Media A2 : Music Video

We created a music video for Dave Anqii, a Swedish house DJ/Producer. The song is a conventional house electro song with themes of romance, dancing and party's, we decided to follow a conventional narrative to create a successful music video, we researched and found forms of videos that were appealing to our audience and focused upon those styles. Our storyboards and shot list outlined a linear narrative of a boy meets girl at a remote location where a party is being held, we wanted to include mulit-clipping, various angles and some small visual effects.

The genre and audience we created our video for demonstrates quite linear conventions, videos follow similar style and have almost a common 'recipe' for success. We didn't want to have to many conceptual elements as we wanted to keep to a narrative to re-enforce the songs lyrics and meaning. A performance was out of the question as our song was produced by a DJ, the only way a performance was possible was by using a large venue and using a large crowd which with no budget was nearly impossible, plus this would not re-enforce the songs meaning it would almost be a trailer to the DJ's tour instead of the single 'Never be Alone'.

After shooting and editing we put our video out for feedback, it was clear our narrative was easy to follow and appealing to our target audience. We added heavy themes of party'ing and dancing to keep the video interesting and cut to the best to make it visually pleasing. We were worried about the video becoming repetitive so we made sure to not use repetitive cuts or shots. We made sure to focus in on our main characters to highlight their roles, suing them both as male & female gazes to appeal to both genders of audience. We wanted to almost make it struggle for them to get to one another which help drive the narrative and push conventions of 'Love & Romance'. We wanted to add hidden messages, for example fighting for what you believe in or love, as both characters had to push through a crowd to get to one another, they fought to get to one another which was an idea we felt suited the song. We done this to try and add depth to the video, as although it fits in to a mainstream genre we wanted it to appeal to a wider audience so by adding various conventions it helps make the video more appealing.

Screen Capture 1

This Angle of our main character Danny was intentional to shoot at the start of the music video. This is because it shows that he is the main character in the video, that it is from his perspective. We also shot it as a mid close up to emphasis the darkness around him.

Screen Capture 2

This shot is a conventional Goodwin shot, we have used our female lead to present a gaze to our audience, the upwards pan helps enforce the gaze idea and draws in audience attention. We wanted to establish our female lead early on in the video, not only for a gaze element but to construct a narrative in the video. We followed genre characteristics to emphases this shot, as you can see there is background lasers and party elements to keep form of a house electro video. We wanted our audience to connect and relate to our characters and buy presenting our female lead in costume and a scenario that is somewhat relatable it helps the audience connect and buy into our video. We presented a relationship between our music and visuals in this shot as the male lead did not want to be alone and therefore he must reach the female lead, it helps drive the story. Although we were not working with a record label we featured a lot of close ups like seen in this shot, we used this technique to establish characters and to push our narrative, it helps brand our music video as-well. This shot is place between multi-clips of the party and clips of our male lead looking at our female lead, but cutting this shot between the male leads gaze we can build a narrative and construct conventions within our video. To keep audience interested we cut party shots around the narrative elements, this overall makes the video more appealing. We colour corrected this shot to really emphase her hair and eyes, overall drawing in the audiences attention and making the shot more visually pleasing.

Screen Capture 3

This shot relates to screenshot 2 heavily, it is the shot that follows the pan of our female lead. It is a tracking shot of our main male character, in the shot he is attempting to walk over to our female lead to make first contact. It is later shown that she is distracted by another male character, this dampens his spirit which leads to build up of the narrative which follows. We wanted to construct a shot that would act as a gaze for females, this helps widen our audience and applies successful forms to our video. We chose a slow smooth tracking shot of our main lead walking towards the camera, we made our main male look directly into the camera with a straight face, almost a 'sexy look'. This shot is very powerful as it builds a connection between character and audience, a powerful technique within a narrative. Shots like this were inspired by such music videos like 'One, Swedish House Mafia' and Films like 'Cocktail - Bar Scenes'. We made sure to include genre characteristics, much like the previous shot we included lights and a heavy mis en scene of a party, although int his shot we added extras to make the room feel more full and to show how our lead character must push his way and fight to get to the girl. This always plays on the convention of looking as we are following the male leads gaze at this point in the narrative.

Screen Capture 4

This shot is our only lip syncing shot, this shot fits into a few conventions. The first being hyper-reality, this girl is not seen in any of the other shots thus making her mysterious, we linked this shot around the one of our main lead 'finding his confidence' so we left subtle clues that she may be somewhat of a guardian to him. This re-enforces hyper-real conventions and again like other shots links lyrics and visuals to one another which in turn promotes the song. We again used her as a ale gaze, focusing in on her lips and eyes and trying to make the shot as powerful as possible, we were aiming to try and capture to males audiences attention with this shot. We lip synced the shot perfectly which builds a strong connection between music and visuals, by making sure there are clear links between our song and video we can brand our track and artist easier which make our ancillary products more effective. We added a slight effect to distort her face through colour waves, this was to really push the idea of a guardian and how he is the only one to see her, it is almost like he is 'tripping' when this shot is played which in turn makes the shot overall and lot more powerful and interesting.

Screen Capture 5

This shot demonstrates themes and conventions of hyper reality, it is visual effect shot of the shot effects hitting our character. It plays a huge part in out narrative and shows how our character finds his courage, even if it is 'Dutch Courage'. The switch of personality before and after the shot shows how the alcohol has empowered him with confidence, this form and idea relates to genre characterises but in a more subtle context. A lot of videos in the genre of house and electro feature largely around drug use, they usually have a character stuck in a boring routine and once they take certain substances they whole ego and personality changes, their life becomes more vivid and wild, which appeals to a young audience. We used an intertextual reference from Aviciis Superlove which portrays a similar change in personality and an almost immediate boost.

Screen Capture 6

This low angle shot demonstrates genre characteristics, we wanted to empower our characters to make seem more confident and to act as if they are having a great time, by using a low angle we made them seem a lot more powerful which is of course common within this genre, it is also common in hip hop and rap videos. A lot of the time this will be a demand of the label, to make the artist seem a lot more powerful and important than the rest of the cast and characters but we used this technique to overall empower the crowd. This shot really does conform to the conventions and forms of a modern music video and the techniques and stylistic ideas would be commonly found within todays industry. This shot helps build up a stronger image and also it emphasises the music by putting it a ground level you can get a feel of the dancing and due to the un-usual angle makes it all a lot more dramatic. Very powerful when creating a video for an unsigned or unknown artists, which was our case.

Screen Capture 7

This shot is very similar to our second screen capture, the convention is almost identical to the previous shot but it takes a different form. The whole shot is composed differently, although we still use the 'visual gaze' technique we have changed it from a slow upwards pan to a more fast paced dramatic shot, the female empowerment is still very much present but it almost shifts from our female lead being a gaze to more powerful character. After this show she walks briskly to main male. Again we followed genre characteristics to emphases this shot, as you can see there is background lasers and party elements to keep form of a house electro video. We wanted our audience to connect and relate to our characters and buy presenting our female lead in costume and a scenario that is somewhat relatable it helps the audience connect and buy into our video. We composed to shot to drive a cut to the next scene of the two leads coming together, this helps build up to grand finale found in all videos of this genre, we kept to all conventions and form of a mixed gender hyper real music video in this scene.

Screen Capture 8

Screen Capture 9

Editing reflects the pace/structural changes of the track (Music > Visuals)
Variety of angles and shot types
Can be performance, narrative and/or conceptual
Relationship between the Visuals and the music/lyrics
Dominance of CUs
Location & costume changes/ not following continuity
Beat edits to the tempo of the song
Features the artist within the music video as a performer, cameo or character
Convincing performance shot from multiple angles and shot types
Performance has direct address to the camera
Performance synching (Lip, Instrument) - Simulacrum (simulation of the 'real' performance, 'real' performer)