We went to Shoreditch and we got to meet a music video director/editor who has made videos for many bands and artists, including Stereophonics and Robbie Williams.
Over the course of the day, he gave us many tips for making our music videos as effective as possible. The one we focused on most was:
1. Performers should not be nervous
In order to get us to experience what it can be like to be a performer in a video and to help us to 'lose our inhibitions', we all performed in our own re-make of the Robbie Williams video for 'Let Me Entertain You'. We got to dance and mime as well as film and be in charge of the lights.
Firstly, the band plays with a plain and simple black background behind them, behind each member there is some back lighting which puts the focus on the band. This contrast of a black background and the bright light out lining the performers emphasises the instruments and highlights the performance aspects of the band. This lighting coupled with the close ups of the instruments and the mid-shots of the members playing really shows how the director has tried to promote the band as a group of performers which is very typical of the rock genre.
The backlighting also raises the band to make them look good. This is a form of band promotion.
As the song builds up to the verse which is louder and more powerful, a bright light passes the frontman's head, this could be linked with the line "have faith" as light is a symbol of hope and faith. It is also used as a transitional device to move in to the powerful verse, and light is a powerful tool.
Secondly, the camera movements link with the pace and drive of the song. The hand-held camera makes the camera sway, this gives a moving feel to the song and links in with the aggressive mood and tone of the song as the movement gives an out of control and chaotic feel to the audience.
The video to this song also has a narrative which runs throughout. When the line "so cling to what you know" is sung it switches to a mid shot of the narrative where a boy is holding on to the girl, so in this song there are links with lyrics. The narrative shows a girl ,who is portrayed as insecure, with a boy who eventually leaves her at a train station. The narrative contrasts with the lyrics of the song which are "I said i'd never let you go" but in the narrative the man does let her go.
Nearer the end of the video there is a close of the girl and then the man, this quick shot reverse shot editing there shows that she is confronting him for making these promises but letting her down. The background lighting then changes to the bright white colour, this signifies the positive change of the narrative as the girl is becoming independent and therefore more secure with herself.
The mise en scene throughout the video is mainly black. All the people in the band and in the story are wearing black clothing, this could suggest the insecure feeling of girl and how she wanted to blend in with the background, as the band do with their background. However at the end they stand out and she becomes her own person.
The editing is quite quick and the cuts are on the beat which links again with the drive and pace of the song.
This is a comical song so I think that this video reflects that really well and sets the tone. Eminem himself is seen as a comical person so this video reflects him and his song. this video is very much a concept video and the main concept is of course comedy. We see many inter textual references in this clip from Michael Jackson to 8 mile to Madonna and MC hammer. this video is seen to be controversial hoverer i think it is to be tongue and cheek.
There is a strong relationship between the lyrics of the song and the visuals for example when he says 'i'm in jail' we then see him in jail and when he says he was 'running but naked' we then see that.
Also the nature of the song is quite crazy as it says 'just lose it, go crazy' so the randomness of the video reflects the lyrics.
I think that eminem falls under the rap/hip hop genre of music with the song having some pop elements to it. it follows some common conventions for example their is a performance section, its quite high budget.
The mise en scene plays a big part in the video as it helps emphasise the people he is referencing.
In the performance parts we are seen to look up to him with the use of low angles. We also get a few close ups of him.
During the middle when he starts to rap faster and the beat gets faster there are very fast vuts between various shots to mimic the beat.
Enter Shikari-Snakepit
Enter Shikari are a band who attract a wide audience from people who enjoy metal to indie people de to their electro/dubstep/rock/metal genre combination.
In this music video, it opens up with a close up of Rou's face in the darkness, singing the opening lyrics of the song; this calm state juxtaposing the next shot and giving it more of an impact as the lighting changes from black to green and the scene changes from darkness to a performance room with lots of electronic-style cuts to the crowd, the band and a symbol, cutting to the beat of the electro introduction of the song to give it a dancey-feel and highlights the genre. There are quick zoom ins and zoom outs of the people dancing, along with extreme close ups of two-steppers to speed up the pace of the video along with the song. The continuous close ups of Rou's face show the importance of his image as he is the lead singer and also the one in the band who makes the dubstep which is further emphasised with the extreme close up of the mixing board.
An interesting shot following this is when a member of the crowd jumps through the symbol that keeps being editied in and it's quickly reversed and them put forward again which shows that there is some significance to this symbol, like there will be with the ghosts and masked people in ours.
The instruments and music is then made significant when the dubstep and the hardcore music is about to start, there are a series of close ups of the musicians picking up the guitar and drum sticks, for instance, just before the instruments are about to come in to the song.
There is then a good sequence of shots when Rou sings in to the camera to show his importance and then headbutts it, pushing it backwards on a possible track and dolly through the wall of death in the crowd which is someone which we could attempt to do but in the skatepark with the skaters. This, along with all of the wide and ariel shots of the hardcore dancers and mid shots of Rou singing whilst leaning in towards the people shows the significance of the audience to the band.
The video for 'Warning' by Green Day, was directed by Francis Lawrence in 2001, who has since then directed many of Jennifer Lopez and Lady Gaga videos, as well as many others.
The video features performance which is intergrated into the narrative, which is a common convention of the rock genre of music videos: there are close ups of the band members and their instruments throughout the video.
Also, the lyrics coincide with the visuals in that the concept is showing a man who lives a dangerous lifestyle, by ignoring all the common warnings that occur in daily life, such as running with scissors, eating before swimming, and operating heavy machinery whilst drowsy. Particular lyrics, including 'caution, police line, you better not cross' are also referenced, as later in the video, the man is seen walking under a police line.
The mise en scene for the video also features the man in dark, casual costume, and the setting of his home features dull colours, with dim motivated lighting and shadows, given by lamps and artificial lights, in order to emphasise his abnormal and perhaps unhealthy lifestyle. The video is also edited in time with the beat of the song, and a whip pan is used frequently to show transitions from the main narrative to the performance aspect, which shifts focus to the band and music, and also the fast paced cuts further the audiences feeling of unease. The camera shots consist of a mixture of static mid shots, close ups and extreme close ups during the narrative, focusing on his irregular actions.
As we all know there are different genres of music, but are there different genres of music videos?
We began by looking at how you categorise films, these are some of the ways we thought that films were categorised:
-by the narrative
-the setting
-age/target audience/rating
-production company
-style
-by their directors (auteur)
-by their actors/actresses
We then began to think about why we have Genre any why its so important? we decided that the main reasons for having Genres are:
-for the producers to help give them a template
-for the distributor to provide assumptions and help with marketing
-for the audience it is a label that identifies likes or dislikes
Following on from this we then looked to see if music videos and certain conventions that they conform to, especially for different types of music genres.
The Prodigy - No Good
Calvin Harris - Acceptable in the 80s
In both of these videos we see some common conventions for the Dance genre:
-both have dancers
-no complicated choreography
-no narrative
-simplistic concept
-random and crazy
However their are some differences:
-in acceptable in the 80s there is more use of colour whereas No Good is in black and white.
Some other common conventions we have discovered are: Rap/Hip Hop
-images
-close ups of artists
-materialistic
-life style
Pop
-inter textual
-being heroes
-big budget
-sexy
Indies
-cuts to beat
-plain background
-focus on the artist/whole band
-low budget
-bright colours
Finally some quotes on Genre:
"the same text can belong to different genres in different countries or times" (O'Sullivan et al. 1994)
"satisfaction is guaranteed with genre; the deferral of the inevitable provides the additional pleasure of prolonged anticipation" (Knight 1994)
"genre is not...simply 'given' by the culture: rather, it is in a constant process of negotiation and change" (Buckingham 1993)
Two Door cinema Club are a typical indie band, similarly to the music video we are going to make for The Doves. In this music video they use a simplistic setting like we will for the performance section of our video (Matthew's garage), along with lots of bright, bold colours stereotypically associated with the indie genre; this is also something which we will incorporate with the colourful clothing of the band members and the background drop we are going to make for the performance area to replace Matthew's inappropriate curtains.
In this video, there are lots of close ups of the singer to highlight the indie image of the band, along with extreme close ups of the instruments to show their significance. There are also lots of pan shots used for the actors when they are dancing in this video which we plan to use for our actors as well, in the supermarket, car park and also in the skatepark when showing the movement of the skateboards. It also cuts on the beat to show rhythm whist also keeping the music video interesting and making sure that it isn't monotonous; something we also wish to do.
Another similar feature of this music video and what we envision ours to be like is that there are a group of actors in the video -much like our ghosts and masked people- who act along side the performing band.
