Music Video History

"A music video is a short film or video that accompanies a complete piece of music/song. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings. Although the origins of music videos go back much further, they came into their own in the 1980s, when MTV based their format around the medium, and later with the launch of VH1. The term "music video" first came into popular usage in the early 1980s. Prior to that time, these works were described by various terms including "filmed insert", "promotional (promo) film", "promotional (promo) clip" or "film clip". In Chinese entertainment, music videos are simply known as MTVs because the network was responsible for bringing music videos to popularity in that country.
Music videos use a wide range of styles of film making techniques, including animation, live action filming, documentaries, and non-narrative approaches such as abstract film. Some music videos blend different styles, such as animation and live action."

- Wikipedia

When sound films and talkies first came about there were a lot of short musical films, one of the biggest film series were the Spooney Melodies, produced by Warner Brothers. The film would usually last about 6 minutes and would feature art deco animation and backgrounds as well as the performance of the band, singers and dancers. These short films can be argued as the first music videos.

Musical films, from the 1930’s to the 1950’s, have been very important in influencing modern music videos. One of the best-known examples is Madonna's 1985 video for "Material Girl" which was closely related to "Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend" from the film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. As well as Michael Jackson's “Bad” video, this was influenced by the stylized dance fights from the film “West Side Story.

Geri Halliwell - It's Raining Men Analysis

This is a video we all analysed in class and made notes upon. Kelsey typed up the notes so that all of us didn't have to as we all had the same notes, these are them below.



This video is set in many different locations and is focused mainly on the physical body. It has a theme based around the musicals Fame and Flashdance.
Intertextuality- many themes are used including Fame and Flashdance.
The camera shots are nearly all from the front showing Geri Halliwell face on. Many people star in this production and it is very energetic and lively.
At the beginning the first words of the song are “humidity’s rising“and the camera shot moves upwards to match the lyrics. Later during the video when the words “getting low” are sung the camera shot moves downwards.
During the chorus more dancers join in, in a carnival style with lots of colour and dynamic dancing. But up until them the colours in the video have been mainly black and white.

During the first scenes the dancer is not identified. This video is based around the empowerment of women and launched Geri Halliwell as a solo singer. She used this opportunity to present herself in a new way and to show off her new slender and lean body.

There is a contrast between the judges being dressed in suits and the dancers dressed in leotards and leg warmers. The judges are dressed very formally in business suits and are looking at her over their glasses and frowning showing that they are not impressed. Half way through the video Geri kisses the head judge trying to break down any barriers that there may be between them.

The video is mainly a song and dance routine with excerpts from both Fame and Flashdance included in the sequences.
The record scene relates to Flashdance and enables her to mess up as the needle on the record slips. There are also shots showing other students ridiculing her from the doorway.

Diegetic noise of the dancers’ footsteps can be heard as well as traffic and the needle going around the record on the record player
The sequences of fragmented body shots create a feeling of anticipation.
The fact that a record is being played on a record player shows that this is set in pre CD era.

First close up
Formal made of address
As music starts she is looking at her feet or the judges.
The shot at foot level showing the judges tapping their feet is reoccurring all through the video and there is lots of movement of the cameras with her. There are also over the shoulder shots which show us the judges’ perspective.
There are many quick cuts to show the vigorous pace of the video.
The second half of the video is much more colourful and shows her in many different outfits, it also shows her doing lots of different physical activities including running down the corridor to rehearsals (links to American school), aerobics, curl ups ,kickboxing and even ballet. This is to depict that men can not be relied upon and women lead the way.
The last section of the video is set outside in a New York street with lots of colour including a yellow taxi showing an extremely up -beat mood and full of life, although the weather is raining. She is wearing a top with “famous” on it which looks like the Fame logo.

Website analysis of differnt genres

I decided to look at website from different genres so that I could get a wider idea of what goes on to a website.

From looking at these different website I can see that they have a few things in common. They all have the video for the latest single on the homepage, they have clear links to different pages including external links to their different official websites such as Facebook, Myspace and Twitter. They all use their band font for the title of the website so that the user can become familiar with the brand of the band. They all have new on the front page so that fans can feel close to the band by finding out what is happening with them. On most of them there is an image of the band at the top allowing the audience to become familiar with the band. All of the websites are quite dark which shows a new trend which we will most probably us in our own website.

Even though all of the websites are quite dark the difference in layout, choice of fonts and pictures creates a completely different feeling to the website for example the Girls Aloud website is quite dark but looks very feminine because of the choice of pictures and layout where as the website for Bullet for my Valentine looks quite masculine because of the lack of pictures and the cramped layout.

On 3 of the websites the background is quite graphic which I think is a nice feature as it makes the website more interesting to the user.

Digi Pak analysis

I have looked at many digipaks and I have decided to analyse this one in more depth.

This image is from www.distorture.co.nz/distorture-revere.html

Colours: the colours are the same throughout the digi pack the contast of white and red is then again reflected in the red paint/blood on the persons pale hand. These colours work well together because they contrast and are both very bright.
Pictures: there are only 2 pictures on this digipak and these are both the same this makes the digipack look simplistic and

Text: there is not alot of text which makes the digi pack simplistic and easy to look at.

The use of logos: on this particular digi pak the logo is shown on the front cover and on the CD which brands the product and allows the audience to become familiar and identify with brand.

Format: this digi pak has 6 pannels which allow more text and pictures to be added. You would think that as there is more room that more information would have to be added but Distorture used the 3 inside pannels to display a picture rather than additional information.

Website analysis

One of the website I knew I wanted to analyse was Florence and the Machine's as I believe that she has a very similar sound to Two Door Cinema Club.

From looking at the website I can see that it is very quirky and strange which is also how Florence herself and her music is portrayed. All of the links are on a giant pair of lungs which relates to the artist album. The links are in white and so stand out from the deep red background of the lungs.

On this homepage she has the video of her latest single just like many other band websites do and so this is a feature we will want to add to our website.

At the top of the page is a picture of the artist this allows the fans to become familiar with the artist and identify her.

The main piece of information down the middle is news and her blog. By having this feature it allows the user to feel closer to the artist.

The colours used are quite dark and dull because they are the colours of wood, stained paper and lungs but some how these colours contrasted with the brightness of the text works and is easy for the user to read.

Another thing which has been used on this website is the use of the bands official font for the title of their name at the top of the page we will have to insure we do this so that the audience can become familiar with our brand and learn to identify with the band and their products.

Editing

These are pictures of us editing the video the first picture is from when we began editing the first verse, we have been using the razor tool to cut the clips.

This second picture is of us changing the clips to black and white as we thought this would affective an relate to the genre of music we are using. We used Colour Corrector and Chroma Keyer 2 effects on Final Cut which we used to de-saturate the images.

Bullet for my Valentine - Tears Don't Fall analysis

-Mainly performance with a bit of narrative - band playing instruments

-Close ups mostly - mostly of the lead singer

-Bluey/Grey lighting making the video pale and Gothic

-Editing gets faster on the instrumental

-Moving shots - the camera is hardly ever static

-The rain makes is more powerful and emotive

Girls Aloud - Biology Analysis

-The band actually performs through dance and singing

-There is no instrumental band

-There is no narrative

-Very stylised with 5 different costume changes

-Wide shots to include the whole band and closes ups to focus on the person singing solo

-The camera is quite static just panning when the scene changes

-Lots of cross dissolves which are common in pop videos

-Bright colours and lighting are used to create a happy up beat feeling in the audience

Filming

These are pictures of when we were filming the scenes in the woods and in the toilet.

In the toilet scene the main girl is putting on make up with her friend and when she turns round to face the friend the friend is scared and runs away it is not until the girl turns back to the mirror that the audience see she has been putting clown makeup on.

This wood scene is when the girl is tied to a chair with ribbons and more and more keep getting added and then the clown appears from behind her.

Animatic

This is the Animatic, a rough story board version of how we want the video to look and the shots we are hoping to use.

Animatic - Editing

This is a screen grab from when we were editing the Animatic we are using Final Cut to create this. After we had drawn each shot by hand we had to take a photograph of each individual image so that we could upload them in to Final Cut.

Storyboard

We each helped in the drawing of the story board and we will now take pictures of each individual scene so that we can create and animatic.

Characters

The 2 main characters will be a girl and a clown. For our video we have decided that Georgina would be best to play the role of the main girl as she feels at ease in front of the camera. We have also decided that the clown should be male so that the audience does not suspect the ending of the video and so we have asked Georgina's boyfriend Jack to play this role as he is easily avaliable for filming during media lessons.

There will also be 3 other clowns that appear in the video these will be played by myself, Rakhee and our friend Freddie.

I will also play the main girls friend in the bathroom scene.