaphorical
Walking by myself
down avenues that reek of time to kill
If you see me keep going
be a pass by waver
Build me up, bring me down
just leave me out you name dropper
Stop tryin to catch my eye - We thought of using make-up for effect - this could be shown here
I see you good you forced faker
Just make it easy
You're my enemy you fast talker

Chorus: I can say I hope it will be worth what I give up
If I could stand up mean for all the things that I believe

What am I here for
I left my home to disappear is all
I'm here for myself - Point of view shot?
Not to know you
I don't need no one else
Fit in so good the hope is that you cannot see me later
You don't know me I am an introvert an excavator
I'm duckin' out for nowa face in dodgy elevators
Creep up and suddenly
I found myself
an innovator

Chorus

Change, change, change,
I want to get up out of my skin - We thought of using layering techniques
Tell you what
If I can shake it
I'm 'a make this something worth dreaming of - Effects created on Final Cut Express

Hopefully some of this has made some sense! We will write all of this down with better annotations and also apply it to a storyboard then scan them in for all to see :)

Finally decided on a song for our music video :D :D :D its l.e.s artistes by santogold. lornas going to post about the ideas we've had but we're getting excited now. it already has a video, which we were in two minds whether to watch or not. luckily we watched it and its nothing like our ideas which is good, still a great video nonetheless, directed by Nima Nourizadeh.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCeZzW54a2o

One thing we decided we would like to try was mixing animation with our shots, this video by biffy clyro for their song questions and answers gave us the inspiration to do that because we just thought it was really good fun. We also really liked the shot at 2.02 seconds where the simon neil (the lead singer of biffy clyro) is sitting in the wheelchair. it looks like he's holding the camera himself and its almost a fish eye lens, an effect we're thinking of using :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MR4U8MzuQtk

thats all for now :) xxx

So basically me and Jess had to sort of make an executive decision yesterday as Lorna was away, so looking forward to getting her back tomorrow and having a group brainstorm. I think we're moving away from the trailer idea as we felt 30 seconds for a trailer was just too short. Yesterday me and Jess had a think about concepts and thoughts for a music video. We felt quite positive because ideas for shots we had thought of when planning our trailer can still be used in a music video and work well :) at the moment i really like jonothan glazer's work but i think we'll have a look at alot of directors for influences.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrTB-iiecqk

I'll leave you with one of Glazer's music videos to give an idea :) xxx