Evaluation of Pop Prelim

We had to shoot the first 30 seconds, so we had to think about a way to start the video. We decided to show them step everything up, meaning how they get their instruments and get in positions etc. All this is shown in a wide shot so that the audience can the whole band. Once they have started playing we jump to quick close ups of the different instruments (For example a close up of the bass). Because the fist half of our song bit is instrumental we chose not to show the singer in a close up until he starts to sing. Once he starts singing we have various shots of him, because only then he becomes the main focus. The music was very fast so therefore our editing and cutting had to go along to the music as well and on the fast bits in the track, our editing was very fast as well to make it seem fit.

In the end I was quite happy with our result, but there were bits which looked a bit too randomly cut and that was confusing to watch. But in general I was quite pleased with our result.

I thought our teamwork for the music video production was really good; we all tried out all the roles. So everybody of us got the chance to be on camera, playback director and the assistant. There is nothing negative to say about our cooperation skills. The band was very cooperative as well which made it easier and nicer to work under this pressure of 30 minutes as well.

We looked at various punk and rock-emo bands to get an idea in which style we want to present Acres of Life, Noticeable was that they all used very fast editing. The editing has to go along to the pace of the music which changed throughout the song.

We wanted to make them look like a very cool and alternative indie band.

The mood that the set created was a bit gloomy and dark but that made it look even more punky which fits to their music style. They are not necessarily a typical boyband but never the less they will attract a specific girl’s audience, which gives the impression of a boy group again.  

The music video gave not only the instruments a lot of camera time it was also focusing on the band members a lot so that especially girls will be attracted them.

Research - Bands for Acres of Life

In order to create an image for the Band Acres of Life we look at other bands who look similar to them. We looked at their music videos to see what techniques have been used and what they did to create a certain image.

Looking at narrative Music videos:

A lot of music videos have got a narrative storyline throughout, linear or instead to the instrumental shots.

Examples:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWpsOqh8q0M

In this one particularly there is only a storyline, no band members or music instruments are shows. You just get shots of the artist singing which interacts with the happening in the story.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUHAuXsSm6o&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8z-qP34-1Y

In this music video the main action is focus on the musicians.

  

Shooting 30 seconds of a band

We got the opportunity to get a real band in and shoot 30 seconds of their song. I was in a group of 5 people and we had to organize and structure our ideas of how to shoot everything in the time of half an hour. The main task was to look at other band music videos that are quite similar to the one we are shooting and see what techniques they used. So we made a plan of shots that we wanted to have and on the shooting day we shot the whole 30 seconds in from that angle and then changed the angle etc.

Some of our theoretical ideas did not work out on the shooting day so we had to change them and take what we had to do to make the best out of it.

After we had shot our 30 minutes, we started editing everything together. The difficulties with that were that we had to match the fast editing to the fast music that they are playing.

Literal Video

A literal video is a music video where the original lyrics have been replaced by discribing action lyrics which make fun of the artist or the music video. We wanted to do a video like that and looked at the way they designe those. For example they are often discribing the happening of the scene, making comments of random items and unrelevant actions. The lyrics also go ahead of themselves so that they can discribe an action that is going to happen. But the most important thing is that they take themselves serious. ( an example is that :

In order to create a vide like that you need a good video which is weird in its wa anyways, that makes i easier to make fun of it. So first of all we had to pick a video which we decided to work on.

A2 - Music Industry: Advanced Production Brief

In this second year of Media Studies, I will create a promotion package for the release of an album of a new artist, including...

•  a music video to his or hers first single
• the cover for its release as part of a digipak (CD package)
• a magazine advertisement for the digipak (CD package).