My Chosen Song

Class Favorite Videos

Objects in the Rear View Mirror - Meatloaf

Narrative?
Someone who's best friend died in a plane crash while they were kids. Told through flashbacks mostly.

Techniques and Conventions?
-Soft lighting
-Constant cuts
-Fades as time passes
-Pans
-Meatloaf performing alongside the narrative
-Varying locations
-Two time periods combined (Looking back)
-Zooms
-Fades in the background (Ghost of the past)
-First woman seen is sexualised


Here It Goes Again - Ok Go

Narrative?
No narrative

Techniques and Conventions?
-All in one shot
-Steady camera
-Became YouTube popular
-Comedy value
-Aimed towards and indie audience


Sex on Fire - Kings of Leon

Narrative?
Focuses on one main character

Techniques and Conventions?
-Fast editing that fits with the beat
-Good cinematography
-Performance
-Costumes that reflect genre
-Slow motion
-Dual roles
-Good lighting that fits video tone

Audience Feedback

During class we discussed some peoples favorite music videos in order to gain an understanding of what made a good music video;

Under the Bridge - The Red Hot Chili Peppers

Likes: A narrative telling a story. Good use of cinematography and effects. Objects that relate to the lyrics of the song. Two perspectives shown in one shot.
Dislikes: Tacky effects at the beginning of the video. Repetitive.


 
Shuffle - Bombay Bicycle Club

Likes: Filming on tour which provides live performance. Montage editing. Rhythmic editing. Different shot types. Handheld camera.
Dislikes: At times the video looks unprofessional.



Sky Full of Stars - Coldplay

Likes: Handheld camera following the band down the street in one long shot. Fans brought into the video.
Dislikes: Lack of editing causes it to be repetitive and boring.


I'm Not the Only One - Sam Smith

Likes: Narrative that the artists sings along side of. Slow motion.
Dislikes: Cliche.


Cudi the Kid - Steve Aoki

Likes: Editing pace matches the song beat. Explosions match the beat. Costumes reflect who the younger actors are playing.
Dislikes: Confusing at times. Unnecessary things.


Umbrella - Rihanna

Likes: Effects fit with lyrics of the song. Good editing featured throughout the video. Costumes and location varied to keep video interesting.
Dislikes: Unnecessary featuring of Jay-Z.


Shadow Moses - Bring Me the Horizon

Likes: Jittery effects give sense of being animated. Location matches the lyrics of the song. Performance.
Dislikes: Reused scenes.


Teenage Dirtbag - Weetus

Likes: Live performance. Narrative. Pull focus.
Dislikes: Gives the audience a negative opinion of high school.


Castle of Glass - Lincoln Park

Likes: Engrossing story. Video gives the lyrics meaning. Good special effects.
Dislikes: Should have remained on the story rather than also including performance.


Royals - Lorde

Likes: Editing is done to the beat. Video tone fits the tone of the song.
Dislikes: Boring and repetitive after a while. Easy to lose interest. Tried to hard to be indie.


Moment 4 Life - Nicki Minaj

Likes: Good narrative that fits with the song.
Dislikes: Plays on stereotype of girls looking for the perfect wedding. Opening last too long, making it a long time before song starts.

Brief

A promotional package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with two of the following three options:

.a cover for its release as part of a digipak (CD/DVD package);

.a magazine advertisement for the digipak (CD/DVD package).

Evaluation

When approaching this project my team and I made sure to have all the production planned beforehand so that we knew when each part of the project was completed. Finding times when we would all be available to film the video was difficult and because of this we ended up filming most of it at college, with only one part of the filming process taking place anywhere outside the college. Also, it was difficult to find people who were willing to take part in the video and for this reason we ended up using people from our group in our video as we believed this would be easier and also we were more likely to find time to film through doing this. Recreating the video was difficult because of the effects in the video and also the constant changing locations. For this reason the couch part of the video looks inconsistent in our video.

Throughout this project I have been taking note of all the challenges that we had to face when making it. For my video next year I plan to look back at my experience with this video and allow it to help me with the decisions I make when making my video. One thing I have taken note of is the amount of cuts featured in the video we recreated. I believe this is one of the videos best qualities and I plan to include a similar set up in my video.

I believe we were successful in recreating the music video; however there are noticeable faults in our version. The video we chose to recreate had some hard to recreate scenes and because of this, we could not perfectly recreate the video completely. The most notable place this is seen is during the couple of the couch sections. We were unable to recreate the colours of the couch and the editing is off compared to the one featured in the video. However, other than this I think we were successful in recreating the video to the extent we could with the equipment and props we had available. I’m happy with the way the video turned out and because of this I would say that it was a successful recreation.

In regards to moving onto the next year of the course, this project has helped to ease my mind about some of my worries about making the music video. I initially believed it would be harder to capture shots that would look suitable for a music video, but by recreating a video and seeing ours have similar looking shots have helped me to understand how to position the camera when filming. By doing this I believe the music video I will create for my second year will look more like a real music video than it would had I not had any experience with creating a video.

Looking back on my final product I can say I am happy with the way it turned out. I believe some of the editing is handled very well. However, as I have noted before, the couch scenes are my least favourite part of the product. We were unable to create something that looked like a music video for this part. I am also displeased with the length of one of the clips, which lasts longer than it should in a music video. By looking at what is my least favourite part of this recreation, I now know what I should not do when creating my video.

My favourite part of the product would be the scenes of ‘Hayley Williams’. Looking at this in comparison to the music video you can see they look very similar. We also utilised lip-syncing, which I believe helped to show off the editing skills of the team. Looking back at this, I have a few ideas that may be translated into my music video next year. Overall I believe completing this task will help to improve the quality of my video next year.