Change Of Plan

Due to recent events inside the group, i have decided to work solo to complete this project. The idea of using an original sound track is still in place but the people and song we will be doing has changed. I plan to shoot a music video for my band outside of school playing an original song in side the school hall. It has a good stage and would be perfect to shoot my video as there is little narrative.

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.