Pre-Production Paperwork for Single Camera Production.

Pre production paperwork- Vicky from Fay Amber Yaxley

Pre-Production for the Music Video.

Pre production paperwork Music Video from VictoriaBrooks99

Styles, Conventions and Techniques of Music Videos.

I am writing this piece to demonstrate my understanding of the different Styles, Conventions and Techniques in music videos. I will explore many different types and forms of these and relate them to my own examples and then explain why they fit into the categories I put them in.

What different Styles and Conventions can Music Videos have?

In-concert and 'as live' footage.

This speaks for itself as in the music video it depicts the band playing a live performance. This can either be staged and scripted purely for the music video or actual live footage of the band can be taken and used for a music video.
An example of this convention in a music video would be the band Five Finger Death Punch and their music video for their song 'Battle Born'. In this music video (below) they have a mix between some of their actual live performance footage in 2013 in Prospect Park of this same song, along with added cutaways of them on tour and off the stage; showing their journey to the stage. This is an example of where the bands actual live footage has been used in the music video and hasn't been scripted. It is simply real footage taken at the time, all mashed together to make the music video.

Below are some screen shots I took from the video showing some of the live footage from the performance and the cutaways to the band on tour.

Another example where this convention has been used would be in the band Linkin Park and their music video of their song 'Faint' (below). This video shows them performing on stage to a crowd as they would in a live performance. However, this video has been directed by Mark Romanek and was staged to look like a live performance purely for making a music video of one of their songs.

Below are some screenshots I took from the music video. You can tell this has been scripted and directed to look and act like a live performance because of the camera angles, shots and the over all lighting and effect of the video of the band playing the song aren't natural for a real live performance. The whole look of it you can tell has been directed perfectly because they don't look like they are on a live stage because the footage it too pristine and edited to look good and the color is artificial. Whereas, if it was actual live footage it would look very different as you have seen in my other previous example.

Also this shot in particular of the main vocalist facing directly to the camera and facing away from the crowd can't be actual live footage because it wouldn't be possible during an actual live performance to film this way.

 Also you can tell it is staged from the backdrop and the stage itself they are performing on. As it does look more like a set that has been made/ created for the production of the music video.







Narrative and Interpretive.
This is a popular convention used in music videos. This convention offers a story or an interpretation of the lyrics within a song to show the songs words both lyrically and physically within the music video. This can be achieved in many different ways , which can consolidate, extend, contradict or even ignore the lyrics completely. It works as a short story, that is told over the length of the song/music video and it will have the conventions of a story that the audience can follow. It can either be a direct and a literal expression of the lyrics, or it can be more interpretive, such as taking a lyric or a few and developing it more from that.
An example of this convention would be the band Panic! At the Disco and their music video of the song 'I Write Sins Not Tragedies', as this follows a story or a narrative based structure that relates to the lyrics in some sort of way. The story is as follows; it is a wedding scene of two people with different families. This relates to the lyrics at one set of lyrics say "What a beautiful wedding. What a beautiful wedding says a bridesmaid to a waiter". There is then lots of eccentric dancing as more people come in including the singer Brendon Urie, who is singing on screen. Then everyone is made to dance by the more eccentric group of people. The couple getting married then start arguing and everyone is laughing at them, as their marriage falls apart; some of the lyrics say "Closing the god damn door" - meaning to just leave and forget about it. The bride then storms out of the venue but is followed by another guy. Brendon Urie's character then talks to the groom through the song lyrics and then drags him outside. We then see the bride making out with another man and cheating on the groom. This also suits and matches to the lyrics as several times in the chorus or the end of a verse before the chorus the lyrics are "What a shame the poor grooms bride is a whore". This is then shown to be true at this part of the video. It then ends with more eccentric dancing and partying including the groom. The video and screenshots of the video showing the story are posted below.

Serrealist/Absurdist.
This section offers videos that are often surprising to the audience and it is often unconventional. Like the previous section it is also on a literal narrative based level. However, this time it relates very little and/or has little to no relationship with the lyrics themselves. A good example of this style would be Coldplay and their music video for their song 'Adventure of a Lifetime' (below).

As you can see from the screenshots I took from the video (below) and if you've watched the video, you can see the video has little to no relationship to the lyrics. The only relationship I can even begin to make to the lyrics and the video is this line in the song "Oh, you make me feel. Like I'm alive again.". These lyrics relate to the video because the band have been animated to look like apes in the wild; taking the fact humans were first 'born' from apes, so they are becoming 'alive again'. However, overall the lyrics have no relation to the music video, and I found when watching it, it actually distracted me from the lyrics as I tried to focus on the visuals instead and make sense of them, I also got distracted by the visuals because they are quite good and the video has been made and put together well. This means that I personally had to then listen to the lyrics and read them separately from the visuals so I could understand them. In this video there is also some product placement as the apes listen to the music through a Beats Pill speaker. Also each of the apes faces, through visual effects have been made to look like the band members faces as they are also playing on their own band instruments. So the music video can still be associated with the band but not with the actual lyrics to the song itself.

Impressionist.
This is similar to the previous section in the sense it takes on a different style towards music videos. These types of music videos focus on capturing the emotional feel and the tone of the music rather than establishing a solid relation to the lyrics and the video like in a narrative style music video. Resulting in a more 'artistic' form of music video. This relates to the 19th century art movement called impressionism, where artists such as Vincent Van Gogh painted how they felt and they put their emotions they got from the world around them into their paintings, rather than what it actually looked like. So just like this movement, Impressionist music videos use elements such as soft light; flowing and intermingling colors; and soft edges to create them. Allowing for the audience to feel the music emotionally and physically, alongside listening to the lyrics and taking them all in. A good example of an Impressionist music video would be by Ben Howard and the music video created/directed by Harvey Pearson for his (Ben Howard) song 'Oats In The Water' (below).

 As you can see in the video above and in the screenshots I took from the video (below), the shots are beautiful and simplistic to suite the feel and mood of the song. The shots are all in black an white which I think is the best thing for this video and I find it relaxing like the song itself. It also relates to the lyrics as some of the lyrics and the title itself is "Oats In The Water". This music video is exactly what an Impressionist video should look like because of it's simplicity and use of color and relaxing shots to really allow the audience to feel the music both emotionally and physically.

Intertextual: Synergy, Allusion, Pastiche, Parody and Homage.
These types of videos often reflect or reference different/other subjects. They can have reference to films themselves, and can often have actual scenes from the films they are about; this is known as Synergy. These type of music videos may also be used to allude to another media text, an event, a person or to any other culture or historical related event or reference. This can be light hearted or suited to another artist's style. Another war artists use these music videos is to pay a manor of respect to the influence of others, as a way of saying thank you to them or to their cause etc. This is know as Homage. This also suits to things like music video parody's that are often made to 'poke fun' to what the subject matter is. A really good example of a parody would be the ones made by The Hillywood Show (YouTube Channel). Their videos are made by the comedy duo Hilly & Hannah Hindi. Their parody's feature a popular song (sometimes re-written) and a dance number  for big blockbuster films and TV series such as 'Lord Of The Rings'; 'Harry Potter'; 'Twilight'; 'Sherlock'; 'Doctor Who' and 'Supernatural'. They get their funding from the website Patreon and they work with a who team of people and their costumes, make-up and acting skills are so incredible that in my opinion they are more than just parodies, they are also made to pay homage to what they're about. This is also because they also often involve actual cast members in their videos, and they have over 1 Million subscribers and it's only growing bigger. A good example of one of their videos would be their 'Supernatural' parody (Below). They did this video to the song 'Shake It Off' and they re-wrote the lyrics to suite the season of Supernatural where one of the main characters Dean Winchester suffers from the effects of the Mark of Cain and his brother Sam and best friend Castiel try to find a cure. But until then Dean just has to 'Shake it off'. So as you can see from the video and screenshots I took from the video (Below) that this video portrays some of the things that happen in this series to the characters and some of the groups of characters themselves and the lyrics have also been written to show this. Also in the video the actual cast of supernatural are featured in it.

Animation (Stop motion, Digital).

These are music videos that contain some form of animation within them. This can either be stop motion animation or it can be digitally created. Also the animation within the music video can last for the whole of the video or there can be aspects of animation dotted through it or in only one part of the video. A good example of a music video which features some digital animation would be by Five Finger Death Punch and their music video for their song 'Coming Down' (Below).

If you have watched the video and looked at the screen shots below you will see that not all the elements to this video have been digitally animated but some of it has. There is only one part which has been animated and you can tell the animation is digital by how it looks. This is not stop motion animation as it clearly hasn't been created by using models that move through a lot of quick takes. But has instead been created using a digital software to make the animation flow more freely and also opens up more opportunities to make it look a certain way.

As you can see in the beginning it starts with a digital animation effect for the title screen.

It then begins with some non animated/real footage.

Then at about the 3:00 mark is when the digital animation begins. As you can see it suits quite a grungy art style that is constant throughout and suits the band in term of what genre they are.

 Then the digital animation stops at about the 3:30 mark and goes back to the non animated/real footage, and stays like this until the end of the video.

What Techniques are used in Music Video Production?

LIP-SYNC - Miming and Playback.

This technique is used should the performance video require the artist to only mouth/mime the lyrics to look synced to the original track; this alludes the audience to think that are actually singing it rather that just mouthing the words. This technique is often used for more narrative based music videos as this style suits this technique better. For music videos it is often the speed of the song is altered when filming to show or allow the use of various effects; such as using slow motion footage alongside normal paced audio. An example of this would be in Carly Rae Japsen and the music video for her song 'I Really Like You' (Below).

If you have watched the video you can see that the famous actor Tom Hanks is the main focus of this video as he is lip syncing the song to the camera. In my opinion this is an example for when lip syncing goes wrong and doesn't work. As sometimes he is doing if halfheartedly and he is synced out of time with the lyrics and it doesn't look as good as it could have been. This is a hard technique to get right as the timings and the wording has to be exact with the music and lyrics and everything has to be exactly synced up with everything in order for it to look good and to work well as a music video.

EDITING.

Most techniques often come from how the video is edited. As most editors of Music Videos tend to edit them in wacky and interesting ways, sometimes in some cases, challenging the conventions of classic continuity editing.

Cutting to Beat.

This is pretty self explanatory in it's title. As this technique involves cutting your different shots to match the beat of the music. This helps to give rhythm to your edits and it allows for a more satisfying and engaging viewing process for the audience. A good example of where this technique has been used would be in Linkin Park's music video for their song 'Battle Symphony' (Below).
If you have watched the video and if you look at the screenshots I took from it (Below) you'll see that this music video does well to 'cut to the beat' of the music track.

 The image above cuts instantly on the beat and also the lyrics appear to the beat of when they are being sung. Such as what it has been shown to do in the image on the right.

 The image to the left and below are cut to the beat in a different way to also suite the lyrics. As after the lyrics on the right have turned in to saying 'THE LIGHTS' the image actually fades to black; signalling the 'turning down' of the lights. This is a good why to capture the audience and make them understand and read the lyrics instead of just listening to them.

 The image to the left and below also cut to the beat but in a different way to match the way those certain lyrics are sung. Such as the words 'BATTLE' and 'SYMPHONY' zoom into the shot to the same speed as they are sung (Left image).

 Then the lyrics slowly fade/dissolve out as these words are harmonized and and it matches the time it takes to sing them and how they are sung.

Post-Production Effects.

These are Visual Effects that can be used in music videos for a variety of reasons. one of which is to impress the audience into watching the video because of these effects and visuals. Another would be that often when using visual effects it can introduce the music and attract a slightly different audience if the effects are complex or interesting. however, this being said, the effects that are used should really suit the genre of music and the style of previous videos and the bands image otherwise it might make people who already listen to it, disinterested with it or decide they don't like or they wont listen to that music anymore. A good example of where this technique has been successfully used would be from the band Disturbed and their music video for their song 'The Light' (Below).

If you have watched the video and see my screenshots I took from it (Below) then you will see how the visual effects have been used well to attract and interest the audience and to suit the genre of the music.

In the shot to the left and below you see where fire has been used to create an effect. It is most likely they did uses actual fire but edited it to make it look bigger and more extreme as they couldn't film that close to a huge fire and have the actors in it be safe when filming.

 In the shots to the left and below it is most likely that this fire has been taken and added on digitally as it shows the actors (firemen) being swarmed and consumed by the fire. The reason you can tell it is digital as the camera wouldn't have been able to film this close to the mans face (below) and it would have been too dangerous to use actually fire this close to the actors.

Fire has been used again in the image to the left as the band are playing in front of a burning building. Real fire was probably created for this effect, as it is far away from them and is not a danger and it links in with the video to give it a good effect and to suite the tone of the music video and the song.

In the images above, left and below you can see that special effects make-up has been used to create the effect that the man featured in the video has actually been burnt and scarred by the fire he was trapped in, previously in the beginning of the video. This has a good effect on the audience as it makes them feel sorry for the man who also gets discriminated against for how he looks.

By the end of the video we see his scars slowly healing, again by using special effects make-up. Also he gets with a girl who doesn't discriminate against him, making the audience feel happy for him, and ultimately enjoy the video for it's good use of narrative as well as just the good visual effects.

Split Screen Effect.

This is an example of an editing technique. This idea uses several images of different things that are shown on screen beside one another at the same time. The is an old practice of projecting many images onto the same screen and alternating between them resulted in a panorama look to the final product. This is similar to Split Screen effect but it is know as the modern day equivalent as it is now non-linear editing which now makes this process a lot more efficient. A good example where the split screen effect has been used would be Olly Murs and the music video for his song 'Troublemaker' (Below).

If you have watched the video and if you look at my screenshots I took from it (below). Then you'll see that the split screen effect is used right at the beginning of the video. However, this technique is not used throughout the entire video, but is instead used at certain points in the video to suite what the narrative is trying to show the audience.

Chroma Key Effect.

This technique is used in several music videos and it involves footage for the video that is shot in front of a green screen or a blue screen. Then the unwanted block of color area behind is removed or 'chroma keyed' out so that in editing, the second image, layered behind it, is visible. A good example of where this was used to create a music video was in the bands Linkin Park and their music video for their song ' Castle Of Glass' (Below).

If you have watched the video and seen the screenshots I took from it (Below), then you'll see that when the band is seen on screen and glass is falling all around them that they used a green screen to get this effect. You'll also see the difference between what was filmed in front of a green screen and in real life in the video by what happens in the shots and the effects that are used. 

The images to the left and below I found using another video which showed how this video was filmed. As you can see, green screen has been used to create the effects you see above.

Camera Movements.
This is a technique that speaks for itself. It involves interesting ways in how the camera moves to film each shot to create flow and excitement and keep the audience interested and intrigued in the video. These shots can include using; pans; tracking shots; tilts; and crab shots. A good example of where camera has been used to a good effect would be Panic! At The Disco's music video for their song 'Emperor's New Clothes' (Below).

If you have seen the video and look at the screenshots I took from it (Below), then you'll see how smoothly and often the camera moves to add excitement and to help develop the music and the video. You'll also notice that not only have the shot types mentioned above have been used but just general freehand of the camera as well to add a sense of horror and change to the video as the music suggests is happening.

This first one to the left was a crab shot which ended with the revealing of this skull on the ground.

 This one to the right is a tracking shot which moved closer to the singers body on the ground.

This shot to the left is a pan shot which started at his shoulder then moved down to reveal his hand in the dirt.

This is a tilt shot which started at waist level and the camera didn't move as it just tilted upwards to reveal his stomach.

Camera Angles and Shot Types.

This is similar to the Camera Movements section. But this involves the various shot lengths and the angles of the shots. These techniques are used by filmmakers to create a visual meaning and set a tone within a media text. Using different types of shots and/or allowing for a wide spread of shot variation can also allow for more ways to show the audience better elements to the mise-en-scene. A good example of where camera angle and the shots have been used to advance the meaning of a video would be in Evanescence's music video for their song 'Call Me When You're Sober' (Below).

If you have seen the video and see the screenshots I took from it (Below). You'll see that several good camera angles have been used to give meaning to each shot and relate to the lyrics and the whole feel of the video. Also there aren't too many cuts between each shot as the shots are paced well to allow for a smooth viewing quality.

This shot on the left is used frequently in the video, and it is called a High Angle shot. This makes the person feel as if they are being 'looked down on' by someone who is 'better' than themselves. Such as the singer is in the story of this video at the start.

 This shot on the right is a Birds-Eye View shot. This shot is used to zone in from something and allow the audience to see something in an unnatural angle than what they are used to.

This shot to the left is an Over-The-Shoulder shot and it isn't necessarily an angle but it gives meaning to the shot and the story of it. It gives the audience a feel that someone is watching her all the time and she has to always look over her shoulder. It also lets the audience see what she see's in the mirror.

 The shot to the right is a Low Angle shot and it is used to make the audience feel small and that they are looking up at the person on screen. This is relevant to the story of the video as the singer is becoming stronger and gaining more power over the man.

The shot to the left is a Eye-Level shot and it is used just to give reality into a shot and to make it seem realistic and gives it a sense of normality. The man in shot looks confident in this shot. However in the one below you see his expression change but also the camera angle turns from and Eye-Level shot to a Low angle shot and he is looking up, showing his position has changed in the story line.

Mise-en-Scene.
This technique is used in music videos to create an effect on the audience. It involves using; Lighting; Objects; Settings etc. that can work with the music track to help influence and elevate the mood of the song and create; Desire; glamour; Passion; anger etc. that really intrigues the audience watching it. There is Mise-en-scene in every music video, although sometimes it is a more crucial element to creating the music video that others. A good example where the Mise-en-scene is crucial would be the band Linkin Park and their music video for their song 'Numb' (Below).

The Mise-en-scene is crucial in this video because on how well it relates to the lyrics. It tells the story of a girl who is discriminated against everything she does and she is always sad, never feeling like she is good enough and is friendless even at home with her family. I have analyzed the shots below.

"I'm tired of being what you want me to be" -

The girl is shown to be doing what she loves (art) rather than paying attention to the class.

"I've become so numb. I can't feel you there" - 

Everyone is walking around the girl in a blur like she can't see or feel them or be seen and felt by them.

"Every step that I take is another mistake to you"  
The mother of the girl is arguing with her, because the girl isn't going in the direction the mother wishes her to go in. Like everything the girl does in wring in her mothers eyes.

"I may end up, failing too" - 

She feels ashamed of her scars and feels like because she gave into the pain, that she has failed.

"You were just like me with someone disappointed in you" - 

She is standing behind her mum in this shot. Implying her mum used to be just like she is.

In the instrumental ending to the song. The girl is seen running into the church where the band were playing only to find they are no longer there. - It's like she is running towards what she wants and what was calling to her (The song and the band), only to find she was too late and it's no longer there.