2. Genre & Narrative What is genre? A genre has characteristic features that are known to and recognised by audiences because the same formula is used over and over again. Music videos tend to focus on the genre of the song when constructing the video. The three videos that I watched were all different genre’s and it made me realise how important my genre actually is. The three genre’s that I observed were R’n’B, indie and mainstream. The artists were Dizzee Rascal, Kings of Leon and Example who are all recognaizable and successful singer/songwriters. All of their video’s had different aspects to it such as Dizzee Rascal’s video was mainly performanced based and it was representing him as a mainstream artist. He wanted to lose his ‘grime’ background as he was known to be a thug. The Kings Of Leon song, Pyro is mainly narrative based and so is the Example song, Won’t Go Quietly however this song is also performance based. Our music video is going to be both narrative and performance based but mainly focusing on the narrative side. We are doing the song ‘Undercover Martyn’ by the band Two Door Cinema Club which is about having a good time and thats what we will be representing in our video.
3. Mise-en-scene The factors that me and my group need to consider when we are using mise-en-scene are the setting, colour, lightning, clothing, props, camerawork and editing. We will need to apply all of these things in order for our music video to be successful. The three videos that I observed all had the content that you would expect and it was a very stereotypical representation of the genre. For example Dizzee Rascal’s video contained a large sex appeal as it had a lot of woman, which is what a lot of mainstream music videos are about. As the song is called ‘Holiday’ the video was set in a big mansion with a swimming pool on a sunny day, emphasizing their on holiday. In the music video Pyro by Kings Of Leon, the song is quite mellow so the video is set in a depressing, cheap and quiet bar along with a dark colour pallet and dark lighting. They were also using stereotypical props of a rock band, which was guitars and drums etc. ‘Won’t Go Quietly’ by example is similar to Dizzee Rascal’s video as it is mainstream however his is in a club. Our music video will contain stereotypical props and clothing that an indie video would have. The props will include similar props that Kings Of Leon included in Pyro. The lighting and colour pallet will be fairly bright as our song is quite upbeat and cheerful. The clothes that we will be wearing will be stereotypical of an indie band, for example skinny jeans, shirts etc.
4. Camera After analysing 3 different music videos, I have witnessed a wide variety of different camera shots. I have learnt a lot about certain camera shots and how they can impact a music video. In Example’s video we see many shots of him performing hence the fact it is a performance video. We also see many shots of the crowd enjoying his music. These are all typical shots of a performance video. Pyro by Kings Of Leon has a mixed bag of camera shots including a long pan at the beginning. This is used to let the audience know what the scene is like and in my opinion it is very affective. In Dizzee Rascal’s music video there are a lot of shots of him and the featured artist Calvin Harris as the record company try and promote the single. This video is mainly performance based with a hint of concept based. There is no real story behind the video and the song is mainly used to represent Dizzee Rascal in a different way as he has been known to be quite an intimidating character having stabbed someone in the past.
5. Editing The 3 videos that I have analysed have all used various editing techniques to make their music video successful. In Example’s video of ‘Won’t Go Quietly’ at the beginning there are flashing lights that flash to the beat which is a very effective editing technique. In Kings Of Leon’s music video that I analysed the main editing technique that they used was that for the second half of the song all the characters were in slow motion emphasising people’s reaction’s to what is going on. In ‘Come Dance Wiv Me’ by Dizzee Rascal the video changes pace with the music because as it reaches the chorus the beat drops and the video becomes more frequent. In our music video, editing is probably the most important factor to make our video successful due to the fact we have been very ambitious in what we want our video to look like.
6. Relationship between visuals and music/lyrics In my 3 textual analysis’ there are some references to the relationship between the music and the visuals/lyrics. In Dizzee Rascal’s video the relationship between the music and the visuals is that at certain times the video cuts to the beat although there aren’t solo instrumental parts due to the fact that the song contains many different forms of electro music. The relationship between the music and the visuals in ‘Won’t Go Quietly’ by Example is that at the beginning of the video there are flashing lights that flash to the beat but overall there isn’t much to talk about between the music and the visuals in this song. In ‘Pyro’ by Kings Of Leon I managed to find out that the relationship between the lyrics and the visuals are that they are relevant as the lyrics are talking about what is going on. After watching the video several times I have found out that the music and the lyrics all relate together along with the visuals to give the audience an understanding of the song and the video.