EV1

2. My music video is a short narrative based idea that sprung from
watching various different music videos from different genres and
combining many of the themes I found effective. The Plot is about a
young man (The Protagonist) has various different hallucinations due to
the fact that his drink was maliciously spiked at a house party he
attended. Majority of his hallucinations are vague and don’t make much
sense which allows the audience to distinguish the difference between
hallucinations and reality. The scene in which his drink is spiked comes
midway through the video and the presence of this particular scene
allows the audience to piece together what is going on in the video
themselves.

3. The Design for our Digipak and Magazine AD were very similar in order
for them to represent the album and artist as a whole. Our theme was to
create the impression that the three individuals featured on the products
were in love with a stereo and the Album was titled ‘In Love With the
Music’ for a recognisable effect. The Theme of love and relationships is
very frequent in the house music genre and especially in music videos.
We chose to target the same demographic as our music video in terms
of a target audience so young people/adults aged around 16-20 years
would identify with our production the most.

4. I Believe the Music Video, Digipak and magazine advert we produced
corresponds with many typical codes and conventions of the House Music
genre. For instance, my music video features an energetic house music song
- ‘Love The Way’ by Prospa, which is easy for audiences to identify with and
dance to. You might expect a song like this at a house music festival or live
performance. The song features the theme of ‘Love’ quite frequently within its
lyrics. In many other videos I viewed of the same genre such as ‘Pedestrian -
Hoyle Road’, I found that Love and the love between a male and a female
was a frequently occurring theme. We also chose to include this theme on
our digipak and magazine advertisement by titling it ‘In Love with the Music’
and creating a scenario in which the individuals in the images are in love with
a Digital Stereo. Other conventions such as youth house parties with alcohol
and dance music present are also recognisable in the Hoyle Road video. I
chose to include these features into my music video to adhere to that
particular demographic.

5. Goodwin said that all genres tend to have certain conventions that the
videos must follow in order to be identified by the audience. For example,
a dance routine is typical for a boy/girl band. Therefore, music videos can
also link to other music or film genres. This is INTERTEXTUALITY (when
different media products are referencing each other). This can be
recognised in Iggy Azealia’s ‘Fancy’ video. Also genres such as Heavy
metal may be influenced by horror films of such.
To relate this to my music video, I believe I included enough indicators
such as house parties and alcohol for the audience to recognise that the
target audience is young adults and teens. Themes like this can be
recognised in ‘coming of age’ films such as ‘SuperBad’.

6. Adolescent Males:
Shore took the view that music videos often used recycled images and
styles that simply appeals to adolescent males and their fantasies such
as SPEED, POWER, GIRLS & WEALTH. Occasionally, Shore believes
that this can lead to the music videos becoming soft-core pornography
with stereotypical representations of these fantasies. In a sense, our
video could appeal to adolescent males as the male protagonist is
chasing after the girl and she is his main goal throughout the video and
he feels the need to obtain her. Therefor this adheres to Shores theory
and our video is adhering to this typical convention.

7. In terms of my Music video, I included vast amounts of camera angles and a
variety of different shots. I believe that this is an essential feature in any
exclusively narrative music video as a wide variety of shots can deliver an
even more effective idea of what is going on. For example, I chose to include
a shot in which the protagonist puts down the glass that has just been spiked
with a drug and the pill is shown falling down to the bottom of the glass. This
immediately lets the audience know that the drink has a pill in it and it is
questionable whether the character should drink from it. An example of this
can be recognised in the music video for ‘Real’ by Years and Years where the
antagonist is shown picking cards in an exclusively close up shot of his
hands. In terms of the first set of scenes where the characters are running in
the woodland area in our video, I chose to include many free hand shots
without using a Bipod in order to be more realistic and make the scene more
exciting with making the camera angle shake. I found this in many other
music videos such as Anderson Paak and Knxwledge’s ‘Suede’ music video
which is partly filmed in a car where the camera tends to sway or jolt slightly
to add authenticity to the way viewers see the video.

8. I chose to include several props in my music video as bricolage in order to
help develop more of a sense of mise en scène. For example, I chose to put
plenty of bottles of alcohol on the table and used a strobe light App on my LG
G3 Smartphone to create the obvious impression that there was a party
going on in the house. I made sure these props were present in many shots
as it allowed the audience to piece together a sense of environment. I was
influenced by the house party in the ‘Pedestrian – Hoyle Road’ music video
as the producers of this particular video (Benji Photography) did a great job
by including individuals dancing with drinks and including shots of DJ decks
and empty bottles and cans. In terms of our Magazine advertisement and
Digipak we chose to take our photos in areas typical of places one would
take their girlfriend or boyfriend on a date in order to build up the idea that
the individuals on our digipak and advertisements were taking the stereo out
for a date. All of the individuals we photographed for our portfolio were
dressed fairly casually and trendy. This is typical of what you would expect
from people of this age.

9. I used a very typical editing style throughout most of the video which was
cutting to the next shot at the end of every 4th beat and the start of a new bar.
This feature is very common in most if not all house music videos. It keeps
the video flowing effectively and is a good way to keep a firm relationship
between what’s going on in the video and the song. I also chose to add some
effects such as lens flares to add authenticity to certain camera shots. I
colour corrected most of the video where it needed altering to match the
standards of the rest of the shots in the video. Many contemporary music
video go for the High Definition film look when shooting videos and I wanted
to replicate it. With help from a few YouTube Tutorials demonstrating how to
do this in Premier Pro I managed to effectively use colour grading and colour
correction. We also used a reverse effect when adding the pills and food
colouring to the glass of water so they appeared to fly up and out of the glass
which looks effective.
Tutorial I followed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WozBxv9RnY

10. We developed on certain codes such as the way in
which we conveyed how there are dangers as well
as fun at house parties which individuals should be
aware of. This is a development due to the fact that
you don’t see this is house music videos under the
glamorisation of house parties, drinking, etc.

11. I used a Nikon D550 DSLR camera to film the music video and
take photographs with. Majority of conventional music videos use
high end lenses and cameras that can produce good quality
footage. I used a basic tripod in order to film steady angles. I also
chose to include artificial lighting by using a bicycle light and
playing with its intensity for the perfect shot. The camera also had
a torch on the front but it was too intense in some cases so we
chose not to use it.
To ensure that our music video met the conventions of real media
products, during the planning and research tasks, we conducted
audience questionnaires to receive feedback on what audiences
think is the most important feature in a music video out of a few we
listed and majority answered ‘Satisfactory camera quality’.

12. In order to develop on many contemporary music videos I had studied in
my textual analysis of 5 videos and also in my own experiences with
music videos I managed to visualise a few things that may set my project
apart from others in terms of camera shots and angles. One of which was
the way I asked my actors to run whilst Lip Syncing the song. This didn’t
prove difficult for the actors and It combined an action shot and a front
angle shot and on top of that they were Lip Syncing which looks effective
in the video. In the Scene in which the protagonist is spiked by the
malicious character, we chose to show the shadow of the hand cast by
the strobe light, dropping the pill into the drink. This was also very
effective and I hadn’t seen this replicated before in any narrative videos I
had watched.

13. For editing, I chose to add a few effects that would make my music video
more interesting. For example, Whenever the protagonist in my video has
a flash back, I added a flash effect each time by increasing the brightness
of a lens flare rapidly at the moment the scene cuts to the flashback
scene. This creates an immediate flash effect which is easy to do and
also looks effective.

14. Rather than sticking to a basic and predictable narrative, I chose to
change things by adding a twist to the music video. In media, particularly
films and TV series’, I find it particularly effective when there is a twist in
the narrative. The reason for this is because the narrative is the backbone
of the video and everything tends to build around it and by adding
another dimension to the narrative it engages the audience to a higher
degree. My twist was that for the most part of the video, the main
character was hallucinating and this becomes apparent when the
audience see the scene where his drink is spiked with what appears to be
a hallucinogenic drug. This furthers how engaging the storyline is and
makes the video more interesting.

15. When Filming, we chose not to follow a step by step script or storyboard
due to the fact that we felt as if it would be hard to replicate such a vivid
perception of how a shot would look and if it did not match how we
planned it to look, we would be dissatisfied. Filming with a basic idea of
what the music videos narrative is, but no step by step storyboard of all
shots allows a lot more freedom in terms of camera shots and different
opportunities we chose to shoot. For example, the shot with the shadow
silhouette spiking the protagonists drink was not planned, but it sprung to
mind when filming when we noticed it.

16. Many electronic dance music albums tend to feature similar conventions
on the front covers such as the ones below.
However we chose to take a different approach and try to add some
comedic effect to the front cover of our album even though it derives from
the same genre as the albums above. The reason we chose to deviate
from the norm was to make our album stand out amongst others and be
more memorable. Our album cover is shown on the next slide.