Trip to Rich Mix

Yesterday our class took a trip to Rich Mix in Shoreditch and visited a seminar studying the Music Video- FRom MTV to Youtube. Chief Examiner Pete Fraser spoke to us about the history of the music video and how they have evolved over time with him showing us examples from the 1950s of Nat King Cole to Madonna in the 80's and to modern day of 50 Cent. This was really fascinating and I learnt how long music videos had been around for as I originally had not thought they had existed for that many years. An example Pete showed us was Candy Shop by 50 Cent and he explained how today wealth and power is shown in videos, but this was not originally the case due to MTV never showing black acts, until the evolution of Michael Jackson and Thriller.



I found the afternoon session the most enjoyable with music producers Liz Kessler and Corin Hardy coming in to discuss and show us their own music videos. I was amazed to find out what high callaber artists the two had worked for including recently Britney Spears and Olly Murs. We were shown examples of their videos and they discussed their initial ideas, working with the artists, budget and how they actually made the videos. A factor that I found interesting was Product Placement as Liz expalined by brands using this in videos this often helped pay for the video. An example of this is the Britney Spears Criminal video in which products such as perfume, a jewellery company and car brand are used in the video.



Amongst the day we were set a task to come up with our own music video to a song 'No Rest' in which we did not know who the artist was or what the original video had been. We all pitched our ideas as a school and our group came up with the idea of an isolated man living on a mountain and as he sleeps items in his house come alive and interact with one another. The producers liked our idea and it was interesting hearing other schools ideas. A concept a group came up with was particlarly significant as it involved a toy being used as a character, a similar way to how we are using our Ken doll in our own music video. Another factor was that Corin Hardy had in fact produced a video with a similar concept which we had in fact looked at when our group were discussing video ideas and this video was Olly Murs- Busy.



Corin showed us a great amount of his videos which was really interesting and in particular one of his videos was really imaginative. It was the Horrors- she Is The New Thing. Corine xplained how he filmed the band simply across a white background but illustrated everything himself on 1,500 sheets of paper and simply merged the two together. This showed just how efective animation can look in a video, and although it is time consuming it is worth the time and effort as the outcome is very effective.



Overall, I really enjoyed my day at the Rich Mix and definitely left feeling inspired for our own music video.