A2 Evaluation Question 1

In what ways does your music promotional

package use, develop or challenge forms

and conventions of existing music

promotional packages?

Chloe Killin

Here I have taken 2 images from Regina Spektor’s music video for Sampson in which the director has chosen to use shots of her playing the piano in ways that I have also chosen to use. I decided to use these shots as they are common throughout this style of music video and therefore the conventions of them. I feel that this reinforces the idea that she is actually singing live and makes the experience of watching the video more personal to the audience and engages them more than if I had chosen not to use the prop of a piano. I have included the trademark of her playing the piano so that people who are familiar with her style could recognise this video as something that she (or her record label) would create.

This has helped me to follow Richard Dyer’s Star Theory of the star as a commodity and as a construction as I have followed her style in order to encourage the audience to buy the song and/or album and promote the artist.

This also follows Andrew Frith’s Character Genre theory by playing the piano and singing which is something that is common throughout all of her music videos. Also I have related the visuals to the music following this theory, although more subtly than the average music video and just to the extent that Spektor often uses. I felt not having too much of visualising the lyrics would help the audience connect to the song as there would be more of an emphasis on the performance aspect of the music video helping to connect the audience more to the song. However I didn’t want to ignore the themes in the song completely so I decided not to follow Frith’s idea of contradicting the song as the audience may have a harder time engaging with the video.

The setting for this is the drama studio. I chose this because I wanted to use a large space which I was able to control, and so I pulled the curtain around which created the black background. Unfortunately this control did not extend to the floor and so in post production I darkened the floor so the shot was et up how I wanted. However if I had been able to control this, I would have preferred a wood flooring.I have challenged Goodwin’s ideas surrounding the thought beat as I didn’t want the audience to know what to expect each time the chorus came around for instance. Although when editing I tried to make sure that many of the cuts were on beats as the synchronicity between the audio and visuals makes a music video easier to watch as if they match the cuts become less noticeable therefore making the video look as if it progresses naturally.

In George Ezra’s music video for Listen To The Man, the entire video is on this one back drop with just a handful of props. I thought this style worked well and I thought this could suit the dream like parts of my music video. I eventually decided that I wanted to take it a step further and instead of try and create a small studio style backdrop, I wanted it to have a homemade style . I felt that this both fit Regina Spektor’s style and suited the song too.

I wanted this shot to be more colourful than the rest of the video to give a more dream-like feel to it, and in post production to emphasise this, I added in the black border which is often found in dream or flashback sequences in films. As this is a common feature in films I thought that the audience would find it easy to see that it was meant to be a dream not reality like the rest of the video.Props used in this particular shot are the sun, clouds and leaf. The sun and clouds are intended to look homemade and simple to imply that this is something she has created and hopefully adds to this dream feel for the audience.

Later on in the music video is a very similar shot however the music here has changed and seems much more negative than the rest of the song. During this section where the character of this story is struggling I have made the shot less saturated and removed the sun from the frame. This is intended to give a more bleak look and as if it is more stormy than sunny to reflect the mood of this part of the song. This darkened shot isn’t one that I have seen in my research however it is common in film and therefore my audience is likely to understand why this section is darker and the connotations that it has in relation to the song.

I found during my initial research that it was common to have the artist performing alone both in Regina Spektor’s music videos and other of the genre, such as Mumford & Sons.Being so prominent in the music videos of this genre I felt that I should follow conventions in this case as it would be familiar to the audience and would continue this visual trademark that Spektor has in her music videos of her at the piano.

While this shot I had seen before and was intending to do in a similar style to this genre of music, I decided to do it in a different way that I hadn’t seen before.As in other music videos, such as Birdy’s Skinny Love, often show the piano being played I felt that considering Regina Spektor’s regular use of the piano in her videos it would be a good shot to include.I decided to make this section stop motion, challenging conventions as they often depict more fluid movements of piano playing. The whole process didn’t take long to film as many sections repeated and so I didn’t have to take pictures of every single time a note was played. I feel that this has worked well and think that the stop motion being quick and jumpy compliments the staccato rhythm of the music.Using an effect on Premiere Pro I was able to achieve the stop motion effect. The “Posturize Time” effect slows down the frame rate of the chosen clip, and at as low 10FPS the human eye can see relatively smooth movement, so I experimented with various frame rates until I found the best looking one for stop motion, at 3.5FPS.

Throughout my research this shot is not one that I have come across so I feel as if this shot must challenge conventions, at least of this singer/songwriter and folk genre. The handheld camera was a conscious choice that was made as I wanted this part to feel more personal than it had previously been as this section of the song appeared to be more about Spektor, or the character in her song, coming to terms with everything going on in their life and starting to do something about it. Because of this transitional phase in the song the black background suited it and created this ‘limbo’ effect where she seemed to be between stages of dealing with society’s expectations and views that I think the song talks about.