So our first practical task was to shoot a short video with a few shots/rules. We all were given 10 minutes to decide a plot and confirm with our sir, so nobody has a similar story line. We selected on a narrative of an audition for dance, the location was our school auditorium with Maria herself as one of the actors, i was the camera girl where as leena took BTS. The editing will be done together while pitching in our ideas.

The very next day we decided to shoot our video, the equipment we used was a DSLR camera, a tripod and an iPhone. For the editing since we don’t really know how to use Adobe premiere so we opted for imovie which is an application for iphone.

Here is the compiled and edited video my team made

 

In our Analysis class, we found out we had a few mistakes in our production, for example our starting was perfect with a good establishing shot great match in actions, etc but we did lack capturing certain rules and shots after the actor started dancing. Yet over all i think we did a superb job attempting to create something we never had experienced before, hopefully mastering our style later on for final project.

 

 

 

 

 

So basically there is a standard type of music videos and three pure forms which are  1. performance based 2. narrative based and 3. conceptual based.

A standard type might include all pure forms submerged in one music video a very famous example is Black or White by Micheal Jackson which has narrative at the beginning, performance intertwined throughout and a conceptual piece at the end.

then comes the pure forms.

The Performance based

As per my research and understanding, a performance based video features the artist /band/ performance, throughout the whole video. The major focus is on the band as the audience needs to see the music being performed by the artist which creates performance-based recognition and above all openness and transparency.

A few examples from my favorite performance based videos include

Sorry – Justin Bieber

In this particular music videos, there is purely a Dance performance on the beats of the soundtrack.

Maroon V- Sugar

a famous band  including the lead artist plays various musical instruments while performing live at public/private events such as a wedding

How do you sleep – Sam smith

And lastly a studio performance with artist and dancers sing and perform moves in a center of a room with a green screen backdrop to add dimensions and makes the video amusing.

I believe performance based music videos requires a lot of energy, and demanding time to shoot cut and edit, moreover for me it makes me bored watching people just performing.

Narrative Based

I learnt that in narrative based music videos there is always a story line, it may or may not relate to lyrics of song, yet often the narrative is mixed with performance.  With my research online there is an Andrew Goodwin’s theory which suggests there are 3 TYPES : 1. Illustration: narrative reflects lyrics 2. Amplification: narrative may be influenced by lyrics but may use different themes to compliment song’s ‘feeling’ 3. Disjuncture: narrative holds very little relationship to song and meaning is random/unrelated.

Some of the examples include:

Happier-Bastille ft marshmello

In these videos what i like is the short story each video contains, in (happier- Bastille) It’s about a girl getting a companion in the form of a dog makes her happier, the whole video has plenty color codes regarding emotions. Here it illustrates the song.

Lauv – I like me better

( Lauv -I like me better) it starts off with a young couple in love doing things they like but actually they are the memories of an old married couple, this is also an illustration

Mrs. Potato Head – melanie martinez

lastly in ( Melanie- Mrs. Potato head) its more of a deep story what a woman does for love, which in the end was worth nothing and shes left alone. here it amplifies the video

i also observed that narrative based music videos while combining perfectly with the lyrics giving a clear meaning of the video,  and it includes most of the human emotion ideas and thought process.

Conceptual/Theme Based

A concept based music video, is a music video which has no structured narrative, and where the lyrics may or may not  match what is happening and is only revolves around a concept which the music video wants to show and It uses unusual/abstract ideas to create a visual form of the song. This sets aside the video from because it’s different from performance and narrative style videos.

My examples include

Im a mess- Bebe rexha

Based on a theme of mental hospital

Gotye- Somebody that i used to know

When we discussed this music video in class it actually made a lot of sense, the video may or may not be about a relationship growing and then one of them ending it and leaving. The painting style is a reference to a blank canvas.

Elliot Moss

(Elliot Moss- without the lights) The video artistically shows a woman dancing with a man who’s covered with black dirt could be for a bad relationship, as she danced the black dirt starts to spread on her it feels as if  the darkness is taking over her, in the lyrics it mentions a women committing to something dangerous as the light is diminishing slowly.

Conceptual video for me is like an abstract image with needs de-coding the way a painting is observed. It usually has deeper dark meanings.