Final song choice

The song I have chosen to make my video for is: Hardest button to button by the White Stripes

White Stripes - The Hardest Button To Button Found at abmp3 search engine

Forms and conventions of music videos

• Most music videos are a combination of a storyline and completely separate shots of the band performing the song, but sometimes the band are integrated withing the story for example 'breakfast at Tiffany's'.






• There is usually little or no dialogue.






• Most normal music videos are between 3-5 minutes long, some exceptions are telephone by lady gaga and born free by M.I.A which is posted on my blog.






• Most music videos use a wide range of camera shots.






• Lots of jump shots and quick editing is used to differentiate between the storyline and the band performance.






• Extreme artificial lighting is often used to make the band members look younger and more glamourous.






• The mood of the song is always well established through the costumes, colours and storyline.

Different genres of music video have different forms and conventions:

Hip-Hop

• Usually contains the artist.






• Set in a club or party environment.






• Lots of female models/dancers.






• Expensive cars and houses.






• No real storyline.

Rock

• Dark mise-en-scene.






• Usually contains band performing on stage.






• Not much narrative






• Sometimes considered 'weird'.






• No use of special effects

Pop

• Colourful.






• Lots of close ups of artists.






• Fun and light hearted.






• appeals to a younger audience.






• Dance routines with the artist.






• Strong narrative, often based around a love story between two teenagers.

Indie

• Band or artist featured throughout the video.






• Some use of special effects.






• Usually a calm setting at the start but changes throughout the song.






• May be in black and white.






• Close ups of artists or characters in the video.

The song that I am doing is a rock song so I will have to make sure that I try to include as many of these forms and conventions as I can.

Characteristics of my target audience

• Aged 14-25.


• Listens to a lot of music.


• Spends a lot of money on CD's and music magazines.


• quite relaxed and easy going.


• Enjoys going to live music events.


• Likes to go out and socialise with friends.


• Intellectual and intelligent.


• Male or Female.

5 things to improve on from last year

Do

• I will make sure that I research in more depth.
• I will come up with one idea and stick to it rather than changing my ideas.
• Be more inventive with my shot choices and locations.
• Make sure that my blog is always up to date.
• Storyboard properly before I start shooting.

Don't

• I will not start shooting until I have properly researched and storyboarded.
• Leave it until the last minute.
• Don't start shooting until I am sure that I have everything I need to achieve all of my shots.
• I will not edit my shots unless I have done at least three takes of each.
• Leave my evaluation to the last minute because it will not be very good.

Music video research

Kid British-Our House: This was a good music video because it had a story but the artists were in the shot performing the song, rather than cutting between two different scenes. The artists were well integrated into the story and the other characters didn't seem to notice them, the different scenes ran smoothly into each other and flowed very well and it kept me interested throughout. The costumes and props were used very effectively to create a specific mise en scene and character type, very similar to the mood created in TV programmes such as Shameless. There was no special effects or shots of the band playing so it has a more gritty realistic look which makes it in some way similar to a short film.






M.I.A-Born Free: Born free was a very interesting music video because it has more of a story than most videos and there is a lot of dialogue, it's very similar to lady gaga's telephone in this aspect. It is also over 9 minutes long which is very unusual for a music video. There is also quite a lot of sections where the music is very understated and there is a lot of dialogue so the actual track becomes more like background music and the film becomes more important than the actual music. At the beginning of the film there is credits which is unusual in a music video.
The mise en scene in this video is quite plain and boring, the colours are all neutral beige's and yellows. The costumes in the video are very important in telling the story and the dark policemans uniform stands out from the rest of the colours in the film.
The camera angles used in the video are also quite interesting, there is a lot of handheld shots, for example, in the front of the truck there is a first person shot of somebody looking out of the window. This combination of camera angles give the video a realisitic feel, more like a short film than an actual music video.
This music video contains a lot of very graphic violence which is unusual in most music videos because it means that it cannot be shown on TV very often which gives the impression that this music video was not created for promotional purposes and it was created as a political statement.

Peter Gabriel-Sledgehammer: This video is a very good example of stop motion using a combination of real life actors and animation, I think that it is very effective because it is a very simple idea but it is memorable and entertaining. The mise en scene of the characters costume is very bright and stands out from the more plain background. The main sections of the video are just one long take of a straight on medium close up but the viewer is kept interested by the changing background. At the time, this idea was revolutionary because animation had not been used that much in music videos.

Foo Fighters-Learn to fly: I enjoyed this video because it had a simple story but it was done very effectively and the comedy works very well, I also like the idea of having the band playing all of the characters. The images of the band playing being shown on the TV screens in the plane was also interesting. The mise en scene is very bright and reflects the light hearted mood of the video.

Jamie T-Calm down dearest:

This was a very interesting music video because it is filmed with a handheld camera and the main protaganist is filming himself rather than being filmed. The whole video is in a home video style. All of the effects used are very simple things that most people could easily do at home without any proffesional equipment. This is an example of anti-video.

I have looked at a variety of interesting music videos and have started to develop some ideas, I liked the idea of using a boring static shot and using background changes to make it interesting like in the sledgehammer video.
I also like the idea of using the theme of the song in my video rather than basing a story around the lyrics.

A2 production portfolio briefs

Out of the five options, I have narrowed my choices down to either brief 1- Music video, or brief 5- A short film. I have chosen these 2 because they both interest me and they both combine video and print.
I definetely don't want to do the documentary or the newspaper option because they both seem very boring and uninteresting.