Slow motion try

In this short video we have tried to have the singer perform a bit faster than the actual song, therefore we were able to slow motion his lip synching which gave the effect of empowerment to every one of his movements. This could be used in our main music video as this effect can be used to create sad or dramatic effect which will be perfect for the story that we will portray in our music video.

Storyboard

Creative filming

Production Label

The production label logo is extremely simple and it represents the distribution of music through the sound waves going through the headphones. The black colours suit the theme of mystery in the music video that we will try to represent. The name of the production label is also very simple with a professional font to make the label seem realistic.

Proposal

Lip synching evaluation

Our lip synching task was based on the sond "Lego House" by Ed Sheeran which has a slow pace and what seems like an unhappy mood.There were many outstanding parts of our music video, however there were also many shots that could have went better. The first shot presented in this post resembled the original quite a lot due to the unfocused first plan books which gave the scene a voyeuristic feeling whereby the audience might feel like they shouldn't be there, making them more intrigued by what happens next. However, the shot that we have used is very much a medium shot, whereas the shot in the actual music video is a bit further back. This might seem like it doesn't change much, however the actual scene gives away more of the mise en scene, for example the carpet which is untidly set. This connotes that the protagonist is careless, making the mood different, as this could further connote depression or having  trouble with life

The second shot is representing the actual lip synching of the song; the shot itself is very similar to the real one, even though we did not the right props, such as the table or the lamp. Therefore, we have improvised and put a bag in the back to show the dominance of the character within the shot. One thing that we have noticed after posting the music video is the fact that it is possible to hear our character sing the song to fit the lip synching. This is a great mistake in the editing process as it takes away the genuineness, making the audience doubt the credibility of the protagonist, which might, if this happens in our own music video, ruin the brand image that we will try to build up for our artist. 

The third shot, although looks extremely similar to the original, the framing was not correct due to the fact that in our replica the light is too close to the door as well as the camera. This has caused the light to be the center of attention, whereas within the excerpt the protagonist is still the main part of the shot. In the real music video that we will make, we will have to make sure that the lights are not shining directly at the camera and are in a suitable distance away from it. Nevertheless, the shot could have been also improved by lowering the saturation of the shot to get rid of the white spread of light on the entire shot because it lowered the quality of the shot itself. Furthermore, something that we could work on is the movement of the camera due to the fact that this scene the camera moves from behind a wall to the right to see the protagonist open the door. The difference between the original and our replica is the shakiness of the camera which makes the mood drop and allows the audience to realise that this is indeed a music video, and not a real situation. What we could have done to reduce the shakiness is putting the camera on the tripod and the tripod on a chair with wheels which would be pushed to create the smooth movement.

The last shot in this evaluation is exceptionally similar to the real shot due to the framing and composition being so alike. In both shots, there is a close up and the character is in the middle of the shot, but slightly to the left, however the crucial difference between the two is the depth of field. Our replica is clearly of less quality due to the background being without the effective blur. Many music videos nowadays use this kind of depth of field to allow the audience to focus on the main thing, which is the protagonist. In our real music video we will try to use such depth of field to represent our artist as the most important person on set, giving him the brand image that we want.

Lip synching task

Shoot schedule

Schedule

24th of November - On this date we will aim to film the scenes in the park with our female actor because this is one of the days on which we all finish school early before it gets dark outside, which is crucial because we are not able to film in the dark due to the editing software being unable to brighten up the footage if it is too dark. We also need the weather to be a bit gloomy and possibly even rainy to set the mood of the scene and from our research we know that there is a high chance of that happening.

3rd of December - On this day we will aim to shoot the scenes at Khaleem's house because it will be dark outside, however we will be able to control the lighting as we will be indoors. We want to do it on a Sunday because I finish work at 4 p.m and it is one of the days that everyone else has a day off.

4th of December - We want to film the hospital scene on this date because we will be at school and there is a room which looks exactly like a hospital, meaning that we will be able to stay after school to get the shots that we want.

28th of December - During the half term we have decided that everyone will be free and we will be able to get some more scenes in the park because we will be able to film in the morning which means that it will be bright outside giving us more time to focus on our shots and camera movement before it gets dark.

3rd of January - On this date we aim to finish filming all of our lip syncing and close ups of the artist walking and singing. We will use the outside of school location as we know there will be a lot of puddles which will be helpful when setting the mood of the music video.

Brainstorm

First Treatment

While the first few notes of the piano in the beginning of the song "How to Save a Life" play,  our main character will be walking slowly, looking sad or maybe depressed, towards the camera(medium shot) through an alley where there are trees on his left and right in a bright hoodie lip synching "Step one, you say we need to talk". The camera then quickly forwards towards the singer's face making it a close up, allowing him to finish the next lyric. This is followed by a slow motion of the character performing the action sitting down on a bench, looking into the sky as the lyrics go "sit down..." The lip synching continues until the end of the verse on the bench.

The chorus starts with a more fast paced beat which has a second or two of build up where we will have an extreme close up of someone about to play the guitar. This will then create an unzoom effect to a medium/long shot of the band playing the instruments and the singer singing, however his back will be turned to the camera until the shot pans around the person playing the guitar creating a over the shoulder shot from behind the guitarist looking at the singer lip synching.

After the chorus there is quite a long break where the music quietens and this is where the camera moves towards the artist and another person and a blur that was originally there will disappear significantly. When the lyrics start the lack of a blur shows that the two people are arguing in a medium, still, shot; as the lyric goes "try to slip by his defense" the second actor/actress will bardge through our main character hitting him shoulder to shoulder. The scene then cuts to another room where the second character is doing some sort of drug, however it will be an over the shoulder shot and as the person takes the drug the camera will switch focus to a painting that will be hung on a wall and the actor/actress will be blurred out. When the next lyric comes, the camera will be switched to a medium shot of the character sitting on the same bed/couch and then falling back to lay down. This is where the camera cuts to an eagle's eye shot of the character's crying face and as the verse finishes there will be a steady zoom into the eye of the character to create a smooth transition into the lip synching part of the chorus sung by the main character.

The start of the next verse will be a long shot(from the same room) of a door opening quickly and the main character walking in, looking irritated. The camera then switches to the second actor who has previously been taking drugs, as the lyrics go "you grant him one last choice" to show the actor about to go furious. Then, the camera goes back to our main character who is still standing in the door, looking a bit calmer now, saying "Drive until you lose the road or break with the ones you've followed". It is important that the actor says this instead of singing as it adds more realism to the situtaion. As the next line of lyrics is being sang, there will be a transition that will swipe the screen to the left, creating an "what if" scene of the second actor looking guilty and saying "I'm sorry" and then a swipe right to the actor intaking the same drug again and saying "I'm just not the same". The camera then goes to an over the shoulder shot to show the main character walk out and slam the door behind him which will transition to the chorus, where the main character will be lip synching.

Analysis of music videos

Different music videos have a variety of ways to empower the lyrics of a song or simply create an emotion from an audience through the use of camera work, editing, colour and mise en scene.

To begin with, the music video for Ed Sheeran's song called "Lego House" has an interesting way of showing the narrative through the use of camera work. Unlike most of other music videos, in "Lego House" close ups are not used to promote a brand or a unique selling point of the artist. Instead, the clear USP combined with the camera moving towards or away from the protagonist (0:15-0:25) makes the audience feel like they are inside of the video, however might not neccessarily supposed to be there, which is a great example of voyeurism. Comparing "Flood" by Take That to "Lego House" it is clear that in "Flood" the close ups are used to build an image for each of the artists as they are represented as strong and consistent (00:30-00:40) which creates star iconography as the audience will now portray the artists as seen in the music video. It may be argued that this is a better way for branding artists, however Ed Sheeran has a USP where he only occasionally acts in his music videos, making him enigmatic and making the audience more intrigued by his culture and music.

The editing in "Lego House" is in beat with the visuals to make the video flow better with the music. An example of this is shown when the protagonist drops the lego helicopter and as it hits the ground the thump is there. This is effective as it makes the audience more involved with the music as well as the video which will result in them wanting to watch another music video of Ed Sheeran. This kind of editing is not as visible in "The Flood" which could be caused by the fact that the video is more performative and mostly doesn't have much relationship with the lyrics. However, this doesn't mean that it is ineffective; the to beat editing might not be used in "The Flood" to represent how hard and uncomfortable the journey to success is. This links with the fact that the shot of the artists carrying the kayak is about 10 seconds long which could further suggest the struggle on the artists' way to success.

The use of colours in "Lego House" is smart due to the fact that the lighting used in certain shots represent the mood of the action performed by the protagonist. This is exceptionally  effective as the audience will be guided through how they should feel while watching the music video, for example when the protagonist is walking down a hallway with a smirk on his face the lighting is bright making the audience feel more enthusiastic. Furthermore, the use of colour in this music video is a great way for the audience to understand the enigma of the very basic narrative that the song offers. Due to the use of colour the audience can foreshadow what will happen next. In comparison to "Lego House", the music video for "The Flood" uses bright colours throughout which sets the mood for the whole song to be the same. This might be effective because the audience can understand the message that the song is giving them. Overall, the colour in both of the music videos sets the mood for the song, however in "The Flood" the audience can't foreshadow what will happen next based on the lighting and colour.

Lastly, the mise en scene in "Lego House" is what makes the narrative of the video much more in depth because, for example, the locations of some of the shots, like the seaside, could connote that the protagonist is feeling the freedom at that moment, however when he walked through the corridor towards the stage he seems angry or maybe motivated. This could be representing how Ed Sheeran feels, however this enigma is what created his iconography which he is still building up. This makes his audience attracted to him on a personal and emotional level which might be one of his unique selling points. This is different in "The Flood" where the mise en scene represents the motivation of the artists towards what they do. Their uniforms are matching which connotes team effort to achieve the greatness that they have achieved. This will also, just like in Ed Sheeran's case, attract the audience to the artists due to their determination which might be their unique selling point.

Analysis of 4 different genres

Moodboard

Madonna's image development

Madonna is a globally known singer who was born on the 16th of August 1958 in the United States. Her music was extremely popular since 1980 when Madonna created visuals alongside her, as some may say, phenomenal music. However, what has made Madonna so recognisable and well known was her unique style in each of her music videos in which she had a clear message to give. This has been visible in music genres other than pop, such as in the acoustic genre where Bon Jovi had also been showing clear messages. This could be seen in their song called "Wanted Dead or Alive" where the artists clearly talk about how they want to live their lives the way they want to, which is extremely similar to Madonna's image in the mid 1980s.

In one of the earlier Madonna songs, named "Borderline", she portrays herself as an independent woman who will not live her life as someone else wishes. Women in the mid 1980s were supposed to be beautiful, glamorous and colourful and Madonna has chosen to break that stereotype by wearing black leather jackets and dark make-up at 2:42. This has given her an excellent star image at the time because the audience could relate Madonna to a rebelious, free singer who lived her life the way she wanted and cared only about herself. However, Madonna's star image has changed throughout the years, an example of this is a song named "Ray of Light" which was made in 1998, 14 years after "Borderline", and has a completely different style and image that people did not expect from Madonna. In the song "Ray of Light", the artist is not in every shot of the music video, unlike in her previous top selling songs. Instead, the music video as well as the lyrics are society related which gave Madonna a completely new star image. She was then, although still rebelious, seen as more caring and empathetic; this transformation has gained Madonna new American audiences which made her single sell 793000 copies in the US itself.

Goodwin's Music Video Theory

Andrew Goodwin is a tenor who has come up with a theory regarding music videos. In his theory Goodwin explains that most music videos should be complimentary, contradicting or amplified to the lyrics and genre.

Goodwin's theory also describes the way music videos create relationship between the lyrics and visuals. This means that the words that an artist sings have very much something to do with what we see on the screen. An example of such music video would be the 'Lazy Song' by Bruno Mars who dances and makes gestures that correspond to his lyrics; this is seen and heard at 00:50 when the people in monkey masks create a 'castle' when the artist sings ''Cause in my castle I'm the freakin' man".

This is an effective way to empower the words that are coming out of Bruno Mars' mouth because the audience do not have to imagine what he means, instead they can easily follow the lyrics, making the music video more pleasurable to watch for a younger audience.

Also, Goodwin explains that some music videos have a relationship between the music and the visuals, meaning that the music video cuts at the beat. This often makes the music video more fluent and have a better flow which leads to the audience subconciously enjoy the music video much more. One example of this happening is "She Looks So Perfect" by "5 Seconds of Summer" at 00:21.

In this example the loudest thump is the indicator of the shot being cut into the next shot, making the video flow much better, therefore it is more enjoyable for the audience to listen and watch. Without this, the video would seem out of sync and could possibly lead to having less views as the audience would not want to listen to this song more than once.

It has also been stated that close ups in music videos are used for artistic branding, showing celebrity culture, atristic portrayal and implications on looking good. This suggests that music videos use close ups to usually promote the artist in one way or another. For example celebrity culture might be represented by using a close up shot on someone who wears certain type of clothes which will lead to starting a star iconography. Someone who has used close ups to show their implication on looking good, however, is Robbie Williams. It is clear that in his songs this artist tries to brand himself through his looks and culture.

In his song called "Candy" he wears a pink suit to empower the word "Candy" as it is often one of the main connotations of the word. Nevertheless, Robbie Williams dresses smartly to ensure that his brand image is connoting that he is a wealthy, smart and possibly good looking, depending on the audience's preferences. This means that in most of Robbie Williams' music videos the camera quite often closes up on his suit to create artistic branding.

Star iconography is also something that most artists try to create in their music videos; it is something that the audience can recognise an artist by. Unsurprisingly, star iconography is often very overexaggerated in a way to create very clear and rememberable unique selling point, due to the fact that, after all, the artist is trying to sell himself. Different artists use branding, style and brand values to stay recognised by the audience in a unique way.

An artist who has set himself an extremely successful unique selling point is "Marshmello" who in each video represents constantly similar iconogrpahy which is that he is a marsh mellow human. This is unbelievably effective as it creates an enigma of the character, making the audience constantly wonder who the person behind the mask actually is. This is similarly used by Sia, which proves that enigmatic characters have the possibility to be top artists.

Voyeurism is also something that the audience can experience through watching some music videos. It is the idea of watching something that you shouldn't see in the form of nudity, exhibition, an intimate location or even frame within frame, in which the audience feel like they are inside the music video, but they shouldn't.

A music video that is full of different types of voyeurism is "Lonely Together" by Avicii, in which the audience constantly feels like they should not see what they are seeing. For example at 2:53 the actors come in intimate contact with each other when the female is wearing promiscuous clothing. This is often used, and is being effective, because it allows the audience to forget about their reality for a moment which sometimes might be stressful. 

Lastly, something that some music videos use is intertextuality. Intertextuality is the reference of one type of media in another type of media; something that could be seen as intertextuality would be referring to a book in a music video.

A clear example of intertextuality in a music video would be Taylor Swift's "Love Story" which could be seen as a modernised version of Romeo and Juliette. This is effective as it might appeal to a wide target audience due to the fact that her fanbase will enjoy the music and the voyeurism within the video, whereas some older audiences might be intreged by the artist modernising one of the most well known love stories.

Performative, Abstract and Narrative Music Videos

Performative music videos consist of the singer and usually the rest of the band (in the back of most shots) looking into the camera to make direct contact with the viewer. This makes the viewer feel almost as if he or she was within the music video which is something the audience tends to enjoy to forget about their day to day life problems. An example of a performative music video would be 'The Living' by Pefrormence because there are constant medium and close up shots on the singer's face whilst he is singing. There are also close ups on the guitar at 0:05 seconds into the song which highlights the sound of the guitar.

An abstract music video is usually made to create a mood or get a surprised reaction in an artistic way without telling any type of story. Those music videos are statistically more likely to go viral due to the reaction that the audience has; the reaction is typically a "Have you seen this video" amongst a group of friends which creates marketing through word of mouth.  An example of an abstract music video is 'Feels Like We Only Go Backwards' by Tame Impala due to the fact that it creates emotion within the audience through the use of colours and shapes which is a very artistic way of highlighting the beat and/or the lyrics of a song.

Lastly, narrative type music videos always tell a story which might or might not link to the lyrics sung by the artist. Such videos are usually watched by audiences who want to visualise the meaning of the song or simply want to look at a somewhat short film. A song which uses a narrative music video is 'Stand By Me' by Oasis, however the storyline doesn't exactly corrolate to the lyrics. Nevertheless, the tone and emotion created by the lyrics are reflected in the song, for example from 5:00 to 5:10 where the artist sings "Stand by me" as the two women are being split apart and are not standing by each other. This creates a sad feeling among the audiences, however it is often what the viewer want to see to enhance his or her experience with the song.

Welcome

Hi! Welcome to my blog. My name is Matt and throughout the next academic year I will be focusing on adding posts about my group's music video to this blog.