We have made slight adjustments to the overall narrative of
our music video from what we have originally planned at the start of the
project, the reason for this being as certain people had other commitments to fore
fill and therefore could not be present during the filming.
We have changed it so that the story line follows a boy which is played by
Danny is getting bullied by some mysterious boy who is played by myself,
bullying takes place outside of school and within it, this in turn gives Danny
the determination to become stronger and have self-belief to stand up and fight
back against this bully to eventually beat him.
We as a group feel this narrative really fits the lyrics of
the song as the lyrics are about becoming the best you can possibly be by
putting effort in and dedicating yourself.
The first day we recorded we decided to try and experiment with different camera angles and lighting to see what would look good when we try to actually film are final version, we used Billy and Jerome as the two singers and dressed them to try to fit are style of music, although the clothing seemed to work and despite the fact that we had all the right lighting equipment to use the background itself lacked a professional stage like feel that we was trying to achieve.
We also tried to include a background guitarist in one of our first takes for the video but after doing this we realised that the camera was in too much of a longshot just to get him in the frame thus taking away the importance of the singers, it also left the floor in the shot which did not fit the scene at all.
Overall we did not get the most that we wanted out of the day but it did teach us the importance of proper location and will help us improve the next time we record.
I looked into depth at a music video in order to see the
different types of conventions that they typically use; I decided to look at
the music video for Hall Of Fame as it is the video of the song which we are
going to use. Throughout the video it
keeps clear to the narrative side of the story which involves two characters on
their two separate roads to success, one wanting to be a boxer and the other
wanting to be a dancer. There is a wide variety of camera cuts between the
narrative side of the video and the performance. The use of lighting in this
video is also very unique as there are a lot of darkened shots of a successful boxer
or dancer which is played on top of our two characters which brings question to
whether this is a future shot or the characters thinking of something in their
heads which they are aspiring to be like. The light surrounding these successful
people within the darkness connotes their glowing success and achievements, and
how they shine with glory.
Something else which is clear in the video is the fast cuts
between the scenes which is especially on time with the beat of the song, as
the camera will cut on tempo with the drum beat to which makes it so you know
the music and the video belong together. There is a wide variety of camera
angles that are used in the video but what particularly stands out is the use
of close-ups in the performance shots with a mixture of mid-shots which show
the artists using actions and body movements, The RnB artist Will.i.am uses a
lot more of these in comparison to Danny from the Script as RnB uses a lot more
of these movements along with dance typically in their music videos. Throughout
these performance scenes though both artist are kept clearly lit with high key
lighting to make it known to us the audience how important these people are
which is why they are highlighted in such a way.
Throughout the progress of making our music video, our
target audience has somewhat changed because of the story that we are also fitting
into our video.
Not just fans of Indie Rock and Rnb as those are the two
different song categories but also too be who may be getting bullied or just
need to be inspired in general.
The audience would be aged between 13 -21 both male and female;
however it would more appeal to a male base with the characters in the video
mainly being males although many different people could relate to our song and
video.
With all the planning that has taken place coming up to filming we needed to have a proper team meeting to make sure everyone knew what was going to happen, it was also an insight on what we still need to do before shooting,
We came to the conclusion that we needed a treatment presentation which listed things like props and costumes, also we needed all are locations planned and thought out along with the time schedule so that we can be on track when filming.
The video starts off in a long distance shot of an abstract desert, not much can really be seen apart from the shadow of the artist in the background as the editing then fades to show him standing there in a white patterned T-shirt and jeans with sunglasses and a headband. The shot portrays how lost the artist is, the white colors that he is wearing emphasizes the youth of Chris as well as his humility and peace despite the fact he is lost in this desert.
The video then cuts to Chris Brown lying in a grey room asleep on a bed, the camera angle follows the position where he is lying to when he is sitting up, we can see a girl in the background enter one of the 3 doors behind Chris in which he eventually gets up to follow her.
Throughout when this is happening the performance side of the video is constantly cut too which is Chris brown in the desert which was the establishing shot of the video, editing techniques such as fades are used to give this mysterious abstract effect.
Chris appears in a maze of some sort while he is chasing the girl, there are constant camera cuts to add an effect to this, the camera then zooms out to show a birds eye view of the huge maze which they are within. they leave the dream world through a wall and Chris then reappears within the bed he started as he gets up again to follow the girl through the second door this time.
In this scene he is seen to be walking along clouds with city buildings showing through the top of them, this clearly adds to the dream theme that the video has going on which clearly relates to the lyrics in the song, The girl then disappears as a huge wave sweeps over Chris which makes him reappear in a car which is instantly hit by another.
The same thing then happens again as Chris wakes up in the bed, another performance element is added in here as we see a closeup of Chris in the gray room with wires attached to his head which gives him a holographic futuristic look.
The scene then cuts to him being in the car again but this time moving it out of the way of the other car which we then find out is the girl he has been chasing.
all the scenes then start cutting between each other quickly as the two cars drive of towards the edge of a cliff which then fades to a birds view shot of Chris Brown and the girl lying in the same bed wired up as they turn to look at each other.
Today we decided that we would practice for our video in the form of performance scenes, I decided to practice to see if I would be suited for the role at all and could give across a Indie Rock vibe with the way I presented myself.
Overall I felt as If I would not be very suited for the role in the performance scenes and instead felt that I could be of more use for the narrative side of our video.
The music Video we have eventually decided to use is the Hall Of fame as a Choice, The reason for this is because in the past when two different genres have come together they have been successful with both audiences of their genres, examples include Black eyed peas "Anxiety" in which RnB mixes with Punk Rock, and also the song which we are using has been very successful as it got into the Itunes top 10 which shows that these kind of collaborations can work.
Men can be represented in many different ways depending on the genre of the music video but throughout most of the examples they are seen as dominant and in control, there has been some exceptions with music videos such as Brittney spears “Toxic” in which she is seen to be in control of men around her. However while she is seen in that way she is also seen as extremely sexual throughout the whole entire video, using her sexuality to get what she wants where as men are seen to be dominant in a variety of different ways.
It can be fair to say that women are seen to be materialised in most music videos today then and the man is seen to be in control of them, an example of this can be seen in the music video 50 Cent “Candy Shop” where he is seen to be the centre of a house of sexual women who seem to be under his command. Some women however can challenge this stereotype such as Missy Elliot as one of her videos “Get Your Freak On” is not seen in an overall sexual way and neither is the dancing in it, which promotes the fact that a lot of females do have the similar talents of men and don’t need to show there body or looks to compete.
The first type of music video is known as narrative where a story is shown that typically follows the features of the lyrics such as a boy being in love with a girl or a break up, it can almost be like a short film to keep the audience entertained and focused on the video, typical editing in these videos will be very fast paced with loads of camera cuts sometimes in sync with the music so the audience is more drawn in. an Example of a narrative music video can be seen here for Wheatus - teenage dirtbag
The second type of is performance which contains shots of the artist performing either on a live stage in front of audiences or various other places like beaches which could draw audiences attention. It can also be of the artist in real life performing different situations or just fooling around in general which can typically be seen in a lot of performance videos for bands. There are a wide range of close up shots of the artist and different visual effects which are common in performance videos which can also clearly be seen in my example;Jay-Z & Kanye West - N**as in Paris
There are several different reasons for music videos to be produced, one of the main reasons is to promote a new single or album that the artist has made, the song used would most likely be on the new album that they have coming out so artists make the videos to get the new music known and heard and so that people are aware when they can buy it. The most obvious use for a music video is also to entertain the audience as some music videos actually set the meaning of a song which means the audience can better understand it by watching the video, the song would typically follow a narrative structure if it was setting a meaning for it such as a boy and girl breaking up for a sad song.
One more purpose for a music video is so we as an audience can adapt or feed into a stars image as they can show this across their music video, this means it can give the artist a chance to completely change there image if they wish show, an example can be seen in this video bellow for Rihanna; the video Rockstar was a single taken from her fourth album rated R, she changed from a more innocent natural look from her previous albums into a sexual rough dark and edgy image in this.
Throughout this entire blog I will show you the process that I have taken from the beginning of my coursework to the final products, I will show the research, planning and the development of my products which will hopefully give you more insight into how this helped me. from this moment I will be looking at music videos and hopefully at the end produce one that is up to a high quality of standard.
