Embedded Files
The Brief
Groups
For this project, we are making a music video.
We were put into groups by our teacher based on our preferred job roles and music taste.
The Song and Artist
For this project, I am the Art Director for the song 'Over It' by Lola Kastner. We will be working with our artist to create this video for their song.
The song feels like an indie pop song about being led on and played by someone she's talking to and her getting 'over it' as the song title suggests.
To further my understanding of the song I also listened to Lola's other work such as her song's "Fear through attention" and "I Just Don't Care". I noticed a running theme of talk about toxic love.
I also had a look at Lola's song covers to further my understanding of the artist's established aesthetic and found the covers felt to fit into the 'indie aesthetic' quite well.
The Plan
Context (Music Videos)
What is a Music Video?
A music video, in short, is a visual representation of a song. Music videos can be produced for a variety of reasons, such as for the benefit of fans, bu the main reasons are:
Promotional - used as a marketing device to increase the sales/listeners of the record and to promote the artist in general.
Artistic - the song may have an emotional relevance to the artist and so they may create a music video to provide artistic imagery to further convey the meaning to their audience.
Types of Music Videos
There are three different types of music videos and these are:
Narrative - this would be a music video that follows a loose plot or story that is linked to the lyrics of the song. It can follow a main character, typically the singer, which the song is from the point of view of. Essentially, these are a short film with the music playing in the background.
Performance - this would be a music video that involves people, most often the artist of the song, performing the song and it can also involve choreographed dancing. For videos that are strictly performance, you need to keep it visually interesting for your audience so including multiple locations and including interesting shots on dollys or jibs can keep it engaging.
Conceptual - this sort of music video has a much looser, relaxed definition and can be when the video incorporates both narrative and performative aspects to the music video or even neither. The video can be particularly visually artistic and has an ambiguous meaning, leaving the audience to speculate their own meanings. Many conceptual music videos are driven by mood and strong imagery.
Narrative
Narrative
This music video is essentially a short stop motion film with the accompanying music. The video makes links back to the lyrics and mood of the song, however it tells a story and involves no performance making it an entirely narrative music video.
Performance
Performance
This music video is strictly performance, there is no narrative aspect and their are no other visuals. The entire thing is filmed in the one location but that is one of the reasons it was so impactful for its time, because of its eye catching simplicity,
Conceptual
Conceptual
This music video includes both performance and a slight narrative that links back to the lyrics and ideas of the song. This video is conceptual because it involves both narrative and performance aspects.
Conceptual
Conceptual
This music video contains neither performance or any particularly clear narrative plot, making this also a conceptual video. The visuals are visually striking and interesting, which is what keeps the audience engage.
Group Analysis of a Ground Breaking Music Video
Brief Individual Analysis of Ground Breaking Music Videos
Video Killed The Radio Star by The Buggles
Video Killed The Radio Star by The Buggles
This conceptual music video was released in 1979 and appeared on Top of the Pops, it was a parody of music videos at the time that preyed off of people's fears of the development of technology. It was directed by Russel Mulcahy with a budget of 50 thousand dollars and was controversial at the time because it included an explosion which many at the time found 'unnecessarily violent'. The video is probably best known for marking the debut of MTV in 1981 and for opening MTV Classic.
Thriller by Michael Jackson
Thriller by Michael Jackson
The conceptual music video, Thriller, came out in 1982 and was directed by John Landis. It is 13 minutes long and is in itself essentially a short film and has a prominent narrative plot. The video was a striking piece and stood out from Michael Jackson's previous works because it included elements of supernatural, having a scene with a group dance of zombies. Despite Jackson having a prominent Christian fanbase, the video made a huge impact and was thought to be innovative and unique.
Let Forever Be by Chemical Brothers
Let Forever Be by Chemical Brothers
The conceptual video was made in 1999 and directed by Michel Gondry. The video is hugely innovative with engaging visuals and transitions that are so smooth you barely realise how they've done it. The video must have taken huge amounts of coordination, precision and dedication to perfect. The video has a narrative to it which appears to be showing the struggles of a working class life, feeling like time is constantly getting away from you.
Formation by Beyoncé
Formation by Beyoncé
This performance video was directed by Melina Matsoukas and released in February 2016. The video, while being predominately performance, does have elements of narrative and discusses the flooding of New Orleans in 2005 and the lack of support the government gave; as well as the ongoing issues of police brutality. The video conveys a lot of its narrative through the different locations that are used for the performances. For example, the hair shop conveys a part of black culture and the opening shot of Beyoncé on the car in the water is a reference to New Orleans. Furthermore, there is also a scene where a young child is dancing in front of a line of armed police, which refers to police brutality, particularly against young poc children.
Context (Job Roles)
What is an Art Director?
In summary from my research: an Art Director (or an A.D.) is a creative who works closely with the director to develop visual representations and stylistic ideas for a piece of art such as a film or theatre production. In my case, I am the art director for a music video and so I would be helping to develop the colour palettes in relation to the song's mood.
In larger productions, the A.D. would work under the production designer. However, as we are a small 'indie' production, I would work as both A.D. and production designer.
What are the roles of an Art Director?
The Roles of an Art Director:
Directing and developing visual concept
Conveying emotions through creative and strategic use of colour palettes
Dressing sets (small props around an MCs room to show their personality or larger props for scenic use and mood setting)
Costume and makeup (to show characters' personalities and emotions)
Group Analysis of a Music Video and Jobs Roles
Primary Research
Google Forms Survey
Music Video Results.pdfTo help me develop my ideas in Art Direction for the music video, I did some consumer research by making a google form and asking people through email to fill it out.
Beside are the form and the forms results.
I found the results quite useful and helped me to come to conclusive decisions, particularly in terms of the final colour palette.
Instagram Polls
To gain an even wider reach and also a slightly different consumer base, I also did a quick questionnaire on instagram.
This was a much shorter questionnaire to gain a more basic understanding over the general enjoyers of music videos and the types of music people listen to.
You can view the initial questionnaires and the results here.
instagram polls.pdfInsta Polls Results.pdfSecondary Research
Music Video Case Study
The music video for 'Space Girl' by Frances Forever has a very similar visual aesthetic to how I feel 'Over it' sounds. The visuals of Frances' bedroom are very bright and vibrant with a wide range in colour palette. The bedroom is quite maximalist but is still tidy, reflecting the character's creativity while also showing their maturity. The bedroom in 'Space Girl' will be a huge visual inspiration for my Art Direction for the bedroom in the 'Over It' music video.
In the scene with the party, 'Space Girl' has these brilliant, gently pulsing purple and blue lights that I think would be perfect for a climax moment in the music video for 'Over It'.
Art Director Case Study
Fernanda Guerrero
Fernanda Guerrero is a 39 year old, Mexico-based Art Director and Production Designer. She has a huge range of work under her belt including short films, commercials, films/TV and music videos. Some examples of music videos she has worked on are Billie Eilish's 'Hostage', Katy Perry's 'Hey Hey Hey' and Angus' & Julia Stone's 'Chateau'. Guerrero has also worked a lot with the music artist Halsey on music videos such as 'Bad at Love', 'Now or Never', 'Strangers' and 'Sorry'.
Her Work on Music Videos
In much of her work, you can see distinct use of prominent colour palettes, showing that as an Art Director this is one of the aspects of art direction that she puts a lot of care and focus into. There is also a running theme in her work where characters have a distinct prop that carries through the story of the video with the main character. In her music videos, the artist is featured in the video and often has the artist performing to the song. Many of her videos are conceptual, often involving elements of narrative and performance in the video. Another thing I noticed when watching her work was that many of the music videos that she has worked in involves elements of visual effects (VFX), suggesting that this is an area of speciality for her.
Billie Eilish "Hostage"
Selena Gomez "De Una Vez"
Coldplay "Champion Of The World"
How She Develops Her Ideas
She starts by listening to the instructions the director gives her through their brief and their ideas. From there, she begins to develop her ideas in terms of the visual look of the music video, keeping in mind the character's feelings and the story being told through the lyrics. Even when doing a conceptual piece that lacks a distinct driving narrative force, it can still be important to keep the story and character in mind as this can still have an effect on the colour palettes used in the conceptual piece.
After developing her visual concept for the music video, she starts to create basic visual and physical references of the ideas that she has in her mind. During this process, she continues to find inspirations for her work to assist her in further developing and finalising her though process, bringing her to an eventual final result.
"The process of developing ideas in my brain is like seeing a million scattered points that slowly come together with a connective thread until they turn into an image." - Fernanda Guerrero
Pre-Production
Pre-Production Checklist and Roles
Initial Mood Board
Developing Ideas
As we continued to develop our ideas, we brainstormed in a shared document so that we would have a shared record of ideas. In this PowerPoint we also included notes from our meeting with the artist as well as the song's lyrics for easy access, I found having the lyrics there very useful while we were developing our narrative and concept.
Treatment
After we had come to a final idea, we created a final treatment outlining our narrative and concept with some reference to our influences. We also created a moodboard for each scene, which helped me when it came to creating colour palettes and outlining the makeup, props, set dressing and costume needed for each scene.
Script
After Rani had created the outline for the video, I worked on the script. We created a copy of the script for our actors with their parts highlighted.
Art Direction Spreadsheet
Art Direction.pdfOnce we had a script, I created a spreadsheet outlining all of the art direction for the video, such as props and set dressing, similar to a script breakdown.
Location Recce + Risk Assessments
'Over It' Location Report.docx'Over It' Risk Assessment.docxI created a location report and a risk assessment based on the discussions me and Rani had as a group.
Group Location Scout
Shotlist
Shot list - over it .xlsxAdapted Idea
Treatment
Due to a series of events, the shoot was heavily delayed and I was also left to complete the shooting and editing of this project by myself. Considering the circumstances and limited time, I decided to adjust the narrative and shoot to make it more ergonomic for me. This power point outlines this adjusted idea and provides some pre-production information specific to the changed idea.
Art Direction
Production
Equipment Used
Production Log
Post Production
Editing
Organised Hard Drive Files
Organised Bins in Premiere
Workspace + Final Timeline
Final Edit
Evaluation
Page updated
Report abuse