Music Mixing

In my free time I like to mix some of my favourite songs and see how they sound, I have decided to experiment with our groups song 'Young Again' and adding a different drop to the song. 

You can check out the original song here

You can check out my two remixes/mixes of the song here!

I have used the software 'Mixx' to create and mix these two tracks, the software is free to use and very easy to use once researched. I wanted to create a mix of our groups song to see how different I could make the original song sound and attempt to make it better. The process I took to create my mixes were very simple, first I took a note of the songs 'drops' and then set the software to mix the songs at that moment to create these new sounds. 

I don't think I have been very successful in making the song better as the mixed songs do not go with the original, in the future I would like to attempt to remix the song. 

As stated above I have used the software Mixx for my song mixes, I am planning on upgrading software soon since this software is becoming outdated I also would like to buy myself a pair of DJ decks. The software is very simple to use once the key components are understood. 

Firstly you have two separate CD decks in which you place your two desired songs into, once you have imported each song you play the first song on the first deck and then let the song play until the moment you want to mix it into the second song. As the point of mixing approaches you manually use the mix slider in the middle of the software and drag it towards CD two and the software will mix the two songs automatically. There is the option of doing this completely manually but this is more advanced and I am not up to this point in mixing yet. 

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The Hypodermic Needle Theory

The Hypodermic Needle Theory

The "Hypodermic Needle Theory" is a theory that imply's that mass media has a direct and powerful effect on its audiences. The media in the late 1940s and 1950s was shown as a powerful and clear influence on behaviour change. The theory suggests that the mass media could influence and control a very large group of people directly by 'injecting' them with messages and ideology's designed to trigger a certain response which is posed by the creator of the media text. To express this theory if you use the example of a bullet and a needle which both suggest a powerful and direct flow of information from the sender (The media) to the audience.  

It is suggest that the media is a dangerous way to share and put across idea's since the audience is powerless to resist the impact of the message. The audience is seen as target and vulnerable since we have no idea if what we are being told is true since there is not other was to get the information we are being fed. The a popular example of this theory is the 1938 radio broadcast of Orson Wells 'War of the Worlds' in which over a million people throughout the United States genuinely believed that aliens were invading.The audience passively receives the information that is given to them through the media. They are manipulated into what they’re being told and seeing is true. I have applied this theory to my own by using the repetitive theme in which never to give up on a loved one or dream. The message we are trying to portray to the audience is that you are never to old to enjoy yourself and to chase the things you love and we use this through visuals but mostly lyrics. Our video will be always reminding the audience about the message being put across.

I have applied this to our own music video by trying to force the message across that we are only young once so make the most of it, The original idea of our video was a lot more complex and contained more narrative so it was easier to portray a message of 'you are only young once' but now its filled with more performances and setting the scene clips so it will be difficult to force a message across now. The hypodermic needle is not the best theory to link to our video since it's aim is not to force a message and ideology on people  but rather to make people aware of how quick time flies. 

The target audience for my music video is anyone between the ages of 16-35 as these are the ages that tend to listen to dance music, I do not really apply this theory to my work since I am not forcing any ideology on the audience. A better theory related to my work would be the reception theory or the users and gratification theory. The Hypodermic needle theory suggests the audience are passive meaning they do not question the media that they are receiving, my video is not intended to be used like this I want the audience to be active while watching my video. 

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Personality Task

Personality's and Group update

In lesson today we looked at different types of personalities and what kind of personality we individually have. In the picture below we each discussed with each other what box we thought we fitted into. I personally thought I fitted into the Red category since most of the characteristics fit me. 

My group disagreed with me and thought I fitted into the Green category more. Following on from this we decided to assign roles to each of our group members, I was assigned the role of editing, finding locations, creating the logo/website and finding the right camera shots and movements. These were assigned to me as I am known to be the most creative member of our group and I have a lot of 
experience in editing and creating websites. 


We decided to go with Liam as our team leader because overall he had the best leadership qualities and he has good time management skills. The ideas we have had for our music video has changed a lot already and we are still in discussion about certain things, this is because when we come up with ideas individually and then have a group discussion we tend to develop and change many of the ideas that we have come up with.

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Prop List

We are creating a prop list in order to prepare for our filming. We will each be assigned to props and have the responsibility of gathering them. 

The props and costume needed for our video are -

(For our character in the video)

Skateboard

Skinny Jeans

Baggy T-Shirt                                                      

Skateboard shoes (Vans/Nikes)           

GoPro Camera

(For our Artist)

Plain Black T-Shirt

Blue Jeans                                                          
Headphones

Studio Mic

I will be responsible for our group gathering all items, all of the props above are essential for our music video. 

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Music Video Theories 4/4

The Carol Vernallis Theory 

4)Editing 

Editing will sometimes match the musical instruments or the beat of the song, linking the visual images together this way, the audience realises that the beat/rhythm links in with the visual images and will relate these visual images to other things after watching the video.

Music videos constantly break or disrupt the "rules" of continuity editing. This is the main convention of music video editing.

When we see edits they will tend to be quite obvious, in divergence to the "invisible" continuity editing This needs to be really obvious, the edits actually have to draw attention to themselves and a successful music video will do this to assist in breaking the narrative. The most common edits you may see in music videos are:

Jump Cuts

Lack of 30 degree rule

Lack of 180 degree rule

Fancy editing or cuts

Extreme jumps in time or space

Extreme changes in pace

Graphic matches

Style of editing exclusive to the video. 

Cutting Within the Lyrics

Cutting against the Movement

I now have a idea and list of things to avoid and potentially use when editing my video together. I will certainly be using Cutting within the lyrics since it would suit my video rather nicely. 

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Music Video Theories 3/4

The Carol Vernallis Theory

3) Camera Movement and Shots

 I will now look at Vernallis's Theory of camera movement and framing.When it comes to camera shots, Extremes are VERY common along with Establishing shots, even if they are Extreme close-ups, or at a extreme distance, music videos try to avoid shots such as mid-shots, or a middle-ranged shot. They tend to sit on the the extreme ends of the scale.

Styles of framing and movement tend to run all the way through the video.

The camera may move in time with the music, just like the edits as in my previous post this is just for  drawing focus onto the artist


Repetition in the music video is really common to portray a message or meaning the style of framing and movement are usually a continuing theme that is distinctive to that video/genre.

A example of over us of extreme shots is this music video -

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