Last Week

Tomska is a youtuber with over 4.3 million subscribers, with a side channel called dark Squidge (645,000 subscribers). On this second channel, Tom posts a weekly vlog series called last week, where he records various parts of his week and puts it all into one video for the start of each week. As Tom gained his fame through making comedic short films and sketches, and has built up a small team over the years to help run his channel and content; it is incredibly interesting to see the inside view of the creation of youtube videos and the maintenance of channels.

However, The vlogs don't purely focus on this; they also focus on Tom depression, obsesity, relationships, self doubt, worry, his life story, all forming into a well rounded video each week. So, not only is it a deep insight into the inner workings of a youtube channel; it also provides the creator with a greater connection to his fans which he otherwise wouldn't be able to achieve due to his other content (Sketch comedy) not having that lenience. Below are two examples of videos showing the range of emotions and experiences carried through last week.

Even though Tom tends to put a comedic twist on everything in these videos, there is still evidence on the fine line that they have to walk in order to stay in this line of work. Even with short, quirky remarks like "have we been fired yet?" when addressing their trip to Hungary show some of the possibilities faced by content producers. 

This second video also carries a very important message that, if you are suffering with depression or other mental illness, it is important to build strong support networks of friends to make your life easier to deal with. And that's exactly what Tom has done as displayed by the video below. So, while also providing an insight into a creators life and their different styles, he his also creating an escape for people, and giving them meaningful advice and proving that it works. 

Stop Motion With Live Action

Stop motion is a technique where lots of photos of an object or scene are taken where minute movements are made in the scene between shots. Typically, this technique is used with clay figures and scenes to make films and TV episodes such as Wallace and Grommit and Flushed Away. But stop motion has been used in live action. Popularly in scetches on youtube and in indie films to create an interesting effect in a scene.

This video illustrates how stop motion can be a cheap tool that can be used to create intriguing visuals that can compliment a song well, and also create visuals without the use of animation. Taking inspiration from some live action stop motion videos, i've decided to include a small scene of stop motion in my production. While it won't contain anywhere near the amount of frames as some other small scenes of stop motion as i want it to go with the rhythm of the song, it is still classed as stop motion.

Its interesting to me how well older stop motion videos hold up compared to newer ones. For example "sledgehammer" by Peter Gabriel. What was a groundbreaking piece of media for the time can still be considered just as groundbreaking many years on.

I believe the reason that this video from the 1980's can still hold up to newer stop motion videos is down to the fact that the fundamentals and technique of stop motion haven't changed. While they have been refined over the years, as can be seen in the Wallace and Grommit films when comparing the first and latest films together, they are still all about taking a sequence of many shots and putting it together to form moving image.

Kina Grannis- In Your Arms

As i discussed in my blog post about stop motion, i plan on using a small clip of stop motion in my music video. While looking at various videos employing stop motion, i remembered a video that i saw about five years ago, "In your arms" by Kina Grannis. This is an incredibly unique music video as it employs Jelly Beans to form the main background and scenes in this stop motion video.

Looking at this video, it is clear to see the power and presence stop motion can have as a medium for creativity. After remembering and re watching the video, i found a separate video documenting the behind the scenes of the music video. It is after watching this where i stated to realise the time involved in making a video of this style and magnitude. The fact that a 3:30 minute video can take a year just to shoot it baffled me. However, the sheer devotion and creativity paid off as this is one of my all time favorite music videos.

• 2,460 frames
• 1,357 hours (22 and a half days)
• 288,000 Jelly Beans 

While im not looking to employ stop motion of this magnitude in my production, it does give a great insight into the depth a creator has to dive into to create such a complex piece of stop motion. The fact that they had to make sure that every hair and minute aspect of Kina's expression was the exact same as their reference photos is amazing. Also the sheer amount of time involved in creating the back drop just for one picture on the camera. All in all, this is a fantastic project which lead to a great music video that i would highly recommend. 

How Suspense is Built in Film

Over school holidays, i tend to find myself watching quite a few horrors and thrillers. There's something about the atmosphere and the tension created in both of these genre's that i can connect with very deeply. It was only until recently where i began to understand it after stumbling across a few interviews of Alfred Hitchcock where he define's the differences between suspense and mystery. To describe this, he used his famous analogy of the bomb, which is explained in the video below.

 While this is a very  good description of what suspense is, it doesn't describe how this can fit into a film. One scene from the recent film "the conjuring 2" carry's quite a lot of suspense using the pre-requisites of a suspenseful film.

Warning: this is a scary scene. Viewer discretion is advised 

This scene exhibits some elements that are common in suspenseful moments in cinema. Probably the most prolific in this particular sequence is the pacing, lighting and sound track. Suspense normally relies on the scene to be slow, but gradually gain momentum as it carries on. This is exhibited by the shadow walking towards the picture and the placement of the portrait in the background of most of the scene. This gives the audience a focal point of the scene- they know that what is going to happen will be related to that picture. This is aided by the music. Because there is virtually no music, or little sustained notes on the strings or something, it keeps the audiences attention purely on the visuals of the scene rather than overwhelming them. 

Wildfire- Seafret

This video for "Wildfire" by Seafret i feel is incredibly clever in the way that it is incredibly simple, yet carries a strong message and links well with the song. The use of 3 primary camera angles, one location and the focus on the people's faces and the questions rather than their responses to the questions i though was very powerful as it links to what the experiment in the video was based around; expression. It ties with the song as it links with the idea of love spreading and growing like "wildfire", which is displayed in the video by the opening text talking about the previous experiment where two of the subjects were married 6 months after they took part. Also shown is a clever use of shot length towards the end during the 4 minutes that they spend staring at each other. It speeds up was each of the subjects starts to smile or change expression, also matching the beat behind the song.

This is one of my favourite music video's that I have seen recently, mainly due to its simplicity. But even with this simple set up with very few camera angles, it still creates a very powerful emotion that can be felt by everyone; love and compassion. The video creates this image of how trivial the modern perception of how to fall in love is and shows that all you need is to look into someone's eyes for a few minutes. It links with a similar video where immigrants and refugees living in England were made to look into the eyes of a person from a completely different country, background, identity to see if they could relate closer even though they often couldn't communicate very well. Yet, through this eye contact for a few minutes, they form a very strong connection; even bringing some to tears. I think an important thing that this video does is that when we are introduced to all the participants; even we, the audience, don't know where these people are from or their names. This puts us in the same position as the people taking part in this video, showing us that even though we are all from different places, walks of life; we are all still human.  

The Hobbit Sound Design

My dream career is working in sound design and sound engineering in film and music. Because of this, I spend some of my spend time watching videos about the process that goes into the sound scape of films and the effect that it can have when the sound is completely finished.


One series of videos that I am a big fan of is the behind the scenes videos of the Hobbit films. These videos cover a wide range of the areas of production; such as the makeup and prosthetics, camera work, pre production and concept art, and sound design and editing.

Both of these videos give a great insight into the planning and work load that goes into the creation of a soundscape for a film. I am particularly interested in the collection of Foley track and the creation of various sounds from unlikely sources (such as breaking celery to get the sound of breaking bones). For me, it is the idea that sound can be so freely manipulated and controlled to fit the video so accurately. It is for these reasons that I really want to go into this industry.

Use of Fade

(This is a repeat of this video. but i didn't talk about a technique that i have started to think about incorporating. This is a fan made video for the same song i'm thinking of doing)

this is a fan made video, meaning that i can still have some freedom with the production; but it has given me a nice technique that i can use, which is the use of a fade over the main clip of unrelated things such as the Lunar Landing and other clips of a similar nature to link to either hallucination or the feel of freedom that drugs supposedly give you. i was thinking of using it for when there are some close ups of the addict.

This could prove very useful to add to the underlying themes of drugs and highs, as i think that the way my production stands at the moment, it doesn't have enough links to the idea that the main character is high. Yet with this, i can link to this theme even stronger. I think i could use this to change mood aswell, starting out with more astral themes promoting freedom and weightlessness, but later moving towards harder images later on as reality starts to hit him.

Narrative in music videos

It can't be ignored, the story that some music video's carry. And this isn't more true than in the videos of 30 seconds to mars; a band fronted by Jared Leto (actor in Suicide Squad, Dallas Buyers Club and Fight club). It may be due to the singer's connection to film that means that the band lean to more story driven videos. When talking about this story element, one video in particular springs to mind; and that is for the video "The Kill".

This video links is clearly heavily influenced by the shining, as it features some of the iconic characters and scenes from that film- such as the bar scene and the bear mascot; But does bring in some rather unique elements into the mix.

While this video contains both performance and narrative elements, it is clearly more weighted towards telling a story. It even features little inserts of acting and drama to further the story such as at the start when Jared is filling his band members in on the hotel. This is rather common place in more narrative music videos. Some even featuring bits of action midway through the song. an example of this is "From Yesterday" by 30 Seconds to Mars.

While i can see the attraction of a strong narrative in music videos, especially when mixed with performance elements (much like my product) i feel that sometimes it can actually be detrimental to the overall feel of the music video as too much of it is separate from the music itself; which, after all, is what the music video is designed to accentuate. However, from these two videos i can take a lot of inspiration on how i can layout my music video in terms of shots and the blend between performance and story telling.

Options for the Main Task- Ancillary texts

If you have seen my overview of the A2 media course, you will have noticed that there is more to the coursework than just the production. In fact, we have to include two extra pieces using different media forms that link to our production. For a music video, i am given the option of creating an album cover, a home page for a band website or a magazine article for the album/ single. I have to choose two of those to accompany my main production. The only one i am definitely is the album cover as i like the creative possibilities related to the creation of covers.

album covers are incredibly important in giving the consumer an idea of the theme of the song/ album. i have found a few albums that do this well, and a few that don't.

Firstly is the album cover for "closer to the sun" by Slightly Stoopid.

Looking at this cover, you probably would assume this band was linked to more heavy music, political comments and more gritty topics with the big sound to accompany. However. this band is actually California Reggae. In fact, a lot of their album covers tend to link more to this gritty, dark imaging, rather than linking closer to their genre. One would assume this is either meant as a sort of joke or nod to other bands with similar album cover themes. But, i digress.

On the other end of the spectrum is Pink Floyd, who seem to much prefer the more simple covers that don't suggest much about genre. an example of this is the cover to "Dark Side of the Moon"

This incredibly elegant album cover carries very little suggestion as to the genre of the band, aside from it linking to a more modern, uncluttered sound. The use of the spectrum coming out of the prism suggests that the album will carry more depth or clarity compared to others (represented by the beam of white light entering the prism). But I may be reading in to it deeper than i should because of how much i love this album cover.

Palette and Treatment

Palette and treatment are two things that need to be heavily thought about at the start of any production; as these factors help determine the edge and the representations created in the production. These can turn an ordinary production into one of many things.

Palette normally refers to lighting, props and the set used in productions to help the overall suggestion carried through. While treatment is more closly linked to how the factors discussed in palette will actually effect the emotion of the viewer.

For example, if we look at this video for Calum Scott's "dancing on my own", we can gain a clearer understanding of how these two factors can influence a production.

From this video we can see various themes start to emerge, creating a rather somber an gloomy mood. The costume, set and filter are incredibly washed out, lending to the topic of the song draining the artist. The use of the amount of people along with them all wearing plain white with blank expressions links to how they aren't the focus of his eye as he is too drawn to watching his lover or crush being taken away. 

Can't Stop & Sound of Silence

I think the most ticky part of this pre production for a music video is trying to get an idea of how you're going to edit it and treat it. But with so many examples out there of pretty much every treatment style and editing techniques, it is easy to imagine and apply these different techniques and styles to our own videos.

Examples of completly contrasting music videos with vastly different editing styles and treatments are the video for Red Hot Chili Peppers- "Can't Stop" and Disturbed's cover of "Sound of Silence". Both of these videos compliment the songs the follow incredibly well, which shows the real breadth of treatments and editing styles.

On the rather random, crazy end of the treatment and editing section is "Can't Stop". It features the band in some of the  weirdest and crazy activities and props to carry the incredibly random nature of the song, and the band themsleves. There isn't really any Chronology to the video. Instead it just jumps between shots of the band doing rather weird activities; such as when they are popping in and out of Wheelie Bins, or when Anthony Kiedis (the lead singer) is in that weird body tent. One technique i like is how they use the tunnel at the begining to amplify the build up of the song. This paired with them matching scenes of vocals with the song form a closer link to the source material, which i feel is important for a music video.

On the other end of the spectrum is disturbed's cover of the "Sound of Silence". This song does feature some elements of story telling and chronology, and also links to the source material very well either through close ups of the singer, or what is being displayed on the screen. What I mean by this is that there is often links between the lyrics, instrumental and the video. An example of this is when the singer sings "In restless dreams i walked alone" we see a man walking alone in the video holding a guitar. This links further because it is this line that triggers the guitar to start in the song. Infact, this is where the video gets its sense of story telling from. It chooses to display what is going on in the lyrics on screen. It also links to the music too; such as when the drums come in on the verse starting with "fools said i you do not know" it includes shots of the drummer do his two strokes on the timpani.

Looking at these two videos has given me greater insight in the way that i could treat and edit my video. I'm thinking of leaning more towards "the sound of silence" as it links closer to the mood i'm trying to get across. However, i may go more towards the pace of the "Can't Stop" video in the choruses when the song gets heavier.

Nostalgia critic

Nostalgia critic is a character and series created by Doug Walker. In it, he reviews movies that are known to be awful and presents them in a funny, cynical manner. Mixed in with his reviews are little sketches and clips from other films to add to the comedic values. He's even done reviews for films that haven't been released by recreating the scenes and shots used in the film in a low budget style. Examples of films he reviewed this way are "Jurassic World" and "Star Wars; The Force Awakens".
an example of a review of his is linked below. Strong language from the start.

But Nostalgia critic doesn't just stop at film reviews. He also does shows where he treats film with a more serious edge and even discusses some interesting questions. Examples of series like this are his "top 11" series and, my personal favourite, "old versus New"; the title's being rather self explanatory. While these still feature element of his main show, they focus more on the good side of cinema rather than the rougher entries. below is his comparison between The old and New "Karate Kid" films. Again, strong language from the start.

I've been watching Nostalgia Critic for many years now and have learnt a lot from his videos; primarily in the fields of taking critical looks at films but also about having an opinion and running with it. While some of his jokes and little inputs may not hit the mark or can be confusing, it's been incredibly enjoyable watching his videos grow and develop over time. He is also head of a multi media review site called "that guy with the glasses". On this site you can find reviewers for almost all forms of media; along with some who do the behind the scenes entries or just talk about topics they are passionate. I couldn't recommend them highly enough. Below is a link to the site (now known as Channel Awesome).

Channel Awesome website