I previously posted a blogpost with a video that at the time I thought would be my final video. However, I realised that the titles at the beginning had a completely different artist name to the name that I used throughout my digipak and magazine advert. This would cause a lot of confusion to my audience so I redid the title.
Since I had to change the title and reupload anyway, I took advantage and made sure the new title at the beginning was in the same fonts and colours as my digipak / magazine advert. This further helps to keep consistency throughout my products.
After receiving feedback from the class and my teacher, I found out that I need to include a title at the beginning. This is the main thing I changed from the draft however I also altered some of the colours in various shots to be more consistent. This is my final music video.
update: I have since updated my video and re-uploaded. There is a more recent blog post explaining why along with the FINAL video.
Throughout our video we want to show that the lyrics and storyline is relatable to a lot of other people and it's something that different people can go through. We are doing this through including portraits of different people as cutaway shots. These shots will also be more structured compared to the rest of the video which will be hand held.
Some example of still portrait shots from a variety of music videos are shown above and a music video that includes them too is below.
The portrait shots we want to include we also want them to have contrasting editing to make them look more "vintage". One way that we can achieve this, is using an app called "Fyuse" which enables us to take short videos which can go back and forth to give a slight 3D effect. Here is a quick example we did during lesson today and edited with a filter on iMovie.
Another way we wanted to achieve the look we were going through is by using a Super 8 camera. This will be a lot harder and more expensive however it will give a great effect. Here are two example of someone using this type of camera.
Here is an example of a super 8 camera being used to film a music video:
Oh Wonder are an indie pop, London-based duo which consists of Josephine Vander Gucht and Anothony West and are currently signed to Caroline Records. Their DIY debut self titled album was released on September 4th, 2015 gaining them much more success than expected as they originally wrote the music with intentions of solely staying as the writers, not the performers. This album was written to be sold to other artists however they then decided to release it themselves. Their second album, "Ultralife" was released the 14th of July, 2017 and gained them even more international success. This video by Oh Wonder is quite a stereotypical video for a pop / indie music video as it just features the musicians having fun. However I chose this specific video as I found it interesting how it was directed. Throughout the video the editing used is editing to the beat which shows there being a relationship between the music and the visuals. However, this was done in quite a unique way by using a lot of stop motion. In addition to this, the colour palette consisting of bright and vibrant colours gives it a mix of indie and pop vibes.
Declan McKenna is an 18 year old English indie singer songwriter signed to Columbia Records and initially obtained success through winning the Glastonbury Festival's Emerging Talent Competition in 2015. After releasing his EP "Liar" in 2016, he recently released his debut album titled "What Do You Think About The Car?" This music video for "Humongous" is extremely abstract and has a common retro style and iconography for indie videos. The extremely strong retro vibes are given off throughout the settings, props, and outfits used which makes the video feel very indie.
The video features a large amount of different scenes which don't seem to be related to each other but all have a common theme of having a lot of vibrant colors and having things out of proportion. This shows that there is a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals as one of the lyrics in the chorus is "I'm big, humongous, enormous and small" and the video shows a variety of different things that are larger or smaller than they should be.
Although the video features various different things going on, Declan McKenna, the artist, is shown in quite a few different shots. The use of multiple close up shots of the Declan creates visual style to sell the artist.
Furthermore, there's also some notion of looking at screens within screens. The first shot of Declan McKenna surrounded by pink mountains is then shown on a phone screen. The camera then moves to show a man sat around a table holding a phone in each hand and in front of a laptop. This shot then zooms out to what looks like a screen on a mirror. This also uses inter-textual references as at first it shows the music video itself within the same music video which commonly happens in humorous videos, which this is.
Amber Run are an indie band based in Nottingham, UK, and have released 5 EPs and 2 albums. The band consists of Joe Keogh, Will Jones, Tom Sperring and Henry Wyeth and are signed to RCA Records.
"Haze" is a song by an indie band called Amber Run. This music video is an abstract video which is seen quite a lot within indie videos. There's also slightly a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals as one of the lyrics are "my friends have all left me" and it shows a man isolated. In addition to this, there's also multiple close up shots of the artists as the entire video consists of different abstract shots of the band members.
It's very common for indie artists, especially indie rock, to have live performances within their music videos. This is to create a "star image" to promote the artists using their faces to sell their music. This video of "Amsterdam" by Nothing But Thieves includes a live performance in-between a narrative.
NARRATIVE
Although narratives are quite common with most genres, it is usually an important aspect towards indie videos. The narrative of indie videos are often included in-between the performance. This video is only narrative and it tells a story of two people through the use of barbie dolls instead of real people. This puts a twist on most videos that include narrative and makes it more memorable and unique.
MISE-EN-SCENE
Throughout most indie videos, the mise-en-scene tends plays a vital role. It is used to give a "retro" look and vibe. During the music video for "Robbers" by The 1975, this is done through the sets that are used, their own appearance (especially outfits), props, and the color palette.
SOUND
Diagetic sound is used quite a lot in indie videos. This can add to the narrative of a video, or can be a part of a performance as videos sometimes include the sound of an audience singing along.
For example, the music video for "Piece by Piece" by The Hunna starts off with diagetic sound of the crowd screaming.
Lighting in performance videos is usually a more obvious element compared to narrative videos. Especially when the video is of the musician performing at a concert. For example, this Vevo Presents video of Halsey performing Heaven in Hiding has a lot of interesting lighting used throughout. Throughout the video the lighting is mostly red and these visuals contradicts to the lyrics since this makes you think about hell rather than heaven. Also, a lot of it is lighting to the beat, mainly starting from 2:10.
For our prelim, we have chosen to replicate Benny - "Boys Will Be Boys". We chose this because the editing used in the second scene is very quick which is common in a lot of music videos so it will give us practice before our final music video. We also liked how in the majority of the shots the camera moves ever so slightly and we thought that it would be interesting to recreate this. We will be recreating the prelim up to around 40 seconds, either just before or just after the shot of him walking out of the door. This means that there are two main scenes which we will have to film which include the first 12 seconds of him in the woods and the other scene of him and his father fighting. As well as this, we will have a shot of a blanket covered in paint and another shot of the glass breaking on the floor.
This pop music video was done by only having one shot and showing the artist walking around a house whilst just having fun. A very common characteristic of pop music videos is showing the artists having fun. However, this video goes against Goodwin's theory of there being a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals since there isn't much narrative going on within the video which relates to the lyrics about love.
This music video is a mixture of performance and narrative.It mostly contradicts Goodwin's theory on genre characteristics as it's a pop-punk video and these are often performances however the majority of this video is narrative. To add to this narrative, the video also features a large amount of "vintage" videos which is often used in other videos too such as Never Apart by Benny. Although it does have a few shots of the lead singer performing, it doesn't follow the stereotypical genre characteristic of the whole band performing. In addition to this, the entire narrative follows Goodwin's theory on the relationship between lyrics and visuals because the lyrics are all about the singer's relationship with his sister and throughout the video, it shows different experiences of both siblings. Since the narrative features the lead singer as the main character this also means there's a variety of different close-up and long shots of him which creates the impression that they are trying to sell the music using a 'star image' to sell the artist. There is also a relationship between the music and the visuals since throughout the entire video there is editing to the beat.
Andrew Goodwin stated "Music videos ignore common narrative as they are essentially advertisements. As consumers, we make your own meaning of a song in our minds: a music video can anchor meaning and gives the record company/artist a method of anchoring meaning."
There are six conventions to Goodwin's theory:
1. A relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, which illustrates, amplifies or contradicts the lyrics. An example of this is Michael Jackson - "Thriller"
2. Thought beats (seeing the sounds): the relationship between the music and the visuals, which illustrate, amplify or contradict the lyrics. An example of where the visuals within a music video may have been edited in time to the pace of the song is Set It Off - "Life Afraid"
3. Genre characteristics: related style and iconography present (mise-en-scene). An example of this is Coast To Coast - "Bloom" since this video is only performance with zero narrative. This follows Goodwin's theory because it is a pop punk song which often have performance music videos.
4. Multiple close-ups of the main artist or vocalist: the creation of the star image to promote a recognizable brand image and to sell the artist. An example of this is Girli - "So You Think You Can F**k With Me Do Ya". Within this video, there are a lot of shots of the singer as her face is used to sell the music.
5. Voyeurism: There's a frequent reference to notion of looking (screens within screens, mobile phones, billboard and especially in relation to the female body). An example of this is Rihanna's - "Stay" where her female body is being objectified. This video is mostly showing her in the bath where her body is clearly visible. This is voyeurism because we are watching her in what is usually a private situation.
6. Intertextual references to other media texts may be present, especially in humorous or parody videos. An example of this is The 1975 - "A Change Of Heart" because the narrative throughout this music video relates to another song from the same band called "Robbers".
