Video Update #2

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Existing characters

For music videos with a strong narrative, characters can be a quite an important aspect. However, some music videos choose to simply use visuals to illustrate the song that is playing. Characters in a music video can help the audience connect and relate to a song; and for some bands the same characters are used in several videos to create a concept album.

 

False Alarm - The Weeknd

 

This music video is quite unique as we see the narrative through the eyes of an unknown character. This is quite engaging and new. Through this POV narrative we can see a focus on one character in particular: the girl.

 

What makes her so memorable is the fact that the POV we are coming from seems to favour her over the team's targets e.g. the money. This leads to a lot of questions; does the POV and girl have a past? Is the POV simply just kind hearted? On top of this, she becomes more memorable due to the ending where she leaves the POV to die and takes a money bag. This is unexpected, particularly as the girl comes across as innocent - though she clearly shows initiative as she shot one of the captures. It is interesting how we are made to feel sorry for her at the start of the video but this is quickly changed by the end.

 

The girl really adds to the narrative as she keeps an element of emotion in the story, instead of it being mindless violence with an arguably cliché story line.

 

 



 

Acid Rain - Lorn

 

This music video won a few awards. It is again quite a unique music video. There are about 5 characters in the music video, but the main focus seems to be on the first cheerleader we see. The narrative is somewhat mysterious and vague, but it still manages to capture and maintain the audience's attention. What makes the characters so memorable is perhaps their movements and the way they dance, coupled with the effects placed in during editing. Put together, this creates a really dynamic set of characters.

 

The audience can connect to the first character in particular as she ties the start and end together and we can gather that she has died in the car crash along with the other cheerleaders.

 

 

Lullaby - The Cure

 

The song itself tells the story of the Spider Man that haunts your sleep. The video illustrates and brings this to life. The main character is of course Robert Smith who remains in bed being haunted by a series of characters. It has a strong narrative and is led by the lyrics of the song.

 

We can understand that the character in bed is struggling to sleep and is perhaps an insomniac. The changing happenings and the Spider Man getting closer helps to maintain the audience's attention. I think all the characters used in the video make it so memorable - this including the glimpses of the Spider Man, the shots of the marching band covered in cobwebs, and the character in bed himself. Robert Smith's signature look is still included which helps make the video more iconic.

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Targets for A2

My main targets for A2 are; to improve and develop my practical skills such as filming, creating successful mise en scene, and creating album covers using skills I have learnt last year in Graphic communication. I also want to improve aspects of my research and blogging skills to communicate ideas in interesting and different media. Pretty much all our aims and targets for our A2 coursework is to improve upon our preliminary task. For example we want to improve on the narrative of our music video. We would also like to improve on our costumes by using proper costumes for characters such as people living in the woods. We also want to ensure our video is shot in a wider variety and more carefully selected locations. We also want our video to include more extras so that there isn't a lack of content or characters, this will prevent the video from becoming boring.

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Existing Narratives

What is a narrative?

'The way a story is told so that the elements are structured and ordered in such a way that it makes sense to the audience. It has also been described as how events are unified in space and time.' (Leanne Gelder).

How does narrative work in relation to music video?

Often the narrative will relate to the lyrics of the song, I think this is really important, the narrative also needs to fit the mood of the song. Its also really effective when movements and shot transitions/shot lengths align with the tempo and pace of the song, helping the audience to engage with the music video. In most cases the narrative has to be told visually (no dialogue) so the shots and actions of the characters need to be thourily considered.

 

Music videos can be characterised by 3 broad typologies; narrative, conceptual and performance. Often music videos will cut between narrative and performance: Steve Archer (2004)  'Often, music videos will cut between a narrative and a performance of the song by the band. Additionally, a carefully choreographed dance might be part of the artist’s performance or an extra aspect of the video designed to aid visualisation and the ‘repeatability’ factor. Sometimes, the artist (especially the singer) will be part of the story , acting as narrator and participant at the same time. But it is the lip synch close-up and the miming of playing instrument s that remains at the heart of music videos, as if to assure us that the band really can kick it.' 

Conventions of narrative

The most common theme in narrative music videos tends to be love stories/romances.

Goodwin (1992), describing Madonna's videos; suggests that the essential narrative component in a music video is to frame the star, as most of Madonna's videos seem to do however I would say this isn't set in stone as I have watched many successful videos that do not have this component or any narrative. The other most common genres of narrative in music video are comedy, drama, horror. I have included some examples of the different conventional genres.

Comedy

The conventions for a comedy music video, as the genre suggests, are funny, jokey and comedic. They will almost always involve the star/singer/band doing funny, strange or weird things. Comedic videos are probably most common in rap genres as it more suits the type of music and artist such as Eminem.
 

Narrative theorem in music video

 

 

 

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Decisions

What coursework brief are you going to complete?

We are doing a music video. This is because we had done a music video for our preliminary and felt we could effectively build on this. Furthermore,  we were all big fans of music and watched music videos regularly, therefore we had better knowledge of the style and conventions of a music video, where as we were more unfamiliar with short films and children TV drama.

Who are you working with?

I am working in a group with Emma Hagstrom and Jasper Williams. Rachael Hustler was also in our group however she left to go and work with another group. We felt we would work well as a group together as we get on well (which makes communication and working together much easier) and we have a varied skill set which allows us to spread the work load more evenly. This also means we can all do what we are best at and allow the others to do the areas we may struggle with. For example Emma takes Art Multimedia and is very good at making things like album covers and Jasper and I do not have as much experience with doing things like this therefore we can allow Emma to do this whilst we complete other things, such as filming, that Emma may not be as good at.

Any initial ideas?

We are going to build and improve upon our preliminary task. This is because we felt we had a solid idea and good enough audience feedback to successfully improve upon it. We also felt that as we already had the idea and knew what we had to improve upon this would be easier than thinking of a completely new idea and song. Our song we are using is still the Safety Dance by the Men Without Hats and our idea is based around a young child and the place that he goes to in his dreams when he's bored. The song will feature a teacher who the child is trying to defeat in his dreams. We have other ideas within this general outline however these ideas all depend on how many other actors we are able to get to play roles.

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Conventions in music videos for various genres

Pop

. The main conventions of pop music videos is that they are very upbeat, rather eccentric and tend to revolve around the singer themselves, usually with a sexualised objectification of the women, fitting the 'ideal' body image of women we often see within the media. Although after saying that I would say the same is often done with men in the videos - a lot seems to be just about being sexy.  Everyone is made up and naked/nearly naked. The videos tend to place on exotic, brightly coloured, staged location, usually very obviously a high budget production with expensive costume and locations. Often rather superficial.

 

This video cuts between shots of Arianna Grande singing into the camera, some dancing in the shower and shots of her with a group of girls on gym equipment and sitting on steps. The lighting is an intense blue and orange through out, linking the shots together and creating a strong sense of atmosphere which I think actually works really well. There is a strong feel of movement through out the video with the shot transitions and the dancing fitting with the beat of the song, the shots slow down and become less busy on quieter parts of the video and sort explode on the chorus, which I think works well and should be considered for our video. There is little to no narrative.

 

Indie / Rock

In the indie rock genre the music video will almost definitely be featuring the band or singer performing/ playing instruments. Often there will be narrative, sometimes the artist will be the actor for example Kodaline often features as an actor in his music videos whilst cutting back to live performance. Generally the locations and costume are more low-key and low-budget often just everyday places and clothes.

 

 

 

This video consists of extreme close-ups and close-ups of the band playing instruments and head shots of Julian singing into the mic. I think the simplicity of the video is really effective, putting the focus on the music itself more than the band unlike within a conventional pop video where the video revolves around the singer being all glamorous. The mise en scene and costume are very neutral and simple with low key lighting. Again there is no narrative what so ever for the video.

 

UK underground hip-hop

 

Music videos for uk rappers tend to be very varied but generally still follow some of the same conventions, which is why I chose to discuss it. The majority of videos will be centred around the rapper, lip syncing while in different locations. The camera work is often quite creative, with pans, tilts and short shot lengths to match the pace of the song and keep the video interesting. The locations are usually everyday places, often out on the streets, and with mates, a low-key realistic Mise en scene, often in places full of graffiti. Often the videos can be deliberately quite comical, amusing or wacky or they are very simple and atmospheric, generally not with narrative, for example the video below consisting of only a few continuous tracking shots of a guy skate boarding, fitting the chilled out vibes of the song.

 

 

I chose to add this example in as I think that the simplicity and mononity is really effective and fits really well with the song. The video consists of a few tracking shots following him skateboarding, I think this could be used to symbolise a journey. There are 3 broad typologies characterizing music videos; conceptual, performance and narrative. This video I would categorise as conceptual (using metaphors to create mood and offering multiple meanings).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Research Into Existing Music Videos - Student-Made

This video appears to follow several characters, yet still maintains clarity. These characters of course cross paths. The fight scenes seem carefully choreographed and filmed with detail paid attention to in each shot. The camera quality itself adds to how dynamic each shot is; placing focus on just one aspect of a composition can be quite intense - this matches the theme of the music video. This is clearly a narrative lead story.

 

Compared to the previous video, the camera quality is clearly very low - this may be due to the time it was made. What we found effective about this video is that the video occasionally takes priority over the song. For example, the girl opening the door and the music stopping to engage the audience deeper into the audio was extremely effective. Again, this is another narrative lead video, except this one integrates the use of dialogue, however not much. This can be effective in small amounts.

 

 

This video has a sense of a story line, but the whole video is not directed by it. The director has chosen to link the start and the end in order to make the main body of the video make sense. However, this seems relatively well done with smooth transitions between the two worlds. This may be useful to pay attention to for our own final music video. The video fits well with the song, which is arguably the most important aspect of creating a music video. Out of all 3 of the student-made videos, this one is closest to our idea.

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