James Barry

The brief that I was provided with for my advanced portfolio, was to create my own music video of three to five minutes, to accompany a song of my choice. We were also required to create two ancillary texts, a digipack and an album magazine advert to promote our artist.

A music video is something created by an artist to accompany a piece of music. There are many reasons why artists do this and the music videos have numerous purposes. These may include;

A market tool to promote an artist/song
A short narrative or representation of the artist
To attract a particular target audience
To identify an artist/group
To buy into the artist's lifestyle
To show the different generic conventions of a genre/music video.
To make a song available to a wide audience.
To show more about the artist.
The audience request music videos.
To build a relationship with the artist.
For the audience to understand more about a song.

The style of a music video can be categorised into three different areas, which include performance, narrative and concept. Each category of music video has its pro's and cons. Concept music videos focus on themes like image or love, whereas narrative has a story to it, almost like a short film. Performance is quite simply a performance, where the artists or group can be seen playing the song that the video is for.

One example of a performance based song is Beyoncé's single ladies. This is entirely performance based and features Beyoncé and her dancers performing the routine to the song.

This showcases her talent to the audience and also, as in many performance based music videos, can be engaging for an audience as they can learn dance moves or routines, which then makes the songs even more entertaining and interesting for people by adding that other element to it. By showcasing the talent of the performer it can encourage people to find more of their work, which ties in with the purpose of the music video in promoting the artist.

Narrative videos can be things like Take on me by A-ha. These videos follow a story and usually have a relationship with the lyrics as they go along. Other examples are Californication by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers and The Man Who Can't Be Moved by the Script. These are also successful in engaging and attracting the audience to a song as it provides something more for the audience, rather than just watching there favourite group or artist perform. It can also provide escapism as they can watch the narrative and forget about there own lives and problems while the song is on. They almost act as a small film partnering the music. The audience are enticed and want to follow the storyline. In many cases the artist is actually the actor in the narrative of the video, which showcasing more than just their musical talent and further increases popularity.

Concept based music videos are things like you are beautiful by Christina Aguilera. The concept based music videos tend to focus more on issues that are often featured in society like Christina Aguilera's song dealing with the image of women and their appearance. These connect the audience by giving them confidence on issues or by expressing issues through the song that can influence the thoughts of the viewers.

The music video that I decided to look at was 'My Love- By Route 94 and Jess Glyne. The song is from the deep house genre and includes many of the conventions expected from this sort of song.

I chose to create a song for the dance genre, choosing Calvin Harris’ song, Blame. The reason for my choice of genre and artist came about as the dance genre is something very current and popular at the moment, particularly with those my age. The music video was created after extensive research that I carried out into other music video productions. The research included me analysing things like mise-en-scene, cinematography and lighting, to gain inspiration for my own production. Things like the setting of Route 94’s ‘My Love’, led to the use of a club setting in my own music video. The lighting of Chase and Status’ ‘Blk and Blu’, influenced the flashing lights I too used, as well as the timing of shots in Becky Hill’s ‘overdrive’ influencing the way I filmed my own video. The majority of the research that was carried out was done so in my group, which consisted of Harry and I. I used the blogging website ‘blogger’, to collate our findings and discuss and analyse them. I then used the findings to aid the creation of my digipack, magazine advert, a storyboard and the music video itself. In terms of how we worked as a group, I think that we worked well, incorporating both our ideas into the final production and also working very time efficiently to maximise the time we had to edit the footage taken. The way we worked as a group was helped by the fact that we had very similar musical interests. This made it easier when choosing a song and an artist, and also when looking at the conventions we did and didn’t want, as most of the time we were in agreement. Also the fact we were able to choose Calvin Harris, one of our favourite artists, meant that we were more interested and passionate about the research we were collecting. This was because it gave us a chance to find out more about one of our favourite artists. Our main aim when collecting our information, was to gain a deeper understanding into the codes and conventions of the dance music genre’s music videos. Looking at videos by Becky Hill for the timing of shots, Calvin Harris for artist representation and David Guetta for iconography we were able to identify more commonly seen elements of the genre, and the effect that has on an audience. The fast timing of shots in the Becky Hill video for example showed us how to successfully carry out Goodwin’s theory and match the music and the visuals. The setting of David Guetta’s ‘lovers on the sun’, showed us the effect of establishing shots, but also of how the setting used can be successful in creating escapism. Calvin Harris’s ‘regular guy’ image, along with these other elements of dance we had picked up through our research, were things that were all incorporated into our own production. Overall, it is clear that our production conforms very closely to the typical elements expected to be seen in a dance music video. However, in order to provide something more for my target audience, I also decided to provide some subversions of stereotypes. This would give my music video something different and set us apart from other artists of the same genre.

Throughout the music video production that I created, there are numerous examples of conventional elements. The first conventional element included in my music video production is the use of flashing lights. This is conventional to the music genre as it is seen in numerous other music videos, like Calvin Harris's blame. The flashing lights have the effect of creating a club like atmosphere, which is where dance music is usually played and where the genre of music is usually associated. The effect that this has on the audience, will engage them with the video and encourage them to enjoy the party lifestyle that I am exhibiting to them. This is because they can relate to past experiences they have had whilst also out clubbing.

Another conventional element that is shown in my music video production is the use of the close up shot on the main character. This shot is shown at numerous points throughout the production and has the effect of creating more of a relationship between the audience and the main characters. It shows closely the emotions and feelings of the main character and makes him seem more relatable. This is conventional as most music videos use close ups of characters, in order to meet the needs of the record label and create a loyal fan base who feel close to the artists through the use of these types of shots. This provides further insight into the characters lifestyle.

A third conventional element to my music video production is the use of the graphic filter, achieved on the programme Final Cut Pro X. The graphic filter gives the impression that the characters are under the influence of alcohol or drugs. This is also shown through the iconography of the characters holding shot glasses. This is conventional as the dance genre is closely associated with drugs and drink, which is shown by the characters in our video. The effect that this has on on the audience, is that it creates a closer link between them and my characters as they seem relatable. it also encourages the audience to go out and also drink, as they see the enjoyment the characters are getting out of it. This was also edited to the time of the beat, which matched the music with the visuals and made the video more engaging, by relating to Goodwin's theory.

Another conventional element in my music video production is the setting of the club. The club is conventional as almost all dance music videos, including Route 94's 'my love', includes this setting throughout the entire video. The dance music is associated closely with clubs as the DJ's usually perform their music there. The effect this has on the audience is that it encourages them to go out and party also, like the characters in the video. This may then encourage the audience to go and see the musician in concert, and experience first hand the lifestyle and experiences that are being shown in the video.

The use of a time lapse is another conventional element that is included in my video. The effect of the time lapse is that it portrays the fast paced, wild lifestyle of the characters in the video. This therefore encourages the audience to relate with the characters, as the target audience of 15-25 may have very similar lifestyles so they therefore feel closer with the main characters. The video also shows the effects of drink driving through the narrative, which promotes the lifestyle of the characters, but also leaves the audience with the choice of whether or not to copy this lifestyle.

The narrative of our music video, is one of the most conventional elements included in our production. The narrative shows the characters, in the week leading up to their death. The exhibition of their lifestyle throughout the entire music production, is something that gives a deep insight into the characters lifestyle. The shots that portray the characters doing drugs, and drinking excessively, show the wild and out of control nature of the characters. This is conventional to the target audience as 15-25 year olds are likely to also drink excessively and act in a similar way to the characters in our music video. The fact that such a deep insight into the characters lives are shown means the audience can build a strong relationship with the characters.

James Barry

Monday 16 March 2015

Evaluation Question 4

Evaluation question 2

Tuesday 10 March 2015

evaluation question 3

Sunday 22 February 2015

Evaluation Question 1

Thursday 5 February 2015

final group magazine advert

group digipak

Music video