Tuesday 12th October 2010
We looked at visual style and what you would expect to see visually represented in a video. For example, this could be costume, composition, used of variety of shots, overall image, continuous style, the overall package, mise-en-scene (including lighting) and everything in sync and focus.
To see how visual style is used in music videos, we watched a few. The first one was a music video that was made by some students from the college. The brief was from the old specification and it involved choosing a song that was at least 10 years old. They chose the song ‘Gold’ Overall, I thought the standard of the finished product was very high which explains why they got an overall ‘A’ grade. I liked how they incorporated the song title into the video effectively. The singers either had gold clothing or a stand of gold hair and the lighting was a shimmering gold and this created a beautiful back light in the mise-en-scene. They also incorporated special effects such as split screens which in this case was purposeful and they used well framed shots of close ups, long shots and mid shots. In fact the whole video was well framed and there was a variety of shots used and this is what made the video interesting to watch.
In our group, we brainstormed what we would expect to see in our music video in terms of four visual style elements. They are:
· Coverage: Shot types/angles/movement
· Composition and continuity
· Mise-en-scene: Lighting, performance, location and colour
· Editing effects
We discussed what we would do under the four elements. To view our comments, please click the below image:
Another video we looked at in terms of visual style was Chicks on speed ‘We don’t play guitars’. Although the song is very annoying, the video was very well framed, choreographed and edited. The song lyrics were repetitive but I couldn’t take my eyes of the video. The video was interesting to watch and I felt drawn into it because everything (including the mise-en-scene, camera angles) worked together in ‘total theatre’ to enhance the visual style of the song. The song was popular amongst fans that some even made their own music video version of the song.
Moving away from visual style, we then focused on advanced camera.
Watching Jarvis music video for ‘Don’t let him waste your time’ felt strange because stereotypically in music videos, you don’t get videos that is purely a POINT OF VIEW of the singer. Through this shot, we weren’t able to see his visual representation, style, personality but what he he’s from his point of view. The video was filmed with the camera hand held so at times the camera did shift instead of being a steady shot. It didn’t look like a professional video in my opinion. It looks like fan re-make or a homemade video.
Please click the link below to view Jarvis music video for ‘Don’t let him waste your time’
Although our music video is meant to be based on escapism, dream-like and unusual, we are not going to used the POV technique because we believe it will be far more effective using a variety of shots. We have looked at music videos that have come under the ambient/electropop genre and they don’t tend to go for this camera technique. We looked at a different type of camera work. That is using a crane for an ARC SHOT. It not usual to see this type of camerawork in mordern day videos but it has been done! We looked at Pulp’s video as an example. It felt weird and made me feel dizzy, a bit like you want to be sick. We looked at a similar video; one by U2. Again, this was weird to watch. We will not be incorporating this camera movement into our music video because the video is going to be conceptual and we don’t want the video to be even more confusing. We want the focus to be on the electro-pop music and not purely on the camera movement.
To view Pulp’s music video for ‘Do you remember the first time’, please click the link below
For U2’s ‘Even Better than the real thing’ music video link:
We looked a video that used REVERSE EDITING. It looked effective to watch but it would be very hard to film as A Level media students. It includes the singers jumping into the frame and the reversing it. This camera technique wouldn’t work very well for a music video so we are not going to use it.
After watching Jamiroquai’s video ‘Virtual Insanity,’ I think that STATIONARY CAMERA is very effective. I wouldn’t have thought so if you had explained it to me but after visually seeing it, it does look natural. In the video, inspects, the floor, people in the video and birds move in the video but the camera stays still/stationary. The performer moves around whether that towards the camera etc. so you get the long/mid/close up/extreme close ups even though the camera isn’t moving.
To view the video, please click the video below:
A camerawork that is commonly used in today’s society is the use of CGI and using a green screen. We were shown an example of a video that uses a green screen as a background for the filmed footage. We don’t intend to use any CGI because we have got our locations and they are realistic.
In the music video I liked the use of bird’s eye view, zooming out on the performer and projection of images.
To view the ‘Souled out’ music video by ‘Conor Oberst, please click the link below: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYewptydkvE
I then did some further research into examples of videos that use green screen. Being inexperienced in using a green screen, I thought I would pick a video that uses CGI really well and see how they film behind the scenes.
I looked into three videos that are under the VEVO channel on YouTube. Although the production company that made the following videos, have got a much bigger budget that we will have to film (and therefore will be unrealistic to use as an influence), I still took it upon myself to see effective ways in which you can use green screens to look realistic.
LIL WAYNE: KNOCKOUT official video
The behind the scenes video of ‘Knockout’
BEYONCE: Sweet Dreams official music video:
The behind the scenes of ‘Sweet Dreams’
Alexis Jordan (an signed YouTube user artist) official Happiness music video:
The behind the scenes of 'Happiness':
By Ashleigh
No comments:
Post a Comment