Who intends to be the main character? - James Chivers
Because of the quality of the camera's, how will you be able to film in the dark? -We intend to film as the sun is just starting to go down and street lights emerge. So not when it is pitch black and the lighting will be poor.
Are you going to have one costume for the video? - Yes, we are. Although we may film the day before or after the breakup.
The idea that we have is to shoot the video in the centre of Cambridge at night time. The reason for this is that their are many interesting places that we can film and that will fit in with our genre. Another reason is because it is in the middle of where we all live, therefor it is practical and it will make it easier for us to get together and film
One idea we have to film at is the Drummer street bus station;
Drummer Street
Our idea is to film here fairly late at night so it is empty and dark. This fits in with our theme and genre as the character is going to be by them self reflecting. We also had the idea of ending the video by the character getting on the bus and leaving to go elsewhere and film the doors closing, representing the end of his relationship.
Parker's Piece
We have an idea to film at Parker's Piece, the thought we had was to have our main character sitting on a bench in the dark under a street lamp. This would create a sad setting which fits in well with our theme and what the song is about.
One idea was that we would use close ups of the artist singing to show emotion.
Editing
One idea was to desaturate the video to give it a grey and dark feel.
Another was the artist would be walking forward or standing still while people in the background were either sped up or walking backwards, this would show how the artist feels like his frozen in time as everything goes on around him.
Mise En Scene
The costume would be an american style RnB with Jeans, Hoodie, High tops and hat.
We will use a park bench or bust stop as a prop in the video.
Our target audience is teenagers and younger adults, to be more specific 15- 25 year olds. Initially we thought all teenagers would be targeted, 13+, as this age do listen to Usher, Chris Brown and other types of R&B music. But we thought against this as at that age they don't understand, to an extent, what relationships are about, and more importantly, they would not understand what the artist is feeling in the video. They cannot relate to what the artist is thinking and what is going through in his mind, which is what we want to achieve.
We want to make the video appealing for both gender's, as both male and female listeners would have experienced the situation the artist is in.
We watched this video because it is in the RnB genre and it is a song about a break up, the ideas we got from this song were close ups of the artist singing, walking down a street looking down and reflecting on the situation, The dark colours in contrast to the white background and the majority of the video is the artist singing.
The close ups of the artist singing shows the emotion of the song as well as that the character in the video is also the artist and that the song is telling a story.
When the artist walks down the street also shows the emotion of the song and also helps tell the story in the song.
The dark colours in contrast to the white/bright background shows how he is feeling down because he is in dark colours and the cold bright setting in the background shows how he is feeling cold inside and portrays him being in a cold feeling.
The idea of having the artist in the majority of the video is to make the story in the song more personal, it shows their emotions whilst they sing the song and also endorses the artist.
Ray J- One Wish-
We watched this video because it is also in the same RnB genre and it is also a love song.
The ideas from this video were The artist staring in the video, Close ups of the artist singing, the video telling the story, The characters feelings about the love interest in the video and the dark foreground with a lighter background.
The idea of the artist throughout the video was in both videos and feel that this is a good way to show the emotion of the song and also endorse the artist.
The close ups of the artist singing also shows emotion of the song and also shows the character in the video is the artist.
The video telling a story is an idea we like because it is one of the characterisations of the genre.
Our music video is about a love interest and this song is also, we got the idea of showing the love interest in the video however we do not want to show them as much as in the 'One Wish' video.
The dark foreground with a light background shows how the character is feeling and it reflects the emotions of the song as the artis feeling dark/down.
Idea for Chris Brown- Froze
When listening to the song for the first time, we automatically pictured a dark and slow setting of the video. We came to this conclusion because of the lyrics of the song,the first two lines indicate this: "I've lost my temperature, where've all my sunny days gone" shows that this is an unhappy song. Also the beat and rhythm of the song is slow and soft which reflects dark and unhappy settings in other video's. Whereas, up beat rhythm's, usually portray bright and happy settings.
This is an example of an up beat happy song, showing bright setting and a variety of colours. The song is 'Mika - Lollipop'.
Here is an example of a slow beat song with a dark setting to the back ground. the song is Tu Pac ft Elton John - Ghetto Gospel.
Firstly we had an idea. Before the music would begin, we would film the artist and his partner talking at a random location, and in the end, show her splitting up with him. We would then see him upset and angry, leave the location, then the music will start.
We imagined our artist walking down an empty street (empty street representing an 'empty heart' as he has just broken up with his partner) with his facial expressions as sad and wondering what went wrong in their relationship.
Another idea we had was instead of having an empty street, use a street with the public in view, and have them edited to be walking backwards and our artist to be walking forwards. This would show our artist wanting to go back in time and retrace his steps and find out what went wrong, but he can't because it's gone and there's nothing he can do about it, this being shown as the artist being the only one who is walking forwards.
Whichever idea we wish to choose, we will be putting in special affects and editing techniques to indicate the artists mind to be 'lost'.
We looked through previous work from students and found 2 videos that interest us and which will be similar to ours.
The first one was this;
We chose this video because the theme is the same as our idea for our video. It is about love and there is one main person who the video is about.
Throughout the video, the main character is lonely and by himself for most of the time. This is the sort of thing we want to do for our video as 'Chris Brown - Froze' is about him coming out of a relationship and feeling like he is on his own.
This is the second video of the students work that we found quite interesting. Again the video is similar to our ideas for our own. We want a dark setting to give the audience a feeling of sadness so they can relate to the visuals and the song.
We also like the way the camera follows one individual making us feel like we are getting to know her story and feel emotion towards it by watching and listening to the lyrics. One of our ideas for our video is to focus on one specific person as well.
Music video's have changed over time along with the technology that makes them. From the special affects used to the different camera angles. We analysed a modern video and dated video from the 70's/80's.
Nicki Minaj - Spaceship
She is portrayed as a sex icon as she is paraded in a bikini and uses explicate dance routines. She is also portrayed as a god/princess by the way she is carried on a bed by 'slaves'. She is also seen to be representing her culture with dancers in costume which is shows her taking pride in her culture.
Technical Development
CGI used throughout
Camera angles, harder angles
Special affects (slo-mo)
Costume
Attributes
Lyrics- Doesn't tell a story and they also don't make sense
More about the beat and rhythm than the lyrics
Style- Surreal, over- exaggerated, loud and bold
Rick Astley - Never gonna give you up
Representing of the artist;
Childhood crush, lover, fashion icon in his day
Technical Development
Limited lighting and simple camera angles
Artificial lighting to keep with the up beat vibe
Slow cuts
Attributes
Lyrics - tell a story and the way how he feels
Style - simple, more about the actual song than the video. He is the main attraction.
The Auteur theory is A directors film reflects their personal creative vision. Auteur is French for author. The theory was developed in 1954 by Francois Truffaut. Auteur theory draws on the wake of a group of cinema enthusiasts who work for Cashiers Du Cinema and argued that films should reflect a directors personal vision.
I looked at examples From Hype Williams and looked at a number of his videos and found that his personal creativity included;
- Shows the artist singing throughout the video.
- A lot of high angle shots of the artist.
-Close ups of instruments being played.
- A few videos had a wide screen shots with a white filler in the boarders.
- His videos we're either following the Artist in their normal life or very abstract situations.
A star- When interest in their personal life outweighs interest in their profession.
Star image is constructed out of a range of materials (films/video/posters/magazines)
Stars represent a shared culture e.g. being thin, fashion trends and religion.
We get the idea of what we should be like from stars.
Some stars support hegemony by conforming to the ideal.
Celebrity magazines compare us or encourage us to conform to the ideal.
Star persona is fragile and can be broken at any time.
Rita ora's video's portray her as being a 'bad girl' by how she is seen partying in the video 'How We Do'. Also in the video RIP she is swaggering around the warehouse looking like the girl you cant have and with the attitude of her body language showing she is the top girl in the industry.This sells to the target audience, teenagers and younger adults, as this is how this age want to be seen as and also what this age are stereotyped to do. Both video's, for obvious reasons, make Rita the center of attention. Especially in 'How We Do' she is the popular member of the party and everyone ants to be seen with her, this is also how teenagers want to be seen as the heart of the parties and as the cool kid.
This is a mock advert to show and practice the use of photoshop. We learned what to do from this youtube video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6qjgslXXO0
One idea was that we would use close ups of the artist singing to show emotion.
One idea was to desaturate the video to give it a grey and dark feel.
When the artist walks down the street also shows the emotion of the song and also helps tell the story in the song.
The dark colours in contrast to the white/bright background shows how he is feeling down because he is in dark colours and the cold bright setting in the background shows how he is feeling cold inside and portrays him being in a cold feeling.
The idea of the artist throughout the video was in both videos and feel that this is a good way to show the emotion of the song and also endorse the artist.
The dark foreground with a light background shows how the character is feeling and it reflects the emotions of the song as the artis feeling dark/down.
