Wednesday 10 March 2010
Friday 11 December 2009
"We Love Christmas" Evaluation
For our music video project, I was given the roles of partial camera-person, partial editor, prop person and actress within the actual video itself. In the video I played a musician, and would appear in various places throughout the video dancing and sometimes lip syncing, we had decided that we would wear various Christmas type clothing such as Christmas jumpers as well as wear Santa hats, which I provided for Reece and Myself, I also provided the “inflatable snowman” which is also seen in a few shots of the video. A final thing I was responsible in doing was recording the music track for our video, alongside Abby, although Abby was the main singer, as it made more sense for her to be that as she was the main girl seen throughout the video.
I feel as though my contribution to the project was efficient, although I feel as though I could have contributed more to the ideas, as I did not take much part in the planning and think that if I were to do this project again I would try harder to let my ideas be heard. My performance in the video I feel was good and really showcased the “cheesy” atmosphere of Christmas, for example throughout the video I was often smiling, one of these such shots was when I was in the Christmas shop looking at cards and proceeded to wave and smile at the camera. One thing I would definitely of improved on if we were to do this project again is to improve on my lip syncing, as I did not lip sync very well in the video, and therefore made the video look a bit scruffy, with the exception of this error, I feel as though my contribution, performance wise was done effectively.
From being part of the creating of this music video, I have learnt both practical and theoretical things. Practically wise, I have learnt how to pan the camera and keep a steadier hand when doing so, as well as this, I’ve also discovered how to use Final Cut Pro in a more successful way, and now know how to use it in a more efficient way. Theoretically wise, I learnt that in most cases with music videos the lighting and shots will effect how well a video will work, for example if all the shot’s were the same, then the video would just end up plain and boring, so a variety of shots are needed. Lighting wise I learnt that the lighting can effect the genre you’re trying to work within and that you must be careful with any editing of lighting to make sure it still meshes well with any natural light in the video.
The overall technical quality of our video was okay, because of the fact the images and lyrics we displayed during the video matched the overall genre of our video, but the actual filming of the video could be much improved as even though the “amateur” feeling of the video helped to add to the whole cheesy Christmas video atmosphere, it made the video seem a bit rough and sketchy at times, therefore not really looking as professional as one would expect a music video to look. Other than the camerawork, I feel as though the rest of our technical quality e.g. lighting, sound etc were okay but could always use improvement in certain area’s such as, with the sound the music got a bit repetitive so we could perhaps add a bit more difference to the soundtrack itself.
The editing of our video I feel was very effective, I particularly liked the fact that shots of Abby going into the dream and coming out of the dream were black and white and featured fading in and out transitions, as they really helped to showcase the dream sequence effect of the video, as well as illustrating Abby's "sadness" of not having a perfect christmas in reality. I thought that the actual cinematography, were alright, though could do with some work. For example we focussed mainly on using long-shot's throughout the video and I think that we could have done with more of a variety of shots because after a while the amount of shots that were done in the same way got boring. The actual clothing we wore in the video just consited of normal clothes with a christmas jumper and a santa hat, which didn't really add anything to the video, and if I were to do this again, I would look into further and perhaps change to having actual christmas costumes on like elve costumes and santa costumes. The props we used however I feel were more useful to our video as they added a real christmas vibe to the set of our video. Finally, the actual soundtrack of our video related well to our chosen genre as it was very cheery and happy, which is the typical theme of most christmas videos.
I thought the ideas we had for the video came across well in our finished piece, although I feel as though the ideas could have perhaps been improved if we all as had a say in the ideas as a group rather than just Abby coming up with all the ideas, although Abby's ideas were well done and the video came across how we wanted it to. I believe the scriptwriting ideas were quite good and really had the cheery cheesy feeling that christmas video's usually demonstrate. I think the actual presentation of the video was good, although it did seem a bit rough on the edges and could have done with slight improvement in the camera work to make it seem more professional. I believe the video kept to our synopsis perfectly as we kept to the outline and did not make any changes to it during filming, as well as this I think the video did well to keep to the original brief, and we did well to keep to the codes and conventions of our genre.
The feedback we got from the audience we displayed our work to was both positive and negative, although there was seemingly more postive feedback than negative. A few postive feedback comments were that our video was very "funny" and "cheerful", and a few people even said it was "memorable", I was particularly happy with these three comments as this was the main aim of our video in the first place. A few negative comments we did get was that we could have used more footage, our lip syncing needed improving, and that our camera work needed work, these comment's I agree with and if I were to do this project again I would definatley improve on each of these, as they would help improve our video greatly.
A few things that went wrong in our project was that our group could not seem to see eye to eye throughout the whole time length of beginning to end of the project, I believe one reason for this is because I found it hard to communicate across to Abby my ideas, without feeling as though my ideas were not useful to the music video. If I were to do this project again, I think I would try to communicate my ideas better to Abby so that we wouldn’t end up getting frustrated with each other within the group and would be able to work better in general. Another thing that went wrong was that our camera work wasn't all that great and in the end even though the camerwork unintentionally gave our video more of a "home-video" look, it could have done with alot of improvement, as it made our video look bad and rough in alot of ways. The things that did go right in the video were the editing and the actual putting together of the video as we all worked better as a group at that point, and we all managed to edit the video well, and it really helped to add to the overall dream atmosphere that we needed to have for the video.
Our project did well to compare to the real music videos we looked into to give us inspiration for the chosen genre of our video, for example "I wish it could be Christmas everyday" by Whizzard and "Mistletoe and Wine" by Cliff Richard, both had keyfeature's in there videos which we wanted to include in our video, like the christmas hats and dancing seen in Whizzard's video, and the walking towards the camera seen in Cliff's video.
Overall I think our music video went well and was very amusing to view and managed to be memorable, although it could have done with more impoved camera work, better lighting and maybe a few more effects added on final cut pro to make it seem even more christmas like.
I feel as though my contribution to the project was efficient, although I feel as though I could have contributed more to the ideas, as I did not take much part in the planning and think that if I were to do this project again I would try harder to let my ideas be heard. My performance in the video I feel was good and really showcased the “cheesy” atmosphere of Christmas, for example throughout the video I was often smiling, one of these such shots was when I was in the Christmas shop looking at cards and proceeded to wave and smile at the camera. One thing I would definitely of improved on if we were to do this project again is to improve on my lip syncing, as I did not lip sync very well in the video, and therefore made the video look a bit scruffy, with the exception of this error, I feel as though my contribution, performance wise was done effectively.
From being part of the creating of this music video, I have learnt both practical and theoretical things. Practically wise, I have learnt how to pan the camera and keep a steadier hand when doing so, as well as this, I’ve also discovered how to use Final Cut Pro in a more successful way, and now know how to use it in a more efficient way. Theoretically wise, I learnt that in most cases with music videos the lighting and shots will effect how well a video will work, for example if all the shot’s were the same, then the video would just end up plain and boring, so a variety of shots are needed. Lighting wise I learnt that the lighting can effect the genre you’re trying to work within and that you must be careful with any editing of lighting to make sure it still meshes well with any natural light in the video.
The overall technical quality of our video was okay, because of the fact the images and lyrics we displayed during the video matched the overall genre of our video, but the actual filming of the video could be much improved as even though the “amateur” feeling of the video helped to add to the whole cheesy Christmas video atmosphere, it made the video seem a bit rough and sketchy at times, therefore not really looking as professional as one would expect a music video to look. Other than the camerawork, I feel as though the rest of our technical quality e.g. lighting, sound etc were okay but could always use improvement in certain area’s such as, with the sound the music got a bit repetitive so we could perhaps add a bit more difference to the soundtrack itself.
The editing of our video I feel was very effective, I particularly liked the fact that shots of Abby going into the dream and coming out of the dream were black and white and featured fading in and out transitions, as they really helped to showcase the dream sequence effect of the video, as well as illustrating Abby's "sadness" of not having a perfect christmas in reality. I thought that the actual cinematography, were alright, though could do with some work. For example we focussed mainly on using long-shot's throughout the video and I think that we could have done with more of a variety of shots because after a while the amount of shots that were done in the same way got boring. The actual clothing we wore in the video just consited of normal clothes with a christmas jumper and a santa hat, which didn't really add anything to the video, and if I were to do this again, I would look into further and perhaps change to having actual christmas costumes on like elve costumes and santa costumes. The props we used however I feel were more useful to our video as they added a real christmas vibe to the set of our video. Finally, the actual soundtrack of our video related well to our chosen genre as it was very cheery and happy, which is the typical theme of most christmas videos.
I thought the ideas we had for the video came across well in our finished piece, although I feel as though the ideas could have perhaps been improved if we all as had a say in the ideas as a group rather than just Abby coming up with all the ideas, although Abby's ideas were well done and the video came across how we wanted it to. I believe the scriptwriting ideas were quite good and really had the cheery cheesy feeling that christmas video's usually demonstrate. I think the actual presentation of the video was good, although it did seem a bit rough on the edges and could have done with slight improvement in the camera work to make it seem more professional. I believe the video kept to our synopsis perfectly as we kept to the outline and did not make any changes to it during filming, as well as this I think the video did well to keep to the original brief, and we did well to keep to the codes and conventions of our genre.
The feedback we got from the audience we displayed our work to was both positive and negative, although there was seemingly more postive feedback than negative. A few postive feedback comments were that our video was very "funny" and "cheerful", and a few people even said it was "memorable", I was particularly happy with these three comments as this was the main aim of our video in the first place. A few negative comments we did get was that we could have used more footage, our lip syncing needed improving, and that our camera work needed work, these comment's I agree with and if I were to do this project again I would definatley improve on each of these, as they would help improve our video greatly.
A few things that went wrong in our project was that our group could not seem to see eye to eye throughout the whole time length of beginning to end of the project, I believe one reason for this is because I found it hard to communicate across to Abby my ideas, without feeling as though my ideas were not useful to the music video. If I were to do this project again, I think I would try to communicate my ideas better to Abby so that we wouldn’t end up getting frustrated with each other within the group and would be able to work better in general. Another thing that went wrong was that our camera work wasn't all that great and in the end even though the camerwork unintentionally gave our video more of a "home-video" look, it could have done with alot of improvement, as it made our video look bad and rough in alot of ways. The things that did go right in the video were the editing and the actual putting together of the video as we all worked better as a group at that point, and we all managed to edit the video well, and it really helped to add to the overall dream atmosphere that we needed to have for the video.
Our project did well to compare to the real music videos we looked into to give us inspiration for the chosen genre of our video, for example "I wish it could be Christmas everyday" by Whizzard and "Mistletoe and Wine" by Cliff Richard, both had keyfeature's in there videos which we wanted to include in our video, like the christmas hats and dancing seen in Whizzard's video, and the walking towards the camera seen in Cliff's video.
Overall I think our music video went well and was very amusing to view and managed to be memorable, although it could have done with more impoved camera work, better lighting and maybe a few more effects added on final cut pro to make it seem even more christmas like.
Pre-Production Work
Before we got to shoot our music video, we had to complete all the pre-production work so that we had all the plans completed and knew where and when we were going to certain locations for our Music Video.
For the pre-production work, we had to complete the following;
- Shooting Schedules
- Shooting Script
- Storyboards
- Shot List
- Treatment Sheet
- Synopsis
Here are the completed storyboards;
Here is the Music Video Shotlist;
Music Video Shooting Script;
There was some trouble with printing of our shooting schedule, so we are currently waiting to be able to print that off.
Treatment Sheet and Synopsis;
For the pre-production work, we had to complete the following;
- Shooting Schedules
- Shooting Script
- Storyboards
- Shot List
- Treatment Sheet
- Synopsis
Here are the completed storyboards;
Here is the Music Video Shotlist;
Music Video Shooting Script;
There was some trouble with printing of our shooting schedule, so we are currently waiting to be able to print that off.
Treatment Sheet and Synopsis;
Thursday 10 December 2009
Music Video - We Love Christmas
This is the music video which Myself, Abby and Reece created, it is a christmas themed music video called "We Love Christmas"
Tuesday 3 November 2009
Task 1 - Purpose of Music Videos
A music video is a short video or film that is accompanied by a completed piece of music which is usually created by a music artist or band. The term “music video” first emerging into popular usage in the early 1980’s, prior to this, they were usually described using a variety of terms such as “film clip” and “promo clip”. Although the actual origins of music videos go much further back than the 1980’s, in 1981, MTV, a music television channel launched airing “Video Killed The Radio Star” and thus began an era of 24-hour-a-day music on television.
With MTV being the new outlet the music video began to grow and by the mid-80’s begin to play a big role in the promotion of music and as such one of the main modern uses for music videos is to promote the music, and the artist. By using a music video, it creates a memorable visual on the viewer as well as invoking some sort of reaction which will leave the listener remembering the song, and therefore it will increase sales of the song. Aswell as this, music videos also
Another particular purpose of the music video is to help enhance the career of the artist/band as it allows a chance to showcase a particular artist/band's talents e.g dancing and also helps to create a certain image for that particular band or artist therefore helping to attract an "target audience" per say, whom will like the artist/band's music/music videos and therefore buy CD's etc from them. Also, if a particular music video were to be very successful and gain alot of mainstream coverage, it would help to raise the profile of the artist/s and in turn the popularity of the artist/s increases and so do the sales of there albums.
With MTV being the new outlet the music video began to grow and by the mid-80’s begin to play a big role in the promotion of music and as such one of the main modern uses for music videos is to promote the music, and the artist. By using a music video, it creates a memorable visual on the viewer as well as invoking some sort of reaction which will leave the listener remembering the song, and therefore it will increase sales of the song. Aswell as this, music videos also
Another particular purpose of the music video is to help enhance the career of the artist/band as it allows a chance to showcase a particular artist/band's talents e.g dancing and also helps to create a certain image for that particular band or artist therefore helping to attract an "target audience" per say, whom will like the artist/band's music/music videos and therefore buy CD's etc from them. Also, if a particular music video were to be very successful and gain alot of mainstream coverage, it would help to raise the profile of the artist/s and in turn the popularity of the artist/s increases and so do the sales of there albums.
Task 2 - Contemporary Music Video Research
I am going to analyse the above video by Danish Band, Junior Senior. The video was an animation and was created by a London based art collective group Shynola, who used low resolution pixel art which was produced using Deluxe Paint. The genre of this particular soundtrack is House. The video itself manages to keep itself relative to the genre, like most videos done in "House", it is very fast paced and each image stays with the beat.
The video is done in a early gaming style animation that is done using big blocks of pixel art, with only primary colours being used in the animation, with no shading. The cinematography in this video is very basic, although computer generated, it’s shot as if from a single steady camera view with just basic zooms etc.
In this video there are a lot of interesting transitions from one scene to another, for example near the beginning they have scenes in the video transitioning from the two members of the band dancing to then having single shots of each member. The pace of the scenes is deliberately timed with pace of the music, for example, at around the 00:25 second mark on the video, the toast popping up is exactly in time with the beat. The editing of the video is discontinuous with lots of different scene changes, which sometimes bare no relation to what was being shown. As well as this, the whole of the video is done in a special effect to resemble early video gaming graphics.
Throughout the whole animation, the images match the lyrics. Some examples of this is when the word “yeah” is spread across the toast at the exact time the lyrics say “yeah” This is done at around 29 second mark. Another example is at most times when the lyrics say “move your feet” the visuals on the video are feet moving. A final of example of the lyrics being illustrated via the animation is when the chorus of “everybody” comes on, the background has the words “everybody” which are moving, as well as stickmen dancing.
Right the way through the video, it is continually cutting to the beat of the music, an example of this is in the beginning of the video when the squirrel is banging at a nut, it goes exactly in turn with the beat of the music. Another example is when you see the squirrel getting ready to ride the house at around the 1 minute mark, the beat of the music and the squirrels movements synchronise.
The general idea of the video is to create a fun party atmosphere which coincides with the feel of the music. Initially in the video we only see an childish basic representations of the artists(00:13 seconds), but then later in the video (2mins 8 seconds) we see more photo realistic images, but the general style of the video is with basic cartoon representations which are not even much of a caricature.
The band have made another video in a stylistically similar manor, this video being “Take My Time” which was made 3 years later than “Move your feet”. There are no previous video by this artist before the “Move your feet” video, so this video sets the stylisation they are using to brand there product.
Due to the video being an animation, there is no real sex appeal being used as a selling point for the band, although there is a scene in which sex is implied by the images on the screen. In line with the primitive style there are no scenes within scenes, with only a basic representation being shown at one time. The video also shows no signs of intertexuality and is fully performance based.
Overall, I feel that the music video promotes the band and the song very well, it keeps in time with the beat and is quite fast paced, as is the song, as well as this it manages to keep the feel of the song while still making the video keep interesting and makes you want to see more of the bands work. I feel this song does very well in fulfilling the expectations of the bands target audience, which I would presume to be teenagers and adults. Altogether, this video makes good use of animation and does very well in timing each scene to the beat of the song, it manages to thoroughly match the lyrics and the video together without repeating images to often and creates a party atmosphere for itself.
The second video I am going to analyse is the above video by English band Coldplay. The video is an stop animation, which means an object is moved in small movements between each individual photographed frames. The genre of this soundtrack is Alternative Rock.
The video is done in the style of stop animation with the lead vocalist Chris Martin against the ground on which chalk drawings are highly animated. For cinematography, the basic premise of the stop motion technique used in the video is very simple, by taking single shots, adjusting the scene minutely and then taking another shot, so that when viewed at normal speed it appears to be a smooth transition from one scene to another. This technique does however take a lot of time to do, and is quite intricate to make the end result appear smoothly. The only special effects in this video are those that can be achieved by the chalk drawings.
Throughout the song, the lyrics and the visuals do not really show any relation to each other, with the exception of when the lyrics say “everyone was for fighting, wouldn’t wanna waste a thing” while on the video the squirrel is shooting arrows at Chris Martin, but other than this, the visuals on the video bare no relation to anything the lyrics say for the most part. As well as this, the video for “Strawberry Swing” does not keep in beat with the actual music at all, and does not change with the pace of the music either.
Due to the fact Coldplay are such a well known, well established band, it seems as though there has been no real effort in creating a certain image for the band, and in addition to this, the video does not relate in any way to any pervious ones by the band, and does not in any way reference to the notion of looking. The video also seemingly pays homage to other videos done in similar ways, such as “Take On Me” by A-Ha as well as “Sledge Hammer” by Peter Gabriel.
Overall, I don’t think the promo really promotes the band much at all, as it only really show the one member of the band throughout the video, however the song is better promoted as it takes more of a predominant role in the promo. I think the video does well in fulfilling the expectations of the bands target audience, which I would say to be people of 16 years and older. Altogether the video is very creative, and although doesn’t exactly match the visuals with the lyrics, it still manages to fit in with the overall feel of the music.
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Move_Your_Feet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shynola
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_music#UK:_late_1980s_.E2.80.93_early_1990s
http://www.contactmusic.com/videos.nsf/stream/junior-senior-take-my-time-music-video
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junior_Senior
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strawberry_Swing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_animation
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