MUSIC VIDEO ANALYSIS

Frank Turner - Reasons not to be an idiot



1)
if you listened to the song with your eyes closed, you imagine it to be chilled out, you think of a band playing quite lazily - this is what the video is like

2)
the video follows a narrative slightly - we see the artist filming the video, how to the director is manipulating him to look the right way

3)
the star appears casual, not really bothered with what is happening

4)
slow pace, only about 26 shots in the first minute
quick shaky film, zooming in and out in the same shot
regularly pans around the see the director, then pans back to the artist
long shots of the 'performance', the artist, the band
keep cutting back to the same shot of the director pulling the artists face around

5)
this video is amplifying. the song is about how you should just calm down and live your life. This is shown through the video as the artist has enough of the director trying to change everything that he just walks off.

The video is definitely not illustrative, however, as we never see anything that directly matches to the words of the song


Sven E Carlsson's theory is that music videos fall into two groups: performance and conceptual. The video seems to be both. At the beginning, it appears completely performance, as the artist and his band are just stood there singing and playing their instruments. However, the camera then pan to the side and we see the 'director'. This is where the video becomes more conceptual, we are seeing the video being filmed, what the director is telling the artist to do. This makes the video interesting and different, as well as quite funny.

SECOND MUSIC VIDEO ANALYSIS, ANDREW GOODWIN

Lady Gaga, You and I




1)
the shots don't change between the verses and chorus'
they stay the same pace,  but varied shots
as the video goes on we see more persona's emerge

2)
there's lots of different narratives together
She shows the differences between the narrative by using different costumes and settings
Lady Gaga adopts lots of different persona's and plays out different narrative, that are going on at the same time

we see different sections of the stories

3)
star is portrayed as unusual, weird

how Lady Gaga wants to be seen? all her videos have separate meanings, are all a bit weird
exciting, varied
mermaid,
ice cream van

dancers- Gaga portrayed as a leader?

4)
slow pace, less than 50 shots a minute
except for first middle 8 - fasted editing, more shots
then pace slow for another 8
long takes
lots of establishing shots - every time a new character is introduced

5)
disjunctive - it doesn't really make sense, we don't see just one narrative, we see lots of different ones, all of which are unrelated, except that the singer features as the main character in all of them

definitely not illustrative, the visuals never respond to the audio, neither does it amplify

Sven E Carlsson said that music videos fall into two categories: performance (the artist is seen singing or dancing) or conceptual (something else is shown during the video- maybe a narrative)
Therefore, this video would fall into both of these categories. We see lots of different narratives being played out in the video, but the artist is seen singing and dancing in the majority of them.

ANDREW GOODWIN - MUSIC VIDEO ANALYSIS

50 Cent - Candy Shop



1)
'Loop' of music between the verses
verse - focus on the girls
chorus - focus on the male
male gaze - see the women through his eyes

2)
narrative- a dream
slow motion, long slow shots
how he see's the 'candy'
imagine what it would be like to be at the 'candy shop'
how the male wants to be seen as, what he wants to be like

3)
stars image - trainers, flash cars, fur coat, bling, mansion, sportswear

powerful, independent
walks into house on his own, can walk wherever he wants to

girls all over him, he can do what he wants with them
big jacket - 1970s pimps? powerful, important, rich

tank top, still real? still who he was at the beginning, humble beginning

4)
mise en scene, male fantasy - massive house with big gates, expensive car, revving the engine, fog

pace - slow motion shots of the women, cuts to lots of different women
mise en scene changes at the end, emphasises the dream
clothing, jewellery, cars, house is typical of the hip hop/rap genre

5)
amplify - singing about 'the candy shop', but we do not see an actual candy shop
not disjunctive
literal in some place - some words and pictures match - 'love doctor', bubblegum

ANDREW GOODWIN'S THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

'A video clip that responds to the audio.'


Relationship of visuals to audio:


 Illustrate

• set of images that illustrate the words of the song

Amplify

• another layer of meaning added to the song (very common)

Disjuncture

• meaning of the song is ignored, the visuals follow another story

Andrew Goodwin says to analyse five aspects of music videos:

• synaesthesia
• narratives
• star image
• relation of visuals to the song
• technical aspects

POST-PRODUCTION: VIDEO TECHNOLOGY

During editing, there was a problem with the sound, where it kept going on and off. This made trying to line up the audio and clips really difficult. The only way to fix this problem was to save the timeline, and restart the program; however this took up a lot of time.

The most useful tool was obviously the razor tool, as it is the tool used most often during editing. With this task, I changed the size of the timeline often, whereas I never really did this before. I found really useful when only moving the clips around very slightly.

I also found naming the clips before importing them extremely useful, as I didn’t get confused with which clip I was trying to use, or if I had already used the clip.

PRODUCTION

During this task, the only thing that really went wrong, was that we couldn’t find the audio track, therefore we wasting time looking for it then getting it copied onto a memory stick, available to use. When filming my music video, I will make sure that I have everything ready to use before setting up, so no time is wasted. The rest of the filming went really smoothly, because we had the storyboard with us all the time so that we could get the shots easy, and we had a good shooting schedule so we all knew which shot we were filming.

Production: Digital Technology

I already knew how to use the cameras properly, how to use use the editing software, how to upload videos onto youtube and how to then embed them into my blog from last year, however I had to remind myself how to use them correctly. Luckily, this was done during task 1, so I was able to get straight on with filming and editing the video for task 2.

During this production task, I learnt how it is best to film certain shots all in one go, even if they are not in the order they will be edited in. for example, it would be wasting time if we were to film one shot inside, then another  outside and a last shot inside. We would be spending too long having to pack away, move then set up the equipment and would not have enough time to film.

during second year, I would like to be more confident with using the camera, as sometimes I'm worried that I might not get the camera in the correct position to take the shot properly.

RESEARCH AND PLANNING EVALUATION

The most useful of these tasks were the shooting schedule and the storyboard. The storyboard meant that we knew exactly what shot we had to take: the angle, who was in the shot, how long the shot was etc, and the shooting schedule meant that we were organised and knew when we had to bring certain props and costumes in.

I think we should have thought some more about the costumes, as we didn't really have matching costumes. If this was a larger scale music video, we could have had matching uniforms to make it look more like a school. Also, our risk assessment could have been more thorough, as it wasn't very detailed.

During the A2 year, for the music video, I expect to be doing much larger risk assessments, a storyboard, a shooting script, a schedule, costumes, set, rehearsal schedule location research, music research and audience profiles.

RESEARCH AND PLANNING - BUSTED VIDEO

The first stage of remaking the Busted video was research and planning. We started this by watching the video through several times.
We then split into groups and completed each research and planning tasks:
Props, Costumes and Health and Safety:

Seating Plan:

 Shooting Script and Schedule:

 Shot List:

TASK 2 - BUSTED VIDEO REMAKE

Our second task was to remake the first 40 seconds of Busted's video to 'Thats What I Go To School For'.
This is my finished video:

TASK 1- LIP SYNCHING

For our first task, we had to learn the words to the first verse and chorus of a song (we chose Livin On a Prayer by Bon Jovi).
Here is the finished video:



This task was really good, as it helped us to understand how hard lip syncing is, so when we are filming our music videos, we will understand how the actors are feeling. The hardest part of this task was matching the song to the video footage in the editing suite, however this is helped by making the timeline bigger, so you are able to make tiny movements with the footage.