On the monday bank holiday we decided that we would quickly get some shots of our male character walking the streets of london. We had our story board in habd and we new what shots to take. Here are some of the shots we took on the day, it was honestly a long tireing day but we got many of the shots we needed.
2 November 2010
On this day we recorded some of the sequence for the female storyline. We unfortunately didn't get much work done, it was a long stressful day and here is one of the shots of our female participant in the video.
Our moodboard is a way of summing up all the information behind the music video such as the camerawork, costume, audience, gender and location. This work was simply created with printed pictures and magazine cuts outs of images that could relate to the genre of music we are doing. Overlapping images as a collage made it quite effect and colourful to the audience too. Below are close-up shots of each section.
This shows the kind of shots and angles we would use for the music video such as close-up shots, longs shots from various angles. Close-up shots will be suitable for the female singer as it will emphasize on make-up and beauty towards the audience. Long shots will be suitable for the male singer to show-off an urban clothing style and for specific movements towards the camera.
I think with this particular genre, I think the music video will be aimed at youngsters from urban areas, preferably males but both genders from ages 13-25. I have used examples of certain artists that would listen to this type of music e.g. Estelle, (a well known R'n'B/Grime UK artist) Tinie Tempah (a rival upcoming Grime artist) and young secondary/college children.
In my group I filmed most of the camera shots and needed to be inspired buy music videos. The concept of our video was of a man and a woman meeting up and their journey on their way to meeting each other. The song lyrics sing of many topics, one being of cheating and mostly of a girl singing that she believes a guy doesn't fully submit to her then saying that she could never be her partner hence the verse, 'I could never be your Woman'. I watch Kanye West's incredible in my opinion admirable video to 'Runaway' I took camera shot inspirations from this and took similar shots so they could be used in the video. I found a Sugababes song that also had a journey story line/concept. Many shots where inspiring in the Sugababes video therefore i tired to keep the same style of shots and put them into my video. Another inspiration was Rihanna's 'Whats My Name?' again there are many outside shots. The diversity of shot was inspiring; once again I took it upon myself to take similar shot for the video to give it a natural and professional look.
The Group had been given a preliminary task focusing on the skills of lip-syncing. We were given a song 'Oh-What-Wow' taken from the 60's Disco genre.
We felt this was a good opputunity to find our strong and weak areas between us in practical media work.
The only props given were a CD Player, a sheet of lyrics, filming lights for the green screen and a class room to work in. Very basic but yet our group was keen to show off their talents. We also had decided to go that extra further and use a fan present in the classroom for the effect of the singer's hair blowing which makes it just a little bit more glamourous.
One of the main things we did was to give ourselves a main role each so there was equal workload put out from all of us. Fabian Berisha (Camera man) had good skills using a variety of shots when it came to filming so it was an instant role given. Miguel Carrillo (Photographer) as a shy person didn't want to stand back and observe so a simple yet effective role of taking snap shots with a digital camera helped alot for out blogging.
Ira Bytyci (Actress/Singer) who has the most confidence in front of the camera took the role of lip-syncing which she did a fantastic job of : showing off her moves which made the video even more eye-catching.
Dennetta McKain (Director) who is always full of ideas a keen leader in group work took the role of director since she had an instant image in her head when given the task.
During the filming she made a quick 5 minute storyboard of each shot and action used for the lyrics which made it more easier to follow. For example for the lyrics 'Oh-What-Wow' the simple movement was a pointing arm to the audience.
Miguel Carrillo (Photographer) as a shy person didn't want to stand back and observe so a simple yet effective role of taking snap shots with a digital camera helped alot for out blogging.
An example of a shot used was a high angle shot where the camera man stood on the table above the singer gaining a great shot. A variety of shots were used such as mid shot, close-up shot, high angle shot and long shot but mainly mid shots were used.
As you can see our song choice wa never be you woman by Wiley. Our concept to the video is completely different to what the original producers have portrayed, for starters my group and i will be filming the video during night time in comparison to the orginals morning shoot. We came up with our concept by watching the Sugababes video 'about you now' and we altered it in to making it orginial. Our video will be a narrative involving a person miming the lyrics whilst Wileys video did not have a narrative what so ever.
The video contains two artists and a story line, we can see both what is meant to be Wiley (although apparently not) and the female artist Emile Sande along with a seperate sequence. The video is non-linear, the video hardly represents the song as we see a boy growing up on an estate when the song is clearly about love/relationships.
We decided that in order for our video not to follow the trend of its original, we were going to avoid many of the features seen in the video, this included a change in mise-en-scene (location), props (clothing) and aavoid using any of the topics we see in the wiley video.
The concept of the video was going to include journey time as we decided that there was to be a couple walking towards each other through city streets of london. Our shots were going to be in the city opposing the estate theme seen in Wileys video and the video had relations to the song itself as it was to involve a typical male case in a relationship as he cheats on his girlfriend.
I have chose to analyse this groups video to Nas - The world is yours. The video is very inspirational personally and I hope to create a similarly succesfull
Mise-en-scene
The video is very succesfull will its mise-en-scene, the locations used include places with graffiti backdrops, estates, train stations and places with backgrounds where you can see buildings in the background. The artist is dressed accordingly to the genre of music, there is a clear street theme the group have stuck to. There are some props used that again keep to the songs genre in Hip-hop, by simply placing a Disk jokey and a tape player, it adds a classic hip-hop vibe to the video setting the tone early on in the video sequence.
Camera
The camera shots in the video are very varied and are incredibly successful in their use. The video lense actually has been adapted, although it looks like an edit it was actuall ya small circle like shape used to give the video an effect that would make it seem like a classic hip hop video. There are a lot of tracking shots, clos ups, mis shots low angle shots all of which are common with the genre of videos.
Edit
The most reconisable edit here is the black and white effect through out the whole video, this makes the video look like it was in the 90's perhaps, which clearly they have set out to do. There are smo motion edits and sped up edits aswell, they work well in the video adding diversity yet keeping a limit where the video continues looking proffesional.
Narrative
The video is an example of an Illustration video, what you see in the video goes with the lyrics, for example, when the lyrics say 'mechanical movement' we are brought to a train track location where we see 'mechanical movement'.
Mark out of 60
Honestly this video has little error, the editing is precise, the artist lip syncing is all in tune, the mise en scene fits entirely. I would have to give this video anything above 50/60.
The song that we eventually decided on was 'never be your woman' by Wiley. The reason on why we chose this type of genre and this particular song was because the the songs tempo had plenty of potential for quick camera cuts and we thought we could use a wide variety of shots. The song choice was determined by what we as a group thought of the potential foundations of the music video i.e. the plot and relevant locations.
This preliminary task was a new experience to the newly put together group, after having made a short intro to a thriller which didn't require any lip syncing in AS we now had to mimic the words to a quite old fashion song for a music video. Before we started it was vital we didn't mimic the words to the song without projecting the actual lyrics seeing as if we did our mouth movements would be exaggerated which would lead to a un-natural looking sync. We put together a range of camera angles and shots, low angle, high angle, mid-shot, close ups to have a good amount of shots to edit into a good lip sync.
Our camera man Fabian had to keep a steady arm as we recorded a variety of shot angles, this proved a difficult task as if the camera moved in the slightest what was being recorded wouldn't look professional. Without the tripod it would make recording harder but by simply holding the camera tightly and not allowing unecassary arm movement we wer able to minimise any camera shaking. Luckily for the group our on screen singer had confidence to sing to the song, this allowed recoreding to go quickly as our group worked in accoradance with each other.
Once our recording was done, the next lesson we headed to the editing sweat to see how our camera shots would look on screen, although some shaking was visable we new we had minimised it as much as we could. Again we used the now familiar Final Cut Pro, after we had been given a tutorial on how to edit a lip sync now that we had our own clips we wer able to get on with the tast in a group with ease. The simple technique of marking out a recognisable word from the sound track once we had place it on the final cut pro timeline proved easy and efficient. We marked out one word with a marker then opened a video and with the clips we placed a marker on the same place where we could hear the cameras recorded sound of the song. After having placed our markers for every clip and having aligned them with the soundtrack we used a newly learnt feature called Razor, this allowed us to cut out parts of the clips which once done would show the lip sync in time but with the camera angles changing. When we finished to see our video and coverted it we realised that only a 5 second video came out, this problem was then resolved and the video came out looking good.
I really enjoyed this task as the recording was fun and the group worked well together, the editing was easy and with practice it can only get better.
Our target audience was closely loked upon, I therefore made a wordle to fit what would be one of our main targets. Our target was made to be called Jermaine and all the words in the wodle would appitimise him as a person, he would be someone who would listen to our song.
The audience that would most be interested in our misic video would be discribed by all of the words above. Our audience would listen to this kind of genre because it speaks on their behalf and shows how people in this situaton live to the world.
Mise en Scene - I love the location that has been used which is on a bridge, it could be used as a metaphor for a new life as the main character is cheating on their partner. The night tie theme also appeals to m as not many of the videos that we watched were filmed duing night. Also the fact that it was the girl that wa cheating on the guy was great!
Narrative Structure: Very clear that it is Linear. Through lyrics e.g. Begging you and through action as the actors draw their hands to the audience which engages them.
Audience: I believe this is aimed for people aged between 15-25
Out of 60 i would give this group about 57 as i enjoyed watching the video, it was made to look very realistic and i found that it was a good choice of location. Also as it was filmed and produced by one person i was extremely impressed that they produced such a brilliant piece of work.
With the original video, the concept is non-linear, many shots are used, the main rapper is missing and it is set in an urban location with block of flats. However with our video, we have chosen to make our video in complete binary opposition to the original. So with the orginal setting being on a sunny morning in an urban area and inside a typical block of flats, we would film in the night-time near a London trademark e.g. London Bridge and on the streets for our narrative structure.
With Mise-en-scene, since the female singer wears a big duffle coat and a scarf, our singer would wear probrably a tunic with big earrings, skinny jeans and heels which gives it that serious yet sophisticated look. I plan for there to be more shots of the female singer so we can feel her point of view she is making within the song. Our rapper would dress similarly to Wiley but use various shots during his verses mixed with the action of two people on their journey to meet.
Since the original video never had a moral for the audience, I think that we should use a linear narrative story line to show the representation of men cheating on women in specific scenarios.
Below are a few songs that we came up with before finalizing to one song:
- Emilie Goulding - Starry Eyed When you think of the name Starry Eyed, automatically we thought of a theme coloured silver with stars and special effects. With the singer, a woman portrayed as La Roux with the hairstyle and style of clothing would be perfect but wearing glasses that were shiny with a glow which makes it more retro but imaginative. This video would be simple but effective as there would be numerous different shots of the singer, fast-paced edits to the rhythm but no action to complicate.
- Snow Patrol - Chasing Cars A black and white theme like Amy Winehouse's Back to Black would be ideal for this slow paced song. A simple location e.g. the London Fields and hopefully terrible weather to give it a calm or unhappy mood. The actor would be dressed in in a big black duffle coat walking to keep it vague but many close-ups and angles.
- Wiley - Never be your woman In comparison to the original video, it is set in an urban area mainly using buildings and quick paced edits of different people. However I felt we should do the video in complete binary opposition with a night time setting, a linear narrative between two actors. In specific parts of the song, fast-paced edits to the rhythm would be necessary and effective towards the audience.
- Emilie Goulding - Guns 'n' Horses Similarly to our Starry Eyed ideas, take away the theme of silver and keep the colours suttle but hot e.g. soft red, orchard and light orange almost like a sunset. The actual song sounds quite relieving so a lot of sunlight and diffrent shots in different scenary would be good.
- Katy B - On a Mission Since the orginal video was very simple of the singer on stage in a concert, we thought of a story with the singer getting ready to go to a club because that would suit the genre and beat of the song which is quite groovy.
For analysing a previous student's work, I have chosen the music video to Madcon - Beggin'. Not only was it the only avaliable video on the website but there were a few points of critism that I could make.
Media Language:
- Setting/Location - London streets, in a house and in a studio with a black back drop which is a smart idea with the way they used it. With these shots the artists are telling the story but in other footage is the narration given to the audience.
- Mise en Scene - I like the fact that they have used two girls in they're video as eye candy to the audience. They thought well about how they could dress for this specific part where they are teasing that singers as they are wearing tight jeans which is a number one garment for ladies showing figure. In contrast, the singers wear multiple outfits throughout the video but part of me feels that they never thought about it that well. The style worn today by young urban teenagers did not match the genre of the song which was Pop/Jazz/Funk. However, it could be at the fact they never wanted to duplicate the original video in which the singers were wearing Old Disco 60's outfits.
- Camerawork & Edits - There is good use of footage used throughout the music video although some of the shots could be filmed a bit better. I think there could have been more close-ups or even extreme close-ups e.g. where they have used the females, they could have done a few ECU shots of specific parts of their body etc. They used edits very well as they are to the beat of the song and constantly moving. Very few repitition shots are used but they had a good technique of CU (close-up) to MS (mid-shot) to CU to LS (long shot).
Mood/Tone: Quite lively and happy due to the dancing used in the footage.
Narrative Structure: Very clear that it is Linear.Through lyrics e.g. Begging you and through action as the actors draw their hands to the audience which engages them.
Audience:16 - 25. It uses a young upbeat rhythm and the footage portrays youngsters.
*Out of 60 marks, I would have given this group approx. 30 marks. This is because there is good use of edits, satifactory camerawork, good thought to mise-en-scene but the idea of the video was too similar to the original e.g. using a game controller as a prop and the idea of each singer having a girl each. Watching the video just reminded me too much of the original and I felt I needed to see a complete different video.
The Russian soviet formalist scholar named Vladimir Propp who was known for his basic plot theories based on Russian folk tales and identifying their narrative elements.
His theories normally followed this narrative sequence: - Preparation: (the introductory sequence) P1. A member of the family leaves home
P2. A prohibition or rule is imposed on the hero P3. The prohibition or rule is broken P4. The villain makes and attempt at reconnaissance P5. The villain learns something about his victim P6. The villain tried to deceive the victim to get possession of his/her belongings P7. The victim unknowingly helps the villain by being deceived or influenced by the villain
- Complication : (The body of the story) C1. The villain harms a member of the family
C2. A member of the family lacks or desires something C3. This lack or misfortune is made known; the hero is given a request or a command and he goes on a mission or quest C4. The seeker (often the hero) plans action against the villain
- Transference: The donor sequence (magic agent is obtained) T1. The hero leaves home T2. The hero is tested, attached, interrogated and, as a result, receives either a magical agent or a helper T3. The Hero reacts to the actions of the future donor T4. The hero uses the magical agent T5. The hero is transferred to the general location of the object of his mission or quest
- Return R1. The hero returns R2. The hero is pursued R3. The hero is rescued from pursuit R4. The hero arrives home or elsewhere and is not recognised R5. A false hero makes false claims R6. A difficult task is set for the hero R7. The task is accomplished
- Recognition: Re1. The hero is recognised
Re2. The false hero/villain is exposed Re3. The false hero is transformed Re4. The villain is punished Re5. The hero is married and crowned
Referring Propp's theories of narrative functions to a music video, I have chosen Trey Songz - Last time Due to embedding disabled by request I have posted the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LEOEAhhK9A
I think this video follows Vladimir Propp's theory because it is about a man and woman who are happily in love and he cheats on her every night in a hotel room. In the end he gets caught out. The video is very linear and it states everything that happens very clearly through the acting and the lyrics.
