We have making storyboards for a while, these are detailed descriptions and drawings of each shot we plan to have in our video. We assume that some will change in the future, but these are what we are planning to do. Here are some examples:
We made an Animatic, which is a sped-up video of all our storyboards. To do this we used our camera and went to the photography dark room where we used the draws to put all the storyboards in and then filmed each one. We thought this was a clever way to lay out all of the storyboards easily.
The audiences' opinion is one of the most important factors in creating a successful product, therefore I created a Questionnaire, a quick and simple way of obtaining reliable audience feedback.
This was the age range of the participators, as you can see most who took the questionnaire were teenagers aged 13 to 17, with some in the 18-44 age range This however correlates with our target audience.
The audience was also 100% female, therefore I am hoping to gain more males to take the Questionnaire so that the data is more reliable
The genre that most people listened to was Pop, and the second being Indie. Our song is from the Indie Pop genre so we know that our song is appealing to the majority of people.
People also tended to listen to music videos more then once a day which means that the participants of the Questionnaire are reliable sources as they are viewing music videos daily.
As expected, most people view videos on youtube. This was helpful as we now know in all our music video research that youtube is somewhere where we can view music videos that are consumed by the majority.
The majority of people also preferred Narrative-based videos which again goes with our music video plan as ours in mainly Narrative.
Finally, lip syncing seemed to be deemed as the most important aspect of a music video which was surprising, but helpful to know that lip syncing is something the audience prefer. The setting was also deemed as important so we know when choosing our setting to bare in mind that it is something viewers are particular about.
Overall the audience Questionnaire was extremely helpful, as we can understand now what most viewers look for in a music video and what we need to bare in mind when creating ours.
We used our photography room in school and began to film some footage for our music video. We are so pleased with how the shots came out, and we are now experimenting with different filters and effects we can use as well as changing the how fast the clip runs.
The song we chose for our music video falls under the indie pop genre, here are some record labels that fall under the indie genre:
1. XL
XL recordings is a subsidiary label from Beggars Banquet, and tend to manage artists that release dance, rave, techno, and drum and bass music. Some recognisable artists are:
Adele
Radiohead
M.I.A
Bobby Womack
The XX
2. DOMINO RECORDS
Domino records derived from the UK, and took on already signed US artists to expand their UK audiences. The label deal with mainly indie and rock artists. Some recognisable artists are:
Arctic Monkeys
Franz Ferdinand
Twin sister
Real Estate
Dirty Projectors
3. 4AD
Another subsidiary of Beggars Banquet, 4AD are known for creating stunning visual identities for artists by working with well renowned graphic designers such as Vaughn Oliver. Some recognisable artists are:
As part of our music video is set outside, we are thinking of visting a nearby estate to view their fields and woods as a potential location for our music video.
This particular location allows us many options for shooting. We are thinking of having some bike riding scenes, this location has paths through the woods and paths down slopes that may be useful to film. The lake and manor house may also be an option when looking at potential locations for our scenes featuring the protagonist and her romantic partner.
Another location we are debating over is our hospital scene. This scene will be difficult to find a location for, as we may not have a lot of scenery available that could indicate a hospital. We are thinking of filming the scene in our drama studio at school, where there are black out curtains and we could instead suggest the hospital scene through use of props such as stethoscopes and syringes.
Today we researched into different band names in order to inspire us to devise one for ourselves. Some of the band names we liked were:
The Strokes
The 1975
You me at six
Alt-J
PVRIS
We liked the use of 'the' at the beginning of a word, and also the inclusion of numbers. Therefore we have decided to name our group 'The IVth' pronounced 'the fourth'.
This is our Lip-Syncing Practice. We found the experience quite uncomplicated at the time, however when editing we found sometimes the lip syncing didn't match up to the lyrics, and at times during filming the quicker parts of our song were hard to entirely copy. However we are overall happy with how our lip syncing turned out, and we have defiantly learnt valuable skills that we can use when filming for our final product.
We are in the process of devising our music video idea, and are especially focusing on coming up with a narrative. However, we are constantly baring in mind all the other elements that come into play when creating our music video. Mise-en-scene is an important aspect of indie music videos, maintaining a similar aesthetic as well as keeping to the retro, low-budget environments that indie music videos are shot in is something we must keep in mind. It often plays a symbolic part in indie music videos and helps create the right atmosphere for the song.
This music video throughout maintains the sort of low-key lighting and low-budget setting that is similar to what we would like to include in our music video. The shots are most handheld and blur quickly; changing rapidly and creating a dizzy and dark atmosphere that we hope to create in our own video.
In our music video we are thinking of having a male figure but only briefly, perhaps even one shot and in silhouette form. This quick clip from Ed Sheeran's Music Video 'You Need Me, I Don't Need You' shows the style of shot we are thinking about.
I love you so, wanna throw you from the roof
The pressure builds, wanna put my hands through you
I'll squeeze you tight until you take your last breath
Loving you to death, loving you to death
[Pre-Chorus]
The pressure's rising I won't make it through tonight
This love immortal is an assassin's delight
Just blow me up or run me down or cut my throat
And when it's time for you to die
I'll let you know
[Chorus]
Detonate me
Shoot me like a cannon ball
Granulate me
Kill me like an animal
Decapitate me
Hit me like a baseball
Emancipate me
Free the animal, free the animal
I love you so I'm putting you in quicksand
You take your chances when you kiss the hitman
The animal's inside of this infinite jest
Loving you to death, loving you to death
[Pre-Chorus]
The pressure's rising I won't make it through tonight
This love immortal is an assassin's delight
Just blow me up or run me down or cut my throat
And when it's time for you to die
I'll let you know
[Chorus]
Detonate me
Shoot me like a cannon ball
Granulate me
Kill me like an animal
Decapitate me
Hit me like a baseball
Emancipate me
Free the animal, free the animal
[Bridge]
Murder me, ruin me
Look what you do to me
Beautiful pain baby
Pour acid rain on me
Kill me with your loving
Kill me with your loving
I'll slice you and dice you
Like sugar and spice
I'll do all that you want me to
I'll beat on the beast in you
I'll kill you with my with my loving
I'll kill you with my loving
This particular shot from Calvin Harris' video 'How Deep Is Your Love' is something we are really looking to include in our video. In our chosen song 'Free The Animal' there are jumps and stutters in the music that would fit perfectly with this kind of shot.
This is our preferred song choice, mainly for the beat and the stuttering towards the end of the chorus which we thought could compliment quite crazy, jumpy shots. We also found the lyrics, although vague, could hold a really strong narrative.
This is another option for our Music Video because we like the introduction and how the music is quite stuttered which gives us an option to make the shots similar to the music and more abstract.
This is one our choices for our Music Video, I like that it has a strong beat that would be good to match on-beat shots with and the lyrics are something we could definitely work with.
Dyer's theory suggest that artists are changed and 'manufactured' almost so that record companies can make the most financial profit out of their artists. His theory is split into two sections.
1. Audiences and Institutions
Stars are made for money purposes only, their job is to make money from their audiences. This means that there is heavy focus on branding, good marketing techniques means more profit for record labels. The stars are modelled and changed for their target audiences.
2. Hegemony
The idea that audiences like an artist because they are manufactured to have features/aspects that their target audience can relate to. Some fans attempt to replicate the artist in their style, or way of life. Fans begin to address themselves as a group, such as Lady Gaga's 'Little Monsters'. Stars begin to promote certain ideologies that audiences tend to follow.
Laura Mulvey's Gaze Theory is when various media texts force the audience to sexualize a women in the perspective of a heterosexual male. This often happens in pop, rap, and R'N'B music videos whereby male artists feature women in their videos that are sexualised and seen as sexual objects.
Movement can accompany that of the performer, or it is used to create a dynamic atmosphere, such as a band in an empty room with the camera circling the artists.
Close up
Close up shots can create intimacy with the audience
Help the star become more memorable
Sells the artists
Editing
Editing to the beat creates dynamic for the video.
Pace often links to genre - slower paced editing links with slower songs such as jazz or blues, faster paced editing links with the more rock genre
Voyeurism
Music video's use female sexualisation to attract a wider male audience
Technical Elements
Speed, created by camera and editing
Beat: rhythm of music matches the editing
Light and colour: emphasizes key moments
Mise-en-scene: setting adds to the authenticity of the video
Andrew Goodwin developed his theory into six key statements:
1. A relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, which illustrate, amplify or contradict the lyrics
This statement references the link that artists make with the visuals in their video compared to the lyrics.
In Jessie J's video 'price tag', the visuals directly contradict the lyrics, as throughout the song references the idea that money is pointless, yet the star is surrounded in 'money trees', and wears expensive clothing to flaunt her wealth.
In this video, the lyrics directly apply to the visuals. The video tells a story of bullying and 'popular kids', which is the main theme of the lyrics.
2. Thought beats: seeing the sounds (the relationship between the music and the visuals, which illustrate, amplify or contradict the music.)
Goodwin suggested that more often then not, the cut's and editing in music video's are timed to the beat, similar to Green day's video
3. Genre-related style and iconography
Goodwin realised that artists often use actions in videos that they repeat as their 'trademark' as a marketing strategy. An example of iconography is Amy Winehouse, her heavy makeup and iconic hairstyles was something was made her easily recognisable
4) Multiple close-ups of the main artist or vocalist: the creation of a star image to promote a recognizable brand image.
Goodwin recognised that in order to improve the artist's marketing, they often featured in their own music videos with close ups so that the audience remembered their style and look.
5) Voyeurism often plays a major part, especially in relation to females.
Goodwin suggested that in order to attract a male audience, music video's often used the sexualisation of women, focusing on close ups of women's bodies for the males view.
6) Intertexual references to other media texts may be present, especially in humorous videos.
Some music video's often make direct links to other media texts, such as films or tv shows that the audience is familiar with to attract a wider audience. This is shown in Iggy Azalea's 'Fancy' video, inspired by the film 'Clueless'.
Our group is thinking of doing a video around the Indie Pop genre, we thought although we like the Indie genre a lot of the time the music is acoustic, and the Indie Pop genre allows us to work with songs with a heavier beat and a faster pace. We are looking at songs such as 'Free The Animal' by Sia and some music from Chvrches and Pvris.
I was challenged to find an example of a music video that I thought makes interesting use of lighting. This music video is an abstract style video that relies heavily on lighting to create it's desired effect. There is some lip syncing towards the end of middle/end of the video but other then that the music video is solely shots focused on either a face lit but just a slice of light, or plants and dirt paths lit but spotlights. Personally I'm not a huge fan of this video, I find it slow and somewhat boring and the beat in the music could've helped to make the music video more face-paced in places, but overall I think the way that lighting is used in this video is very interesting and so unique to any other music video I have seen and a good example of a purely abstract video.
Although I'm not completely blown away by the content of this video, there are some elements I think would be useful to include in our music video. I like the lead vocal being against a plain background, as well as how the shots jump to the beat in parts, that is something we really would like to include. The song is a little slow and so doesn't have much room for fast-paced shots but some parts of this video are helpful to give us ideas as to what we would like to include in ours.
I really like how the artist Sia uses performance in her music videos. Although performance is not something we want primarily in our music video, I like the colour palette in this particular video, and how the video is really abstract and different from most. The composition of the shots is also something I really like.
This is our preliminary music video to the song "I Really Like You" by Carly Rae Jepsen. We chose this song primarily due to the simplicity of the video, we wanted to start with something that would ease us into creating music videos, and the content of this particular video was something we knew we could replicate. As a pop song, it is not something we would choose for our actual music video, we want to do something more abstract and alternative but this task gave us ideas for shots and helped us to understand more about trying to match up the lip syncing in time to the lyrics. We found this difficult, and in some parts the lip syncing is a little off but it gives us reason to focus and spend more time on the lip syncing for our final product. We also shot this video in our school, therefore the mise-en-scene was limited. In our video we will have appropriate costume and setting and work more on the continuity of the video. I like the quality of the shots though, and how some actions were matched up really well with the original music video. It was interesting to get an idea of what it will be like playing the lead vocal in our actual video, as I'm not used to acting in front a camera, but I received helpful feedback, such as lip sync more clearer and exaggerate my movement. I enjoyed filming the video, and I'm excited to start working on our actual music video.
This video conforms to the conventions of an abstract video as the visuals have no correlation to the lyrics. However, there are some elements of performance in this video as the duo seen are performing a dance, therefore the visuals are in time to the beat however the video is primarily abstract.
This video is a performance video as it features the band performing and also breaks the fourth wall as the main singer looks directly at the camera. The music video also uses the 'star image' element as the band are featured constantly throughout and so advertises the band.
When researching Indie bands, it's important for us to understand how the artists represent themselves, and how that is reflected in their video. Sometimes there can be a link between the visual ideas that the artists produce. An album cover often acts as a visual identity for a band, and help get their ideas, themes and style across to their audiences.
For example, Amy Winehouse was a renowned singer/songwriter from Britain, who's work ranged from all sorts of different genres, including indie.
This is one of her video's to one of her most renowned tracks.
As you can see, her album and music video have very similar visual themes. As an artist she maintains a very specific style - her dark features and dark makeup was something she was well-known for. The grungy, dark-coloured atmosphere that both the music video and the album cover withhold demonstrate how artists often keep up a visual theme.
This is again similar with Artist 'Vampire Weekend'.
As you can see, the artist maintains a similar style, using the same font in both the video and the music video, and also using similar colours and lighting.
Here are some more examples of some indie album covers
This is a Narrative video as it tells a story about a young girl in the form of cupid who makes people fall in love but wishes to fall in love herself and so shoots herself with one of her own arrows. The video plays as a flashback as it begins with the ending and then flashes back to before, therefore it is not chronological. The video almost acts like a modern day fairy-tale, therefore has some aspects of an abstract video but is mainly narrative as it tells a story. There is also no miming and evokes feelings from the audience. The video contradicts Andrew Goodwin's theory as Goodwin believes that music videos should ignore the common narrative as the audience will become bored however this video goes against this idea.
