Riot grrrl- 'Do-It -Yourself'

Feminist Music-
Riot Grrrl:

Riot Grrrl was an underground feminist punk movement that started in the early 1990s, and is often associated with third-wave feminism. Third-wave feminism is a term identified with several diverse strains of feminist activity and study. In addition to this, Riot Grrrl was also seen as a sculpture including political action and activist movement. The typical instruments of this genre were electric guitar, bass and drums, with their songs dealing with feminine issues such as rape, domestic abuse, sexuality and female empowerment .They also promoted the DIY culture and vegetarianism and anti-capitalism were big punk activist-topics of theirs. The Riot Grrrl culture encouraged girls who didn't know how to sing or play to start bands, and encouraged such DIY as making their own clothing. Huggy Bear, Voodoo Queens and Bikini Kill were some of the bands associated with the genre. The feminist voices of these bands were often heard in riots and protests.

Riot Grrrl was associated with the label ‘Kill Rock Stars’ which is an independent record label with leftist, feminist, and anti-war qualities. The label worked with Riot Grrl artists such as Huggy Bear and Bikini Thrill. By the mid-nineties the genre had severely slowly changed and came to an end. Many within the movement felt that the mainstream media had completely misrepresented their message, and that the aspects of Riot Grrrl had been over used by the likes of the Spice Girls and their "girl power" message. However, the influence of the genre can still be felt in many aspects of indie and feminist punk rock culture.


Bikini Kill:
Bikini Kill was a popular Riot Grrrl band in America who are referred to the leaders of the movement of the genre. They formed in Washington by Kathleen Hanna, Kathi Wilcox and Tobi Vail who were all former school mates at the time. The group worked with Joan Jett of The Runaways, and Jett wrote the song "New Radio/Rebel Girl" for the band. Bikini Kill was one of the first bands to declare their mosh pits as "women only" as most of the time sexual assaults from males would occur predominately in the dancing/skanking pits. They were criticised in a song called ‘Why I Liked Bikini Kill’ by J Church who featured the song on their bands message. Titles of their albums and song releases are quite dramatic and make a statement to their music; ‘There’s A Dyke In The Pit’, ‘Pussy Whipped’ and ‘Revolution Girl Style Now’. These song titles provoke sexual innuendo, and the revolution of their music to over throw men and free women. The title ‘Pussy Whipped’ is a parody to the way men talk to their masculine friends, a renowned saying for a man being under control by a women is ’pussy whipped’ which is significant through this song .This shows their passion to their messages in the music, and how they were determined to let women have a voice in their local scenes making this music a starting point. Tobi Vail in an interview said how the band as “individuals we respect and utilize and subscribe to a variety of different aesthetics, strategies, and beliefs, both political and punk-wise, some of which are probably considered 'riot girl.”. Kathleen Hanna and Tobi Vail were both ironically linked to male rock singers. Hanna was married to Ad-rock from the Beastie Boys and Vail was linked to Nirvana's Kurt Cobain for some time. This immediately changes the meaning of their music as they are associated with dominate male artists who are rivals to them and their empowering voices. I think after this, them portraying themselves as independent and empowering other women could be questioned as it shows weakness in their characters.




"When she talks, I hear the revolutions
In her hips, there's revolutions
When she walks, the revolution's coming
In her kiss, I taste the revolution"



This is part of a verse in Bikini Kills ‘Rebel Girl’ single and imply a strong sexual aspect. It elaborates how the narrator wants to almost be this wonderful girl, and how she’s powerful not in actions, but language 'when she talks'. Its almost implying that they don’t need violence to get their message across to audiences but the meaning in their speech is dominate enough. This is like the saying ‘actions speak louder than words‘ which is extremely true and also sets them up as wiser and more powerful than men in the industry. This song promotes homosexuality 'They say she's a dyke, but I know' and activism 'I hear the revolution' creating more meaning and underlying messages to pick up on. The lyrics are making not only females but men shout out 'I really like you, I really wanna be your best friend' getting their feminist anger across! The superior thing about Bikini Kill was that their message came clearly in words and lyrics.

KATHLEEN HANNA:
Hanna was the lead singer of Bikini Kill and worked as an exotic dancer to support herself and her photography, and also volunteered at a women’s shelter before her musical path. She was interested in feminism from the age of 9 when her mother took her to Washington to watch feminist icon Gloria Steinem who left an everlasting impression on her. This passion progressed as she said she found her copy of her mothers 'The Feminine Mystique'. This book is also referenced in the film 'Ten Things I Hate About You' where the lead role is an all round Riot Grrrl listener (The Raincoats a Riot Grrrl punk band is her favourite) and feminist, where she references this book in the film. Kathleen and her mother's views on feminism were done 'quietly' as her father did not approve. Hanna states “We wanted to start a magazine, and Allison Wolfe and Molly Neuman from the band Bratmobile had started a little fanzine called Riot Grrrl and we were writing little things for it. I'd always wanted to start a big magazine with really cool, smart writing in it, and I wanted to see if the other punk girls in D.C. that I was meeting were interested in that. So I called a meeting and found a space for it, and it just turned into this sort of consciousness-raising thing. I realized really quickly that a magazine wasn't the way to go. People wanted to be having shows, and teaching each other how to play music, and writing fanzines, so that started happening. It got some press attention, and girls in other places would be like "I wanna do that. I wanna start one of those."

She showed her artistic skills through her photography and opened a small art gallery for pleasure. She quoted “I feel completely left out of the realm of everything that is so important to me. And I know that this is partly because punk rock is for and by boys mostly and partly because punk rock of this generation is coming of age in a time of mindless career-goal bands.” This showed her passion towards the punk rock era as after this she then hooked up with Toby Vail and Kathi Wilcox to form the beginning of the Riot grrrl movement in Bikini Kill.


TOBY VAIL:
Toby Vail was the drummer of Bikini Thrill who currently has her own indie cassette label, and is a founder of Ladyfest. Lady fest is a volunteer-based music and arts festival for female independent musicians, spoken word poets, visual artists, and authors, for which most of the proceeds are donated directly to non-profit organisations. The festival also holds workshops for girls on everything from music lessons, to how to make a zine, to self defence courses. She is also a founder of Bands against Bush, promoting and organizing activism and direct action against George W. Bush. She was also strongly associated with Kurt Cobain her former lover. His music is highly influenced by Vail, the Nirvana hit ‘Aneurysm’ claimed that this song was written in an attempt to win Vail back, the line "love you so much it makes me sick" referring to the fact that when they first met, she made Cobain so nervous that it once made him vomit. In addition to this ‘Smells Like Teen Sprit’ was influenced by Teen spirit, the name of Toby's deodorant she was wearing at the time.

Vail calims- “every show we played was like a war, cos like guys would try to beat us up and stuff, it was really violent, and we were really - we had a lot of fans and we didn't have any crowd control, we didn't have a manager, we'd just play these crazy places like bowling alleys and then cram like 600 people in there, you know, no security.”

Modern Riot Grrrl:
Nowadays there has been a progression of women playing in the rock industry and new feminist singers such as Beth Ditto and Florence and The Machine have followed in the foot steps of Kate Bush and Riot Grrrl. Beth Ditto is the lead singer of punk rock indie band The Gossip. Ditto is a good example of a role model for women today as she elaborates on feminism in her music with her outstanding voice and doesn‘t promote bodily image, making her an influential women in today‘s music scene. She supports LGBT and many feminist causes, and is known for her unique, ‘obese‘ acclaimed image. In 2006 she won Coolest person in rock by NME and nominated sexiest women of the year also. Beth Ditto is a recent version of a Riot Grrrl almost, created from her powerful lyrics of promoting Gay rights ‘Standing In The Way Of Control’ and feminist theories. As well as Bikini Kill, Kill Rock Stars also released the Gossip’s second album ‘Standing In The Way Of Control’. She wrote on the riot girl message board “A movement formed by a handful of girls who felt empowered, who were angry, hilarious, and extreme through and for each other. Built on the floors of strangers' living rooms, tops of Xerox machines, snail mail, word of mouth and mix tapes, riot grrrl reinvented punk. Now I am a musician, a writer, a whole person”. This quote from Ditto represents the women from her generation and her opinion on the movement. She seems to be enforcing that the punk rock era of riot girls allowed women to be what they are today. If Riot Grrrl wasn‘t as successful and powerful, would female musicians be who they are today? New acts such as The Raincoats and The Donnas are also examples of a female Riot Grrrl punk band.

This image below of Beth Ditto on the cover of Love shows the readers who Beth Ditto really is and how she is not afraid of what she looks like or what people say about on her relating to her appearance. It presents her femininity but also her masculinity, for example the anchor tattoo on her upper left arm, to me although is quite common a while ago would have been highly linked to men. This reinforces how our culture is changing and new ways are accepted and become more common. Progressing from this, gender is constructed by what culture defines male and females and as culture is changing, masculinity and femininity become pluralised. This means there are many different versions and meanings of each word as it has become flexible. The issue is based around 'Icons of our generation' and on the front you can see there is a list of famous celebrities such as Pixie Geldof. This is interesting as other icons on this issue are actors and models encouraging style and appearance yes but are not empowering people who are changing our world, like the messages of Bikini Kill.

Influetinal Rock Artists- The Battle For Musical Equality

Influential women In rock:


When people think of Rock, they generally associate it with men due to our society‘s stereotypical gender ideologies and binary opposition. The rock industry has been the hardest genre for women to break into and when typing in to Google 'Top Ten Influential Women' I found singers such as Billie Holiday and Carol King, but there wasn’t any mention of female rock artists -'who weren’t supposed to play guitars and play riot gigs'. I found this intriguing as most of the rock our society and myself listen to is male dominated. Even when I typed in 'Top ten Rock Artists' there were no females which I found quite offending. I was having a debate with my mother on how I could strongly say she could name 5 male rock bands/artists of the top of her head but would struggle to name 5 female Bands/artists. She successfully came up with, Elkie Brooks, Bonnie Tyler, Chrissie Hynde, Pat Benator and Patty Smith . She found it hard off the top of her head but interestingly said she preferred "a good old raunchy female rocker" to a male.

Among the earliest all-female rock bands to be signed to a record label were Goldie and the Gingerbreads, to Atlantic Records in 1964 and Fanny in 1969 when Mo Ostin signed them to Warner Bros Records. An influential rock band for women are The Runaways, a teenage all- American, all-girl rock band that performed in the 1970s. The Runaways were highly influential as they were only just 16 when they recorded there very first album and hit success in the 'mans industry‘. The Runaways have historical significance for being the first all-girl rock band to have hit songs, record platinum albums (at least 1,000,000 units sold), tour internationally, and acquire fame. The Runaways have been so influential that there is currently a film being produced with aspiring actor, Kristen Stewart as lead role. The film is based on lead-singer Cherie Currie's book 'Neon Angel' - a reflection of her experiences as a rock star, but also delivering a strong anti-drug warning to teens and others. Is has been noted that after the Runaways success everything changed for female rock musicians, and made way for female rock bands such as The Donnas. The 1980's was the development of seeing female rock bands on billboard charts. When Joan Jett's 'I Love Rock And Roll', (which was ironically covered by Pop princess Brittany Spears) was released and went to number 3 it sent a strong message out to many industry heads that females who could play could bring in money. Many magazines at this point started putting female artists on their covers such as Bonnie Rait showing respect to female artists trying to break this rock industry. However even in the RnB industry in 1981 Klymaxx became the first all-female band to all play an instrument; several of their singles have charted successfully in both R&B and pop countdowns. The successful British/Australian string quartet Bond, who play classical crossover, is another example where women play all the instruments themselves. Another women to make it into the rock industry was Janis Joplin who was a pioneer in the male-dominated rock music scene of the late 1960s, influencing generations of musicians to come. Joplin was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (which is shockingly full of male domination) in 1995 amongst dominate male performers such as, James brown, Elvis Presley and Bob Dylan. The majority in the Hall Of Fame is shockingly male dominated

Influential men In rock:

According to www.msnbc.msn.com The Top Ten Rock Bands/Artists Of All Time Are:

-The Beatles
-The Rolling Stones
-U2
-The Grateful Dead
-Velvet Underground
-Led Zeppelin
-The Ramones
-Pink Floyd
-Bob Marley and the Wailers
-Sly and the Family Stone

I this modern list of apparently The Top Ten Rock Bands And Artists Of All Time none are of female gender. Men were treated very differently to females in the rock industry, I researched into why but could not find much information. I came across a book called The Rock History Reader By Theo Cateforis, it said that 'women were barred from any active participation in rock music'. He stated that he heard so many male rock artists at gigs say "When you take your lady home tonight" and other male orientated slang that women weren’t supposed to be at aggressive rock gigs. Women in the rock industry weren’t ‘supposed’ to play instruments, but formed around bands and acts as 'groupies'. A groupie is a person who seeks sexual and/or emotional intimacy with a celebrity or other authority figure. "Groupie" is derived from group in reference to a musical group, but now has more general application, they were seen as mother like figures or girlfriends, and took care of the musician's valuables, drugs, wardrobe, and social life. This is quite ironic as this meaning of the word groupie seems to have ultimate power of the male act, as they support and look after them, as these male rock acts needs the maternal instinct of a women’s’ presence around them.
The Rolling Stones 'Stupid Girl' featured on their 1966 album ‘Aftermath‘. ‘Stupid Girl’ is noted for its apparently degrading lyrics towards women, a charge also made against other Stones songs like "Under My Thumb" and "Brown Sugar". On the song's lyrics, Keith Richards said in a 1971 interview with Rolling Stone, "It was all a spin-off from our environment... hotels, and too many dumb chicks. Not all dumb, not by any means, but that's how one got”. Mick Jagger also said in the same interview "I had so many girlfriends at that point. None of them seemed to care they weren't pleasing me very much". This is extremely subjective towards women and shows the rock industry primarily treated women as objects and didn’t respect them. Ironically many women idolise Mick Jagger and sing along to his lyrics, unaware this is what he actually think is right about women.

Some of the lyrics that called some concern:

"Well, I'm sick and tired
And I really have my doubts
I've tried and tried
But it never really works out

Like a lady in waiting to a virgin queen
Look at that stupid girl
She bitches 'bout things that she's never seen
Look at that stupid girl

It doesn't matter if she dyes her hair
Or the color of the shoes she wears
She's the worst thing in this world
Well, look at that stupid girl

Shut-up, shut-up, shut-up, shut-up, shut-up
Shut-up, shut-up, shut-up, shut-up, shut-up
Shut-up, shut-up, shut-up

Like a lady in waiting to a virgin queen
Look at that stupid girl
She bitches 'bout things that she's never seen
Look at that stupid girl

She purrs like a pussycat
Then she turns 'round and hisses back
She's the sickest thing in this world
Look at that stupid girl".

I believe if this misogynist song was released now the boundaries and progression of women in rock have changed it would have been poorly reviewed and slated by the public and other artists who realise it‘s offensive. The fact the band was so mainstream and successful shouldn't give them the opportunity of writing lyrics about 'stupid' girls as both sexes are equal. Although rock was quite aggressive I think it was unacceptable and unfair for male musicians do this, but if this was the other way round females would get much harder time about it.

Influential Artists and Genres- Feminist Songs

The Blues

Blues/R and B:
Music has always been a way of people expressing themselves which was influenced by the Blues created in the late 19th century. The Blues lyrics often entail troubles experienced within African American society. However, although the blues gained an association with misery and oppression, the lyrics could also be humorous and raunchy as well "Rebecca, Rebecca, get your big legs off of me".

Music has progressed into a way of expressing feminist points of views and misogyny. Otis Redding wrote the song 'Respect' as a man's plea for respect and recognition from a woman “Hey little girl, you're sweeter than honey”. The use of ‘little’ girl caused some controversy as woman are often referred too as weaker than men , which resulted in a strike back to this song.
This is extremely interesting as the roles were reversed when Aretha Franklin covered a new version. Franklin's cover was a landmark for the feminist movement and is often considered as one of the best songs of the Rock &Roll era. Aretha's cover is a well known feminist song and is evidence of sexualities rivalry in music. Her perception is extremely renowned in the music industry as many women can relate to wanted respect from a man.
'All I'm askin'
Is for a little respect when you come home, Hey baby when you get home ,mister'

Pop
The musical artist Pink has been known for her striking ‘masculine’apperance, with the 'pink' short hair and 'rock' image she has been an inspiration in the music industry for young teenage girls. She elaborates through her music family related dramas and the troubles of growing up which is what attracts her music to a youthful demographic. One of her releases and title of her album is called 'Misunderstood' and is a view her young female audience can relate to: growing up. Different subjects are touched upon in Misunderstood. In ‘Don't Let Me Get Me’ and ‘Just like a Pill’ she describes her drug abuse as a teenager, and her confusion with growing up and not being perfect like other girls. Pink's father was sent to serve in the Vietnam war which made such an impression that she used the stories of her father in the song ‘My Vietnam‘ and towards the end of the song is a sonic interpolation of Jimi Hendrix’s "Star Spangled Banner" ."Family Portrait" is extremely important to Pink as her parents divorced when she was younger so she infuses her struggle with keep the family together in this song. She makes it particularly interesting in her video which follows the narrative of this song. The video uses a younger girl along with pink as the central characters who are struggling with the segregation of their family, this puts us into a voyeuristic position of looking at this little girl and identifying what Pink felt at this age and relating ourselves to this family situation, tackling divorce and its severe effects on children. But on her 3rd album she released the controversial song 'Stupid Girls', which has been listed as one of the Top Ten Most Feminist Songs . The background of this is that Pink was inspired by the fact that she noticed many young girls near her Los Angeles home aspire to -as said by Wikopedia- the "hypersexual personae of female celebrities" rather than for their careers or talents. This statement is agreeable as Pink is elaborating how young girls aspire to the sexual behaviour of these celebrities who set a stereotypical bad example for the passive generation they are consuming for. Nowadays there aren’t many female pop acts who don't use their sexuality to promote themselves, setting a bad example for females in the music industry.



The music video of ‘Stupid Girls’ is extremely humorous and shows Pink can have fun with her music and style, even when she is degrading other women. The video entails Pink as an angel and a demon who is trying to influence the future of a young girl. The angel shows her a series of images demonstrating the stupidity of current trends in female celebrity, and the images feature Pink in various roles, including a dancer in a 50 Cent video, a girl who uses her emergency inflatable breasts at a bowling alley, a girl at a tanning salon, a girl with a purging disorder who considers calories "so not sexy", a girl getting plastic surgery, a girl making a sex tape, a girl washing her car and rubbing a facecloth and soap all over herself. These different representations she establishes are due to these women dominating the music industry making the next generation follow in the footsteps.

Although this isn't a feminist (could even be seen as misogynistic) perspective she is implying how there aren’t enough role models who are helping the young aspiring audiences. This in my view is because the media are letting untalented people in the business and flaunting them because of their appearance. I think it's quite humours that a well known female artist thinks so strongly about this that she has gone to the lengths of making a lyrically offensive song and music video to advocate her perspective.

This is useful in my project, as it shows a women degrading other well known females such as; Mary Kate Olsen, Jessica Simpson (the part of a girl washing a car in Pink's video is an exact replica to Simpson’s 'These boots are made for walking'), and Paris Hilton, where Pink performs a spoof of her sex tape. This is interesting as Pink has made her point very clear through a music video, and has reversed the media's 'Role Models' , humiliating them virally on TV to show what the young generation are aspiring to be. This is an exception to my query as this isn’t a type of misogyny, it is purely that the Pop industry isn't always run by talent but by appearance.

Filming- 20/09/09

Today we filmed in and around Anglia Square, with Ross Barber, Owen Reed and Chris Yeomans. The filming was good, and we found it easier with more skateboarders. We also filmed Martha Woodward, and myself as people taking the drumsticks of the skateboarders and having them chase after us. We got many new stunts filmed, and tomorrow we are making a Smaller Than You poster. We brought some marker pens with us and drew 'Smaller Than You' onto a wooden board on a wall near where they were skating which is promoting the bands name, we figured this and other pictures we took today will come in useful when making the bands digi pack cover and advertisement.

Broken Skateboard and our picture of trying to catch a kickboard shot on camera after many attempts! These pictures are going to be very effective for either my digi pack or band advertisement. We took these on the day as the location was perfect for our urban skater atmosphere and is created by the graffiti, desolate buildings and dingy corners. This place was perfect for skateboarding and is a well known skate spot in Norwich. My favourite out of these would be the one with both Chris and Ross holding the skateboards in their hands to the camera. I really like the composition of it, how its almost symmetrical. I also think that the clash of vibrant colour on the boards looks effective against the unglamorous surroundings which would make a good Cd cover. The look of these skaters is exactly what we aspired for and all in all has been a great day!

Nike Commercial 'Today Was A Good Day':

One thing that went wrong today was that Chris's skateboard broke, but fortunately he had a spare board with him. This is humorous as one of the skateboarding video's from Nike which we are influenced by, consists of a guy having a great day on his skateboard until it finally breaks at the end, yet even then he’s still enjoying himself. The Nike commercial is a huge inter-textual reference as well at The Specials Ghost Town to our video. This idea is important with our skateboarding video as we were talking to the skateboarders in our video and after a while of being around them we realised how sacred this sport/hobby is to them. Chris didn't seem effected by his skateboard breaking and had a spare one is his bag, I believe this shows the similarities in the video of determination and talent. The charcater in the video showed signs of anger/astonishment when his board got ranover but still wlaks home with a smirk on his face. This extreme close up of the charcter smiling at the end is what we want to achieve in our music video, particulary through close ups to show empathy. Today we experimented with this but found it quite hard whilst in motion, so on the next shoot we are going to have jake turn around and alsmot smirk to the audience with the drum sticks in his hands. We hope this will create humour towards the youthful audience, as he will be almost looking back at (his apponent) whoever he's being chased by.

Filming- 18/09/09

Today went really well, we got a good variety of shots and the weather was sunny! We shot both Jake and Jasper today starting of at Soundclash, through Lowergoat Lane and up to the Forum finishing with Grapes Hill. We have a good choice of urban locations, and have shot a lot of Norwich's cultural scenery. I am really happy with the good start, and hope that Sunday's shooting will be as successful as today's.

Skateboarding Videos

NIKE VIDEO:
This video is really good for the audience, as it creates humour, and cooperates the product and sport with an iconic artist- Ice Cube. I think the name is quite humours in itself 'Today Was A Good Day' and it foreshadows to the audience, the type of commercial it is. I also think the beginning of this is effective as it sets the typical suburban American street by a Crane Shot. This shot is very effective when opening and ending scenes etc, as it sets the location and the story from different points of view. The mise en scene of this video is beautiful, it shows the man in LA as being free from all, and it differentiates what is beautiful about the location. This is as some people would see the Graffiti and urban streets as unglamorous and ugly, but it portrays them as a Free place to Rome, to skate, and to get away from the city. The sense of Freedom is also created as their is barley any traffic of congestion of cars etc, or even people. This is produced especially when he is on the bridge where there is a huge sense of power (empowerment) made from him, looking down at the location and how he is alone, and enjoying every minute to his own will. In this commercial it keeps filming close at the skateboard and the Nike product. This product is very useful as it is highly associated with skateboarding. This links to our main priority in our video, to keep continuity and close ups of the skateboarding as it is our main aspect to please the audience. Our product (The drumsticks) needs to always be seen because it is the motivation of the video, and it creates a type of voyeuristic experience to the audience, to keep track of who has it and where it is.

This video is also very effective as it not only keeps the music at a steady level, fitting with the visuals, but makes it clear enough to hear the skateboard. I want to incorporate this in our video as there are many tricks we are shooting, I think the audience needs to be able to hear the diegetic noise of the skateboarding as it will add to the anticipation of the chase and reality of the video. We also are going to shoot Jake and Daniel on the phone just before they enter the gig venue, so we either will fade out the music or keep it low enough to hear.


I love this high angle when he oli's (jumps) over the girl's bike, I think we could use this, or even better let them oli (jump) over the camera itself ,filming them at a high angle showing their importance and talent. The is one part which I like especially, is where he stops the skateboard at a halt just before the steps where he meets his friend. You are able to see the bottom of the board, showing 'Nike' stickers and other sports related sponsoring.


I think this shot would look very good in our video, as the skaters boards are covered head to toe in many stickers and it would fit in well as either an ending or a beginning or our video. This is a good way of advertising and selling the product throughout the video , also the director has found a way of showing the peoples clothes (all Nike) to the video without looking like it was forced. For example a passer by's hat in the distance, or a low angle of a trick showing a Nike trainer. The theme in our video is also quite humorous and upbeat and we are aiming for it to seem like their having a laugh, for example we want a skate boarder with the drum sticks to wave them to the camera laughing, or teasing the other skaters to chase after them.

The visuals in this perfectly fit with the lyrics... "saw the police and they rolled right past me". In this scene, the boy skates right past the police who don't seem bothered but more intrigued by his skating and stunts in public places. The location is spot on with the video, its set at urban places, desolate car parks, railed stairs and long smooth roads to skateboard along. In our video we are going to shoot at Anglia Square which is perfect for skateboarding in. It has many winding paths, small walls, stairs and slopes to film on with the skaters and will add to our different locations. The forum is also quite good as its showing almost an innocent rebellious side to the video, as people skate here even though they are not supposed to. This is useful in our video, as the meaning of Ska can be heard or interoperated as 'Freedom Sound' (wikopedia- Ska) and promoted Jamaica’s independence. As the genre of the band is Ska, we thought the sense of freedom should be present in our video.

The lighting in this video is very important. The screen throughout has an orange tinge to it, and is often reflected from the sun, showing a good representation and feeling of LA. This is because when something has a slight orange tinge is projects a warm feeling, as to the Africa Shox where there is barley any colour is implies and makes us feel ery and cold. This would be convenient in Ours as we are aiming to film Norwich's cultural and urban areas as places of entertainment and also music. As Norwich is renownd for its music scene, we are purposely shooting Sound Clash and The Art The Centre, to reinforce this idea. The ending is very amusing, as even though his board has broken by 'Ice Cube' he still carries on with his 'Good day' even is he has to walk home. It's emphasising that you don’t have to have a fast car, money etc, to have this sort of life of freedom and power, and still ends in a good feeling. The video is strongly associated also with friendship and having companions to share your dream with.



CAMERA ANGLES AND AIMS FOR OUR MUSIC VIDEO:


We are really hoping to catch a lot of close ups and a variety of angles to shows emotion on the characters face and to make it amusing to watch as an audience. We want a lot of location showing in either the background, or stills for our music video and we also are considering fast forwarding parts in the video to fit with the fast paced music. our intertextual references are 'Ghost Town- Specials' and The Nike commercial. We are hoping to able to have as many angles and variety as the Nike commercial 'Today Was A Good Day' as it is extremely good.

FISH EYE LENS:
I really like the idea of filming with a fish eye lens, this is commonly used for filming skateboarding as a 'fish bowl' effect is made making everything curve creating a better stunt on camera. These four images are from outtakes of the Nike commercial and I think the filming with this lens looks incredibly professional and would be excellent in my music video. Filming with this lens is very effective when shooting at a high or low angle, this is because when shooting from a low angle it will create the person to look surreal and even higher up than they already are. This creates more emotion and enticement in the audience as the stunt looks more effective and dangerous making the audience feel more gripped than usual. This type of lens may be very hard to get hold of and we may have trouble with it when filming but would be very beneficial with our video. I also really like the one of the guy skateboarding down the stairs with the fish eye lens as there are many stairs similar to this in Norwich which would look really good in our video like this.



CLOSE UPS:

This extreme close up above shows fine detail in the pavement and creates the precipice as significant. I like how the background has been unfocused, creating a difference in focus pulls or the depth in field. This shot is a shallow focus isolating the subject from its background, making it sharper and more significant to the audience.

Close ups are really important in film making and will benefit our product immensely. They allow the audience to come up front to the characters, and see their facial expression more clearly. This will be useful in our video as we need close ups of the characters facial expressions to show their emotion, this is because as its a relay the characters will show signs of anger, amusement, teasing and concentration which need to be presented well to the audience for them to view.




FILM LOCATION EFFECTIVLEY: (Pan, Track, Mid Shot, Close Up, Long Shot, Worms Eye etc)

This shot above is the opening shot to the video and starts of with the camera panning downwards showing the American generic suburb. This type of shot could create either an beginning establishing the location immediately or could create a good closure to our video.

This is one of my favourite stills from the video. I really like how LA is portrayed, maybe not as glamorous, but desolate and free and the tall buildings really add power to this shot. I also think the long shot angle is good, as the mise en scene here is vast and has a lot of details, making the man look insignificant against this place. I also think that having graffiti in our music video would look good, as we are creating an urban video and this would fit with the mise en scene perfectly like how it is accomplished here.

This shot is fantastic as is creates a sense of someone getting nowhere as this roads seems to go on literally forever. The angle is quite high up and i like how it is set up to lead straight to the inner city. I think this would look effective in our video, but would impossible to carry out unless there was a roof or small building we could film off.


PROPS:
After thinking of having a bus in our video for a method of transport, I also considered having a retro or old car. We could get hold of quite an old unglamorous thriller style car which would look quite effective in our video. I got this idea from this Nike video with Ice Cube running over his skateboard in this flash retro car.