Initial Ideas

As a group we decided that we wanted to create a music video for the subsection of House, 'deephouse'.

We initially decided on the song Afterglow by Wilkinson, but after some thinking we decided to change our song choice to Gecko (Overdrive) by Oliver Heldens ft Becky Hill. We made this change as we wanted to incorporate a dance routine in our music video, but the song Afterglow wouldn't cater for a dance routine, so we went for a more up beat song instead. Furthermore, Afterglow didn't have as many lyrics so it would have been difficult to create the visuals.

We wanted to create a fun and visually appealing video; to create this we are going to use a variety of locations that are filled with colour. We're going to use powder paint, different visual effects and the dance routine to create an engaging and quirky video.

I feel that we have some really good ideas for the video; we're developing a fun and interesting concept and hopefully we produce a really good video in the end. I am definitely looking forward to working with my group and I can't wait till we start filming.

 

Music Video Directors

Construction of a Pop Star-Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift has a noticeable star image. From the type of song she writes to the stories written about her in the tabloids. She is undoubtedly known for her illustrious songs about romance, boyfriends and heartaches. The songs she writes tend to be of the Pop genre, some up beat song and others more sorrowful.

She has this very typical image of this fun loving, innocent, sweet girl which she portrays in the way she dresses as well as the way she acts. As she is young herself and also due to the type of music she creates her  main target audience are young teenage girls.

All her songs and albums have the same themes of 'love', this creates a feeling of continuity. Her fans expect the same type of sounds from her albums, so in order to sell singes and keep her title of a 'star' locked-down she has to produce the same time of music.

She has managed to uphold the same image throughout her career, but as she gets older she can no longer be the 'cutesy' girl we all know her as. So she's had to mature in a lot of ways, from the way she dresses to the mood of her songs. Needless to say she still writes about love songs but she's moving on from her cheesy days, and into recovery anthems, that are very personal to her, this also allows her fan base to feel closer to Taylor.

As a young female with a roller-coaster of a personal life, the tabloids are quick to the know the ins and outs of her life as they unfold. Most of the time thats she's in the news its to do with new relationships or current ones ending. She's also had many interviews surrounding her fashion. With a female fan base as big as hers, she has to work incredibly hard to make sure she looks the best she can. This leads to magazines features on how to 'Dress like Taylor Swift' or 'Taylor Swift Style', which provides her with a lot of positive publicity. She's always on chat shows and doing TV appearances, promoting her new single or album, in the hopes of widening her fan base.

As well as being known for her music, she is also known for the numerous altercations she's had with fellow musicians, the latest one being a twitter war with Katy Perry. She expresses any differences she has with other artists in her music, which gets people talking about her songs, therefore greatening the publicity she receives. She is a true example of someone who uses any and all publicity to her advantage.

She uses social media to interact with her fan
base. Examples of the sort of platforms she uses are Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. When doing live performances the presents the same image. She wears quite humble clothing, never provocative and dresses with class. She wants to look respectable but at the same time not too serious because she still has to remain appealing to her fan base of teenage girls. From the first time we saw her in 'Love Story' video with her corkscrew hair, to now having chopped it all of in her 'Shake It Off' video, her appearance in her music videos is slowly adapting in order to stay current.

This is the video for 'Love Story' the song that boosted her into stardom.

And this is her progression 5 years down the line. This is a perfect example of how stars adapt to stay current. The less than impressive dance moves in the video for 'Shake If Off' is her almost saying 'yeah I cant dance, so I'm going to be even worse than I actually so you keep talking about me'. She uses any negativity aimed at her, and uses it to her advantage.

Inspirational Music Videos

Here are a few examples of music videos that i liked the look of. They each have different elements that I would like to incorporate in my actual music video.

The first one is Bounce by Iggy Azalea. I really liked the use of bright colours and the hypnotic video effect used at 1:58.

Another video that I really liked the look of is Problem by Ariana Grande ft. Iggy Azalea. I thought the colours used and the funky showgirl theme was very interesting. 

I also liked the video for How Ya Doin? by Little Mix ft. Missy Elliott. I liked the use of different colours to represent the individual singers. I especially liked the split screen used at 0:13. That is definitely something I would want to incorporate in my music video. I also like the use of the strobe lights on the walls. Obviously due to limits on the budget we won't be able to get something like that for our music video, but we will definitely be experimenting with lights the best we can. 

Experimenting with Video Effects

In todays lesson we experimented with the different video effects available on Premiere Pro. We were told to pick a song, film someone singing along to it and edit it. The aim of the exercise was to practice editing music videos and learning to create new effects. As well as experimenting and trying out new things we had to learn to create effects we would actually expect to see in a music video. This is the final product.

Lip Sync Exercise

For this task we were asked to get into groups, pic a song and video ourselves singing along to it and sync it with the original soundtrack. Sounds simple right, well we learnt it was a lot more complicated. Here's the final product.

Past Music Video Ranking/Review

In class we watched music videos made by the previous years. We were then asked to rank them in order of best to worst.

1. 13A3 Nine 2 Five


2. 12A2 Life Happens
3. 13B6 Ike and Tina
4. 13E6 Go In, Go Hard
5. 13A1 Sparks Fly
6. 13134 Lost
7. 13E4 If You Wanna
8. 13B3 What We Started
9. 13E9 Today I Cried
10. 13E7 12 Rounds
11. 13B1 Rewind

From doing this exercise I feel I learned a lot about music videos. I learnt what to do and what not to do. The video for Nine 2 Five was the best out of all of them. It was very well executed, the lips were in sync and they cut in time to the music. They aslo had a vairety of loactions, which keeps it interetsing. I found the video for Rewind was the worst, because, the lips were not in sync to the music, they attempted using a narrative in the video, but it was very confusing and unclear.

I have learnt that when making my music video, I should make sure the lip sync is perfect all the way through the video. To make sure I avoid the issue of the lips not being in sync with the music, I'll use the same version of the track when filming as well as when I'm editing. I will also leave pleanty of time for re-shoots. My music video will aslo consist of different locations. This keeps video interesting and the viewer engaged. I will also make sure I cut the footage in time with the music, this way it doesn't look unprofessional and sloppy. To avaid this I will look at the synaesthesia of the music, and cut at the high notes or the low notes. It is also improtant to use a variety of shots from different angles, so that users are compelled to watch it. When going on a shoot I will take more than one camera, so that I have a lot of interesting footage to work with when it comes to editing. Another issue I found with some of the videos were that some of the actors were very lifeless and awkward in front of a camera. So when it comes to choosing who's going to perform in my music video, I'll be sure to choose someone who's confident performing in front of a camera.