Planning: Research into similar videos

Planning: Research into similar videos

Introduction

As part of our planning for the music video. I decided to research into other music videos and analyse other music videos that are related to our music video and their codes and conventions. As a group, we have gone for a performance and concept-based music video with our song, this is due to the emphasis and realistic views of the lyrics. In order to do this, we had to further analyse different videos from different genres, artist representation will also be considered. The following music video that we will be analysing is Alabama Shakes And we are looking at the content and visual style additionally Sound and Colour, I will be looking at the artist representation and apparent themes behind the music video.

Alabama Shakes - Sound and Colour

The video for this song is in most ways linked to the lyrics, allowing for the use of a narrative and concept based platform. The narrative is centred around a male character waking up in what appears to be a space pod. Confused and dazed as to why and how he got there, he stumbles around the ship excited, yet disheartened by his environment, the colour used in the screen shots are used to emphasise the tone and emotions.

Apparent Themes
The themes within the base of the music video, are enlightened to show the nature of his situation. The theme of hope is very clear in this music video from the contradiction of his facial expressions to the use of colour and lighting in the video. It has been shown through his shocked expression set against the bright white lighting glistening across his face.

Setting
Alabama Shakes used the setting of, an ice white space pod for the backdrop of their music video, the white lighting in used to scan across the male characters body is used to interpret the innocent, smooth and soulful background. We have also decided to include the use of bright lights, and natural lighting on a bright day to create a similar effect, provoke the audience emotion to feel the same happy, soulful feeling that this video creates. It is sad yet happy, and the audiences emotions have been triggered to feel the sadness and pain of this character, but his happiness as he sees the light at the end.

Colour and Lighting
As I have already stated with the colour and lighting in the music video, it has been used here to emphasise on the feelings and emotions the audience may feel towards the music video. The colour white is often associated with humility, faith and heaven most notably, and with that colour it is what my group have been aiming for and trying to achieve through the choice and use of white lighting also. Natural lighting will be a precedent force for us, as it will be used to instigate to the audience that artificial lighting isn't needed to express the emotions and joy of the character in the music video, rather the natural surrounding can provide a perfect backdrop for the best lighting.

Asap Mob - Yamborghini High

We looked for different hip-hop/pop artists to analyse the way in which they represented themselves, regardless of the genre these artists belonged to. Certain artists look at modern society and attempt to transfigure a way to gather ground and aspire to be recognized as a mainstay within youth culture.

Costume, Hair&Makeup
You see within the video, that they are dressed in camouflage, holding weapons and standing amongst mother nature. The costume can be used to reiterate their appeal to the audience, as a sign that they are blending in with current popular culture of smoking cannabis and being violent, they may not participate in acts of violence in or away from the music scene but by promoting it, its a sign that they are trying to be a part of popular culture. The dramatic changes in colour, the constant blurring and distortion of the moving images allow the audience to assume this is the vision of those that tend to get high, it can be interpreted by audiences that, getting high is such a perfect experience and it encourages the youth to want to participate in such actions.

Body Language and Facial Expressions
The way in which the characters acted within this video can be directly linked to artists image also, as they are seen in the thumbnail holding guns yet they don't take a direct approach to say that they are promoting gun violence or crime, it can be perceived into their image that they want to be viewed as being a feared group of society, or even placed in a small minority of artists in the music industry that aim to create a social image that represents fear rather than violence.

Structure
The video was set up not with a dark message but one of high clarification, as it can be related to our song as the name 'Angels', can be interpreted to say that with getting high, having angels around you is a synonym to be feeling or experiencing similar interactions. The message of this song may be different but the constant use of bright colours enhances the positivity around the structure, as with our music video, we will be looking into videos of this calibre to reiterate the strong positive vibe we are attempting to express.

Artist Image
The artists image has been clearly advertised and promoted within this video due to the constant visualisation and CGI. ASAP Rocky, seen as a man to break the rules, with the rest of the ASAP Mob throw an image to the audiences that they are rule breakers, they walk away from society's norms and do what the minority participate in. This allows them to appeal to a more niche yet modernized audience, as the song reciprocates the hidden but popular actions of the underground youth, "Ganja", also known as Cannabis among several other names, a drug intended for medicinal use, yet with youths and even minorities of the older generation using at as a psychoactive drug, the song reiterates that Cannabis is positive by promoting it indirectly.

Conclusion
With looking at research into similar videos, the concept of our music video suggests that our artist is a good person rather than someone with the intention to take out a negative perspective towards the audience. My group will take the meaning of the song and use it to portray our character as a man of faith, respect and necessity rather than somebody who may be trying to fit in the norms and common conventions of modern society.

Planning: Characters

Male Character 1

Name: Emeka
Ethnicity: African

Gender Stereotype of roles: Emeka will take on the role of the main character who is a young famous, male rapper. He will be rapping throughout the song being the main artist,however will also interact with Kayne (character 2) within his chorus and in scenes with him.

Costume: Character 1's costume will change throughout the video. He will usually be wearing casual however, fashionable and conventional clothing for a rapper, which includes designer wear. Colour coordination will often be black, but will have different colours to compliment.

Body language and facial expression: Emeka's body language and facial expression will vary within the video as he will be engaging in dancing and casual movements while rapping. As well as this, his facial expression will mainly be enthusiastic and happy, however may depend on the lyrics as well.

Role within the music video: Emeka's role within the music video is to lip sync/rap to our chosen song. His role is the main artist in the music video which shows he is the main attention and centre piece for our production. He will be interacting with the audience by singing towards them and will also have scenes along side Kayne (male character 2)

Male Character 2

Name: Kayne
Ethnicity: Caribbean

Gender stereotype of role: Kayne will take on the role of professional young rapper, also good friends with character 1 who is the main artist . He will be singing/rapping the chorus and will be energetic and enthusiastic throughout the music video.

Costume: He will be wearing a bomber Jacket and a trendy shirt as conventionally it is important for rappers to keep up with fashion as audiences expect them to and bomber jackets are the latest trend. He will also be changing costumes within the video into a black jumper and a tracksuit bottom while dancing,which is a conventional outfit for dancers to wear as it is cool, fashionable, and comfortable.

Body language and facial expression:His body language will be flexible and loose as he moves along with the music complimenting his enthusiastic and happy facial expression.

Role within the music video: His role within the music video is the featured artist who sings the chorus. He will be lip syncing the chorus at different locations as well as have scenes along side Emeka (male character 1)

Conclusion

It was important as a group to effectively plan characters. It allowed us to effectively plan and identify each character role in the music video. This has allowed us to portray each character through their costume, body language and facial expressions. Additionally, prevents any confusion or problems occurring in regards to the audience getting confused what character role is in the music video. We used character's that could reflect our target audience this includes age and variety of ethnic backgrounds. From the Outset, we wanted to make it clear how we portray each character and it should be beneficial in terms of our final music video.

Planning: Questionnaires and graphs

Questionnaire and Graphs

Introduction

It was important from early on to identify my target audience. The main reason why because that it was important to finding out about my target audience additional it also important to hear audience feedback and allows us to have an open mind on choosing our final project. Additionally, it would be extremely beneficial to enhance our findings which can be used to make changes or influence our ideas. 

Questionnaire

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Responses

Below are the responses in a graph format. To show the data that we have collected and what we i can infer from the responses. We asked 30 people from various backgrounds to answer our questionnaire and these are the results. 

1. How old are you

This was the age groups of the audience who answered my questionnaire. From the results, I managed to get a variety of people.

2. Gender.

3.
Are your currently working or in Education.
The reason why I asked this question is because different backgrounds may have different tastes in music. And may like certain genres and don’t like other genres.

4.

This was an open question on my questionnaire. Most people preferred pop from the pie chart that I have generated. What was unexpected was that hip-hop was more popular then rap.

5.

As you can see from the graph chart, you can see most people enjoyed the music within the music video over the artist performing or the visuals. Showing that most of our research audience prefer the music.

6.

The reasons why we asked this question. Was to find out if audiences were happy to listen the music they may find different and do not have typical mainstream convections.

7.

The reason why I asked the following question, was to find out what my research group what content within a music video they liked listening about a music video. The most popular topic is Youth and lifestyle which wasn’t surprising since most of the people who filled.

8.

I asked this question because it could help us on portraying the main character in the music video. From the results you can see that our target audience do agree that  they should be more close ups of the artist.

9.

Depending on the genre and/or the artist. Some target audience may relate to the artist because of his/her back story. Or because of the music.

10.

I asked the question to find out what people opinions should music video portray an artist. And the consensus is that most people disagree and the music video shouldn't be focused on the artist lifestyle. This could be because of many factors.

11.

This was an important question important to ask because I wanted to find out was the sexualization in a music video was an important topic and do they agree that should be in music videos or disagree. 

12.

This was to find out how often our target audience listens to music videos which were important to find out how likely they would listen to new songs.

 13. We asked this question to find out the audience opinions on lifestyle. Becasue of the response we need to look at songs that involve the artist lifestyle as much.

 14. This question refers back to Mulvey maze gaze. we wanted to find out what the audience opinions is this really what the audience is expecting songs.

15. We asked this question because we wanted to find out would the audience prefer a music video that has the video linked to the lyrics. Because of the result, we will be considering this when choosing a song. 

Conclusion.

Overall, the feedback that we received allowed us to find out what important to our target audience which allows us to adapt our ideas to meet their needs. We need to ensure that our music video conventional and original and we that we look at new ideas and take risks but stay conventional to our final genre. The questionnaire has allowed us to find out more about our target audience and has benefited us. This can allow us to plan effectively the final music video.

Planning: Lighting and colour

Lighting and Colour

What is lighting and colour?

Lighting and colour is an important part of video production. This is because different lightings and colour setups have different meanings depending on the scene. Lighting can be used to convey unique and/or relatable moods and atmosphere. This depends on the type lighting. Colour can be used as a way to help support or create deeper meanings to a scene through connotations and interpretations.  

Lighting

Different angles of lighting

Under Lighting - The lighting is coming from below the person. This is mostly used when the portraying a character is dark, evil or scheming something. Under lighting gives a distorting effect on the character. This type of lighting is used mostly on Antagonists.

Top-Lighting - The Lighting is coming from above the person. This type of lighting is used highlighting the features of a character creating a glamorous look, and mostly on used characters that have good intentions or in heroic scenes, therefore it's used mostly on protagonists.

Back-Lighting - The light source for backlighting is usually behind a person. Not much light is used for backlighting since they make silhouettes on the character this is useful when you only want to see a shadow of a character.

Types of Lighting

Low Key - The lighting is dark with small areas of light which also creates a shadow.

Low key lighting is when there is low lighting in some small areas in others areas there isn’t any. With this type of lighting

High Key - High key lighting appears more natural and realistic to our eyes, therefore, the lighting effect is heightened

The lighting used in music videos from the first day to now has changed and lighting has widely become a common element of music videos. Natural lighting, such as from the sky, street lights when its dark, cars driving by and even the sunlight, are drawn upon for assistance in a music video, with no extra effects or authentic lighting used as they have the ability to have as much impact as authentic lighting. High key lighting is the most conventional as directors use it to retract from the negativity; darker lighting brings to a music video. Backlighting is commonly used in indie genre music videos.

Conventional colour in music videos

The main issue with a mainstream music video is that different genres use different types of lighting and colour to convey different effect and feeling in the music video. Colours play a key role in the music video, for example, Rock bands or heavy metal are unlikely to wear bright colours. And would wear dark colour and surreal colour mixes. Pop music videos usually use brighter colours in their music video.

Conclusion

For the final music video. Our group must come up with a decision on what type of lighting will be using. As a group, we decided that we should use natural lighting and top lighting to carve an angelic silhouette out of the main character rather than record it outside with the weather not being reliable enough, as a sunny day would be a most preferable time to record our music video. After carefully looking at other hip-hop music videos with an upbeat tempo, rhythmic groove and innocent vibe, which is primarily what my group has gone for, it is safe to say that they have acquired the director to film with brighter colours, and conventional lighting for hip-hop, which are commonly the primary colours on the colour wheel.

Planning: Locations

Location

Location is an important factor to consider in a music video when we are planning. The locations in our music video must fit with the narrative and the scenery. We decided on the final locations when we are planning our storyboard. This was based off feedback from our questionnaire as well as research we did about our target audience as well as the genre we are doing. The main focus was to have a variety of locations and settings for the final music videos also because of the feedback we received from our questionnaire allowed us to make a few important decisions on how were going to film.

Chosen Locations

Stratford Westfield

Relevant to lyrics.

It doesn’t relate to lyrics however it does relate to the narrative and the setting of the song.Take place within a busy city area.

Relevant to Genre

The location is relevant since most Rap would take place in busy areas or in suburbs.

Relevant to target audience

Areas may be familiar to the audience in regard to popular young people in which young people usually have seen around along with tourists.

Describe location

It's outside central London however within zone 2-3 so it's still busy and popular with young people and tourists.

Advantages of location.

Familiar buildings in the London area.

Potential problems and how you will overcome them

This area is always busy especially on weekends so we can go on Sundays to film.

Existing video that has influenced you with this idea.

The use of famous locations in Chicago in Chance - Angels.

Ponders End (Silver Street)

Relevant to lyrics.

It doesn’t relate to lyrics however it does relate to the narrative and the setting of the song. Where the song takes place within a busy city area.

Relevant to Genre

The location is relevant since most Rap would take place in busy areas or in suburbs.

Relevant to target audience

Areas may be familiar to the audience and is

Describe location

It’s the suburbs with 4 large very flats in the suburbs of north London. This area is surrounded with residential homes.

Advantages of location

It’s the suburbs which is relevant to the song in regard to narrative.

Potential problems and how you will overcome them

The main issue is that we’re are filming in a residential area so we need to be careful where we film and at the same

Existing video that has influenced you with this idea.

Conclusion

In conclusion, we decided the best course of action was to use various locations that fit the narrative of our music video which shots around a city that were also conventional to the genre. The shots include city centre locations like Stratford and waterloo and locations in the suburbs like Ponders end. Additionally, may use areas that  We need to ensure that locations that we chose correspond to our music video narrative and will be beneficial to our music video. However, for some scenes, we may need to use a green screen this would mean we would need to use the drama studio. In addition, we have identified advantages and disadvantages to each location and potential issues. 

Planning: Initial ideas

Initial Idea

After we chose our groups we all shared our initial ideas and then narrowed it down to 3. The final music video had to be pop or R&B, the music video had to be unique and wouldn’t be well known. Once we picked our final 3 we need then to take into consideration the narrative structure, microelements, cinematography and advantages and disadvantages of the music video. Below is the final 3 music videos that we chose.

Idea 1 - Michael Kiwanuka - One More Night

The music video falls within soul and pop genre and is filmed on an inner city estate. Starts off with a tilt shot, however, the editing technique of letterboxing the frame gives it a widescreen look. The camera tilt downwards we see the main character in the establishing wide shot of the music video then. This connotes as the character being alone but independent. From here onwards it's mostly filmed as a crane shot the camera then zooms towards the main character, this gives the audience a connection the main singer. The wide shot ends up as a medium close up the singer blows a bubblegum which bursts which show that the character has a relaxed attitude. and a straight cut is used to zoom to a passer-by than another straight cut is used to go back to the main character then the camera pans out to show that he’s on tilt and is mostly filmed from a low angle. The narrative is about how he wants to keep dancing for another night and keep dancing till the morning. The cinematography used throughout was mostly done by using crane shots. 

Mise en scene

The costume that is used in the music video are casual clothing showing how it’s a normal day for most people and the main character is wearing clothing based if he was going to a party. This was Jeans and a T-shirt. The lighting that was used was high key lighting however throughout most of the music video the use natural lighting was used to enhance the video. The main iconography of the film was the main character wearing a skirt. And the setting took place in what appears to be an Inner City Townhouses/Council Estate.

Idea 2 - Elliphant - Purple Light

The music video falls within the pop genre and is filmed outside a nightclub and in some alleyways. The music video starts off with a crane shoot of the camera moving towards the main character. The noticeable mise en scene elements that is a scene that is the effective use of lighting throughout the entire music video with bright neon lighting as well as the use of back lighting and high key lighting. The use of cinematography ranged from medium closes up of the artists.

We also came up with some additional ideas such as
Chance the rapper – Summer Friends. This didn’t have a music video as such but we thought we could be entirely original since we could interp the music video using the lyrics and entirely original with the music video. The music video itself comes under both soul and rap which would be interesting to portray in the music video. 

Questionnaire.

As a part of our planning, we needed to also do some research and get feedback on people perception of a music video and our ideas. We all created questionnaires around the music video, the genre, public opinion as well as artists. The questionnaire was useful in the research and we have managed to gather some good data and feedback from the questionnaire. which we used to help finalise our idea  Below is my questionnaire and I asked around 30 people to complete this questionnaire.

Conclusion

Overall, the initial ideas that we have come up with are beneficial to our groups. It has allowed us to look at the advantages and the disadvantages of each song and for us to decide on what song we should pick or look at something else completely. The song we wanted to pick should not be a song in the pop genre. After that, we then decided to create a questionnaire and regroup later to come up with some ideas. We are thinking about going with Michael Kiwanuka - One More Night However we do have some reservations with that song and how effective it could be done the fore we maybe also looking at another song entirely.