Here is my mini pitch and my ideas for a music video. My narrative and performance includes a girl and boy meeting who fall in love and become handcuffed to one another, however the girl then becomes very unhappy and fed up with the boy and tries to escape but can’t because of the handcuffs. Finally she escapes and goes home to where she belongs. In this music video I want to include a amplified performance and a linear structure as I feel it would draw in a good target audience and relate to the song. For the star image and mes- en-scene they are in black costumes at the beginning of the video and then when the girl realises she belongs in her hometown she is going to be wearing a white dress. The location will be mainly based around the beaches and cliffs.
I am hoping along with my ideas and the rest of my groups we will be able to come up with a great concept for our music video and it will allow us to have some good camera angles, good edits and a great narrative and performance.
Below is one of my favourite music videos from a former student called Don’t kill my vibe which I have analysed to help me gain a better understanding of conventional features and what I need to include in my music video.
Technical conventions:
Technical conventions are used to construct or suggest meaning in media. In a music video it is essential for the video to have all, if not some of the following, lip syncing, editing to the beat and good composition and framing. These are used to convey at story and allow the audience to be able to understand the narrative. Throughout the beginning of this music video there is a sad and depressed setting, this represents a miserable and sorrowful mood with the use of fade transitions using the camera and pace of edit.
Narrative and performance ratio:
The narrative connects events and helps to represent a story, when analysing this video I could see the lyrics relate to the music video as the music gets more upbeat and turning a negative into a positive the colours of the video become brighter and standout more to show the mood lifting. I would say this is an amplification narrative as the lyrics relate to what is going on with the video whilst adding new elements to help complement the song. I feel this music video has a 50/50 ratio as the video is going along with the theme of ‘don’t kill my vibe’.
Star representation:
Throughout the video the star image is represented as a girl trying to build herself back up. She wears statement outfits through the video which a can decode that the outfits is used as a way to show her mood. They have also done this using props, for example the flowers being black and falling apart but towards the end of the video they become bright and bold flowers again. This shows me as the video goes on its becoming more happier and the girl is becoming more confident. Her facial expressions and body language portray a young and very ordinary girl.
Style of video:
The mise en scene has been designed to show many variations of shot distances and angles like close ups, mid shots, low angles and high angles. They have also added effects to show intense moments of the video. through this they have allowed the audience to relate and understand what is really happening.
Analysing and understanding what has been used and how this video was made will help me when it comes to my own video because I know know what I need to do to incise a good target audience and what kind of angles and shot distances I should be using to show certain emotions. It has also widened my knowledge of conventional features and where and what costume I need to include to have it set the right scene and portray certain characters.
The theme we got for our montage was frantic/chaos. We planned this storyboard to organize how we what to shoot our montage and the variety of shots we would like to use. For example at the beginning of our montage there is a cut to a close up to a stressed person in an exam, this will convey the theme of chaos as the close up at look on the persons face will convey the story and atmosphere of an exam that has not gone well.
Below is our final montage:
Strengths-
Good camera angles throughout
Filmed clips multiple times to make sure we had the right angles
Good facial expressions
Weaknesses-
Transition shots aren’t very smooth
Narrative isn’t the clearest
Lighting isn’t the best
Making this montage helped me to realise that the editing and making sure we can get the correct angles use the camera will be essential to convey the correct narrative for our music video. I now know how I need to portray the star image using the right mise en scene, range of angles and editing skills. Overall I have learnt a lot when it comes to making my own music videos and I now know what works and what does not.
Here I have analysed one of Katy Perrys music videos in detail. By doing this it has allowed me to reflect on the intense detail needed within a music video, for example conventions, form, narrative, performance and star image, it has also allowed me to figure out the way to illustrate my own music video in the correct way. By doing this close analysis it has helped me to understand whether I would like a disjunctive music video like Katy Perrys where the song lyrics don’t relate very well or make much sense with what is going on within the music video. It has also helped me realise where theres repertoire of elements and when and where I should be using different forms of Mes- en -scene.
Below is a table where I analysed and deconstructed 3 music videos . I took notes on the 3 different videos and analysed the form and contents of them. Throughout this I was looking for and reflecting on mise-en-scene, narrative and star image. This will help me in the future when making my own music video as I now have a better understanding of different themes and ideas depending on the genre of the music videos. I know what conventional features and kind of performance to include and analysing these videos has will help me for inspiration for my own music video.
Here is my response to how my production skills developed throughout my project, I have written and recorded an illustrated letter to a future A level media student explaining what helped throughout my project.
I chose this advert as I feel majority of my target audience would use headphones like this or be interested in reading the advertisement to invest in a pair of these headphones. A lot of my readers will often listen to music with headphones and this advert will help with a better understanding of what these certain headphones do. I think its important to include an advert with headphones in as it is a staple to listen to music with or a good investment once seeing this advertisement. This could encourage my target audience to look into Bose for some good quality headphones.
Advert 2
I chose this second advert to have more of a focus on my target audience music that they enjoy. I know that for my genre of pop a good deal of my audience appreciate Ariana Grade’s music and her talents, she is a well known artist and I feel this advert is a good way of drawing in my audience and it could give my audience a better understanding of the genre they are engaging in. It also includes other big artists that my audience know of who will be the opening acts and suits my demographic correctly.
