As follows will be a list of props we intend to use for our music video. We do not really need that many props but we may add to the list as the filming process takes place.
Car - we will be using one of our group members cars not just to travel to the locations but to also feature in the music video. We want to film shots from inside the car looking out but also in the car, for example; Jade and Alex sat in the front of the car having a conversation.
Mobile Phone - we will be using a range of mobile phones in our music video which belongs to Jade and Alex. They will be using these to text and call each other.
Clothing & Accessories - Alex & Jade will have their own personal props which will be part of what they wear for the music video.
To conclude the research section of my blog, I just want to clarify that I feel confident in the product that we are expected to produce and I feel that I have researched all the elements that I will need to assist me in the completion of this task.
What? - A music video promotional package, including the video, digipak and magazine advert. The song we will be using is 'I hate you, I love you' by Gnash.
Who? - Myself, Alex, Ollie and Rhys, whose group roles are to be decided in the planning aspect of the our product. We will also be using two actors which will also be decided when we are planning our video.
Where? - A variety of locations which we already have in mind; these will be explained in detailed under the planning label of my blog when we have been to the locations and evaluated each one for suitability.
When? - A filming schedule is going to be created as a group in order to know when and where we will be filming each day, this is going to be completed as soon as all our planning aspects are in place so we know exactly what we want to do and when.
Andrew Goodwin:
My research of music videos has also helped me to have an understanding of the media theorist 'Andrew Goodwin'. His idea of a music video containing thought through beat and a strong realtionship between the narrative, lyrics and the visuals is something which has stood out to me; it is something which I would like to acheieve in my music video.
Andrew Goodwin believed that it was important for an artist to be fully involved in the music video by performing or acting out the role as the main character. This is something which we would be doing as whoever is chosen to act in our music video will be playing the character of the male which the video will be from his point of view, but also, whoever plays the female character will also be playing a role in the music video which is a part of the narrative.
The uses and graticfications theory is a way to understand how and why people actively seek out specific media to satisy specific needs. This theory is an audience centered approach which focus purley on audience habbits, needs and wants.
The theory, as developed by Bulmer and katz belived that the user seeks out the media source that best fulfils their needs.
The uses and gratifications theory assumes that audiences choose what they want to watch for five different reasons:
This video explains the theory it a bit more detail:
HISTORY:
Beggining in the 1940's, researchers began to notice patterns and trends in radio listeners who were conforming to ideas that supoort this theory, therefore, researchers decided to look further into why audiences were choosing specfic types of media to watch/listen/read.
RELATING TO OUR MUSC VIDEO:
When considering the audience for our music video it would be intersting to consider this theory to see if we can include anything that media users are looking for; drawing them to our music video product. I stongly belief that we will achieve the reason of 'personal identity' as the viewers will be able to recongise Alex and Jade as being pupils in the school and they might be able to relate to the themes that we cover as relationships and mental health are rather prominent in society today.
As our music video features both a male and a female we are not specifying a gander that we are aiming to target as we would like our video to appeal to all. However, having said that, our video shows the breakdown of a relationship from the males perspective, therefore, it naturally markets itself to males slightly more.
The cast involved in the music video are aged 17 and 18, teenagers in a comprehensive school/college, therefore, we are aiming our target market to a demographic of both males and females aged 16 - 20.
We would also like to target anyone who is in a realtionship with things not working out as well as they could be, as this is what is portrayed in the music video.
Bulmer & Katz - Uses and Gratifications Theory - places more focus on the cosumer/adueince rather than the actual product it's self. This is something which appeals to me as I would like the audience of our music video to decide how they feel rather than letting the product force them into thinking something else. The theory consdiers, "what people do with media", rather than, "what does media to do people".
Audience Proflile:
Below is a potential audience profile for our music video:
As a group, we mind mapped ideas for our music video's theme and came up with the ideas noted below:
These ideas came after we finalised our song choice as we had a clearer idea of what we would be working with. We listed a number of camera shots which we intended to use. such as low angles, high angles, close up's and tracking shots. We also had the idea of using a drone to shoot some high angles and pans as Rhys owns a drone which we would love to use as a filming device for our music video.
From looking and listening to the song lyrics we discovered two rather large themes which we wanted to look at and base our video on, relationships and mental health.
This is our mood board which Alex created which gives a slight insight to our ideas and theme:
As previously mentioned, we are using the music and videos from 'The Chainsmokers' as inspirtaions for our music video and hoping that their work will influence the choices we make.
One aspect that we have all agreed that we liked is there way that the lyrics are displayed in 'The Chainsmokers' music video for 'Closer'. We thought it was really effective and worked especially well in relating the narrative of the lyrics to the video. When I watched the video, it drew me in and made me feel really involved and I immediately thought about us using the same idea in order to draw our audience in and to make the narrative and themes stand out clearly.
Ollie - as the editor - was interested in this idea as it is something that he hasn't worked on in terms of editing lyrics onto a video yet, therefore he felt challenged and wanted to achieve it.
An artist which produces products (videos & songs) which are similar to the ideas we have for our music video are: 'The Chainsmokers'. Their songs most often tend to follow the theme of relationships and most of the time they are positive and highlight ideas about a perfect relationship.
The two songs, 'Closer' & 'Paris' focus on the stereotypical elements of a relationship which is represented in a positive light.
Song: I hate u, I love u by Gnash ft Olivia O'Brien
Shown above is a printout of our song lyrics which I have added some annotation to which display both narrative and filming ideas. There are many parts of the song which show confusion and conflict between feelings which I thought we could use quick-cut editing and short shots of Alex and Jade together and then juxtaposed with Alex on his own to reflect these feelings.
The lyrics of the song also provide us with the opportunity to show that Alex is looking back at the relationship through remembering Jade whilst he is trying to sleep, etc.
Our final song decision came down to: I hate u, I love u by Gnash ft Olivia O'Brien
This is the existing music video which goes with this song:
This is a song which has a rather strong narrative running throughout which is carried throughout the raw vocals from Olivia O'Brien and the rap from Gnash. It is a song which clearly displays a problem with a relationship but when we listened to it we thought that we could expand on the idea of a relationship issue. We decided that the relationship issue would've started mentally from the male characters perspective. This draws on the theme of mental health as well as relationship issues giving us a lot more to work with a think about.
The way in which the lyrics are organised in this song really help the narrative come across. The rap is split with singing from Olivia O'Brien in between which puts a massive emphasis on the idea that it's a two-way battle between the male and female involved and that there are (or were) two sides to their relationship. We thought that we could work with this aspect, highlighting moments where the male character is isolated and depressed but then contrasting that with moments with the two of them, enjoying their relationship.
The existing music video for this song uses lots of nature locations which stood out to us. They use high angles and pans over the sea and in forests. This is something that as a group we said we could try and challenge; we thought that even though the shots were impressive, they didn't take us anywhere or show us the issues in the relationship. As we live in Wales we can use the nature and sea which are located so close to us as a benefit and try and get some similar style shots but making sure they focus on the relationship and particularly the male characters mental state of mind.
As a group we came together and disscussed potential songs which we could use for our music video. We created a mind map which displayed two songs that each person liked.
My personal song choices were, 'Wisemen' by 'James Blunt' & 'Found what i've been looking for' by 'Tom Grennan'. The predominnent reasons for choosing these songs were becasue I believed that they carried a rather deep meaning within them throughout the lyrics and narrative.
Rhys' reasons for his song choices were simillar to mine; they were songs which he thought had a strong message and narrative that he picked out when he listened to them. Ollie and Alex chose songs which did have a strong meaning to them, however, their main reasons for choosing the above songs is becasue they had clear ideas of how they could create a music video which suited these songs.
After some group discussion we decided against all these songs, thereofore, we went on to think about othetr songs which we could possibly use.
We were going to use the song 'Bruises' by 'Lewis Capaldi' as we all really liked it and when we listened to the lyrics we thought that we could come up with a good narrative that would fit; the narrative would've been based upon a relationship as this is what the lyrics suggest.
This song also appealed to us as it did not have a music video it was just an audio track, therefore, there was a gap in the market for a video product to go with this song.
However, we felt that our decisions we made too quickly and we all decided that we wanted to continue looking to another song that had a deeper meaning within the lyrics and another theme we could draw upon rather than just 'relationships'.
I have taken a look at some existing A-level music videos to see if any inspire me in the construction of our music video.
Overall, I really like the music video above. I think the concept and narrative behind it is really cool as it is something which I have not seen done before. There are a wide variety of camera angles used, such as medium shots, O.T.S shots, tracking and P.O.V shots. I think the P.O.V shots are really effective when the male in the video is water skiing as you can really see what he sees, drawing you into the action of the video. Something which I would note is that the music video is slightly repetitive in terms of how the central character seems to just repeat what he has already been showing doing a few times (running/swimming).
Something which instantly stands out to me in this music video is the contrast of colours; the lip syncing sections are in black and white whereas the action of the video is filmed in colour. This makes you focus on the two aspects slightly separately which I quite like. The music video is predominantly shot in from the inside of a car, with an outdoor, greenery location being used also. I would say that the limited use of locations does make the video slightly boring as the majority of shots are of different places from inside the car. I am going to make sure I try and include a variety of locations in my music video.
Within this music video, I feel that the narrative is strong and well established. The colours contrast quite well together; darker to start and then brighter towards the end, creating a feeling of reminiscence. I like how this music video looks back on the relationship he had with the female character, this is something which I would quite like to achieve in my music video.
Lighting is a vital aspect of any video production, from trailers to music videos. The use of lighting is important for more than one reason, ranging from making it easier to see everything in the shot, to portraying a certain mood/atmosphere. For example, if there is a little/low amount of lighting used there would be a dull/depressed feeling to the video. This would then highlight what the video is about to the viewer. Alternatively, if there was quite a lot of lighting used in the video it would create a more enjoyable and uplifting mood and atmosphere.
EXAMPLE: Rihanna - We Found Love
Lighting in music videos can be both natural or artificial. An example of artificial lighting in music videos is shown in the pictures above. Natural lighting is most commonly found when a music video has been filmed in an outdoors location, however, weather conditions can impact the lighting during the day/night outdoors.
An example of a music video with more natural lighting would be, 'Molly' by 'Lil Dicky' featuring 'Brendon Urie.
Andrew Goodwin’s theory allows us to analyse music videos concentrating on 7 main principles:
Links between lyrics & visuals
Links between music & visuals
Genre characteristics/ Iconography
Intertextuality
Voyeurism
Demand of the record label
Performance, narrative or concept based videos.
Thought through beat is also a key aspect of Goodwin's which applies to music videos. ( this means - seeing what the song lyrics mean in your head)
The first step of this process is to analyse the music structure, understanding the chorus and verses.
The second step is to listen to the main voice of the song and recognise whether the artist is very unique compared to others, giving the singer a form of identification that can be referred back to.
The third step would be to establish what story the artist is trying to tell within the song. The music video can aid this, along with the lyrics.
Links between lyrics & visuals - Goodwin states that in this principle, the visuals should compliment the lyrics in the song and work well as a whole. An example of a music video which follows this principle is Eminem's 'When I'm Gone'.
The visuals in the video work in unison with the lyrics adding to the strong narrative which is being portrayed involving the negative aspects of his life.
Links between music & visuals - In this principal, Goodwin believes that illustrations and visuals should comply with the beat and rhythm of the music. Therefore, with every other beat, there should be a change of shot or transition. An example of a song which more or less complies with this principle is, Kendrick Lamar's "Alright".
This song tends to use special effects and/or transitional shots in time with the beat of the music.
Genre characteristics/ Iconography - Goodwin states that these two aspects are vital traits in relating music to a specific genre. There are many examples of each genre that can be thought of here. In a typical Rock music video, you would expect to see the instruments such as drums and guitars, whereas in a pop music video you would see a lot more backing dancers and special effects.
Intertextuality - This principal set by Goodwin is what is needed to create a successful music video ( interlexuality, parody and pastiche ) making light references or paying homage to another music video. This may include references to films and television programmes which is then classed as intertextuality. An example parody using this principle could be Alien Ant Farm's "Smooth Criminal" />
Voyeurism - is a principle which is interpreted as watching people in the video or them watching someone do something (screen within a screen) for example, watching attractive men and women engage in something which may be sexual and/or provocative. The artist in the shot may also look directly at the camera or use direct address towards the audience, therefore, breaking the 4th wall ( a Brechtian technique). An example of voyeurism can be seen in the music video to "Bang Bang" by Jessie J, Ariana Grande & Nicki Minaj.
Ariana Grande is shown here using direct gaze ( looking at the camera directly) breaking the fourth wall with the audience.
