A2 Media Advanced Portfolio Music Video

Question 1:

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

This is a significant moment in a previous video by Joy Mumford. We have used this section as an influence for our narrative. The letter the girl is holding is the same idea we had with our video where each prop resembles a memory. We felt this was a great idea of showing a memory and quite creative. A feature we really liked about the video was the miss-en-scene. They used a really desaturated look, which looks great, and gives that convention of an indie music video. The way they used lighting was good too, and we tried to accomplish the same sort of look by using fill lights.

We used the close ups of Joy as an influence of our camera work. The use of close ups, engages an audience and creates a more personal feeling with the artist and audience. We decided to challenge this somewhat with our video as in her previous video she would be looking away from the camera whereas we wanted her looking down the lens like a normal music video would be. Which again, creates a more personal feeling with the audience.

This video uses a lot of rack focusing and we did the same with our video, but in a different way. The use of the camerawork here is quite significant because it means, the focus can show where we want the audiences attention to be. For our video we used a dolly-slider, of which we moved along the the guitar, which was used to draw an audience in. We felt having a steadier and more interesting shot type would be much better visually and better for the speed of the song as apposed to hand held guitar shots.

At this point in the video, the actress is using another prop which signifies a part in the video. This is using shot reverse shot, and it's something we definitely used as part of our editing and camera work. We felt using this simple but effective technique gives us a lot of coverage which we needed and was very simple for us to edit with.

We used a similar shot to this, when our actress is thinking, before leaving the cafe. We felt this shot really signifies the emotion the actress must be feeling. The best way to show this was to use a close up to portray that emotion. Also, by using a shallow depth of field which this shot used, it really puts the focus on the actress only.

Overall, we feel this video definitely gave us ideas for how we could do our video. We really went with the general conventions of this video, in terms of; editing with shot reverse shot, colour correction & grading (giving that desaturated look, which is common in indie videos). Camerawork, in terms of using a lot of close ups to show the emotion our actress feels just like this video shows. Mise-en-scene, in which they used lighting in this video. It is very basic with fill lights which is all this sort of video needs, which again, is the general conventions of similar genres. Finally, our narrative was heavily influenced by this in terms of loss and moving on, which seems to be a generic theme which runs through the indie genre.

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In this video of "Home" by Gabrielle Aplin, there were many significant points where gained influences for our video and how conventions are the same. This shot here is showing the performer walking whilst there being a sunset. This particular shot really made us want a sunset for our video because of the really natural and professional look it gives to a music video. We did follow these same conventions in this clip, in terms of mise-en-scene of colour and lighting.

At this point the performer is holding a prop of some kind, which means something to her. It seems to be a general convention in this Indie genre, of which there is an item which has some kind of meaning. We decided to follow these conventions with our narrative. We also feel the camerawork in this section is really well done, giving that handheld feeling. Again, we used these same conventions as we feel it makes an audience feel like they're part of the video as apposed to having a simple stable shot.

In these scenes, we see a close up and mid shot of the performer. This is a very general convention in all types of music videos. Having a close up makes the video more intimate with the audience, however using a mid shot creates a distance which can resemble feelings, etc. We feel we used these conventions well with Joy and for our actress. By having a shallow depth of field, much like the one we see in these images, it gives us the ability to draw the audiences attention to the subject, we put in focus. We did challenge the typical stable shot though, which was used in these clips. We did this by using a slider and moving closer into our performer which ultimately gives a more intimate feeling.

In this clip, we have a personal favourite shot of mine, which is an establishing shot. I love the way mise-en-scene was used here in terms of lighting and the editing, for colour correction - giving that dreamy look. We felt we wanted this kind of long establishing shot, and we did use it in our park scenes with the sunset, which usually would create distance between the audience and actors, however by the way our actors were together, it created a much more natural feeling which we feel does draw an audience in.

We loved the style of this video and how simple it was, but how mise-en-scene & camerawork was used brilliantly to create a very professional looking video. We feel this does follow our conventions in terms of the very shallow depth of field for the actress/performer shots and the handheld footage. As said before, the sunset clips used in this video gave us inspiration to also get one for some of our shots because of the look and feeling it gives an audience.

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In this scene, we used general conventions we found from other videos. For example we used a shallow depth of field, much like the Gabrielle Aplin video where only the performer was in focus. We really liked this shot because the Christmas tree lights in the background not only brought colour to the shot but also gave it added production value, in terms of look. We felt using the mise-en-scene of lighting in this location really made this shot look more professional. Also the camera work of getting a close up with Joy looking down the lens, engages the audience as apposed to a long shot which distances the audience.

As guitar parts were a prominent part in the song, we had to make sure we included it. Instead of general conventions of a stable shot on the guitar, we wanted to challenge this and add movement which would give the video a much more professional look. We did this by using a dolly slider to go across the guitar as it's being played. This really added a lot of production value using this simple movement and makes an audience feel more involved, as there is movement.

As our props (rose, camera, teddy) were the memory triggers for our storyline, we had to make this quite obvious to an audience. Much like previous videos, they used a lot of close ups on important props, for example in Gabrielle Aplins', there was a close up of the feather and in Joys older video, a close up of the letter. We followed these same conventions, but to improve the shot we used many techniques. In terms of mise-en-scene, we wanted quite a dark but romantic feeling to this shot so we added a simple candle which sold this effect, also by simply cleaning the table and having the reflection also added value to this shot.

As mentioned previously, we wanted to use a sunset in our video, much like the one in Gabrielle Aplins' (where we were influenced from). We did accomplish the shots of having a sunset. We followed the same conventions of mise-en-scene for the sunset, giving it a really romantic feeling. We did challenge the conventions of a more stable shot, as we wanted the audience to feel more involved with movement, so we went handheld with the camera. Also, we used quick editing in post production so the shots felt even more realistic. If we were to change anything, we feel we probably use a shoulder rig because of the amount of shake, however for the particular shot we were going for, it sold it well.

We wanted to use a very interesting location for one of the date scenes for the narrative. Looking at other folk/indie videos, it actually is a convention of having interesting locations. We felt using the Christmas fair (as we were going for a Christmas theme) would work well. The merry go round clips were definitely interesting and looked very romantic (in terms of the narrative). The camera work and lens used - using a shallow depth of focus, gave a very professional look. For the editing we used medium paced editing and using shot reverse shot to get the most coverage.

With this extreme close up, we needed to get our actresses emotions (of her crying). Music videos in this sort of narrative, generally have an actress crying or being very emotional. To get the best shot and to really engage the audience, we used the extreme close up to make an audience emphasise with our actress. Having only the eyes of the face, mostly in focus, really makes the audience see our actress crying, which is again why we used the 50mm 1.8 lens.

Overall, we feel the video has turned out extremely well and we are happy with the great feedback received. Our influences from Joys older video and Gabrielle Aplins, really helped us in terms of narrative, camera work, mise-en-scene & editing. We tried our best to follow the conventions for example close ups to show emotion and engage the audience, using sunsets and dim lighting for the best feeling of the shot (e.g romantic). Using props which generate feelings for our narrative and in terms of editing, using shot reverse shots for the best coverage, and using the same type of colour correction for the genre (washed out - desaturated look). These conventions helped us shoot the best clips we could, however we did have to challenge conventions on some occasions for example instead of stable on-tripod shots, we used a lot more handheld camera movement for the sunset, to engage an audience and with the guitar, adding a slider for movement which not only creates an interesting shot but adds production value. Finally, after all these conventions and challenged conventions were used, we feel the video has turned out far beyond our expectations and is definitely worthy of a indie/folk music video.

This is our final music video. We originally had the format in .mov and this made our video very high quality. However, blogger only accepts .mp4 format therefore making this video above, bad quality.

We feel that this video is much better than our first edit for these main reasons; Our actor in this video portrayed emotion much stronger, we had more closeups and lots of shots of our performer looking at the camera to relate with the audience. We had no intro in this video so it goes straight to the music and you get into the video more, and finally we developed our storyline to make it strong enough to affect an audience emotionally (We left the graveyard scene until the end of the film to make the audience shocked at the unravelled mystery of what happens to the boy).

If we were to change things we would want more of a variety of shots of the performer, maybe in a different location and costume. We would have liked to have had more shots of the couple's first date however in our video the only suitable shots of them both laughing and enjoying themselves were the ones we used so we couldn't fulfil this memory with more shots but with little happy emotion from the actors. We think that some of the shots we have used have a little too much focus change but the video still looks fine with this, we just feel that it would look nicer with more clearly focused shots. If we were to be very picky about our video then we would say that some shots that were handheld could have been used on a tripod to look smoother.