Jar of Hearts - Christina Perri
I know I can't take one more step towards you
Cause all that's waiting is regret
And don't you know I'm not your ghost anymore?
You lost the love I loved the most
I learned to live, half alive
And now you want me one more time
And who do you think you are?
Runnin' 'round leaving scars
Collecting your jar of hearts
And tearing love apart
You're gonna catch a cold
From the ice inside your soul
So don't come back for me
Who do you think you are?
I hear you're asking all around
If I am anywhere to be found
I have grown too strong
To ever fall back in your arms
I've learned to live, half-alive
Now you want me one more time
Who do you think you are?
Runnin' 'round leaving scars
Collecting your jar of hearts
And tearing love apart
You're gonna catch a cold
From the ice inside your soul
So don't come back for me
Who do you think you are?
Dear, it took so long
Just to feel alright
Remember how to put back
The light in my eyes
I wish I had missed
The first time that we kissed
Cause you broke all your promises
And now you're back you don't get to get me back
Who do you think you are?
Runnin' 'round leaving scars
Collecting your jar of hearts
And tearing love apart
You're gonna catch a cold
From the ice inside your soul
So don't come back for me
Don't come back at all
And who do you think you are?
Runnin' 'round leaving scars
Collecting your jar of hearts
And tearing love apart
You're gonna catch a cold
From the ice inside your soul
Don't come back for me
Don't come back at all
Who do you think you are?
Who do you think you are?
Who do you think you are?
The song itself was written about a previous man who was her husband that then broke her heart. The lyrics are very personal to the artist as they explore a great change in her life.
The only possible meaning for the lyrics that I can see is that she wants to forget about the heartbreak that her man has caused her even though he is desperately looking for forgiveness. He has clearly caused her a lot of pain in which she has learned to move on from. The lyrics are very emotive and deep, for example "You're gonna catch a cold from the ice inside your soul" is very powerful for the artist to use as she describes her emotion of pain and betrayal.
The song and lyrics couldn’t be any more different than our previous song choice which consisted of disjointed lyrics. This song’s lyrics are very synchronous to the story its telling which we found made it more exciting to produce a video to as we felt we could tell the story of what the heartbroken person was feeling, we decided to do this by using the letter as the key protagonist in our story which is a unusual convention for a music video.
Friday, 30 December 2011
New artist research
Due to the fact we have changed songs and artist, I have decided to research further into Christina Perri and the song “Jar of Hearts”.
Christina Judith Perri (born August 19, 1986)
• She is a self taught musician who learnt how to play guitar as a 16 year old watching a video by Shannon Hoon from the group Blind Melon, who were performing on VH1.
• She moved to LA on her 21st birthday where she later got married and began to produce music videos. Later that year she got divorced and moved back home where she later wrote “Jar of Hearts” the song we are using in order to produce our music video.
• “Jar of Hearts” has been used on a number of TV and reality shows, an example of this would be “So You Think You Can Dance?” following its exposure on the show “Jar of Hearts” sold 48,000 digital copies, it later reached #28 on the Billboards Hot Digital Songs. Within a month it sold more than 100,000 copies, then the music video landed and the song hit peak popularity.
Christina Judith Perri (born August 19, 1986)
• She is a self taught musician who learnt how to play guitar as a 16 year old watching a video by Shannon Hoon from the group Blind Melon, who were performing on VH1.
• She moved to LA on her 21st birthday where she later got married and began to produce music videos. Later that year she got divorced and moved back home where she later wrote “Jar of Hearts” the song we are using in order to produce our music video.
• “Jar of Hearts” has been used on a number of TV and reality shows, an example of this would be “So You Think You Can Dance?” following its exposure on the show “Jar of Hearts” sold 48,000 digital copies, it later reached #28 on the Billboards Hot Digital Songs. Within a month it sold more than 100,000 copies, then the music video landed and the song hit peak popularity.
Thursday, 29 December 2011
Changes to our video and narrative
After a lot of debate amongst our group we have decided to scrap our first music video attempt and begin a new one totally from new, we are going to change artists from MGMT-KIDS to CHRISTINA PERRI - JAR OF HEARTS. We have made this decision because after we finished filming the "Kids" video we then put all the raw footage on the Macs and began editing, once we had time lined everything the effects and meaning we desired wasn’t present. We attempted the split screen effect in order to show both characters on the screen at the same time but due to the framing of the shots it wasn’t possible to have the Doug the business man on the right (the right side of life) and Dougie the drug abuser on the left, the only way that was possible to do it was to have a little box on the top left and a little one on the bottom right but both boxes were small and surrounded by black therefore the video lost all kinds of effects. We considered removing the split screen parts but then the video didn’t link together as well as it didn’t allow us to show the lives of both characters properly. We also noticed on the larger screen that some of our mise-en-scene didn’t actually fit, for instance it looked very staged as we had attempted to make the drug users house untidy and cluttered which proved difficult with very little props available to mess up the area. Similarly on some of the drug user’s shots there were photographs present in the background of horses and animals, something that we didn’t notice during filming but we couldn’t leave there as they didn’t fit in with his lifestyle at all. After considering and watching everything through we realised we had a lot of footage we needed to re-film, but proved difficult because our actor is in school himself we could only film at weekends where two group members had to work around weekend jobs.
A combination of these issues made us reconsider what kind of video we wanted to produce, we debated changing songs to "Fireflies" by "Owl City" and still keeping the same theme of childhood throughout, but we couldn’t decide on a strong enough narrative and storyline to produce the video to. In the end we went home for the weekend and i heard a song on the internet, "Jar of Hearts" and started brainstorming idea types that would go with such a slow paced love song. On Monday we all choose our favourite idea and formed a new narrative which involves a boy trying to win a girl back. We thought that our new video allowed us the best chance to integrate many challenging shots and get the highest grade possible.
Our new video focuses on the theme of betrayal and heartbreak, compared to our old video which focused on the idea of childhood and postmodernism. Our new narrative relates more to our desired target audience, as heartache is an experienced feeling amongst the majority of young adults, therefore they can relate much easier to the video. On the other hand if they haven’t experienced it they can still understand the meaning through the emotions associated with the video.
Our video begins with a flashback sequence between a male and female character, the scene will show them hugging and holding hands in a field. The use of a flashback helps to establish and depict the happy times their relationship. The flashback sequence is very cliché, but we wanted it this way to emphasise how happy the couple used to be. We decided to use an emotive voice over alongside the piano version of ‘Jar of Hearts’ during the flashback scene. Rihanna’s video for ‘We Found Love’
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tg00YEETFzg&ob=av3e) ihe video inspired us to do this.
This is what our voice over reads, (quoted from Marilyn Monroe)
"I believe that everything happens for a reason.
People change so that you can learn to let go.
Things go wrong so that you can appreciate them when they're right.
You believe lies so that you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself.
Sometimes things fall apart so that better things can all fall together."
We thought that this quote would be suitable alongside our video as it highlights the girl’s feelings at the current time. Also it would enable the audience to fully recognise that the relationship between the two is tough and not as happy as it once was. I think that we showed the audience this through the synchronous music and the visual aspect.
After we see the boy writing a love letter, after a number of failed attempts he screws up the final one and texts her saying “I love you.” This is an inconsiderate and modern way to remind her of his feelings. The letter then opens itself up and begins its journey crawling down the desk and then the stairs into the kitchen where it climbs up the fridge and follows the girl into a photograph of her in the park which then becomes a moving image.
The video shows the girl in a number of varied locations, they are all isolated. We will integrate these shots with the movement of the letter to show both their journeys at the same time. Near the end of our video we will show the letter crawling into the back of a car in which it travels to some cliffs, the girl will be sitting on a rock edge when the letter will crawl up to her, she then reads it and throws it over the edge. The video ends with the girl walking towards the edge of a cliff then it fades to black. We want to end our video on a cliff hanger so it leaves the audience wondering ‘what next?’
Overall i think that changing our video was the best decision that we made as a group.
A combination of these issues made us reconsider what kind of video we wanted to produce, we debated changing songs to "Fireflies" by "Owl City" and still keeping the same theme of childhood throughout, but we couldn’t decide on a strong enough narrative and storyline to produce the video to. In the end we went home for the weekend and i heard a song on the internet, "Jar of Hearts" and started brainstorming idea types that would go with such a slow paced love song. On Monday we all choose our favourite idea and formed a new narrative which involves a boy trying to win a girl back. We thought that our new video allowed us the best chance to integrate many challenging shots and get the highest grade possible.
Our new video focuses on the theme of betrayal and heartbreak, compared to our old video which focused on the idea of childhood and postmodernism. Our new narrative relates more to our desired target audience, as heartache is an experienced feeling amongst the majority of young adults, therefore they can relate much easier to the video. On the other hand if they haven’t experienced it they can still understand the meaning through the emotions associated with the video.
Our video begins with a flashback sequence between a male and female character, the scene will show them hugging and holding hands in a field. The use of a flashback helps to establish and depict the happy times their relationship. The flashback sequence is very cliché, but we wanted it this way to emphasise how happy the couple used to be. We decided to use an emotive voice over alongside the piano version of ‘Jar of Hearts’ during the flashback scene. Rihanna’s video for ‘We Found Love’
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tg00YEETFzg&ob=av3e) ihe video inspired us to do this.
This is what our voice over reads, (quoted from Marilyn Monroe)
"I believe that everything happens for a reason.
People change so that you can learn to let go.
Things go wrong so that you can appreciate them when they're right.
You believe lies so that you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself.
Sometimes things fall apart so that better things can all fall together."
We thought that this quote would be suitable alongside our video as it highlights the girl’s feelings at the current time. Also it would enable the audience to fully recognise that the relationship between the two is tough and not as happy as it once was. I think that we showed the audience this through the synchronous music and the visual aspect.
After we see the boy writing a love letter, after a number of failed attempts he screws up the final one and texts her saying “I love you.” This is an inconsiderate and modern way to remind her of his feelings. The letter then opens itself up and begins its journey crawling down the desk and then the stairs into the kitchen where it climbs up the fridge and follows the girl into a photograph of her in the park which then becomes a moving image.
The video shows the girl in a number of varied locations, they are all isolated. We will integrate these shots with the movement of the letter to show both their journeys at the same time. Near the end of our video we will show the letter crawling into the back of a car in which it travels to some cliffs, the girl will be sitting on a rock edge when the letter will crawl up to her, she then reads it and throws it over the edge. The video ends with the girl walking towards the edge of a cliff then it fades to black. We want to end our video on a cliff hanger so it leaves the audience wondering ‘what next?’
Overall i think that changing our video was the best decision that we made as a group.
Thursday, 22 December 2011
Filming diary part 2
Today we filmed all of Dougies scenes, this proved difficult and very time consuming as we faced a number of problems, one of which was the framing of the shots, we needed them to be exactly the same as the previous business man’s shots in order to have the desired effect we wanted but this was hard as it was done on two separate days. Similarly we struggled with the mise-en-scene of the drug user as in our minds we imagined him in a certain way and trying to portray this image to the audience proved difficult.
First of all we shot the drug users outside scenes, this consisted of him stumbling down various streets after finding a teddy bear, a key element to childhood in the story as it brings back visions of his childhood. He then runs out into the road and almost gets hit by his doppelganger that then gets out the car and the final shot is then both staring at each other. After the outside scenes we shot Dougie entering his house and stumbling over a briefcase, and then when he looks around its gone, this is meant to represent the aspirations he once had. We filmed these using shots such as high angle and floor level shots in order to show the audience the meaning behind the briefcase. We hope that the shots we have chosen are clear to the viewer that the briefcase is imaginary and therefore part of his drug daze.
We were planning on beginning the still photography for the stop motion today but time moved faster than anticipated therefore we have decided to take what we have filmed so far and put it on the Macs and then edit and see if we have to redo any shots we have taken as we want the highest grade possible that we can achieve.
First of all we shot the drug users outside scenes, this consisted of him stumbling down various streets after finding a teddy bear, a key element to childhood in the story as it brings back visions of his childhood. He then runs out into the road and almost gets hit by his doppelganger that then gets out the car and the final shot is then both staring at each other. After the outside scenes we shot Dougie entering his house and stumbling over a briefcase, and then when he looks around its gone, this is meant to represent the aspirations he once had. We filmed these using shots such as high angle and floor level shots in order to show the audience the meaning behind the briefcase. We hope that the shots we have chosen are clear to the viewer that the briefcase is imaginary and therefore part of his drug daze.
We were planning on beginning the still photography for the stop motion today but time moved faster than anticipated therefore we have decided to take what we have filmed so far and put it on the Macs and then edit and see if we have to redo any shots we have taken as we want the highest grade possible that we can achieve.
Filming diary part 1
Today we filmed all the business man’s scenes; we started filming at around 10:30am until 4pm. We started at the end of the video and worked our way to the start, this meant that we filmed the car scenes and street scenes first. We had many difficulties whilst filming the final car scenes so we attempted a variety of different camera shots and angles but none enabled us to have the desired effect that we imagined. In the end we decided we would find a quiet street and one of us would be a marshal, then we drove the car down towards the person with the camera at a slow speed who then jumped out the way, we acknowledged this could be dangerous but that’s why we shot it slowly, this allowed us to have the effect we wanted. We then shot the business man entering and beginning his journey, this obviously had to be shot with great consideration as the actual actor is only 13 years old so can’t actually drive, therefore certain shots were important to make it look as if he was the actual driver of the vehicle. We then shot the business man entering his house which is one of the first camera shots we will actually see in the video, then we shot quick shots of him living out his life, doing everyday activities such as brushing his teeth, shaving, interacting with his girlfriend, and playing Xbox, this could be seen as a signifier for post modernism as he is using computer games to pass his time showing his a consumer, this is also supported by the suit he is wearing. The final shot we did today was Doug sitting at the table doing his business work and his girlfriend walks in and hugs him, this will show his a social being and has daily interaction with others around him, this demonstrates the positivity in his life that we want to represent to the audience.
Student feedback
Secondly we received some basic feedback from our fellow media students, we pitched our idea to another group and they gave us feedback. The group that we showed it to had a very positive response to our idea which we were very happy about. Sam said: "we have clear research of the lyrics and themes" this helped to boost our confidence as its very important that our audience members understand what we are trying to portray without us having to explain it to them in great detail. Luke said "It’s really good how we have taken our project from AS and expanded on some of the effects and ideas we had for our thriller opening" this made us consider back to the previous year where we carefully choose our mise-en-scene in order to make the girl look as student like as possible without it looking fake.
We have considered the same factors for our music video as mise-en-scene is playing a huge role on interpretation for our audience. Josh said "The song choice brings out the emotion of life" This is exactly what we as a group were hoping for, we want the audience to be able to depict the highs and lows of life and what paths we have offered to us that we must choose as individuals to follow. We plan on showing this in our video, by using the same actor to play both roles we are clearly portraying the two paths of life this male got offered and the video is the play out of both of them.
The only negative feedback we received off the other group was that we needed to expand our shot types, which we already knew due to the teacher’s feedback but because two separate groups of people had suggested it to us; we are undoubtedly going to change our shots and make them more complex. Also the final piece of feedback we received was when Luke asked if our idea was a little too complex. After we thought about it, each individual in the group can see the video their own way inside their head so all we can do is shoot the video, begin the editing stage and hope that we get the meaning we want across to our audience. The only way we will know if the idea is to ambitious is to actually give it ago.
We have considered the same factors for our music video as mise-en-scene is playing a huge role on interpretation for our audience. Josh said "The song choice brings out the emotion of life" This is exactly what we as a group were hoping for, we want the audience to be able to depict the highs and lows of life and what paths we have offered to us that we must choose as individuals to follow. We plan on showing this in our video, by using the same actor to play both roles we are clearly portraying the two paths of life this male got offered and the video is the play out of both of them.
The only negative feedback we received off the other group was that we needed to expand our shot types, which we already knew due to the teacher’s feedback but because two separate groups of people had suggested it to us; we are undoubtedly going to change our shots and make them more complex. Also the final piece of feedback we received was when Luke asked if our idea was a little too complex. After we thought about it, each individual in the group can see the video their own way inside their head so all we can do is shoot the video, begin the editing stage and hope that we get the meaning we want across to our audience. The only way we will know if the idea is to ambitious is to actually give it ago.
Teacher feedback
The first lot of feedback we have received was from our teacher, they both gave us positive feedback about our idea and one said we have a lot of "very abstract ideas which are synchronous with the lyrics". Another positive comment we received was "I can't wait to see the stop motion and psychedelic outlook". Both teachers gave us pointers and encouragement in order to create a product to the absolute best of our ability. They gave us pointers on how to get into the top section of the mark scheme, for example we need to frame a shot appropriately and hold a shot steady where appropriate.
The most helpful advice we received was the importance of using editing so that the meaning is apparent to the viewer, we will need to rely heavily on editing to portray our meaning of lifestyle to the audience. Overall both teachers seemed to understand and like our idea for the video, they seemed to like how teenagers will actually be able to relate to the video.
Finally the teachers mentioned the importance of the mise-en-scene, they made us realise how appropriate it all has to be so our meaning is emphasised. Our targets as a group were to look into the copyright of the cartoon clips that we are going to insert into our video, we did research into who the cartoons belonged to, we obviously should have written and asked permission to use the clips but as they are all from the USA this would have been time consuming. I did find an email address in which i emailed yet i am still waiting for a response. Another target was to use more varied shot composition such as graphic match or match on action in order to make sure we get the highest grade possible. We took all our targets positively and have now added more varied shots and camera angles than we had before. These changes to the shots will be essential in order to portray our meaning across, because an extreme close up can show the audience a lot more than a close up can. Once question that really made us stop and think was: are you sure you’re not being too ambitious? We have taken this question into account and as a group we have decided to give the filming process of our video a strong attempt and hopefully we will be able to film it and allow the meaning to be clear to the audience.
The most helpful advice we received was the importance of using editing so that the meaning is apparent to the viewer, we will need to rely heavily on editing to portray our meaning of lifestyle to the audience. Overall both teachers seemed to understand and like our idea for the video, they seemed to like how teenagers will actually be able to relate to the video.
Finally the teachers mentioned the importance of the mise-en-scene, they made us realise how appropriate it all has to be so our meaning is emphasised. Our targets as a group were to look into the copyright of the cartoon clips that we are going to insert into our video, we did research into who the cartoons belonged to, we obviously should have written and asked permission to use the clips but as they are all from the USA this would have been time consuming. I did find an email address in which i emailed yet i am still waiting for a response. Another target was to use more varied shot composition such as graphic match or match on action in order to make sure we get the highest grade possible. We took all our targets positively and have now added more varied shots and camera angles than we had before. These changes to the shots will be essential in order to portray our meaning across, because an extreme close up can show the audience a lot more than a close up can. Once question that really made us stop and think was: are you sure you’re not being too ambitious? We have taken this question into account and as a group we have decided to give the filming process of our video a strong attempt and hopefully we will be able to film it and allow the meaning to be clear to the audience.
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