Bittersweet Symphony - The Verve - Medium close up tracking shot

The happenings in the first 32 seconds: Tracking shot of feet, pans up to full body, he waits at pavement, camera goes across road, he waits for a bit, he starts to walk across road with camera tracking him from front, cars goes past him straight after he crosses.

The clothing that our actor will need to wear are black/dull clothing all over.

The equipment that we will need to shoot this clip are the camera and the stedicam 

Final edit of our version of Bittersweet Symphony 

Types of music video (Firth 1998)

Firths theory - This is a theory where music videos can only be categorised into three different types. These types are:
- Performance which is an act of staging or presenting a play, concert or other form of entertainment.
- Narrative which is a series of connected events usually forming the part or whole of a song.
- Concept which is an abstract idea.

Some examples of performance based music videos are:
- Last Nite by The Strokes
- Beneath Your Beautiful by Labrinth feat. Emeli Sande

Some examples of narrative based music videos are:
- When The Sun Goes Down by Arctic Monkeys
- No Church in the Wild by JayZ

Some examples of concept based music videos are:
- Gold Dust by Dj Fresh

In this day and age (2013) this theory however, is too rigid. It is very difficult to find a music video purely based on only one of these concepts and they usually have 2 or all of the concepts in the music video.

Key conventions of a music video

We had a look at a few music videos in our lesson including Rudimental - Waiting all Night and Mcfly - Love is Easy. We came up with the key conventions of a music video that we saw in all of the videos we watched. These are...

- The sound matches the narrative.
- Having the artist appear in the music video.
- Having extreme close ups.
- Showing instruments and people playing them.
- Tracking shots.
- Low angle shots - more powerful.
- Slow motion.
- Artist performance.
- Fluid camera movements.
- Lyrics matching the narrative.
- Visuals - representational of the sound.

These all appeared in the music videos so we decided that they are the key conventions of a music video although some may not apply to others.

The history of music videos

Facts about music videos...

- MTV stands for Music Television.
- They aired their first ever music video on 1st August 1981.
- The song was 'Video Killed the Radio Star' by The Buggles.
- However the first ever music video was aired in 1894.
- The song was called 'The Little Lost Child' by Edward B. Marks and Joe Stern.
- They created it by using a series of still images put together to create a moving image.

Music video - Things to consider

How important sound is to a music video...

Sound is very important to the music video for a range of reasons. These are:
- The mood of the song can help to determine the visuals.
- The music video should match the connotations of the aspects of the song eg. rythm, tempo, voice.
- The video that you create has to fit the genre of the music.

How important emotions/feel is in a music video...

The emotions and the feel that the song gives you are very important.
- It helps determine what kind of video to have with the song.
- The emotions that are conveyed in the song can be backed up by the visuals.
- The emotions in the video can help you understand the song a bit better an help you to relate and understand what it's about.

How important lyrics are when constructing a music video...

Lyrics are incredibly important when you are constructing the music video for a particular song because...
- They can help you understand the song further and appreciate what it is actually about.
- If there is a metaphor in the song then that can be shown in the visuals.
- The lyrics can also help to construct the music video into a narrative almost.

Chasing Pavements - Adele - close up shot

Location - For our location we have decided to use the school grounds by a tree.
Equipment - The equipment we will use to film this shot are the canon 550D and the stedicam.
Props - The only props we will use are clothing and we have decided that our singer will be wearing dark clothing.
Editing - There is only a bit of editing that is needed for this short clip of a music video. We will have to edit the sound together with the visuals, but the most important thing we will need to do is change the colour of the whole picture as we need to make it look like it was filmed in the Autumn time.

Final edit of our version of Chasing Pavements

Music video research

McFly - 5 colours in her hair - pop

The different shots in the music video "5 colours in her hair" are...
- Panning shot
- Mid shot
- Long shot
- High angle shot
- Establishing shot
- Close up shot

There was particularly a lot of panning shots in this video so that you could see the whole band playing in the footage. They also used close ups so that you could see who everyone was and see who was singing at each particular time.

Adele - Chasing pavements - ballad pop

The different shots in the music video "Chasing pavements" are...
- Panning shot
- Close up shot
- High angle shot
- Mid shot
- Long shot
- Birds eye shot
- Extreme close up

There was a lot of birds eye shots because of the storyline but there were also lots of extreme close ups and close ups of Adele singing and her lips moving to show her dramatically singing.

Gotye - Somebody that i used to know - indie

The different shots in the music video "Somebody that i used to know" are...
- Panning shot
- Close up shot
- Extreme close up shot
- Mid shot
- Two shot

This is a very simple video as there aren't many shots used and its quite a slow paced song. There were mostly close up shots or mid shots as this showed him singing clearly.

White Stripes - 7 nation army - rock

The different shots in the music video "7 nation army" are...
- Mid shot
- Panning shot
- Close up shot
- Extreme close up shot
- Long shot
- Black shot

The video to this is very repetitive and there is constantly stuff moving forward at you. The most common shots are the close ups and the long shots. This is so you can see what the artist/singer is playing instrument wise and also so that you can see them singing.

Overall

Overall all of these videos use close ups of the main singer to show that they are singing the song. This shows that the close up shot is a very important shot to use in a music video and that we should use it in our video. This is also the case for the panning shot.

Reflections of my development this year

What new terms or concepts have i learnt this year?
- McGuffin
- Enigma
- Digitisation
- Long tail theory
- Male gaze theory
- Digital/analogue
- Convergence
- Actual audience and intended adience
- Mass audience and niche audience
- Diegetic and non-diegetic sounds

What skills have you developed from the beginning of the course to the present day?
- How to use Final Cut Pro and the different aspects to it
- Shooting footage on the new digital camera
- Setting up the shot and thinking about what goes into the frame
- Storyboarding/shotlisting/screenplaying
- How to analyse a moving picture

To what extent did knowledge of media products influence your media products?
- The narrative
- The conventions
- The genre

How have digital technologies impacted your production work?
- Final Cut Pro has made it simple and easier to edit the footage together and it is advanced so can do a lot of things to make the film look better
- The new camera that we got makes the footage much better quality and makes it easier to shoot the film. It also makes it quicker and easier to produce the film