Research into Music conventions

Research Into Music Conventions

For this task, I was set to research a few music videos/songs and analyze how the video was filmed in order to fit the mood of the song and bright about an effect. I choose the R&B genre because, in my opinion, this type of music is the most trans-formative meaning that it constantly changes with both rhythm and style. My songs are from the 2010s because, at this point in the music industry, a lot of new flows have been discovered.

Originally I planned to have 5 different songs in my analyzing video but I thought the video itself should not be more than 4-5 minutes. After I decided which songs I was going to include, I started to write up all the things I was going to mention and the why they had an impact on the audience. Then I started recording myself to measure the length of the audio and how long it would take to go through the details of the music video. The more research I've had, the longer it took to put the audio over the music video. This would've meant a longer video and therefore, I decided to ignore two of the songs I've had which included 'Uptown Funk' by Mark Ronson feat. Bruno Mars as well as 'Thrift Shop' by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis.

My Chosen Songs

'Party Rock Anthem' by LMFAO feat. Lauren Bennett, GoonRock

The very first song I've considered was 'PRA' because every time I listened to it in the past, I always felt energetically connected with it because of the multiple lighting compositions, artificial lights, angles and the narrative behind the story. It's not necessarily about what the real meaning was behind the song, but mainly how it was interpreted because that's so much more meaningful in my opinion.

When I started to analyze the music video, it was obvious to me that the number of cuts seemed to match with the pace of the beat which is how the singing and the video was converged. This helped me to the view the song from a different perspective. After I realized how the directors tried to put together the music video using the song's energy, I also started to see that the camera was constantly placed near the movements of the characters in the video and the camera was not only moved smoothly but constantly around the atmosphere. This is not because it was obvious, but the method of how the directors applied this technique to add more tension to the video was particularly special and well done. 

'Get Lucky' by Daft Punk feat. Pharrell Williams

The second video I started analyzing looked quite old and not only on purpose making it more spectacular and interesting in my opinion. Also, the song that came with it had a Disco style bringing back the style of the '70s and '80s as I've mentioned in my own video.

Although I chose songs from the same decade, I thought it would be better to try songs with different paces to see which ones have the greatest effect on the audience and also why. After I finished analyzing 'PRA', I started thinking of 'Get Lucky' as being different from the other disco songs because this one not only sounded original, but it also looked like one. For example, the types of things which made the duo performers look more intense is the fictional clothing of the masks and the fancy looking instruments which in comparison to the background were dreamlike. The sounding of the instruments was relaxing due to the smooth chords and the consistent pattern.

'Happy' by Pharrell Williams

Finally, I included 'Happy' because this song always made me feel happy and I thought it would be better to include something that has a strong emotional connection between the audience and then the song itself since I'm part of this audience. The song on its own already sounded extremely powerful due to its message but with the music video, it became even more emotional and relatable as many different types of people have been included in the video. The facial expressions of the actors have truly expressed an honest message of what it's like to be happy and free. When I was watching the music video I could feel the tension so it was more important to me than any other ones to analyze. 

Editing + Recording Audio

After all, the research has been collected and I knew what I wanted to talk about, I started to download the clips from YouTube using an MP4 converter which enabled to turn the YouTube link into an MP4 file so that I could load the video into Premiere Pro. The videos were exported as 480p which was not the best quality, but otherwise, I would've not been able to download the video because of the program.

The types of transitions that I have applied to my video include the fade in and out effect of the volume of the audio because it helped to control the mood. In other words, it would've sounded too unnatural if I would've just switched from scene to scene without raising and then lowering the volume. I also applied a fade from black to the screen both at the start and at the end because this gave a more dramatic entrance as well as the exit to the video. I applied the razor tool to be able to cut off bits from the video. Finally, the text was added just to make it clear what I was talking about and also because it made it appear much more professional.

Once everything was completed fully, I deleted the MP4 versions of the original music videos before I actually exported the edited version of the videos combined from Adobe Premiere Pro which meant that all the videos were unable to be played because their original source was lost. This meant that I had to download the music videos again and insert them again, however, because I didn't want to waste my time I thought it would be better to look into more detail of how I could download the videos in 1080p so they would look much better the next time. Luckily, I was able to find a program that was able to export the YouTube video in that quality and I inserted the videos as planned so everything worked out by the end.

My Video

 

My Opinion

In my point of view, the final version of my video has a fine quality audio and its clear enough to understand but it could've been better quality. About the quality of the videos that I had to save to an MP4 file, I think they've been put into the video well enough because it was clear to see what was happening. I focused a lot on making sure that my recordings were matching the actions happening on the screen or the objects meaning that whatever I was talking about was being played on the screen at the same time to demonstrate what I've meant. After this, whatever I've analyzed looked more obvious and made it easier to understand.

The First ever music video 

This video is called ''Gus Visser and his Singing Duck'' and it was filmed in June 1925. Although it was supposed to be a music video and the first one to be made, a lot of people just call it ''an American short musical comedy film''. This was filmed so that the director Theodore Case could test the quality of the sound of the recording. 

The video was shot in black & white because at the time coloured recordings were not possible to make. Even though this was the only option to use, it had a major effect on the audience in my opinion because of the changing brightness of the character and the duck which seemed to put a clear focus on the character and the importance of the animal. The table near the main character has also raised a few questions about what its use was. Also, the duck quacks every time the word ''Ma'' is said, sounding the same as ''Ma''. 

As the first official music video ever, the story seemed to be very interesting and two-sided whereas the atmosphere was empty. However, the mood of the song was quite uplifting due to the high pitch and the types of instruments used. I think the table was put in the background just to adjust the mood of the atmosphere and to make the scene appear less lonely as a result of the dark background. I particularly liked the fact that the duck was trained to quack on time because of it made it sound imaginative and different from those music videos that are made in these days. Although it was filmed almost a century ago, it still has features that no modern music video has which is the abstract meaning that brings special emotions to the viewer.

The Questionnaire

After I've finished my research on the first music video, I started creating a questionnaire based on questions about the first music video I've chosen (''Part Rock Anthem'') to get an insight into what people thought about those things that I included in my own video.

These questions were relevant to ask in my opinion because they were closely related to the success of the video and how it has managed to surprise audiences. Since I'm asking several people with different opinions, it will be clearer to see what had a major influence on all of their opinions. 

The first question which is -''What do you think was the narrative of the story?'' questions the viewer of how logically the scenes were shot since the content of each scene is what alters what the audience will think of the story-line. Most people answered that the narrative was a mix between a music and a zombie apocalypse and just letting the music take over the world because it's so powerful. Moving on to the second question, I wanted it to consist of more than just a yes or no, but also an explanation as it reasoned the answer which in this case helps to go into more detail. Most people answered yes to this question saying that the cuts and the scenes were matching although some of the scenes were longer than necessary. In relation to what interests people, the third question was the icebreaker of what was the most interesting part of the music video. All the participants answered the same thing for this question. This was when people united together and then started dancing at the same time. Finally, the last question was 'what stood out the most from the music video?' and again, most people just mentioned the beauty of the dancing an the fact that a song was able to erupt an apocalypse. 

It was important for me to conduct this type of research for my own interest as it helped me to become more disinterested of peoples opinions of music and music videos. This is due to the opinion-based evidence which gives different views of people and what they are affected by.

Party Rock Anthem

Mood Board

Moodboard for Music

I had to create a mood board based on what I think music is using my own style and ideas. By definition, a ''mood board is an arrangement of images, materials, pieces of text, etc. intended to evoke or project a particular style or concept.''

The positive aspect of a mood board is that people can discuss what others like as well as dislike about a project. It brings argumentative opinions and also helps to create new ideas. Furthermore, it helps to explain thoughts. In relation to music, it is useful because people can see what the topic means to others and therefore, the importance of the topic itself.

My Plan

In my mood board, I am planning to include different genres and artists of music mainly consisting of Hip Hop, Rock and R&B because these two genres interest me the most. For each genre, I am focusing on including the most iconic, talented and memorable artists from different decades to show the evolution of music and how each of these artists has impacted the future.

The types of artists I am planning to include are Freddy Mercury, Bob Marley, Elvis, Snoop Dogg, Eminem and a wide selection of modern rappers such as Lil Pump, Tyler the Creator, Drake, and Migos.

In order to make my mood board, I will need a plain piece of paper, photographs of artists from the internet and a few colored pencils. First, I will print out each of my artists and then cut them out. Then I will set up the camera and I will record as I stick each of the printed photographs on the plain piece of paper and draw around it. This video is likely to write long so I will speed it up in Adobe Premiere Pro and put an R&B song in the background because they usually have uplifting effects. The video is going to be shot in black & white although the images will be colored ones. Finally, at the end of the video, I'm planning to pour a glass of water on the paper with the images stuck onto it, and I will be changing the color of the images in  Premiere from black & white to their original version as if water would give music a deeper and more influential meaning. In this case, water represents the flow of music and how important it is for some songs to have a good flow. Especially rap music, it has been more well-known for imitating different types of flow.

Final Outcome

Opinion

After I've finished the mood board, I came to see the main problems I had to face with which included the lighting composition and mostly the making sure that the background was the right color. For example, Whenever I placed my hands in front of the camera, the contrast has changed making the background look a bit blurry.

Finally, in order to have an overall positive effect, I used Adobe Premiere to speed up the clip and make it look more engaging as well as I added some filters from the colors section to brighten the screen. Otherwise, the clip would've been way to slow and long to be appropriate.

The reason I decided not to use my original idea of pouring the water on the paper while adding the color to the image is because I figured that it's not possible to make it look realistic as well as individual at the same time. When I tested the idea for the first time, I knew it was not going to work because I could only add the color to it once the water was all over the paper. 

Preliminary Task

The Misbourne Promotional Video 

By OTB Productions

(Holly, Saliya, Michael, Daniel)

The Task

The task for this class was to advertise the school using a promotional video. This video could contain any sorts of information the team agreed on such as the types of subjects which we included into separate scenes, how long (how many seconds) each of the subjects will be in the video, types of angles used, types of characters as well as places. We were told the video had to be no more than 30 seconds. This made the task a lot more challenging since every scene had to have a specific length.

There were different sorts of themes from which the group had to choose from such as funny, informative, happy, sad, enthusiastic, etc. This is what the mood of the video was based on. Our group decided to go with enthusiastic and mainly informative because we thought that the more the audience finds out about the school and how good it is, the more people will have the courage to join.

Our Ideas

We as the group came together to discuss the group's overall task and how we could put together an amazing video. We came up with ideas about which subjects are the best to show to the audience. Since Misbourne is a talented art school, we thought it would be a good idea to show off all the types of paintings and arts the school takes part in. For example, showing the Art department is a great way of making the school look like a place for commitment. Furthermore, we also thought about including Photography which is very similar to art. Music is a very diverse subject and is not comparable to any other subjects which is why we had to leave it to the end where everything was separated although the pace of the clips we filmed was similar to the pace of the song.

We then moved on to choosing our song for the video. The first one we started working with was ''All star'' by Smash Mouth. This song has a positive message and is also recognizable due to its historical success. Therefore, we as the group thought that the more people recognizing the song while watching the video, the more they would be engaged with the content of the video. However, the downside of this classic song turned out to be too old for the modern generation. As a result, we had to consider choosing another song because the modern generation to which this video was intended to would not feel so relieved with the overall message.

The second song was ''Somebody else'' by The 1975. It had a good effect on the purpose of the video as well as it was a modern song from well-known artists. Unfortunately, the content of the song did not relate to school in any sorts of ways as well as the pace was too slow to work with the clips. By this time, all the needs for the song were analyzed. For example, we knew that the song had to be fast-paced, uplifting, happy, modern and finally respectful in some way (e.g. no curse words or inappropriate interpretations). In conclusion, the group decided to choose a final song for the last time with these personalities.

The next and last song was ''Paradise'' by George Ezra. All the things mentioned above were related to this song. It had some bit at a fast pace and it also had some parts where it slowed down. We knew this wasn't a problem because we were going to edit the song before actually putting it into the video. It had no inappropriate language so students of all ages could view it. The guitar was a good instrument to give an uplifting effect.

Intro

The intro and the outro were supposed to be the shortest parts of the video because they contained the least content. They were only included for effect. The primary plan for the intro was to put the camera onto the floor while starting the video. This would've followed up with one of our group members picking up the camera and slowly rotating it 90 degrees to the right to give a view of the landscape. Next, the person holding the camera had to walk towards the school gate and either place the camera through the gate or above it. By the time we finished filming this, we not only realized the clip was too long, but also we figured it would've looked too shaky if the clip would've been speeded up. In order to be able to go outside of school to try to shoot this scene, Michael asked for permission from the receptionist although we had to stay at the school site which we did.

As a result of the clip's length, a different angle, place, and lighting composition had to be used in order to achieve a better outcome. Michael and Molly found out that the tree near the gate of the school provided us with a great lighting effect making the clip look much better than it looked like with artificial lighting. Each member of the group started filming the same part using the same camera to see who could hold the camera in the most stable position. After the lens rolled from the sky to the front of the school, the viewer could get a better look at it. In the actual video, the intro starts off video fade from black to the sky.

PE + Physics

To give a better flow to the video, we tried to connect the subjects to each other in some way. For PE and Physics, the main way in which they were supposed to be connected was the colors. For example, the color of a basketball could be the same as the flame of a Bunsen burner. As soon as the intro was finished, the screen skipped to the bit where I kicked the ball. This scene was filmed by Molly from 3 different angles and positions. For the first cut, the camera was zoomed in to the football but not close enough so both the background and I stayed in focus. While I started ran towards the football, Molly zoomed out with the camera as well as walked backward at the same time. By the time I reached the ball, we made a cut to the next bit.

This is where the camera was held in a stable position by a tripod. For this cut, the camera was zoomed in fully although it gave a harsh quality to the clip so instead, we placed the camera as close to the football as possible. When I kicked the football the slow-motion effect was applied so it made it look more cinematic which in this case suited more to the audience and built tension.

The final cut was filmed from the side of the goal. Since I already kicked the ball, we had to cut into the scene where the ball was already in the air to make it look faster. This was necessary because, at this point, the song was speeding up. Molly stood directly next to the goal as if the ball was going to hit the camera although it wasn't close enough to it. When the ball started bouncing, the transition was applied to get to physics where the orange color of the ball and Bunsen burner's flame seemed to match keeping the same effect for that part.

Physics + PT 

In physics, 3 different shots were used with the same angle to give different views of the Bunsen burner. The first shot gives a clear view of the subject whereas the remaining bits start to zoom in. The last shot for his scene was not only focusing on the Bunsen burner but the background surrounding it. Then the camera was moved to the beaker filled with water which is where the fade effect was applied to darken the screen which is where the next scene began. As a result, instead of changing the colors to get to the next scene, we created our own transition using the sinks in the rooms.

While Molly, Michael, and Saliya were filming for Physics, they decided not to use the lights in the room because they would've only made the screen look yellow which is not natural at all. Therefore, the scene was filmed in a dark environment because we thought it would be better to add artificial effects afterward to make it brighter and uplifting instead of natural.

PT + ART

When the group came together to discuss photography, there were many ideas considered and we also tested some of them. For example, the very first idea was filming a student who was taking pictures of the school. This scene would've started in the PT room. The person holding the camera was supposed to walk out of the room and zoom on the other student's back where the camera would've rotated to the left side where the screen would've changed with a rotating transition from left to right. After we tried to shoot this bit, we realized it's too simple as well as slow. Therefore, we moved on and started thinking about other ideas.

My other idea was a lot more relatable to the subject and it also looked kind of cool in our opinion because I had to make a draft of it so that the group could see what I meant. After I filmed it, I used Adobe Premiere Pro to select roughly every 5th frame and edit it in Photoshop applying a night vision effect. After all the frames have been edited, I placed all of them next to each other in order (in Premiere) giving each of them approximately 0.4 seconds on the screen to play one after another. It ended up looking cool but it also looked slow and a little bit depressing because of the dark colors. As a result, we changed it again. There was no transition applied just a single cut to Art. 

ART + Music

For art, I included several paintings, drawings, and painted structures to show off all the different segments of the school's talent for art. I used clips instead of exported frames because I thought a little bit of motion would make it flow better with the song and so it did when I first watched it. Some of these clips were short whereas the other ones have been longer so that they created a specific effect. The transition we wanted to apply to skip from art to Music was a bit complicated to do.

We were supposed to film the music scene first and then export the very first frame from this clip. Using a plain paper, Michael was supposed to draw the frame onto it as similar as possible. I used the ''glow'' transition tool in Adobe premiere pro to fade the picture into the first scene of Music. However, we could not film this because we struggled to export a frame that was simple enough to draw as well as we knew we would've not been able to hold the camera in a stable position for so long. Therefore, I edited the first frame in Photoshop several times applying different effects. When all the frames were done, I put them together to give a quick slideshow. I used the ''Cross dissolve'' transition effect to change the scene between the last edit and the non-edited version of the guitar which was also the first clip for music.

Molly, Michael, and Saliya did several shots for the subject. They filmed different instruments from different angles such as the piano, drums, guitar and different parts of the drumset separately. As soon as the guitar started playing, I introduced the second instrument using a split screen. Then I have placed two other ones splitting the screen into four separate parts.

Outro

The outro is made up of 2 separate cuts. One is where few students including me are revising together in a classroom and one where the camera is rotating from the school's music department to the sky which is where the text came into context. The text includes the schools' website's link, some paintings from the website as well the most rememberable quote of the school.

The First Draft

Here is our first draft of our first attempt. We edited on Premier Pro, and then asked for feedback from a range of individuals.

Difficulties we came across

One of the major problems the group came across had something to do with the length of the clip. When we finished the first draft which was realistically based on the final version, we were told that we could extend the video by 15 seconds which meant extra shots and transitions since the team tried to maximize the content. Luckily, we have kept those extra shots which were removed from the video that the members of the group have filmed. We also had enough time to put the material together and edit it.

The weather was constantly changing during the days of filming. It was always raining or if not, the sky was cloudy which was unable to provide a natural looking lighting for the video. The song and the overall lighting composition had to deliver the same feeling to the audience. The video was supposed to have at least a little bit of lighting which would then make it a lot easier to adjust it in Adobe Premiere Pro. In order to overcome this problem, I checked the weather news to predict the rough time at which we could shoot the new clip.

Before the group actually started filming, Molly brought her camera to school so that we could experiment with different angles and lighting compositions. However, sometimes the camera wasn't charged enough to be used so I started bringing in my camera too. They both had the same image quality so we didn't have to worry about that.

The last problem we faced with had to do with the final piece. Both me and Molly had a lot of resources of clips and editing material. Furthermore, the number of ideas of how we could edit the clips was enormous so we decided to make two separate pieces. We used Instagram to communicate with each other and eMails to send the extra clips and shots. Since then, every time we had a lesson together we discussed the pros and cons of each piece so that we could select the best parts. After every lesson, we knew what to edit and how leading to the final piece. In the end, both clips had some minor differences and based on those ones, the better clip was selected which was Molly's. This was mainly because of the ending and the pace at which the clips were cut so that they matched the rhythm of the song.

My Version

The final piece

Overall Difference

Both videos had some clips which were unique and appropriate for the background context. In other words, we used different scenes for different purposes to test which effect would fit better to the idea of promoting the school. For example, Molly included a few clips where I and Michael were talking as well as a different one where I and two other sixth form students were talking. In comparison, I only included the second part.

The storyboard

After finishing the video (final edit), Michael (the group's graphic artist) had to create a storyboard explaining all the things we included in the video and how each of these scenes looked like as an animation. This was necessary because it gave all the group members an overall view of what we had planned so far and how it was all going to take place.

The PowerPoint Presentation

Before starting the video, a member of the group (me) had to be selected to put together a PowerPoint presentation where I had to write down all the things we took into consideration for filming. This was based on 5 major topics which include: story, rationale, tone, casting and look & feel.