Music Video Research

Introduction

My research into music videos will include, and to shoot a music video. what camera angles are the best to use? as well for aesthetics and color palettes? I find this a fascinating process that will be exciting to begin. This part of our FMP will be mainly led by myself and Fin, we work together to find ideas and create mood boards for each music video that we do. Creating a music video is very much new to me, but I have had some expeirnece with doing Film Studies and how to use a range of different shots and angles.

Importance of Music Videos/Why are they important?

It is key to consider the importance of music videos and how they benefit the artists' careers. How will creating music videos expand their fanbase and grow them in popularity? I found a helpful video, where the YouTuber has been asked the question, of whether music videos are still relevant in an age of streaming music. Firstly, my opinion on music videos would be that Music videos are meant to be entertaining for the viewers to watch, how a band advertises themselves in the video, whether they are rappers, a rock band, or an R&B artist their targeted audience is going to be very different. Therefore finding a way to brand themselves can be through music videos and what they are known for in their genre.

Ideas/ storylines

Having an image in mind before you start creating a video. Thinking of aesthetics and how you are going to represent yourself, gives a clear message to your audience. https://splice.com/blog/why-music-videos-matter/ I really liked looking at this article because it includes words from producers on why music videos matter. Trevor Peterson mentions "videos are part of a band’s creative identity that makes them more accessible to fans".

Damian Keyes includes my point in his video, where if a band has a really good quality video and photo "can capture everything about that band". I find it interesting how he mentions hooking your audience in through a music video, I and my band are releasing our EP next month and we want these two music videos to help spread our music and advertising. We have a couple of social media platforms where we would repost and tease what's upcoming. Therefore for these music videos, we would release a snippet of the music video on our social media platforms, to entice more people to an exciting project. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdzEuPWhrww

Collaborations and Shooting

We have already started the recording process for our music video, and we have some help from others in order to create some high quality shots. As a part of our FMP we need to include a collaboration with each project that we do. Within creating the music video we had collaborations with our friend Lydia who has a film camera that we can use for our of studio shots that we can use as well as our TV studio footage. Its important to consider different aspects on creating a music videos such as budget and time accessibility. Luckily enough, we have access to the colleges equipment in the TV suite that we are able to use from the help of film teachers that will be round to help and guide us. It was important to consider how to film a successful video, in order to support our promotion as a band. This article help me to have a clear 'guide to a musicians guide to making a music video' from the right cameras to use to the right editing. https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/recording-musicians-guide-making-music-video-part1

I am unsure about what cameras we used in our TV studio session, but they are moveable cameras that are commonly used in broadcasting news. The camera allowed us to pan into shot as well as zooming in and out and focusing the lens on a particular image such as a close up of the guitar strings which is a shot we use right at the beginning of the video. But there are other cameras that are known to be used for creating music videos. Different cameras are used for a variety of different reasons, such as simply just photography or doing recordings, in this guide the cameras pictured below are the ones most discussed about and recommended. Positively "these cameras, In short, you can achieve an extremely shallow depth of field and a cinematic look"

"With the cheapest full HD DSLR (currently the Canon 550D) being around £799 for the body alone. The downside to DSLR cinematography comes from the photography angle as well: all of the mechanisms — the zoom, the focus ring, the sensor and the software — are designed for stills capture, and can cause issues when shooting video.

Recording the Music Video

We found in these clips that we're lucky that the sun was out, which created a positive setting . I found some research to help out when we are recording in the studios "When indoors, you can use 3-point lighting to illuminate a subject, fill in shadows, and highlight features of your subjects, or you can use one- or two-point lighting to create basic lighting effects with key and fill lighting.For a dramatic effect, use a fill light to partially illuminate the wall behind a subject".Corel VideoStudio: Easy & Fun Video editing (no date) VideoStudio Pro. Available at: https://www.videostudiopro.com/en/tips/video-lighting/music-video/#:~:text=When%20indoors%2C%20you%20can%20use,the%20wall%20behind%20a%20subject. (Accessed: 07 May 2024).

With recording in doors the lighting is much darker then filming outside, therefore we need all of the band members to stand out with lighting and out to be washed out by any colors. The image below shows of us perfroming in thr TV studios and how well we stand out with the colors we have chosen. Its key to amke sure we are all see in shot. Such as we are all wearing quite dark clothing and you can see that Kyran is washed out a bit as the background is a dark purple. While Fin who is in white is seen much more clearly then Kyran. Therefore next time we need to discuss more about colour palettes, as this was not talked about enough. But overall the lighting points are above us and in front of us and we didnt want to choose any colors that were too bright.

Here is a video that we took outside of the college studios and we shot this on our friends phone as it was of high quality, as well as not having an actual camera accessible at that time.

We wanted to capture some fun shots of all of us have a good time which is the whole concept of our upbeat disco song Get Busy. This footage will be used as well as our TV studio footage that we have captured as a whole band. We have scehduled our sessio in the studio next week, there its mine and Fins job to build a mood board that we can use for inspiration, such as colour palettes to fit our mood as well if we want any effects.

We used a range of shots and location ideas to create an interesting and entertaining music video. It was a good idea to begin the music with a close up of Kyran's guitar and then pan out into a wide shot of all the band. There was not much research into this, as we found that because Kyran starts of the track it would be a good idea to have a close up on the instrument. I found that we should have done more close ups on instruments, to show our techniques of playing.

Other shots that we found were a good idea to use for the video, would be a crossafde of all of us dancing as well as blending into another shot. This photo below shows a shot mid cross fade where we had an clip of Izzy which goes into a clip of Geroge dancing. We foud this style of filming was really useful and made the video look more montage and interesting ratherthen just having continiuity editing. The difference between both styles of editing, with continuity editing its all about consistency, while with montage editing we are using various locations in the same video and they are in different time differences even though it is not super clear

Looking into why close ups are important, especially putting one at the beginning of the video. "The main purpose of a close-up is to convey information; it's the filmmaker's way of telling the audience, visually, that this is important". Drawing attention to the guitar as beeing the main intsruement in the opening of the track and then Geroege starts singing and gets in shot. Another time we use a close up is during Georeg's long note where we zoom into his face. This wasn't so much a close up but more of a mid-shot as we pan into George's face as he is the centre of attenion in this part of the song. Therefore, we have be able to use close ups and a range of shots.

Inspirations and The History of Music Videos

For our 1970s inspired disco track, we want to keep on the theme of partying and have a celebration. As it is a 70s inspired track, it important to look into music videos from that decade, and how they shot the artists from different angles and as well as represntations that were present at the time. Social context would of had an impact in that era as many social movements were protetsing for peace and justice. Such as looking ino the decade and the introcudtion to protest music which was very popualr from the late 1960s to the 70s, when the Vietnam War had broke out. This was another genre that was popular in the 1970s as well as the outburst of disco. As well as the rise of Punk, Reggae and Funk.

Additionally ideas that can be tied to the idea of disco and celebration would be loud colours and of course people dancing and having a celebration. An iconic diso track would be Dancing Queen by ABBA, which was a big hit the 1970s. When I think of disco, ABBA defintly was at the top of their game in the 70s and I found in this music video that people are dancing and creating a euphonic atmosphere. This kind of video is what we are aiming for, with hopefully getting other people involved and dacning along with us, like we are in a nightclub. Therefore taking inspiration from videos from other decades, can help to build what we

Overall success of making music videos

We have released our music video on the 8th of May, this is the same day that Get Busy is released onto all streaming platforms. On the day Fin had set a timer to which we would like the video to be released and we selected it to be at 5 o'clock. Its important that we measure the success of the video to see how popular it is and what we can imporve on next time. The music video is on the left and we are all really happy with the outcome of what we have created.

The success so far of the music video has been positive as we have recieved 191 views in the past week that we released the video. Altough we have not been so successful with the amount of likes for the video, it has only been up for a week therefore this leaves for more advertising of the video. I will record the results next week to see if any likes or views increase and rhis will encoruage us to hopefully make more music videos in the future. The overall success of the mysic video porcess has been very starighforward and enjoyable to do. As the recoridng the video was much more simple then we hought it would be as we had support from the teachers around us, as well as helping each other. There was no straight forward plan with the video as we knew the main concept was having a party and dancing, butwe did not know how we were going to put it into a video.

Addiotnally another point where we could imporve would be making our logo prominant in the video. As we have had a successful colloabrve elements with Harry rawlings, we could of placed the logo in shot either in the corner or we could of somehow found a way to project the logo behind us. Therefore if we have the logo visible In order to keep that recognitiongoing

On the same day as the release I found it a good idea to promote the video by putting a teaser onto our social media account, in order to build the excitment for our followers and for them to repost and spread the news. The shots below show the posts that we put on our instergram. Selecting a video from the behind the scenes and then making a short clip from the actual music video, in order to give our followers a taster of what they will expect. This was a successful idea as we found people were getting excited and also intriged to see what we have done. Therefore, we have all really enjoyed making this music video and we all hope to create one again and expeiremnt with different ways to make a video, using differen thmemes and locations.

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