A2 Media Studies - Sophie Jordan

A music video is determined by it’s genre and the way in relates to the lyrics to represent a meaning or a message. Not only are music artists recognised for their music, but also by their appearance and lifestyle which is another selling commodity. And in order to follow these conventions they are shown through a suitable music video to create a wider understanding of the artists music and increase their recognition.

The two main conventions that are seen in a music video are Performance and Narrative, which was stated by a media theorist Sven Carlsson (1999). His theory was that a music video should contain the artist performing – whether it be singing or playing an instrument; and then a narrative running along side, in which the artist is part of but not performing in.

The genre I have chosen for my music video is Indie/Alternative. The reason I chose this genre as not only is it my preferred music choice, but also artists that aren’t under the strain of major record labels don’t follow the stereotypes, and have more independence allowing the videos to be more creative and artistic, rather than portraying a stereotype of the artists image as someone to ‘aspire’ to be.

Throughout my video, there are various shots of the artist performing in various locations, using multiple shots of the artist playing guitar.

The first location I went to was Whitby Abbey. This was a main location in my music video, as it portrays the artist to be isolated and imprisoned by the Abbey surrounding him. The reason I wanted to portray this image as the lyrics state ‘Now that we’re lonely, now that there’s nowhere to go’. Even though in the first shots of the artist performing the location isn’t clearly visible, I have used close-ups of the guitar enabling it to be the main focus in the centre of the frame, in which the artists face/identity is not seen, therefore this could also signify he is trapped within his own identity.

This second image is also a close-up of the guitar, however this time from a side angle. This shot slightly reveals the Abbey but still leaves the audience unaware and unsure as to where the artist is.

I got my performer to actually learn the correct chords to the song in order for it to look realistic, luckily the chords were repetitive and therefore didn’t take a lot of time to learn allowing more time for filming.

This is the first mid-shot revealed in my music video, revealing more of the location. I have purposely positioned my performer slightly off centre in order to balance it out with the arch revealing the town below. I think this shot works well as the arch looks as though it is saying there is way to escape, however the performer has his back to it, completely oblivious. This is also demonstrated later on in my video through a long shot when he is walking towards the camera.

This is my second location. For these series of shots I went to an old building in the town centre, which had an ‘eerie’ mysterious look to it, this location had health and safety risks, however I took these into consideration when filming allowing me and my performer to stay safe.

This specific location in which this shot was taken was in a small shed which was an opening to one of the main buildings. This place looks grungy and dirty, however this was the mise-en-scene which I was aiming for as it defers the ‘glamorous’ stereotype which is associated with the majority of the music culture.

The natural lighting in this specific spot also worked really well, similar to my other locations as I was able to film on days that the sun was out enabling strong lighting. Within the roof of the shed was a gap, allowing a ray of light to shine through, making it look artificial. This works well as it is also a strong contrast with the blue wood behind. The lighting illuminates this and the artist on the ladder, drawing the viewers’ attention directly to these in the centre of the frame.

The reason for this to be important is artificial lighting is conventionally used throughout music videos to show emotions or highlights the artists features/actions. However, as I was filming outside in environments in which I didn’t have access to electricity, I had to ensure that natural lighting was available in order to do this.

The narrative throughout my video is based on the way I interpret the lyrics ‘The Wolves’ by Ben Howard which is the song featured. The line ‘Where you been hiding lately? Where you been hiding from the news?’ is suggesting how the celebrity culture are constantly under the eye of the press, and therefore needing an escape. This is why I have directed my artist to walk around inquisitively in my various locations, as though he has become lost trying to escape. This also relates to my previous connotation of the boy becoming oblivious to the arch way suggesting freedom.

I have made my artist dress the same throughout to create a continuity throughout. The specific clothing I have dressed him in is a checked shirt, jeans and boating shoes. The reason I have chose these specific clothes is after researching music videos and artists with the same genre, this is the conventional clothing in which they wear for ‘Indie’.

Even though I have tried to sustain the idea of continuity, I havn’t used many dissolves when editing on Adobe Premier Pro, and instead used jump cuts so that it goes with the beat. However even though the scenes rarely dissolve into one another, they still follow on clearly creating the illusion of real time.

I havn’t used many props throughout my video, as I wanted it to look natural and not too staged. However the guitar was a main necessity, obviously for the performance reasons, but it also worked well carrying it as a prop when using it throughout the narrative. The step ladders was also a main prop, as it allowed me to experiment with the camera angles such as a low angle up at the boy performing on the stepladder.

Another prop I have used is the flame, out of the lighter and burning of the paper. I have used this as a connotation for everything bursting into flames and going wrong, it also ties in with the lyric ‘Clock towers burning up’.

Even though we don’t physically see this being linked with the artist, I have edited it in throughout scenes and used a blend so that the flames subtly fade through into the next scene.

Another convention of the editing in videos with this genre is the ‘sepia’ and ‘old camera’ techniques, this is done to create a ‘vintage’ effect which is associated with this genre of music, i.e – the way the stereotypes dress – vintage clothing (mise-en-scene).

This effect I tried out during my first music video which I created to the song ‘Welcome Home’ by ‘Radical Face’. This was the same genre as my final video, therefore when re-creating this again the research and basic conventions were already put into place to start my second one.

Luckily as I began my original planning and filming at the beginning of my deadline, I was able to look into the mistakes in which I had made in my first video, and re-create it. Even though the song for my first video was my preferred genre, my filming didn’t go to plan at all. Even though I was aware that the final video would differ from my original storyboard, I think my ideas were too spontaneous for my budget/capability.

For example, the main imagery within my video was the extravagant release of the balloons on the chorus, with my actor stood in a field with a mass of balloons slowly drifting up into the sky, shot from different angles. However, when it came to purchasing these I realised it was too expensive to purchase the amount of balloons that I needed filled with helium in order for them to drift up. Therefore I looked into buying a helium tank, in that I could blow up the balloons myself rather than buying them individually. However – this also worked out too cost efficient and eventually ended up with approximately 12 balloons.

Even though when bunched together these still could of worked, the weather conditions were poor, and before my actor had even released the balloons the wind had tangled all the strings, so that when they were released they flew up in a big bunch, rather than spreading out into different directions.

Another problem I encountered was getting a diversity of shots, as I only had a few balloons to release, and therefore had to release them in small bunches to get the different shots – A way around this problem would have been to use more film camera and set them up around the field on tri-pods at different shots such as a long shot, mid shot and close up, and leave them all filming aswell as the camera in which would be in my hand getting close-ups of the actors face to show the emotion.

Once I had collected the attempted footage and put it together in the edit suite on Adobe Premiere Pro, and applied the song track, I became aware of the time difference, and realised that the release of the balloons was far too quick and barely filled a shot, therefore I decreased the time, allowing it to slow down and fill out – luckily as this was only a narrative video, no lip synching was made, meaning that I had to also work the timing out around the movement and timing of the actors lips.

This aspect of an all narrative video conflicted against Sven Carlsson’s theory, and I believe this was one of the main reasons in which my first video didn’t seem to work as well as planned, as more thought and time was having to be put into the narrative in order for it to fill out the 4:48 minutes of the song. Whereas when I recreated my new video, I ensured I had performance in aswell. Not only was this a convention, but it also created a variety of video types between both types.

However as mentioned before, the problem with a narrative was the prospect of getting the timing of my lip-synching correctly. As my actor was actually singing, this made it easier to fit the footage together with the song track, aswell as actually playing the featured song aloud when filming.

I have used the same actor in both videos which I have created as he pursued the correct genre and played it well. After looking at the original video for The Wolves by Ben Howard, there are quite a few characters involved throughout, however I chose to limit mine to only just the one actor. My reasoning for this is both storyboards were portraying the actor to be alone, based on the lyrics. And therefore I believed that allowing just the one actor to be exploring on his own in the narrative throughout both videos really captured this impression.

Even though I believe that my second video is a vast improvement, I still find faults with my video which I would avoid if I were to re-do it. These for example would be some of the camera shots are slightly shaky, such as the ones that pan across the grounds of Whitby Abbey. However, as this was far to travel too, it made it difficult to go back and re-film this. Luckily I was able to slow these pans down allowing me to be able to cut the parts out were the shaking occurred most, and therefore just played the rest of the pan in a slower speed, in my opinion this isn’t very noticeable.

Another glitch which occurred was the weather conditions when filming my video. As I was halfway through the filming of my video, snow and ice developed, which meant I was unable to film as I already had the shots of the sunny grounds in Whitby Abbey, and therefore inserting footage where snow had appeared would make my video look unrealistic and would go against the rules of continuity.

Luckily no drastic changes were made to the actor throughout this time period in which I was unable to film – however I realised at the end of my filming that the actor’s ear plug changes throughout the course of my filming.

An ear plug is a convention of the Indie genre, which is another reason why I thought my actor would be perfect for my video, however throughout the period in which I couldn’t film, the colour and shape of the plug changed, which I find noticeable in the close-up/extreme close-up shots of the face. However whether this is just a mistake in lack of continuity because I am personally being critical of my own work, or whether this really is a main concern, however this is another change I would make if re-doing my video.

A convention with Indie/Alternative genre when editing is to change the footage into black and white; this instantly makes the footage look more artistic and mysterious, aswell as making the footage look less pixelated if filmed on a poor camera/poor lighting. However I tried this effect on my own video, and even though it looked sufficient – it cancelled out the effectiveness of the vibrant blue on the back wall in the garage at the scene of the abandoned building.

When starting my filming of my new video, I used a basic video camera, however my footage came out blurred and pixelated, and therefore I believed this was one of the reasons in which my video didn’t seem to work. However, from re-creating my new one, I have come to realise that it’s not the camera that you use, it’s the way you use it and the way you use lighting. Even though I didn’t have stage lights which I could take with me to film, I carefully chose the natural lighting, even when filming inside dark spaces such as the abandoned buildings – I still enabled enough light to get in to the camera to get acceptable footage, and captured the footage I needed, with or without a HD camera.

The final location I went to for my filming was Brough boat yard which was featured in my first video. Even though the same scenes aren’t shown in my second footage as in my first video, I specifically chose this location as I needed a basic location with no complicated background, so that the main focus was the actor singing.

Even though this location wasn’t planned in my storyboard, after editing the majority of my footage, I realised that some of the shots of my actor singing weren’t usable as they were either shaky shots as they were filmed off a tripod, or the lips didn’t fit properly when put together on Adobe Premier Pro. I could of filled out the gaps throughout with subtle bits of narrative, however as singing was a main convention for music videos and my genre, I thought it was important to back and film the actor singing parts of the song from different angles so that I could place it throughout.

Even though in these shots the actor is wearing sunglasses, as opposed to the rest of my footage, I purposely made my actor wear these. Even though this bends the rules of continuity, I thought that the sunglasses would give the mise-en-scene a diversity, and I believed I could get away with this as long as the costume was still the same. Another reason I did this is I knew the majority of this footage would be placed at the end of my video, and could therefore be a connotation the actor finally seeing what he was ‘searching for’ throughout the narrative, and can now see clearly, allowing the narrative to end.

This was another reason why I chose to end my video with a black fade, even though this is a conventional way of ending a music video, It can also be seen as a connotation for the actor closing his eyes, in that he has finally find what he was looking for, whatever that may be.

I havn’t made the storyline or purpose of my narrative very clear, however I have done this on purpose. My reason for this is so that the audience can make their own interpretation of what is happening throughout, rather than being told what is happening like mainstream music videos with the controversial ‘love’ story. My chosen camera shots and the lyrics suggest escapism, but it is the audiences job to decide what the actor is escaping from. This idea of realism and liability is stereotypical throughout this genre, which is why Indie music videos seem to be more artistic and surreal.

After finishing my music video, I then began creating my digipak and advert for a magazine. To do this, similar to my music video research, I looked at products which fell under the category of the same genre and looked at the conventions. After studying this, I realised that all three products relate to each other using the same text (In the video aswell if featured) and the same imagery/style.

What I mean by this is in an example I have analysed, a screen shot/photograph at the scene has been taken from the video, and used on a front cover. Aswell as an image of the album on a poster advertising this. Even though these are conventional, I decided to go against this and make my CD cover more artistic and contain more graphic work, rather than photographs. However doing this with a clear link between the video aswell.

I created my digipak by using a paper textured background which matched the ‘vintage’ effect throughout my video, I then applied illustrations of wolves which related to the name of the song ‘The Wolves’. Not only does this match with my video, but it also follows the conventions of the genre, as referred to earlier this genre is related to with ‘artistic’ and therefore I thought this was an interesting approach to it.

Even though there aren’t as many sleeves in my digipak as most people use, I decided to keep mine simple, allowing two sleeves, one for the CD, and one for the DVD of my video. I did this in order to keep the composition simple and so that the design is the thing that people focus on the most.

I then created my magazine advert with the same design scheme, however rather than placing a photograph of the album cover, I used a screen shot from my video which I thought was the most effective. This all tied in with the ‘vintage’ effect, and I finished it off with a bold title to capture people’s attention and to show a clear link, especially as this was the same font as the one displayed on my CD cover.

After doing a poll to get audience feedback, 8 out of 8 people voted that my digipak, magazine advert and my video all work well together, and follow the conventions and the genre, and show a clear link between each other – therefore the fact that I didn’t controversially use the same imagery throughout such as the same photograph, all texts were still recognised to be associated with one another.

From doing this project, I have developed my technological skills, such learning new techniques using Adobe Photoshop when creating my digipak and magazine advert, even though this was done similarly last year for my AS Media, I believe that when comparing the two the quality of the products has improved as I have familiarized myself with the programme allowing me to do more.

I also got to experiment with operating a camera, and familiarized myself with the zoom and functions of the tripod allowing me to adapt my camera at different heights and levels – aswell as trying to get a smooth pans and tilts.

After my footage was on the computer, I was then shown how to open my work into Adobe Premiere Pro which was a programme I had never used before, and showed the basic skills such as placing the track on, matching my footage in a sequence and adding effects such as jump cuts, black and white and editing the contrast to achieve a better colour.

In conclusion doing this brief has opened my eyes to a lot of new technologies, and giving me the opportunity to improve my new skills. I particularly enjoyed having to produce original ideas for a music video, as it was challenging yet rewarding when seeing it all pieced together.

If I were to do this again there would be some changes I would make, however I believe I have stuck well to the connotations and produced connotations throughout my music video, and therefore I am pleased with the outcome.

Once I had my footage, I was then shown how to transfer it onto the computer edit suite, and how to upload it into my own personal folder which allowed me to add to it every time I did a session of filming. After my footage was on the computer, I was then shown how to open my work into Adobe Premiere Pro which was a programme I had never used before, and showed the basic skills such as placing the track on, matching my footage in a sequence and adding effects such as jump cuts, black and white and editing the contrast to achieve a better colour.