I did three different music videos which were different genre's which was image, performance and narrative.
Media Language by David Sampson
I did two videos looking at the media language and the mise-en-scene, cinematography and the editing.
Annotated Videos for Representation
In the first video David is representing a hip-hop artist/performer. You can tell as he is wearing many stereotypical items of clothing for the kind of artist such as; a snapback cap, a jumper with the hood up, a bomber jacket and sunglasses. His actions also portray the character and he is using a lot of hand gestures and moving around a lot.
In the second video, David is representing an indie artist/performer. He is wearing a fedora hat, a bomber jacket, round sunglasses and is playing the guitar, these are all stereotypical things you expect from an indie artist. He is swaying his head as if he is playing something slow and emotional, also stereotypes of indie music.
Editing Schedule
24/11/14
Narrative before music
Editing the opening with no music. Male character wakes
up and plays keyboard intro.
Couple Scenes:
Xbox playing
Cooking
Holding hands
Pier
Skateboarding together
25/11/14
Chorus
Band sequence
Sync lyrics to mouth movements
Cuts in time with beat
Transitions
Match up 360 degree pans with straight on shots and close
ups
27/11/14
Scenes Alone
Skateboarding in circles
Pier by himself
Xbox
Picture without girlfriend
Train station
Indie music conventions
Indie music video Genres
Setting- Indie videos are normally quite low budget videos
so they a normally set in places like cities, parks and studios. Due to the low
budget these place are used often as they require no fee and they can be used
to add mystery. Also Indie music videos prefer to focus on the artist.
Performance- Indie videos are often focused on the artist
performing and less so on the video telling a narrative as they generally have
strong voices so they don’t need to distract the audience with a sexualised or
complex video. However, more and more indie musicians are adding in a narrative
into their music videos as these are generally more popular and therefore get
more views.
Mise-en-scene- This is very important to the artist as it
helps us learn more about the artist and it helps portray them better. When it
comes to the narrative part of the video they often have an actor playing the
lead and not themselves, whereas in POP music videos the artist usually plays
the main character in the narrative. Indie music videos will also have props,
these will include drums and guitars as most of the video is performance and so
they can show that they play the instruments themselves.
Sound- In an indie music video you can hear the instruments
that are being played whereas in other genres they use more computer generated sounds
and things like sound boards.
Camera- This music genre will use a lot of close ups on the
artist and band to show them singing and playing the instruments. These close
ups help highlight the artist talent. When the band is all together they often
have long shots and establishing shots to show the band all playing together
and they will be in an unusual location.
Editing- Indie music videos often add things edit so that
the saturation is different and that the lighting is changed, this then changes
the complete look of the video and adds more to the video that they wouldn't have
been able to achieve without these effects.
The first picture shows and example of the setting and that it is performance based as we can see that it is the band singing and playing the instruments in a white room. Its very simplistic and is very typical of the indie genre as they don't go over the top and they are just trying to showcase their song. The second picture can also be used to show and example of an Indie setting as it is the band in a car driving along. It, again, is very simplistic. It also shows the editing as it is in black and white like a lot of Indie songs.
The first picture shows and example of the setting and that it is performance based as we can see that it is the band singing and playing the instruments in a white room. Its very simplistic and is very typical of the indie genre as they don't go over the top and they are just trying to showcase their song. The second picture can also be used to show and example of an Indie setting as it is the band in a car driving along. It, again, is very simplistic. It also shows the editing as it is in black and white like a lot of Indie songs.
Wordle Analysis of Lyrics
This is a wordle representation of the lyrics of our chosen song, here we can see what lyrics are most common throughout, and therefore understand which words have more importance then the other, expressed by the size of the word in the image.
As can be seen in the image one of the larger words that stand out is "Caught", we feel this is an important word to the lyrics because it is a way of connoting a sense of entrapment, the idea that the main focus in the song cannot escape the thought of his failed relationship.
Other words that stand out to us are "Heart " and "Eyes", we feel these are of particular importance as these words have strong significance in a relationship. Talk of feelings from the heart are typical of a narrative story, and it is no different here. "Eyes" is also very meaningful as it is commonly portrayed that when two eyes lock and are stared deeply into, it means a connection is built between the two involved.
"Accusing" is another phrase that takes up a reasonable amount of space, accusing someone can sometimes have quite a powerful effect on a persons feelings towards the accuser, it can seriously damage a connection between two people, especially if the accused feels innocent.
However the largest word, and the one that leaps out the most is "Know". Know: to perceive or understand as fact or truth; to apprehend clearly and with certainty. If that is the definition of the word, and it is the most common throughout the lyrics, then this could imply that the character is at least sure of his situation, he understands what is going on. However if it is used in a different context "Don't know" then this would portray the opposite.
Edited stills by David Sampson
In the group we took pictures of the different type of genre's. We did narrative, image and performance in different settings. And then we edit them into graphics and titles, desaturated them and split screen. And now I am going to compare them to real media products.
The music video genre is performance because you can see that the person got a microphone in the hand which leads to a performance. We added titles and graphics to this one because we thought it would be suitable as you seen posters of these stuff before.
This fits the performance genre because both of the stills are performing. Another comparison is that they both use black and white graphics in the stills to try and make it dark. But there are some differences for example our still got titles while the other picture doesn't.
This picture fits the image genre because normally in the image genre you would normally have someone to pose without any explicit things in the picture. So we had Matt in front of the picture trying to be cool. We use the split screen because we thought it would make it more interesting to see if it works and it does.
A comparison is that they are both split screens which one is from a film or to programme while the other one is for a music video. Another comparison is that they are both image even though they are different for the genre but there are different types of images because our one is like a posing image while this one is just a normal picture. Differences is that this got nothing to do with our music video genre as you don't really count a panda a image.
This picture fits the narrative genre because you can see there is a story going on because there is a fight going on. We desaturate the picture to make it darker because we wanted to see what effect it would have to the picture and it had a good effect.
A comparison is that this fits the narrative genre because you can see there is a story going between the couple like our picture but in a different way. This picture is also desaturated to make it dark in the background to make it more romantic. The difference is that this is a completely different type of video as ours a fight while this one is love.
Green screen Practice
This is our green screen practice shot. Our first task was to choose a suitable location to place myself in. We felt that a train station would be a great location to use, as it has a lot of relevance to our song, as we plan on going with a narrative style. We can see I am looking down, lonely and sad, the cold weather helps to emphasize the depressing mood. Once we had both the image of the location and the picture of myself we were able to open final cut express and put the two together. Firstly we had to put the background image in first, followed by a picture of myself. Once this was done we then went onto effects, and selected the chroma key, and dragged it down to the image of me. To then get rid of the green screen we had to select a pipet tool and click on the green screen to remove it. We had to do this multiple times to get rid of as much as we could. However as we still had some remaining green leftover we played around with the saturation and luma. This did result in some white parts of my shoe being removed unfortunately, but it was better overall with the green gone. However there is a very slight outline of green left around the trouser area, which we were unable to get rid of. Overall we did not find this task too difficult, and managed to come up with solutions each time we had a problem.
Green Screen Practice by David Sampson
Green screen practice
This is my practice using the green screen. The first thing we had to do was to find a suitable background for us to use, we decided to do with a train station. Once we had decided on the background we then had to take the photo. For our photo Seb had his hood up and was looking sad as we decided to go with the narrative genre so this part of our story. Once we had the background and the image we uploaded it and then opened final cut express. To get rid of the green screen we had to put the background image on the first row with the image of seb above. Once we had the images in place we then had to go onto effects and select Chroma Key and drag this down to the image of Seb. this then allowed us to select chroma key while we had the image upTo then get rid of the green screen we had to click the image of pipet and then clicked on the green screen and this removed all of that shade of green from the image, we then repeated this process until there was very little green left. To get rid of the remaining green on the screen we then had to change the saturation of the image and the luma of the image. This then created a problem that it started removing some of the white on the image causing parts of Sebs shoe to disappear. There is also a very small green outline to Sebs trousers. Now that we have learnt this skill we can then use it in our music videos for locations that we can go to. Overall, I thought that it was a lot easier to do than i thought and we had no problems in removing the majority of the green screen.
Music Video Vlogs
In this video review the ‘critic’ tell us his opinion about
the music video for Lorde - Tennis Court. In a sarcastic way that the video, he
expresses that the simplicity in the video doesn't portray the feel of the song
very well and comes off as slightly awkward and strange. This video was done in
one take so without much room for error, Lorde can’t do much throughout and
keeps it simple. Our video isn't done in one take, which allows for many more things to occur,
and makes for a much less simple video.
In this video, the host seems to feel that a good video
needs a performance as well as a side story. Our music video has both of these
things. He goes on to express the importance of lighting and how he set up his on
a professional shoot. As ours was a low budget video we didn't have the same quality
of equipment that he did but we used 3 desk lamps as substitutes which, in my
opinion, worked well. He then goes on to explain filming strategies for filming
underwater, and compensating for lack of lighting and people. In the filming of
our video we didn't come across these challenges so it doesn't apply to us.
Music Video Vlogs
Vlogs are video blogs. The vlogs I have posted here are music vlogs which are used to talk about music, music videos, performance etc. However, vlogs can be used for many other things, such as, personal updates, lifestyle, and fashion, to name a few. Vlogs can promote artists and their music videos, in this case the blog at the top inadvertently promotes Britney Spears' music and videos as the viewers of that video may then go on to search those songs/videos, increasing the number of views for Britney Spears. The second video is about Rock music vlogs, this vlog doesn't promote any artists but it does promote 85 other Rock music vlogs which will promote the songs and video they choose to talk about.
Choice of youtube strategies for promotion to audience
A first example of a youtube strategy is to build teasers and hypes about the songs. So what we can do is to take small clips of the music video to make it a teaser, so it keep the audience in suspense. And then you can release the whole video on one day and then you might get loads of views because of the small clips which makes the audience want to see the video. For example like this song by Ariana Grande which is only 30 seconds long which is keeping the audience in suspense of what else will be in the video.
Another example of a youtube strategy is to make your views matter. So for our music video you can have annotations on it which could link to other parts of the coursework. Also we can have a searchable title so the audience would be able to find our video easily.
Another example of a youtube strategy we could use is to have youtube a marketing tool. So what we could do is to create a channel icon and a channel banner so people can visit the homepage of our music video on youtube and then they can create sections so people can click on each section to see what they want to watch. For example like Justin Timberlake Vevo channel which has his own banner and also got a recommended song to listen to, so it can generate more hits.
Another example of a youtube strategy we could use is to make fans coming back so we can upload a video each month to keep the audience engage in our channel and won't lose interest from somewhere else.
Another example we could use collaborations so we can have new audience coming in if we collaborate with a radio channel for example which will have more people to gain interest. So you can see Sam Smith performs on radio 1 which will gain views from anyone who like Sam Smith and now anyone who listen or watch the radio 1 channel.
Another example of a youtube strategy is to make your views matter. So for our music video you can have annotations on it which could link to other parts of the coursework. Also we can have a searchable title so the audience would be able to find our video easily.
Another example of a youtube strategy we could use is to have youtube a marketing tool. So what we could do is to create a channel icon and a channel banner so people can visit the homepage of our music video on youtube and then they can create sections so people can click on each section to see what they want to watch. For example like Justin Timberlake Vevo channel which has his own banner and also got a recommended song to listen to, so it can generate more hits.
Another example of a youtube strategy we could use is to make fans coming back so we can upload a video each month to keep the audience engage in our channel and won't lose interest from somewhere else.
Another example we could use collaborations so we can have new audience coming in if we collaborate with a radio channel for example which will have more people to gain interest. So you can see Sam Smith performs on radio 1 which will gain views from anyone who like Sam Smith and now anyone who listen or watch the radio 1 channel.
Chronolgical Order Vs Non-Chronological Order Sequence
In the narrative for our practice video. It is supposed to show a male character playing two girls at the same time.
In the finished product, it works well as you can see that the two girls are different as they are wearing different clothes and have different coloured hair. You can also recognise that he is seeing both of them as one of the girls finds out and hits him in anger.
In the video, it may not be so clear what is happening as they are both wearing the same fedora and the audience may see this as the predominant feature and not realise that they are two different girls. Also, the storyline isn't very well explained as the scenes cut from one another without much implication to the two relationships.
Storyboards
This is our first storyboard, each sticky represents a shot between 2-5 seconds, with most showing in detail how we plan to do each shot. This storyboard mainly focuses upon the narrative part of our video.
This is our second storyboard, this storyboard focuses almost entirely on our performance part of the video, by splitting the storyboards of narrative and performance it will make it easier for us to find which parts we need to film, as the two won't get mixed up.
Lip Sync Practice
This video shows the David and Tom singing our music video song 'Bob Tink - What'. It was an exercise for us to practice lip syncing.
Two things that went well in our practice. One was that the syncing of the lip movements and the music came together pleasingly. The second positive that we noticed from the practice was that both of the clips are synced together in one smooth transition.
Unfortunately, we made many errors that we will seek to improve in our actual video. Too zoomed out. over pronounced. missed a line (dave)
From this we have learnt that we need to use better camera angles, such as close up and long shots. Also we need to sing the words so that pronunciation is correct as it was not when we mimed.
In our video we will use frequent lip synching but not on full verses and we wont do a full chorus.
Filming schedule
6th November
We will be filming some of the narrative scenes with the couple. We did Thursday because it was better suited for everyone.
11th November
We will be filming some of the narrative scenes at one of our houses.
12th November
We will be filming some bits of the performance at the performance stage at our school as we want to make it really dark.
13th November
Will be filming some of the narrative scenes like going to the train station.
16th November
Filming all of the performance at Tom's house as it got a white background.
18th November
Filming some more of the narrative scenes on the street and at Seb's house.
20th November
Filming the last bi of the narrative scenes in our music video with the couple.
We will be filming some of the narrative scenes with the couple. We did Thursday because it was better suited for everyone.
11th November
We will be filming some of the narrative scenes at one of our houses.
12th November
We will be filming some bits of the performance at the performance stage at our school as we want to make it really dark.
13th November
Will be filming some of the narrative scenes like going to the train station.
16th November
Filming all of the performance at Tom's house as it got a white background.
18th November
Filming some more of the narrative scenes on the street and at Seb's house.
20th November
Filming the last bi of the narrative scenes in our music video with the couple.
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