Evaluation Part 1.5

EDITINGOne convention of music videos is the

technique of cutting to the beat. This is used in most music videos especially in the rock/ indie genre as percussion often plays a large part in the style of music.

The split style for my music was also fuelled by the fast paced editing between narrative and performance. While this could of become confusing the placing of the cuts allowed a narrative to be created and an audience could understand the sequencing. Therefore editing became the narrative device adding pace to the music video.

THE HARDEST BUTTON TO BUTTON

-THE WHITE STRIPES

One music video in which I found very inspiring was the button to button music video by the white stripes. Here is a short storyboard showing the technique .

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SOUNDFor my music video I chose only to use non- diagetic audio as I felt this was appropriate and fulfilled the conventions of existing music videos.I wanted the audio to become almost as source music does in a film. Source music in film is where diagetic and non diagetic music gets mixed as the band plays the music it becomes the soundtrack to the dream sequence. While all audio is recorded and synced to the digital film cut it appears to be diagetic and non diagetic.

IN WHAT WAYS DID YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT DEVELOP AND CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF

REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

WHAT CONVENTIONS DID I DEVELOP & CHALLENGE…?My music video develops and challenges the following conventions of real media products…

Narrative-Anti-love story Surrealism & Audience Interpretation Intertexuality Camera Technique Editing Production Band Image

THE ANTI-LOVE STORY

While creating my research one element in which I experimented with was the idea of having narrative running throughout my music video. While I decided not to create the conventional boy meets girl I created sequences in which had a relationship aspect. This was created through the angles and editing.

As a director, I deliberately didn’t want to create a love story as I find this a very cliché narrative in music videos as this is often the objective of the song. So I began by looking at music videos which do follow the cliché and then looked at how I could develop this into a narrative with a deeper meaning. One possibility was using surrealism and role reversal so I also looked at some surrealist theories.

FOR THE FIRST TIME

- THE SCRIPT

• One of the music videos I studied closely in my genre research

• A video which complies to the love story narrative

• Also has a performance aspect

SIMILARITIES

Use of point of view shots Male perspective (sexualising the

female subject) Band performance intertwined with

narrative Cut to the beat Use of natural light in an outside

location

DIFFERENCES Only female character shown Performance dominates the majority of

the music video with no direct link to narrative

Slower frame rate in some sequences No linear storyline but a montage of

memories Un-Concluded ending

SURREALISM Doesn’t completely comply to surrealist

conventions but does contain aspects in which made any spectator more of a participant.

Audience created there own meaning of the anti-conventional representation of a relationship.

Switch between third and first person perspective–role reversal ending

Ending with no specific meaning allows audience interpretation

AUDIENCE INTERPRETATIONThe ending of the music video clearly has no resolution and has no specific meaning this therefore eaves the audience to create their own meaning an interpret the audio and visual content. This futhur establishes a participant status and gives the audience he chance o decide how the narrative ends. This is one way in which I challenged the convention of mainstream music video narrative the audience is no longer passive as they choose the narrative.

INTERTEXUAL REFERENCINGOne aspect in which I developed was the use of using intertextual referencing from different outlets of the media such a film and photography…

FILMDream sequence from Sleepy Hollow-Tim Burton (1999)

My Music Video

PHOTOGRAPHY

Lunch Atop A Skyscraper-Charles C. Ebbets (1932)

My Music Video

CAMERA TECHNIQUEConventionally a tripod is used throughout the music video shoot in the industry but this can be limiting. In some of the high angle shots I created in the performance segments of the music video I was required to use handheld camera. This also gave the performance aspect a more rugged and raw style. The narrative segment was filmed using the handheld technique as it was all point of view angles and so it was important to show the movement of the camera from a characters perception. The movement of the camera represented steps and was held a little higher than my eyes as this would e more realistic and would give the impression from a male perception.

EDITINGWhile studying music videos of a similar genre I noticed that all used a cut to the beat technique. After seeing the button to button music video I wanted to create something one step further . Inside the roof of the barn there were large metal beams holding the structure which reminded me greatly of the image by Ebbetts and so I decided to make my music video unique I would make the band appear t be appearing and disappearing. This took a lot of practise with the camera and took a significant amount of time in practise runs to perfect the tecnique. This was one element of the music video which I found took the most planning and cooperating and communication with the band.

This image was taken on the last location visit where I aske one of the people on site to demonstrate to the camera what I

was trying to achieve . By doing this I realised that I would need some kind of support for the band and heir instruments

for them to feel safe and so scaffolding was introduced.

BAND INTEGRITYAfter looking at existing products I felt that band integrity was often lost when major production companies were involved and so I felt as in independent it was important for me to develop if not keep the original band image. To develop upon how they wanted to convey themselves I also wanted it to be about their talent and so I chose to make the video primarily a performance based video. The band were also given wardrobe choices which I chose out for them as well the purpose of this was also because the video would be shown to their existing bands and I felt this was a way of reaching my target audience appropriately.

PRODUCTIONWhile producing the music video I followed the conventions of how an industry produced product would be made. Research into the genre, music videos,

technical aesthetics Pre-production paperwork Production schedules and professional

filming and collaboration with band Use of Industry based programming Target audience reception and feedback