The New Wave and the 80s

So, I have chosen. 'Boys Don't Cry', by The Cure will be this years focus for my media coursework. Therefore, this post is going to be dedicated to:

The New Wave 

(photo from Google)

Initial Music Video Ideas

After listing some of my favourite songs out on a piece of paper, I then began to slowly cross out each song while listening to the lyrics and trying to picture a suitable narrative to it. Some songs I found were too long (e.g. Stairway to Heaven/From Eden), others I could only visualise a simple and unambitious narrative (Go Quietly/iT), others I felt didn't feel were worth the task for. Eventually I came down to two songs: 'Boys Don't Cry' by The Cure, and 'Bel Air' by Lana Del Rey.

In the above insert, I have written out in brief my initial thoughts of a narrative to each song, though I found it hard to word my images. I drew out some basic ideas for shots in the video but with my lack of drawing skill it really doesn't mean much from an outsider's viewpoint anyway. Nonetheless, I thought I would just put up my first thoughts before I begin weighing out the two and choosing one.

Analysis of a Music Video pt 1

An intro into using media language and representation in order to textually analyse a music video.

The xx - On Hold


The first thought I had seconds into this music video was the photographer William Eggleston. Eggleston (born 1939) is very well known for his over-saturated colour in his photography, and each photo telling a story in a completely original way; capturing a moment in time. His use of over-saturated colour creates an antique feel for each photo, like the way a sepia filter does. The xx using this style feels as though they've captured this video back in the 1960s southern-state of the USA, which does fit in with their general music style of a sort of wishy-washy sound of electronic synths filtered through a dream like state.

The xx - Portrait



William Eggleston, 'Untitled', 1970-1973

Following on from their 1960s style, the props shown in the video also show this: the old car, old phone box, the old house telephone (and using it as opposed to mobile). This is fully established to be their aim throughout the rest of the video. Why they've chosen to set it in Texas, 1960s time is a question though: romantic vintage aspect?

Moving onto the structure of the music video, it's a narrative showing a relationship between two young lovers, one being on the school cheer-leading team, the other being on the american football team - the heartache all teenagers can relate to (sarcasm). We can already see a stereotypical American relationship formed here, which could be argued ridiculous for a band that are defined under 'alternative indie'. The video begins with a young man making a phone call, and ends with the young woman hanging up after no exchange of words between them, but between that we have fragments of their relationship in a general linear-narrative showing the breaking down between them which relates back to the lyrics.

There are sections of performance in this video where we have the artists singing/lip-syncing. This is alternated between the two singers becoming the young characters of the love-story, and them being silhouettes telling the story.
The song 'On Hold' is using the telephone hold call button as a metaphor for the relationship between the two young people which is why it's important to have the phone call start and end the video.

The chorus has a random series of black and white grainy video showing a party which foregrounds the occasional slip in of romantic kissing shots between the lovers. By having the two juxtaposed, it makes us feel as though we're looking back at their memories when they were happy together.

Altogether, this video works aesthetically but when analysing it analytically, it's a bunch of random shots of random places while trying to tell the underlying theme of a broken relationship between two stereotypical teenagers in the US.

Transitions Music Video Project: Evalutation

To plan for our music video, the three of us wrote a list of song suggestions, then checked their copyright policies for uploading onto YouTube. For ease, we knew we had to pick a song that would be appropriate to film a music video for on college grounds over the next couple weeks. Our decision concluded with American Boy by Estelle and so we all set to learning the lyrics. We also looked at the lyrics as a group and annotated the lines with suggestions for the visuals.

Zara casted Max to be our 'American Boy' to star in the music video, lip syncing with Kanye in the song. We chose as a group to film on the outsides of the campus so you couldn't see much of the college in the background. Once out we began putting our visualisations to reality, with Bonnie directing dance and general movement. Zara took care of the camera for the first half of our filming before I took over so she could star in the video more. My job was to use a variety of shots and angles which didn't come as naturally as I thought it would. You can see that majority of the filming is mid-shots due to me not pushing myself to be more experimental.

In terms of time management, we didn't finish the full song but instead rounded it off earlier to avoid too much repetition with our limited recordings. We're all proud of our final product though, the video has character and was good fun for us all to film. We found out a lot about what makes a music video successful, and also how to use a camera to a better degree than we already knew.

The video obviously has some improvements that could've been made, such as not everyone (me) learning the lyrics to lip sync with. The video is clearly far from 'professional', the camera quality being a factor, setting (very low budget aka no budget), and many others. But for a first attempt with a light-hearted attitude, it was good fun.

A2 Media Advanced Portfolio: The Brief

A new year, a new set of tasks.

Brief

A promotional package for the release of an album, to include the following:

• ·         a music promo video
• ·         a digipak for the album’s release [4 or 6 sided]
• ·         a magazine advertisement for the album/digipak