Construction

Our music video is a production created from a variation of ideas which we have thought of and gained existing ideas from real media projects. The conventions we used match the ones suitable for the song and genre of the band that we based out music video upon. Also lyrics from the song also gave us ideas for the conventions we used. We wanted to show the plot of the video to the viewer so the project was not confusing and the audience could see that the character is visiting a house that he loves. We attempted to make the video suit the mood that the song already created by using the sunlight which adds a 'happy' feeling to the scenes. Many of the shots capture light from windows and doors which adds to this effect. The song also has a positive feeling towards it which does influence our decision to focus on the sunlight.











Images showing the use of light in our music video




Also, we use worm-eye shots through the video to make me look more powerful and emphasise my presence when I am singing. The shot towards the end of the video shows me singing with only the sky in the background which gives off a very strong effect.

Worm's Eye Shot

There is only one main character in the footage so it was important that we used him as the focal point in the video. The tempo of cuts match the speed of music in certain places in the song, this is to further combine the footage with the song. Towards the end of the video, where the song really becomes faster, the variety of shots increase as it is the climax of the plot to a certain extent.

The photographs in the house which appear as props are very important conventions to the audience. They show the viewer that there is a lot of history in the house which is important to the main character, and they start to understand his emotions. We further shown this by using constant close-ups to view the facial expressions and feelings. I chose my costume very carefully using a casual dress code which represents the 'indie' genre which the music comes from so listeners can interact with the main character.



We thought it was appropriate to make the video appear to be set over a long time by using certain techniques. This is showed at the end of the video where there is an outside view of the house and the sky slowly turns darker until it is night time, and throughout the project we added a fade in/fade out effect as well as some dissolves. To make the scene more realistic we emphasised the use of everyday objects in the video.


Exteria shot of house in day time






Sun setting






Night time





The photographs clearly show this but we include furniture such as the bed and sofa to show the audience that the house has a more 'home' sense to it. Some inset shots which were included such as the television gives the viewer more to focus on, cancelling out any boredom when watching the music video.

As the song is emotional, we have slowed some clips down as we have seen this done in many previous music videos of this genre. To a certain extent it captures the attention of the audience as they have time to notice the scene, making it more clear to them. We showed the scene of the character falling backwards on the bed in show motion to highlight this as important as he is revisiting a house he once lived. This in slow motion, gives the viewer time to observe the feeling of the character as it is a significant to him.
This idea was inspired by a video by the 'Killers – Smile Like You Mean It' which also uses the idea of memories in a house. The band perform in the house in various rooms and the background shows events from the past which fade away, so you see a contrast between past and present.


The Killers - Smile Like You Mean It

The combination of the music video and our ancillary texts produce a lot of character and colour. We tried to connect the colours on the web page to the ones used on the CD cover. The album, 'Black Swan' is what both the ancillary texts are based on and the music video further promotes the release. The CD cover uses bright colours with a simple looking swan on the front which is very eye catching. We have also edited the image to give it more of a shiny effect, which associates with the high amounts of lighting used in the main task. To equal this, the web page also has a shiny effect and the image used for the CD on to show the link between the two graphics. There is also a heading on the page saying 'Black Swan' which causes fans to realise about the new album on sale and the new theme and material of the band. The background of the web page is an outline of a swan which emphasises the relevance to the new video and album.



During our planning stage we used media technologies such as 'Youtube' to gain ideas for our own videos and see how audiences meet certain genres. We looked at a variety of previous music videos to see what conventions were included and the effect they have on the audience. When we began on our own production we used a digital camera to take photographs of storyboards which were then uploaded to an 'iMac' to put into a short film. We then did this with real photographs of the scenes we used would use in the music video. After importing the song onto 'iTunes' we then took a HD video camera and tripod to shoot our music video. The tripod was used to create more professional images to make sure the camera did not move during shots. The camera being in high definition was a big advantage to the quality of our final music video.

After filming, we imported all out footage to the iMac through the programme iMovie. After this we then imported it into iMovie HD which supported the high definition footage. This is the programme that we edited the footage on, which was very difficult, especially when syncing the singing with the song. We had a list of special effects to choose from and we decided to slow down and speed up a lot of footage which became a major convention for the music video. We uploaded the song from iTunes which was simple to do. We then exported the video using Quicktime.

We created the CD cover and web page on the latest Paint programme which helped us create the 'shiny' effect that made them both distinctive to the overall project. Also the font options were very wide ranged which helped us to choose the most suitable font for the two tasks.

Evaluation

Overall, I am very pleased with the outcome of our project which seems to have a professional element to it. Despite a few negatives, the music video definitely matches the expectations we had when planning this. I think the song by Athlete is perfect for the idea of the video which makes it easier to watch for the audience. The amount of footage we had to work on is in my opinion the reason why we were successful when undergoing the music video. We filmed over 30 minutes of footage that we thought was worthy to be included, therefore it was just a case of selecting our favourite clips to use in the video. This was a benefit as it gave us a variety of shots and ideas to experiment with.

Certain features such as the flashing of the lights when I walked up the stairs worked particularly well highlights the different effects we could use to add authenticity to our production. I am also impressed with how the shot when the camera moves down stairs then out of the house works. We added tempo and reversed the clip to match the increase in tempo of the song. This was so effective because it is not too noticeable that we added effects, proving that it does not appear unnatural.



Generally, the audience feedback was mostly positive when showed to our peers. The shots we included in our video were praised highly and the parallel narrative idea was also appreciated by the audience. Comments were made on the authenticity of the project and the way in which we portrayed the character. However, we gained a few negative points which included errors when word syncing as we struggled to edit every word perfectly to make it look like the character was singing along with the song. Also a certain inset shot which zoomed in on the character's both eyes was not a popular selection, although we decided to keep this in as it shows a variety in shots and further focuses in on this person. It also shows the audience how observant he is of the house and therefore how important it is to him.



Extreme close-up of main character showing his importance in the video





The CD cover had also a positive feedback with very little criticism about it. The shining effect had a positive reaction to it and the back page of the cover caused high amounts of interest from others. The position of the heading however was slightly queried which we took into consideration and decided to make it more central. The web page also had an excellent response especially because of the quality of graphics and special effects. The photographs on the site show the viewer how the site links to the rest of the project and our peers noticed this. The only criticism was the spacing of the headings, which looked uneven in places. We felt this was fine the way it was as there was a certain number of spaces between the headings and they filled two lines.