Single camera research and paperwork

Final Piece (Music Video)

 

The final piece of work is different from the origonal idea and contains a dance scene instead of a band playing music.

Planning & Research

The Track
The track I have chosen for my music video is not strictly a song by a singer as it is a song which was sung by an actor in a movie for which the song was written especially for. The song is called Cancion del Mariachi by Antonio Banderas which is used for the Robert Rodriguez film "Desperado" (1995) and there is no official music video for it. The song was origionally written by Robert Rodriguez for the band Los Lobo's but never got recorded.

Unoffical music video for Antonio Banderas's song Cancion del Mariachi



Analysing the music track

This is clearly a love song in its meaning, concept and content and will defiantly need a strong imagery counterpart to accompany the words. The narrative though is about a successful Mariachi who is pursuing a girl but can't get her; he is a brilliant musician and travels but wherever he goes, there she is; he is also a drinker. The genre of the song is something called "Chicano rock" and is mostly sung by American Mexicans and it is a genre that is usually headed by guitar playing and they also more than not also have a fast pace which is usually an accompaniment to Mariachi's. The song is two minutes and thirty six seconds long which is a fairly standard time for a song and shouldn't present a problem in the way of creating for the length of the music video.

Researching the artist (film character) - image and representation
Since the singer of the song I have chosen is a character from a film, I will try and research the character from the film.

Clothing/Costume, Make up, Locations.
The character is always wearing a white shirt of some kind with a black blazer and black trousers; he doesn't really have make up on that can be seen. Since there is no official video, you can't really stick to a particular tone or location but the film is set in Mexico and it has a very exuberant tone; I will make mine a lot more urban but with a country side setting around it. The film is an action movie but in the case of my music video, as I am taking it out of the film situation and putting it into a music video situation which has to narrate with the lyrics.

Concept and Narrative
Since the song is a some what romantic song, I had the idea that the story could be about a travelling guitar player who falls in love with a girl and tries woo her but fails to impress her with traditional methods and turns to his ability with his guitar to impress her; I will probably end up filming in black and white.

Planning

Synopsis
A wandering drinking Mariachi finds a new town and falls in love with a girl who wants nothing to do with him. After days of trying to impress her with flowers, poems and well manours, he eventually falls onto his master plan by using his guitar skills and singing to her. Telling the story to the audience with his backing players in the middle of a seaside car park, giving a more Mexican look.

Performers

The Mariachi - Josh Rimmer
The Girl - Gemma Grimmer
Backing guitar 1 - James Hodgson
Backing guitar 2 - Bethany Nockolds

Filming Location
Winterton beach carpark
East Ruston (Debbie and Phillip Grimmer house) (Street)

Full Synopsis (treatment) (original)
The Mariachi walks across a big wide car park surrounded by sand dunes. He carry's a guitar in a case across the middle of the carpark before setting it down and unzipping it. He gets his guitar out and slings it over his shoulder before strumming a few notes. After the opening tune is played the Mariachi begins the main theme song with his backing players. Meanwhile in the story, the Mariachi is walking down the street with guitar and a bottle of alcohol swiging away at it. He see's walking in the opposite direction a beautiful women; as they pass she has a quick glance in his direction but he stares at her as she walks past. Band continues playing.

Time line (edited)

Paperwork

Styles, Conventions & Techniques

Style, Conventions & Techniques

Styles & Conventions

In-concert and ‘as live’ Footage

The styles and conventions that come with music videos can be vastly different from one another and can change depending on the artist, how mainstream they are, what type of song it is and if they are from a popular music genre. One type of music video is the “in-concert” (or Live footage) video which is footage of the artist from live concerts and performances put together to make a video. This was one of the first type of music videos used to be a backup at concerts if the acts couldn’t make it for whatever reason; an example of an in-concert video would be “Taylor Swift’s” music video to her song “Fearless”.

"Fearless" - "Taylor Swift" (2010) this music video is completely made up from stock footage from the artists tour performing the song

Narrative and Interpretive

One of the most common music video types is the “Narrative and Interpretive”, which are video’s that try and tell a story that goes along with the lyrics of the song. So if you look at the music video “Na Na Na” by “My Chemical Romance” it is a story about the end of the world and certain people surviving it. Another one is the music video by “Keane” called “Bedshaped” which is an animated music video (more precisely stop-motion) which tells the story of a homeless character who is afraid to return to society through his fear of people.

This music video is the story of the song "Bedshaped" by Keane and bellow that is a picture from the music video by "My Chemical Romance" showing characters within the story and even giving them personality.

Surrealist/absurdist

One of the more niche types of music videos that don’t get shown as much to the general public are Surrealist/Absurdist music videos. These are more associated with smaller groups or singers who have smaller budgets for their videos and are trying to be creative and through that, they have created some weird and wonderful music videos. An example of this is “Florence and the Machine” “Dog days are over” which uses very unusual costumes, make up and set pieces, even though if you listen to the song by itself, it doesn’t sound unusual (sometimes videos are made surreal to make a point or statement) .


 

This is a still from the music video "The Dog Day's are over" which shows just how strange looking the video is just from the make up and costume. This kind of thing is seen in many different videos of the same style

Impressionist

Another more well-known type of music video that we are used to seeing are “Impressionist” videos which very simply are videos that try and get an emotional reaction out of you. They can look for an excited reaction, which are usually associated with big budget music videos that have big musical artists but some of the mainstream songs associated with impressionist videos are emotional ones setting a tone, which a lot of the time is sad; an example is “Christina Perri’s” video for her song “Jar of hearts”.

The tone for this music video is bleak and moody which is exactly the emotion it is trying to get you to feel as it is a sad song; it has a very cold feel to it that seems to be around the artist which, if you listen to the lyrics, is also how she feels in the song. This is all the entire point of this type of music and this style of music video.
  
Intertextual

Intertextual is the widest range type of music videos, often containing references to other things which a lot of the time are films and people; this different types are “Synergy”, “Allusion”, “Pastiche”, “Parody” and “Homage”; all of these types of videos are a way of referencing to other music videos, films and world events. A Synergy video will use real footage from whatever the song is about which is a lot of the time the soundtrack to a film; an example of this is “Adele’s” “Skyfall” for the James Bond film of the same title. Allusion is when a video alludes to events, people, statements or other media pieces; “Taylor Swift’s” music video to her song “Love Story” which is an Allusion of the “Shakespeare” story “Romeo & Juliet”. Pastiche is similar to Allusion but focuses more on a gentle imitation of somebody else’s style and is almost a mix between parody and homage; one example is the music video “Walk” by the “Foo fighters” who did it in the style of the 1993 film “Falling Down”. Parody is music which directly takes the mick out of an original text; one of the most well-known artists for this is “Weird Al’ Yankovic” who’s videos are a directly mocking others, like his song “Like a surgeon” which was a parody of “Madonna’s” music video “Like a Virgin. Homage is the most subtle and most used of all of them and is when an artist uses something (usually a visual aid) and doesn’t quite copy it but does their own take on it. Like the music video “Otherside” by “Red Hot Chili Peppers” is a direct homage to the “Fritz Lang” 1927 film “Metropolis”.

Synergy

This music video by "Adele" contains footage from the film "Skyfall" wich was put together to create the music video.

Allusion

This video uses setting and costume to put it into the period peice that it is and the song then brings it into the Romeo & Juliet allusion.

Pastiche

This video for the song "Walk" by "The Foo Fighters" is a pastiche to the film "Falling Down" which is seen in the story, clothing and what not. This paricular video does boarder on parody but because it is not using the style and story to make fun out of it, it becomes a pastiche.

Parody

This video is an obvious parody of the "Maddona" song "Like a Virgin" just through it's use of lyrics. Taking the tune and a ryming chorus it directly mocks the origional material through and through.

Homage

This video called "Otherside" is a very well done homage to a Sci-Fi classic called "metropolis" directed by Fritz Lang from 1927. It takes the films settings and set designs to give it a chilling feeling that really homages the film.










                                                                  Still from "Metropolis"
Still from "Red Hot Chili Peppers" "Otherside"

Animation

Animation music videos are not actually that common as much as they used to, but still appear occasionally; when they do appear, they are usually in the form of stop-motion animation, much like the video mentioned earlier “Bedshaped” by “Keane”, another example of a stop-motion video is “Fell in Love With a Girl” by “White Stripes”. A music video that uses animation but not stop motion is “The Gorillaz” “Clint Eastwood”.

"Gorillaz"-"Clint Eastwood"

Techniques

Lip-synch

When a music video is being filmed, the artist is required to lip synch to their song and this requires playback. The artist will have their song played while they mouth the words; this is not as straight forward as it sounds, the audio will be changed in speed, tempo, certain instruments and so on if certain effects are wanted to be applied to the music video. If the video has a scene in slow-motion, the playback of the song will be played fast, so when the video is slowed down, the audio is in time with the lip-synching.

This music video called "Run" by "Snow Patrol" has a lot of sequences in slow motion that required lip-synching, even from the opening.

Editing

The editing of a music video is just as important as it is for a film, requiring the same ideas of film, like continuity, match on action and so on. There is even awards given out for “best editing”, most well-known award giver is MTV.

Cutting the Beat

Cutting shots to the beat of the music is a common practise in many music videos, but the use of it will vary depending on the type of music that it is. For instance, in a slow moving emotional song by say, “The Fray”, it will cut on a beat but not on every beat; if on the other hand you have a song by “SKRILLEX” then the cutting would be a lot quicker and would hit nearly every beat.

"Make it Big" video demonstrationg the use of editing.

Post-production effects

A lot of videos have visual, sound and other effects added to them during the post-production of the video to give them an enhanced feeling and to make it look that much better. Different effects are given to different types of music and only certain effects are suited to certain types of music videos. The better a music video looks, the higher the chance you have of attracting a wider range of an audience.

Example of Effect: Split screen

The split screen effect is usually put into effect so you can see two separate events happening at the exact same time; this was a more common practise for film but has more recently been more evident in music videos. This used to be done by projecting more than one image onto one screen, but this has now been taken over by the age of computers. An example of the use of split screen is seen in the “Michael Jackson” music video to “Billie Jean”.

This captured image from "Billie Jean" is displaying split screen in a music video.

Example of Effect: Chroma key

This is when a scene is filmed in front of a green or blue screen, enabling whatever is in front of the screen to be kept on camera, and the background is removed and changed into whatever they want it to be. This can be seen in the music video “Bonkers” by “Dizzee Rascal”, which a lot of the background you can clearly see was filmed in front of a green or blue screen.

Camera Movement & Camera angles and shot types

As music videos have become more and more dependent on the use of exciting camera angles which were not used much in the early days of music videos that just used eye level medium shots and close ups. Today, a wide variety of angles can be seen in a wide variety of music videos; the video to “I’m on a Boat” by “The Lonely Island” has a lot of different shots during the whole thing, including angles, distance, and the type of camera movement to tracking, birds eye, hand held, steady hand and so on.

Mise-en-scene

The mise-en-scene is how the scene has been set up and what is in it; this includes props, people and location. The mise-en-scene is designed to set the mood for the music video and is there to suit the song; if there is a sad song, there might be rain (which is known as a pathetic fallacy); again with the music video by “The Lonely Island”, it suited the songs mood and pace.

The Purpose of Music Videos

This essay is to provide information on the purpose of music videos, from when they first appeared, what they were used for, when they became popular and what they are used for now. The first few videos appeared at the beginning of the early nineteen forties with a at the time ground breaking new invention called the “Panoram Soundie” which essentially is a jukebox which played short video clips to go with the music. It developed in the mid-fifties with musically films during the boom of the Rock’n’Roll trend, especially with the Elvis Presley movies like the “Jailhouse Rock” (1957).

The almost sole purpose of music videos now is the promotion of the music artists, there songs and sometimes the directors of the music videos themselves. Depending on what type of band or singer they are is how they are going promote themselves; if it is an indie bands like “The Black Keys” with the music video to “Gold on the Ceiling” then you can see that they’re promoting themselves. If it is a bigger group or singer like “Taylor Swift” then their music videos can show off their budget; but both are just a big advert for the song. You also have the directors of the music who can put their own creative and filmmaking stamp on the video; a lot of music video directors have transitioned to film; Oscar winner Spike Jonze (the director of “Her” (2013)), directed one of the best of all time “Weapon of Choice”.

The producers of the music video, weather that is a record label or self-produced, they will all have a strategy for selling the music video. If it’s a mainstream band then or singer, they will try and make the music video flashy, throwing special effects, sex appeal, cool and exotic locations and the talent; an example that features nearly all of these items is “LMFAO’S” “I’m Sexy and I Know It”. Producers try and get a wide audience for these videos by showing them on television and websites; artists will usually have their own official website and it will also most likely be on YouTube and will also have a slot of channels like “MTV” and “VIVA”. If it’s an independent or indie band, then their music video will likely be independent or indie with a smaller budget which does create more create more artistic freedom, using experimental film making, and visual styles (The Prodigy – Firestarter . They will have lots of shots of the singer or band (trying to sell themselves). They will try to get on the late night slots of shows like “MTV” and magazines like “Kerrang”. You have self-produced artist discovered through YouTube like “Justin Bieber”.

One of the biggest reasons for producers always trying to stick to mainstream artist is because they have the biggest chance of making money. This type of mainstream music like “Bruno Mars” dominates the music channels and magazines; this will of course give them a wide audience who want to listen to them. This in turn brings into account the idea of royalty payments which has the theory attached that every time an artist’s song is played, they will receive a payment and if they have a music video attached, they will receive a payment whenever the video gets played (in theory). Whenever the artist is paid, the producers and distributes will get a cut; so in a competitive music industry it is very hard for new musicians to get discovered, this where YouTube comes in handy for free exhibition and distribution, raising the chance of being discovered by people.

There are many different platforms to getting music listened to and music videos watched; a big one is the internet, enabling you to advertise your music and music videos; you can also use YouTube and even have your own official website to advertise yourself on. Television is a big platform to be on, as some television channels specialise in specific music videos like “VIVA”, “MTV” and “4music”. CD’s are going to be one of the biggest platforms to get you music heard, with worldwide release of singles and albums. You have the ability to download music from some places like ITunes which have taken over the majority of music buying; magazines like “Vibe” are also a big influence if you go for the one that advertises your genre of music. Many different platforms gives you more places for your product but it also opens you up to competition and piracy.

The power of synergy is used a lot by producers in any industry and it is when a product of name is used to be sold for the use of licensing deals and promotions. If an album cover or maybe a picture of an artist is used on a t-shirt, a licencing deal will be struck to get permission to use that image (or whatever) for that product, so whoever wants to use the image or product has to pay for them. This helps both parties involved because the use of the image, music or whatever in relation to the product is being promoted and the product using it will sell better because it has a popular selling point; music videos themselves are just one big advertisement for the song itself. The idea of synergy actually came from Walt Disney in the 1930s after selling the image of Mickey Mouse.

Music videos are very popular at the moment with the public because they are a way to see a visual aid to the song, and in an era where a screen is more popular than a page, it is a great way to promote a song, an artist and a creator. Music videos themselves I think will one day develop into something else and may even possibly enter into the recently made interactive music videos which was used for the song “Coming to Get Me” by “Professor Green” which allows you a full interactive experience while the video is playing.

Writing Materials

Here is a collection of the writing materials I did during the screenwriting unit.

Single camera production evaluation

Single camera production evaluation

Taking a script
We chose to do the screenplay Silenced, because it was the best story out of all of ours and the most doable. Making a screen translation of the screenplay written by Sav Houston and adapted by me was actually a lot more challenging than expected. For starters, we had to add additional scenes to make the story make more sense. We also had to film mostly in the same location frequently which wasn't always available and because the owners of that house were moving, we had to be careful what was caught on camera as it might not be there again.

Shooting Manually with a DSLR
Filming with the DSLR was a challenge for some of us as we found getting all the settings right hard, but others who are familiar with camera's were a lot better and after we all had the grip of it, we managed to get every shot in every scene to focus.

Coverage
We filmed each scene multiple times with multiple angles to give us plenty of coverage ad we managed to do this with ease.

Own Sequence - Management
I tried to make my scene a little more shaky as it was the big shooting scene, which needed to be tense, but this didn't seem to be liked by everyone.

Finished Product:

Mise-en-scene
As far as mise-en-scene goes, we managed to keep everything authentic and didn't let any slips like, camera bags or tripods get into shot.
Camera
The camera sometimes should have been steady instead of shaky and because of this we might decide to re-shoot some select moments.
Editing
The editing wasn't actually that bad and came together very nicely, which was helped in no small part to our coverage.
Sound
The sound is sometimes too loud and sometimes too quiet, which makes it feel uneven but as far as sound effects goes, we actually did well, and the soundtracks were chosen very well.

Conclusion
The making of the video I think went mostly well, there was little arguments between team members and we all had the same idea of how we wanted the video to look, yet each scene has it's directors fingerprint on it. We all could have worked a little harder though sometimes as it sometimes too a long time to get everyone to start working and there was a little too much mucking around. Personally I learnt that planning out the shots and discussing the story a lot more thoroughly would have help everyone understand it better and would also help see forthcoming problems with the screenplay when filming.

Feedback
Most people seemed to find the shake of the camera bad and there where a couple of shots that weren't one hundred percent in focus, and a lot of people have said that there was too much swearing which ultimately was my fault. Another frequent offender was the sound levels that where uneven. Most of the other comments were positive, this includes the editing, a lot of the camera shots and positioning and the acting as well.