Initial Planning

Inspiration for music video

 



Mise-en-scene

 

Setting: bedroom, cliff top

Iconography: The main use of iconography in our music video is a pack of cards that the girl of our video rediscovers. The cards represent the relationship, and the 'games' that the couple went through, throughout their relationship. later on in the video, the cards are set on fire, showing further pain to the abrupt ending of their relationship. Plenty of focus will be placed on these two pieces of iconography, as this is the center piece of our ideas, and we feel that the connotations will be a great representative to the narrative in our video.

Costume: The costume that will be used for the male (performer) is casual clothing, as it will be in every day settings. The women that features in our narrative and crossover parts to the video will start off by wearing just a baggy/long t-shirt in the bedroom clip, and then will wear white clothing (maybe a dress) at the cliff, to connote purity, and signify the idea of 'heaven'.

Lighting: The lighting used throughout the majority of the video will be high key lighting, as a lot of scenes will be based in outdoor settings, providing natural light. However during some performance bits, there may be low key lighting in a black room in order to set focus on the performer. The same will be done for the images of the cards burning.

Cinematography

Close ups will be used throughout the whole of the video for many different reasons, sometimes showing emotions on faces, sometimes on shoes in order to show 'travel' and other times on the iconography such as the cards and the fire.

Panning shots will also be used during the performance elements of the video in order to show the performer and the guitar. The rest of the video will mainly consist of static shots.

Editing

Slow Pace Editing

Fast Pace Editing

Straight Cuts

Fades

Target Audience

The target audience will be both genders aged from around 15-22. This aged audience would be able to relate to the song genre, narrative, and anything that might be related to that generation.

 

Group Members

The other 3 member of the group are: Lauren Vale, Dipika Sharma, Jagoda Jasionowska

 

Jagoda brings a great sense of creativity to the group, and helps developed any ideas that have already been put forward.

Lauren brings organisational skills, and will help with the whole production of the music video.

Dipika is very useful with the camera, and will be helpful when filming more complex shots.

 

 

 

 

 

Research into Censorship

When looking at censorship, I looked at Eminem. He has been one of the most controversial artists over the past 20 to 30 years, simply because of lyrics used in his songs, but is still highly regarded as one of the most popular rappers in music.

Eminem shows in music videos, and through the lyrics of his songs about situations such as drinking, smoking and sexual activity.

Eminem was questioned about the controversial things inn his songs, and had many points in which to defend himself. The first of these points were that he understands some of the lyrics used and subjects that are covered in his songs are not politically correct, and may be absurd or offensive. However, he understood this, and upon his daughter Hailie getting older decided to make clean versions of some of the songs that caused offense.

Some of the biggest causes for concern when it came to Eminem was his voilence towards 'gays' and women. He defends himself by stating that he is representing the 'white trash community' and is simply bringing to light the problems that occur in those communities. Marshall Mathers also said that he created the music video to 'Stan' in order to show how crazed fans can get and how un healthy it is, hence why he tries to keep a very personal level with fans, rather than trying to get them to worship him like many pop groups/artists do now. Another criticism is that kids will see and hear the work he produces, and a point often raised is that children will not know the things he talks about are wrong. But again, he argues the fact that children have more common sense than given credit for and he is simply offering another way to show the things he speaks about are the wrong things to do, he believes that is his ethos as a popular artist.

A problem that then follows when having to censor his videos comes when music channels won't play the songs. MTV and Kiss both have said that it is hard to edit the swear words in the songs, so play a very minimal amount of eminem songs, as most of them have explicit language. AKA on the other hand say that he is the sort of edgy, urban artist they look for and are more than happy to play him on their station.

What is a music video?

The primary purpose of a music video, is to use it as a marketing tool. By creating a video, an artist may gain more publicity due to an original or outstanding music video, and this would allow them to either sell more copies, or create more media coverage. This helps also when trying to attract a target audience. Sometimes, songs may not be clear and concise on which exact audience they are targeting, however their music video may help describe who it is aimed at, simply by the atmosphere in the video i.e. if there is footage of them playing at V festival, it helps to show that its a pop song.
Another reason music videos may be used is to show a story of the artist. In videos, artists are able to tell a lot of different stories, and also how their mind works, so this could work as a great way for a fan to feel or stay connected with the artist.

Examples of these that help create a relationship with the artist are as follows:

Justin Bieber - Beauty and a beat

In this music video, Justin Bieber helps promote 'Just Dance 4' by getting people to play it at the party that he was hosting. the party was being held at a water park, again promoting water parks to any fans that are watching. The video contains a short narrative in which shows the talent ofr Justin Bieber. This is then followed by Nikki Minaj joining the song and clearly taking an interest in Justin, causing more attraction to the video due to young jealous fans. The video also attracts the younger audience with the simple idea of having fun at a party. This helps with the idea mentioned earlier of creating a relationship with the artist, and understanding a lifestyle.

In this video, Bieber fits under the performance category - one of the three possible categories for a music video. the other two are:

Narrative - telling the audience a story

Concept - selling the audience an idea/theme or idiology

The following video shows a narrative more than performance:

Taylor Swift - Everything Has Changed ft. Ed Sheeran

From the very beginning of this video, it is clear that the setting is a very cliche, traditional, American Elementary School. This helps paint the 'perfect' picture throughout the use of the bright colours associated with being a small child. This is also magnified by the close friendship between the little boy and girl who are the stars of the video. They artists make it obvious in this video that the two characters are clearly meant to link to them, and their playful friendship throughout the play fighting and face painting. Like Bieber's video promoted Just Dance 4, in this video, they promote 'Converse' whilst on the climbing frame.