Genre

The other day we choose our Genre - Indie. Focusing on Indie Rock.

Together as a group we found a common theme in the type of indie music we liked, and in particular which artists, such as The 1975 and the Arctic Monkey's. We felt we would be able to make the best product possible by choosing a genre of music which we enjoyed listening to, and would enjoy creating a music video within the 'rule' or 'stereotypes' of a indie music video. Although I love listening to Indie Rock music I didn't know much about the genre itself so I done some extremely quick research and put together this simple moodboard.

After knowing a bit more about the genre and the artists associated with the genre itself, I needed to research what the common themes was in the Music Videos. The focused on 7 Indie Rock bands, The Arctic Monkey's, Arcade Fire, Rone, The Killers, The 1975, Oasis and Coldplay. I then watched a couple of there most popular music videos and found 3 common themes, Black and White, Instruments and Costume and Lighting. I documented my findings in a YouTube video.

Black and White

18 out of the 20 Indie Rock music videos I watched for my research was shot in black and white, which clearly indicates that it is a popular choice within the genre, and something that our group is going to focus on to make sure that the genre is clearly identifiable by the video. I believe a possible reason that the Indie Genre tend to produce black and white videos is to stick to their DIY attitude, in which the indie (Individual) genre is known for, possibly going for a homemade film look. Another idea why Indie Rock create black and white music videos could be on match their raw meaningful music that the genre is known for, wanting the viewer to focus on the lyrics and the on screen performance rather than any flashy bright colours, the indie rock genre simply doesn't need that.

Instruments (Performance Aspect)

Nearly every Indie Rock music video includes instruments, meaning a performance aspect in the music video is going to be crucial for our group to help the viewer identify the genre. The answer to why they include this is clear, as the indie rock genre has been created as their songs are far more meaningful or personal that any pop song they want the viewer to be engaged in the musical process, letting the viewer not forget that although they are watching a fancy video the song is the most important aspect. This is defiantly something we have discussed when talking about our music video, and we have decided to have possibly every chorus include shots of performance.

Costume and Lighting

This is an extremely notable theme when you watch an amount of Indie Rock Music Video's. The pattern is that the artists or the actor's involved the video hardly wear what you would call 'normal' clothes, but either extremely smart, such as a suit, or as a character set in a time period. This is something that I noted especially with The Killers, they are always flamboyantly dressed in biazarre and unusual locations. The lighting in almost every music video I watched was dull, dark and maybe one bright light used.

Group Meeting Genre and Song Choice

Yesterday afternoon Jack tweeted me and Rian a list of what he thought would be appropriate songs.

Then this morning me and Rian confirmed over text what we thought would be an ideal song choice.

Therefore we as a group have decided our genre is going to be indie rock, and our song is going to be Heart Out by 1975.

Carol Vernallis

Today in class we learnt about Carol Vernallis and her 4 point theory. The 4 points include, Narrative, Editing, Camera Movement and Framing Diegesis.

Narrative

Carol Vernallis when describing her theory suggests that the video is avisual response to the narrative. Therefore whatever is happening on screen reflects the choice of lyrics that the artist is singing. However Vernallis then goes on to say how the narrative may not always be completed and can be partial with the video appearing disjointed, disconnected and appear in fragments. The video has something driving it forward but this may not necessarily be the narrative, it could be the music itself or other elements in the video. However if the video is left uncompleted it can lead to many questions about the narrative that wont always be answered throughout the video. Finally although the video may have a theme or narrative, it is probably displayed in a montage style, rather than in one clear focus.

Editing

Carol Vernallis states that a clear convention of music editing is that the video may disrupt or break the conventions of continuity editing. The editing may also be brought to the foreground, become visible and not hidden apposed to the invisible style of continuity editing. Meaning the video will have a style of editing running throughout that is distinctive to that video.

Camera Movement 

Carol Vernallis states that establishing shots are one of the key camera features of a music video and are used frequently throughout a music video as well as close up shots. The style of framing of the video again is quite distinctive to the video and also the camera may move in time with the lyrics. Extreme shots also known as master shots are also very common.

Framing Diegesis

Diegesis in terms of media the diegesis is the world of the music video. Carol Vernallis explains how the diegesis will be revealed quite slowly. The actions in the video wont always be completed and may be disrupted in someway. There will be many repetitions throughout the video and some frames will appear more important than others due to the way they have been shot/framed.

Diary Entry Week 4

We had to complete our preliminary task analysis, something which I spent alot of time on because I want to be able to look back at it while working on our actual final product and make sure I can work and learn from my mistakes. I typed the whole thing out on blogger, in a block text. Which is something I am not going to do in my actual task - it is important to use all aspects of multimedia.

Preliminary Task - Evaluation

The whole point of the Preliminary Task was to learn the techniques which are necessary for creating our own music video, being behind the camera, editing and even a bit of directing. All of which I have developed to an extend where I would feel confident and comfortable going out and doing my own music video right now if I had to. The experiences I had during the preliminary task will help me to make my actual video more successful.

One of the problems we faced was with the equipment, the tripod we was attempting to use did not actually fit the camera equipment we had, meaning time was wasted. During shooting for our actual music video time will be precious and wasting time is something which I will want to avoid, therefore making sure I have all the vital equipment before arriving on the set is something I will defiantly be doing. I will also make sure that all the add on equipment, such as lenses and tripods are right for the video camera I will be using.

Another problem we experienced was with editing, this was because we didn't save the footage properly. Storing and logging footage is a huge part of the professional music video making industry and before the Preliminary Task that was something I was unaware off. Sadly the footage of myself didn't save, meaning that to export the video off from iMovie, I had to remove myself from the music video. This was not a problem for the Preliminary Task, but this is something which has to be avoided during the actual task, as the footage may have extreme value.

The camera quality was something which was also poor during the Preliminary Task. A high quality music video is something which I am going to strive for when completing my final task, but that was not available to us when completing the practice task. There was not the option to control the focus, which disabled any chance of creating nice pull focuses, which are extremely effective when creating a music video. Also on a HD laptop screen, our final  Preliminary Task looks pixelated and is only 720p, when it is 1080p I am going to aim for.

I am glad we had the experience of creating a Preliminary Task, as it has gave me an idea on the areas which are my strengths and which are my weaknesses, therefore allowing me to work on my weaknesses before starting my final product.

Diary Entry Week 3

So first thing Monday morning we began filming our music video for That's What I go to school For. It was our first time using equipment such as a tripod and an actual video camera, so it was fun to learn and get used to handling it all. We had technical difficulties with our tripod, as we never had the correct one for our camera, which ended up wasting alot of our valuable shooting time. This is something which we want to avoid during the actual piece of coursework but I am glad we had the chance to learn from our mistakes. We spent the whole 2 hour lesson filming and it was actually good fun.

In our next lesson we uploaded our footage onto the computer and went to begin the editing process, but as this was our first time using iMovie we somehow managed to delete all the footage with me in it - good for me, but bad for the task. This was another opportunity we will have the chance to learn from while creating our actual task. Keyboard shortcuts is something we learnt during the week and we found them a godsend, as it was easy to get confused using the mouse. The keyboard shortcut we used the most was the CTRL & B. This shortcut was used for splitting a clip into two, which was a really important aspect of the editing process, spliting clips and moving, or spliting clips and deleting.

During our final lesson of the week on Friday we was given the chance to finish our music video, and upload it onto YouTube which is what we will be doing with our final product. We was really happy with how it turned out considering it was our first ever attempt at anything like this.

Preliminary Task - Final Product

During Thursday's lesson we edited together the final version of our Preliminary Task. Here is our version of Busted's, That's What I Go To School For.