As you saw from the previous post, the song that my group have decided on using is called AKA... What A Lifeby ex Oasis band member Noel Gallagher. On the right hand side of the screen, you should see a video bar containing the song that we have chosen and related videos. The song can also be heard below.
Within my group there was a number of different songs that we looked at, both contemporary and fairly 'hidden' songs. By hidden I mean songs that are not really that well known. This was the type of song that we wanted to pick so as our audience would not be bored with the song due to it already being released, and also so as to introduce a 'new' song to their playlists.
Above is a slide-show containing the artists we looked at. After much discussion and deliberation with our teacher, it was agreed that the songs we looked at by these artists were far too contemporary and a few of the songs had only just been released! Because of this, we had to go back to the drawing board and really begin to think about the song that we wanted to create a video for. When online, a member of my group, Jay Wood, went onto the Soccer AM website, (click here for the page he later found) claiming that they post songs weekly. It was only when he found one that we all agreed on and all liked that we credited him for his finding. Below is a brief presentation of how we have done some of our research.
After analysing music videos as individuals, it was time to get ourselves into groups. This was the hardest part of the course so far as with only a handful of people in the class, I wanted to pick a group with people that;
I would get on with and be able to work with for the rest of the year, and
Someone or people that share the same similar taste in music to myself.
After some discussion, it was decided and agreed that my group would be:
The two in my group both share the same taste of music and are good friends and would feel comfortable working with each other in order to create the music video.
After analysing Eminem's Stan, I proceeded to look at further songs. I looked at the type of music and artists that I am interested in as that is the genre of music I would like to make a video to. The artists I looked at were Irish band, The Script, and Plan B. The Plan B video I chose to analyse and look at was one produced by a student form a previous year. The video was one that received a high mark and I wanted to see how they managed to do this by looking at different aspects of the video and compare it with the original. The video made by the students is below.
As you can see, the video is Chase & Status ft. Plan BEnd Credits. The original can be found here. I noticed a number of things with the video which could be useful for me to use in my own video in order to gain the high marks:
The video was similar to the original
Low key lighting has been used - lots of oranges and warmer colours
Camera lens = fish eye. This gives a good effect rather than just using a standard lens
Consistent cut on main guitar strum
Consistent cutting to first shot (keeps cutting to him laying on the floor)
Some narrative, some performance
Filmed at night
Lots of overlays used
Same sort of setting throughout
Cuts to the beat near the climax of the song.
Mise-en-scene fits with genre of music
Another video I looked at was The Script'sBreakeven (below)
Here are some things I took note of when looking at this video:
Some narrative, some performance
Desaturated
Slow motion (under cranking)
Main focal character is foregrounded and in focus, the background is out of focus
A mixture of outside and inside settings
Cuts are not consistent with the beat as it is more of a story like video
Some parts are in colour - flashbacks? Look like they are filmed on home video camera
The next video I looked at was The Script's For The First Time (below)
Here are some of the things that I liked when looking at this video:
Mini story. The video opens with a girl writing to her mum and dad - could easily be mistaken for a film?
Desaturated bits of the artist
Some singing along with the song
Some narrative, some performance
Effective lens flares used/taken advantage of from the sun
Close ups of the artist performing
Warm colours in intimate scenes
Overlays used consistently
Some of the video cuts when a new line of the song is sung, and some to the beat
As you can see from the analysis above I have highlighted two attributes that kept popping up throughout the videos. The main bits highlighted which I would consider to include into my video is the desaturated parts, and also, how some bits are in narrative and some are in performance. These attributes look effective within the videos as they break up the video so as the narrative part does not get too boring, and the performance part is added to show the artist and further promote the song.
