3 types of music video

Purpose of music video

From the recommended choices of brief, Beth, Eboni and I have decided go with the music approach. We are all affiliated with old as well as modern music whilst we thought that picking a film based task may be too similar to the piece that we produced last year in A2 media.

Our ancillary tasks involve the production of a digipak as well as magazine advert for a particular artist(s) however, the main task is to produce a music video which is worth the most marks.

Music videos designed for both the audience and the band/artist themselves. They are made alongside audio pieces however, some artists do not always release the music video straight away with the song or even at all. The majority will make a video though to convey a message to the audience in relation to the audio that is played over it. A video will promote the artists and bands but in particular the track itself whilst the content will generally integrate song and imagery which is produced for promotional or artistic purposes. The common idea is to sell the song and to encourage the audience to remember. An example of a music video like this is Beyonce- Single Ladies.

Audience Feedback Ideas

Before we begin our work for the production of our main task, as a group we must decide on a genre for the music video so that we can produce it with a general target audience in mind. The most likely ways that we are going to carry out this feedback will be through a focus group and a questionnaire. We learnt the characteristics of a conventional questionnaire so that when we come round to creating one, it is the most effective that it can be.

The research that we conduct will be mainly qualitative which will include peoples: opinions, thoughts and ideas. A focus group is an effective example of this form of research which we will use to inform us of the sorts of features an audience will like in a music video. I have looked over the information of what a focus group tends to include so that we can choose the right sorts of people to set it up and produce an effective form of research. The key features were that they: lasted for around 10-15 minutes, are led by a skilled moderator, used 6-10 people for feedback and were pre-planned with pre determined questions. 

In lesson, we have also learnt about the structure of the focus groups and the procedures that we need to follow in order for it to be legitimate and professional. For our initial ideas, the group and I decided that we would carry out various focus groups in school with year 8 pupils, year 10 pupils and Sixth form pupils. This range of ages will give us a better idea about our genre of choice and what types of things different people like to see in music videos which will be very helpful information for us to improve and create more ideas.

Indie rock research and conventions

Indie rock is a genre of music that I am very fond of and that I would personally like to base my coursework brief on. Obviously this is not a certain choice as I must confer with Eboni and Beth over which genre to do as it will be a group decision that we will work on over a number of months.

Indie rock music has become very popular in recent years with many up and coming bands that fall into this genre. It has however, been around in the United Kingdom since the 1980's and can include various sub genres such as: Indie pop, Indie folk and indie dance. A conventional indie rock band would include instruments including: Guitar, bass, drums, keyboard and vocals. Indie rock comes from the word independent to describe the low budget record labels that indie rock bands are assigned to.

As for conventions, indie rock music videos tend to be set in easy access locations such as: cities, parks, open land or studios. There is a lot of variety from band to band however, they tend to keep it simple because these types of bands tend to focus more on the artist or performance. Mise en scene is used in this genre to portray the narrative better whilst the members of the band or characters in the video will dress with a retro edge to them to respect fashion and culture when the genre first came about. An example of an Indie Rock band who do this are The Arctic Monkeys.

Props used in this genre of music only tend to be the instruments that are used to create the sound of the music in the video. Some of the time, indie rock bands choose to set the video as a performance of the band playing a live show to avoid overcomplicating their message and to show the audience a taste of what they do best. In recent years however, it has been a popular choose to include a narrative between the shots of these performances.The Stereophonics are an example of a band who mix performance with narrative for the music video to show off the band playing as well as portraying a message. Other bands prefer to tell a common story or a journey as the narrative so the audience can relate more to the lyrics and the meaning of the song alone without a performance. An example of a band who make this different type of video is The Courteeners.

  

The most common camera shots for Indie rock videos 

are close ups and mid shots to show the audience the members of the band or characters in the narrative. The close ups highlight the talents of the singers and instrument players which can also portray the and emotion during performance. This is evident in the Kaiser Chiefs' video for their song Coming Home.Otherwise, if the video is narrative based as a story then various shots can be used including:establishing shots, wide shots and long shots.

                                           Music videos for this genre are edited differently as some may cut to different shots quickly in order to keep up with the pace of the music. For a forceful and emotion song with lots of instruments this may be the case however, some can be slower. Effects are commonly placed over the top of the original video to create a classical or old fashioned, sad feeling. This is clearly evident in Catfish and the Bottlemen's video for Pacifier.

Personal Preferences

In terms of the genre of music video that we as a group are going to create, we must choose wisely to pick the genre that will be most effective to carry out whilst having all of the professional qualities that are required. I have seen many different music videos from a range of genres and so I am fairly confident of what is required from each type of video. The content in music videos can differ depending on this and the type that I prefer are the videos that have a narrative and tell a story to the audience. This would mean choosing a song with meaningful lyrics that match the events taking place in the video. My preference of this would suggest that I may prefer more indie/alternative genres as other areas such as pop have a more catchy tune purely to get into the heads of an audience. I would like the audience for my product to have felt emotion throughout the video and to feel that the music as well as the video has had an effect on them. An example of a video that effectively does this is 'Ready by Kodaline'.

This is a very emotional video which constantly has the audiences attention as it tells a very powerful story about this particular person. The lyrics of the song match perfectly with what the video is trying to show the audience and so it is a very effective piece of media. This type of music video is similar to what I would like to create because I am more fond of the text being powerful and moving for the audience rather than just being catchy and joyful in order to become popular in the mainstream charts. It is a very inspirational video which has beautiful music alongside it and if I could create something similar to this with Beth and Eboni then I would be very happy.

Task Choice

Of the 15 briefs that were proposed to the group, we were advised to pick from one of the 4 tasks that would be most appropriate. These were: a music video, a film trailer, a children's TV drama or a short soap opera. My instinctive choice was the music video as I felt that it was a little different from last years title sequence that I creative and that it was an opportunity to try another type of task that is still realistic to be able to create. In media lessons we have learnt a little more about the film trailer option and the music video option where we looked at and analysed some existing products. The music video stood out here as I believe it will allow myself and the others to be a little more creative with a different task in comparison to the one that we created last year in AS Media. To ensure that we would choose this option, Beth, Eboni and I made a SWOT analysis of (Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) of the 4 recommended products to see which brief would be the most realistic and enjoyable to create. The music video had the least threats and provided us with the most opportunities to create a successful piece and so was the most likely brief.

As a group, the decision to choose the music video as our main task was unanimous as we were all keen on choosing something a little different in terms of the music video and the opportunities that we would have within it. During GCSE Media, I had the chance to create my own band which included a website, an album cover and a tour poster which I can effectively relate to the task that we have chosen this year. From this experience, I already understand the conventions of a typical album cover however, I need to expand on this knowledge as our ancillary task is a digipak which includes all aspects of the album and not just the outside covers. I have an idea of locations that we could use for the digipak and the poster from my GCSE work and so I will be able to share these ideas when we come together and discuss the pre production work. I have never however, created a music video and therefore I will need to look into the conventions of these much more so that our final piece can look professional and of good quality with our edge to it.