Music video evaluation question

Music video evaluation question

• 1.
  Evaluation – Question1 By Tamara Gill
• 2.
  Conventions of recent,popular music videos Story lines - there is often a story to the music video where the actions and characters relate to the lyrics of the song. Higher key lighting - more recent music videos are often brighter to look more modern. Dance sequences - there are often extras dancing in the background the more recent the video, the type of dancing also changes to fit the decade. More narrative - there is a clear story portrayed through the lyrics and characters in the video. Intertexuality - the more recent music videos often reference another media product within the video such as Twitter. More dynamic camera movement - the camera will move more smoothly and will be of a clearer resolution. Editing is faster paced - the cuts in the video will be quicker to match the beat of the music. More experimental and creative - different techniques are tried out in more recent videos, spoofs are created and movies are referenced. A star persona is created - a music video will now reflect the persona of the star using the mise en scene and actions taken by the artist in the video. Product placement - an example of product placement is the Beats by Dre used in Robin Thicke's video, they are regularly shown. More fashion icons - the mise en scene promotes materialism such as in the genre of hiphop and pop.
• 3.
  Conventions of anR&B music video Club settings and studio backgrounds often used. Low key lighting in clubs, high key lighting in master shots. Woman showed exposing skin wearing revealing outfits. Male showing abs, exposing tattoos. Male wearing sunglasses. Male wearing bling, woman wearing a lot of makeup and extreme hair. Artist shown in music video. Male wearing a suit. Greyscale effect on shots. Dance sequence. Product placement. Follows a storyline. Artist and love affair framed together, often kissing or touching/dancing. Soft lighting to portray love and emotion. Dynamic camera movement. Fast paced editing. Star persona created.
• 4.
  This is alow angle shot used to make the star look superior, he is positioned in the centre of the frame as he is the main focus. Kanye West’s music video uses a similar shot, using the same colours and effects. Our video uses a low angle shot but this video is at eye level. It looks professional and follows the convention of highlighting the artist on his own and having the artist present in the video. Kanye West’s music video however, does not show the artist. The sunglasses he is wearing portrays the lifestyle he leads, many famous people wear them and an example of this is Chris Brown, a well known R&B singer. The greyscale effect on this shot creates a glimmer/sparkle in the sunglasses, this conveys the paparazzi the star faces due to his high popularity. The suit he is wearing shows he is a fashion icon and looked upon by many fans, it is black and white which matches with the colour scheme of the shot and the video. It looks smart and is often associated with rappers or modern R&B singers as it is considered ‘cool’ to be wearing. He is wearing it without a tie to show that although he is looking smart and being a fashion icon, he does not need to follow all the rules of a rap star as he is highly successful and is edgy, this is challenging the convention of wearing a tie with a suit in music videos.
• 5.
  This screen shotportrays a club scene, there is smoke around the people to make it look realistic . The smoke fades into the dancers to put the most emphasis on the artist, he is the main focus as he is positioned in the centre of the frame and is the lust of the dancers. They dance around him in a circle while he sings the lyrics. This is conventional as most R&B singers from the genre have their music videos set in a club, with the artist being lusted after by girls. This screen shot shows that our video follows the convention of showing the artist’s lifestyle and wealth. This conveys that he spends most of his time’s in high-end clubs and is the centre of attention. It illustrates that he enjoys being in clubs and likes the life that he lives. He is also wearing Beats by Dre headphones around his neck which is an example of product placement, the target audience will see this and are very likely to buy them after. Most modern music videos from any genre, mostly pop and R&B use product placement in their videos. This is a screen shot from Drake’s music video ‘Find Your Love’. The shot has an orange filter over it making it look like a real club (this video has a high budget so would have been filmed in a real club). In order for our video to look like a real club we placed a purple filter over the filming to make it look realistic and like a high budget video. The background of this shot is blurry, we have achieved this effect with the smoke machine.
• 6.
  This is ashot of the girl the artist loves in the lyrics ‘You made me love you’. She is the character that the song is based on which is why there is shots of her on her own. This shot is when she is dancing, looking into the camera to address the audience and identify herself as the item of desire. The same greyscale background is used as is used with the artist in his master shot, this is to keep it identifiable that she is the girl being sang about. A convention followed is the girl has long hair and is wearing makeup, it can be challenged though as women often wear red lipstick in music videos but in this she is not. It is conventional to use a girl as an item of lust in a music video, during this clip the girl keeps a serious face, this is common for the portrayal of women in music videos. The girl is presented with long curled hair and wearing a flowing short dress, an example of a girl used as objectification in a music video is in Jason Derulo’s video ‘The Other Side’. The girl from this video is showing a lot of skin and is revealing, our video is unconventional in that way as the Girl is not showing as much skin. This is challenging the convention as it is a statement of bearing less skin and still being identified as the object of desire, women often show their stomach and cleavage but the girl in this did not. We felt it would be inappropriate to bear a lot of skin for our music video. They also wear a lot of eyeshadow in music videos making their eyes stand out but in this the girl is wearing an average amount of make up.
• 7.
  This is amaster shot of the artist face on, he is addressing the audience directly while singing. His facial expression and positioning shows that he is singing passionately. The black and white gives an authentic look to the video as its not brightly coloured and stays in keeping with the theme of the overall video. The artists suit can be clearly seen in this shot, this shows him looking ‘fresh’ like most artists in the R&B genre. Suits are conventional to wear in music videos by the most popular artists such as Kanye West and Drake, by wearing this it shows that the artist is as popular and he is within the R&B genre. Most music videos from this genre have clips where the artist is showing more skin, exposing tattoos – we break this convention as our star does not have tattoos and we had him covered up for the whole of the video. A convention broken in this is that the artist is not showing abs or his upper body, this is used in many R&B music videos to attract more females to watch.
• 8.
  The head shotsbreaks the convention of using full bodies in silhouettes but follows the convention of showing the artist and love connection in different ways. This clip clearly shows he is singing about the girl, making a clear link between lyrics and visuals. The purple filter also breaks the convention of using simplistic colours in the background but makes more links to the club scenes featured in the video. In this music video the silhouettes are full body shots, we used head shots instead in less detail which is unconventional but was easier create due to our low budget in filming. This shot is a silhouette of the artist and the girl. We made this original by using a purple filter, silhouettes are conventional in other music videos when they are in black and white. The main focus is on the artist as we have darkened his image, the girl’s shadow is lighter to connote the mystery in her reply to the song, it isn’t known if his love is requited until the end shot of them together. An example of a silhouette shot like this used is in the music video ‘Love, Sex and Magic’ by Justin Timberlake.
• 9.
  This screen shotis from a memory clip, it comes across as the artist remembering the girl in a more natural way, she is wearing different clothes to show this and the lighting is brighter to make it look like a memory. The lighting here is more natural, giving a sense of reality. Her expression is neutral in the first memory clip then she is smiling in the others, this shows he is in love with her and remembers making her laugh. A convention has been broken in this by having the girl show minimal bare skin, only her shoulders can be seen in this shot – this is similar to Beyonce’s R&B music videos where she doesn’t show too much skin to portray herself as more powerful. It may have looked better in our video if the girl was showing more skin as she is not the singer and is there to be shown as an object of desire. Slow R&B songs often use a storyline, this memory clip shows a storyline where he is remembering the girl he loves and progresses until they are together at the end. She is seen looking serious and then laughing, as if he is seeing her through his eyes, she is addressing him in these shots and the shots of her dancing is addressing the audience.
• 10.
  This shot ofthe star and the girl he loves dancing connects the visual and the lyrics, it identifies the audience with the characters and progresses the storyline which is conventional to the genre. They are dancing in a studio setting with a bright light between them, the light connotes the clear relationship they have while the darker parts outside of them portrays the dim life they’d have if they weren’t together. The studio setting makes the video look more realistic as a professional music video rather than a student production. A convention broken in this video is that there is no kissing and not much body contact between the artist and love affliction, often in R&B videos, especially ones associated with love have the characters together in a home setting or club setting kissing or touching, we did not do this as we felt it would be inappropriate to film as our student production. We do however, have shots of them dancing together and we feel the memory shots make up for this. An example of an R&B video showing kissing and touching is Chris Brown’s video for ‘Say Goodbye’.
• 11.
  Our music videofollows the convention of having a storyline between the artist and a woman, this screen shot shows the resolution at the end when they are together. Most music videos that feature a connection between artist and woman will have shots of them together to clearly portray this. This shot shows the girl looking happy and comfortable around him while the artist has a laid back expressions. They do not kiss in the video at all which breaks the convention of kissing and touching within love R&B songs, this uses a bright light to soften the shot making it clear they are in love and happy. The girl is wearing the same clothes as she is in the memory shots, this creates a subtle link between them to show she is always how he remembers her. The artist progresses through the video from being shown as a popular, successful star to this stripped back shot of being a normal man in love. A convention we have challenged is having dance scenes in our video, R&B music videos often have choreographed dance scenes to match the tone of the music, instead of using choreographed groups dancing we had shots of the girl dancing subtle by moving her shoulders on her own. This still conveyed she was an object of desire but we did not feature any groups dancing.
• 12.
  Conventions of amagazine advert and digipak Magazine Advertisement - Review/rating Release date Retail price Featuring songs Download information Name of band/artist Image of artist/album Tour dates One page spread Appropriate magazine to band Representation of artist/genre. Digipak - Image of artist Lyrics of songs Track list Credits Album artwork Name of album Name of artist Bar code Date of release Reviews Tour dates Copyright information Record companies 6 pages Representation of artist/genre Reference to other media e.g Facebook, Twitter.
• 13.
  Magazine Advert We useblack, red and white as the colour scheme in our advertisement. Black works well as it connotes mystery which is a convention of the R&B genre, red connotes lust which is also a convention followed through by most R&B videos on the theme of finding women. The white diamond stands out of the artist’s shirt and matches the artist’s name and the colours on the album cover. This stands out and would attract the target audience if seen in a magazine. The artist’s pose is laid back to convey a ‘cool’ vibe and shows his modesty towards the reviews by The Guardian and Zane Lowe. We featured an iTunes logo which is often used on modern music advertisements because it is a popular downloading website. The album cover is shown on the advert which is also conventionally used on magazine adverts. The retail price of the album is not on this magazine, this makes it unconventional but we felt with the retail price added it took away from the originality of the layout and colours. Tour dates are not on it either but this may be due to the artist not having any tours set. We used the first quote ‘Smart, Slick and Sexy’ as the alliteration makes it more appealing, it makes the album seem like the ‘in’ product to buy therefore the target audience will be more likely to buy it, also due to the striking colour scheme, target audiences of other genres may also be enticed to buy it.
• 14.
  Digipak Our digipak albumcover is a photo of a wine glass smashed with wine spilt, this is to portray the wealthy lifestyle and is conventional to show this representation. For example, Drake’s album cover shows him with a goblet drinking wine. On the back cover we have used a glass being filled with wine to keep the theme and it features the track list, barcode, record company and general information at the bottom. The CD cover features a wine splat behind it to symbolise the R&B lifestyle to be rough at times – this could portray the drugs side of the industry. One page of the digipak shows lyrics for his main song (the music video), this encourages people that buy the CD to learn the lyrics. Another page of the digipak shows money and a glass filled with wine, this portrays his rich lifestyle, he can leave money lying around due to the amount he has and drinks expensive wine. Most artists use this wealthy lifestyle to brand themselves as successful to the target audience. It includes an image of the artist, in the same attire as the magazine to show a clear link between them. A convention challenged is that there is no reviews in the digipak, we have these on the magazine advert instead, we haven’t made any references to Twitter or Facebook either as these are also on the magazine advert. We haven't’ added tour dates to the digipak, this is a convention broken – the reasoning behind this could be that the artist hasn’t planned to do a tour yet.