More Specific Conventions

Are music video will be a hybrid of several genres. I have done some research by looking at videos from Rock, Pop and a hip hop style genre to find out what the main conventions are and if any of them use the same.

Rock/Indie.
-Tend to be dark lighting and colours, or Evan black or white.
-The Artist or band tends to be shown through out the video.
-Use of extreme close ups and longs shots are more common.
-Dark locations.
-Fast paced.
-Some special effects.

Hip-Hop.
-Location tends to be inside a club or a party.
-Use of alcohol or drugs.
-Recognised Brands of clothing.
-Expensive cars and houses featured.
-Camera shots tend to be long including group shots to show the money of the production involved. Close ups tend to be more of the female characters to show jewellery and rich aspects of the character.
-Well dressed attractive women.
-Rarely Follows a story line.

Pop Music.
-Bright and colourful.
-Close ups to show cheerful upbeat expressions and emotions.
-Extreme close ups to show innocence also.
-Aimed at a teenage audience.
-Nearly always a possative, happy video.

Conventions Of A Standard Music Video

Camera Shots.
A music video consits primaraly of Long and Mid shots and close ups. This is so that the director can easly convey the artist, location and feelings involed directly to the audience. Close ups are also used to not only show the artists emotions, but to reflect the lyrics of the song with the movement of the artists lips.

Camera Movement.
This is simple to follow and track the movements of the band.
They include tilts, tracking, pans and crane shots in the majority of common music videos.

Editing.
A jump cut is the main form of editing technique in a music video. This is because it creates a sudden changes of scene, transitions like fades and disolves are also very common in a music video.

Lighting.
The lighting plays a important role in what the overal mood of the video is.
Some music videos are black and white to help emphisise a particular mood and some have artificial lighting to place the artist in a enhanced look.

Sound.
Sound is nearly always the artist's song and vocals but in some cases, directors can turn a music video into a short film. Much like Michael Jacksons Thriller video.

Props.
These are vitial to creating the scene and give significance on particular objects or people.

Colour.
Like lighting, the colour also plays a huge part in the overall mood of the video. For example dark colours are generally used in rock songs, giving a dark mood to the video. Where as a pop song would use quite light, bright colours.

Genre Theory

Here i has shown some media theorist's ideas and theory's about genre classification, Many of whom suggest that genre is subject to historical concept and change.

John Fiske.
Any one program will bear the main characteristics of its genre, but is likely to include some from other. Ascribing it to one genre or another involves deciding which set of characteristics are most important. For example, The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy is primarily classed as fantasy, however, it contains aspects of a thriller, comedy and action films.



Richard Maltby & Ian Craven.

Between them, they decided that the success of Hollywood is reliant on the combination of its predictable elements with little variation between them. For example, a typical Hollywood film would be, boy meets girl, they both encounter a problem, they over come this and and a better off for it.



Auteurs & Iconography.

A group of film makers that where considered to be particularly influential and artist.

Quentin Tarintino is a prime example of this. His films include similar concepts such as, not being shown in chronological order and having certain characters making the square out of thin air and it being drawn on screen.
Edward Buscombe felt that iconography was the best way to achieve genre definitions.

Rick Altman.

He was the black sheep and disagreed with all of these theory's, he felt that genre theory presumes that the audience pre read texts. He thought that ,
-Viewers become passive Voyeurs,
-Genres are therefore restrictive,
-He does not acknowledge or allow for the hybrid genre. A hybrid is a combination of two genres such as "Rom-Com".

Location Shoot

Media Production Shoot

Ash Burn Baby Burn

the video begins in silences with a few establishing shots showing parts of an American sports hall and silhouette of cheerleaders before the camera tracks off backwards as each cheerleader comes into shot in front of the camera. at this point the guitar on the sound track has come in and the camera quickly cuts to the bass player of the group just as his part enters also. the other members of the band are quickly shown before all members are playing and are all shot from a high angle apart from the Cheereaders who are shot on a low angle. the camera tracks through the singers legs as more short shots are shown of the band. As the singing begins the singer has been shot at a medium close up so only his head and shoulders are visible, cutting back to the Cheerleaders. During the chorus some basketball players run into the shot and the camera pans and again tracks around the band as they move in and out of shot. the band are now being shot at low angles. Small second long clips of several members of the band and edited in again , most of which are medium close ups. it seems the camera cuts back and forth between Cheerleaders and band every few seconds with 3 to 4 smaller shots of each group. a close up of the female guitarist hands are cut to during the guitar solo. this is very common to pick out the lead guitarist during a solo on a music video. the video is slowed down and shot at half speed during the middle of the song giving a small dramatic effect. And Finally the band are shot as a whole group right before the end of the video and the camera cuts to black on the last note. again this is also very common in a music video

Original Music First Draft

As we decided on using original music i have composses a first draft of a song.

Plan Of Recording

We plan to use an original soundtrack which mean we will have to both write and record ourselves.
I am currently writing out the music for the video which will be recorded at a later date at my home studio. Both guitars will be directly input into the desk with the drums being closed miced with two over heads, a condenser in the bass drum and between the high hat and snare and drums mics on the toms and snare it self. Vocals will be added in the college as i do not have the physicality's at home.

Target Audiences`

Your target audience is the mass market you're trying to appeal to. For example a film like "Curiouse George" is obviously marketed to children rather than audlts. Working to what your target audience want to see helps to make you media output more successful in the market place.
There are 4 theorys deciding how this works,

Hypodermic Syringe Theory
This theory dates back to the 1920s and trys to explain how mass audience reacts to mass media. the theory suggests that, as an audience, we are manipulated by the creators of media texts, and that our behaviour and thinking might be easily changed by media-makers. It assumes that the audience are complient and heterogenous. Meaning that the mass audience is diverse but accepts what ever the media maker whats them to believe and accept.

Two Step Fl0w Theory

The Hypodermic theory proved to be less true and correct as is was first thought to explain the relationship between audience and media text. As media became more of a part in people lives, and did not reduce the population to a mass unthinking drones, a more correct throry was needed. Paul Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson, and Hazel Gaudet analysed the voters' decision-making processes during a 1940 presidential election campaign and published their results in a paper called The People's Choice. Their results show that the media did not flow directly into the audience unmediated but is filtered through "opinion leaders" who then communicate it to their less active associates. The audience then mediate the information received directly from the media with the ideas and thoughts expressed by the opinion leaders, being influenced not by a direct process, but by a two step flow.

Uses & Gratifications

During the 1960s, as the first generation to grow up with television became grown ups, it became increasingly obviouse to people that analysised media, that audiences made choices about what they did when seeing texts. Far from being a passive mass, audiences were made up of individuals who actively consumed texts for different reasons and in different ways. In 1948 Lasswell suggested that media texts had the following functions for individuals and society:
-surveillance
-correlation
-entertainment
-cultural transmission

Researchers Blulmer and Katz expanded this theory and published their own in 1974, stating that individuals might choose and use a text for the following purposes (ie uses and gratifications):
Diversion - escape from everyday problems and routine.
Personal Relationships - using the media for emotional and other interaction, eg) substituting soap operas for family life
Personal Identity - finding yourself reflected in texts, learning behaviour and values from texts
Surveillance - Information which could be useful for living eg) weather reports, financial news, holiday bargains
Since then, the list of Uses and Gratifications has been extended, particularly as new media forms have come along (eg video games, the internet)

Brief

This year i will be working as a pair to create a music video with an original soundtrack.

We will be working to achieve the style of a few artists, such Oasis, Kasabian, The Answer and a few of the "Old Skool" punk artists. The video and promotions to follow will also be of the same style, with footage of the band and onscreen narration of the song.

Review Of Skills

In the post i will be review the skills which i learned last year in AS media studies. Last year was the first time i ever took a media course so everything i learned was all new.
The first things i was shown was textual analysis. This is the analysis of a media text such as a music video, film clip etc. it consists of roughly 5 areas. Sound, is it diegetic or non diegetic, sound effects etc. Camera movement, how the text is shot, IE tracking, pans, establishing etc. Editing, is there any special effects, certain types of cuts. anything to do with what happens to the film after it has been shot. Mise En' Scene. the literal translation meaning whats in the scene. this consists of costumes, props lighting etc. the other area and more complicated one is meaning and representation. How a focused group of people have been conveyed through the use of media techniques.

The other side of the course i learnt was how to use the shot types and media conventions i was shown in the first part of the course, to piece together a profeshional looking media text. learning things such as which camera angles to use, well thought out dialogue etc. by doing all this i achieved nearly full marks for my practial production. which really helped as i did not do as well in the exam.

this year i hope to further my skills to produce a looking practial production with a good exam to back it up .