Making the music video is one thing but having to thinking about the moving image is one what makes the music video what it is. When creating the music video, i didn't realise the amount of thought that had to go behind developing it. For my music video, i had used many media conventions that i could to see if i could make it as professional as possible and after doing the research in these areas I realised what techniques would be needed to get into the area of it being professional.
Firstly, there is the camera; this mainly consists of the movement and the positioning of it. With the movement, i decided it would be best at most times to keep it stationary so the audience could get a good look at the artist in the video and identify the conventions we had that related him to the chosen genre. The scene at the end consists of movement and this is the only scene in which there is movement and it relates to the story of the song that is being shown. Camera shots were also important for the video as it will show the artist in different locations and reveal more with what is happening in the song. It allows the audience to get a better view of the artist so they can see what the creator intended for them to see, without trying to show anything to show it is a music video e.g. showing the objects to create the music video. We used a variety of shots in the music video for different reasons. One shot we used is an long shot, and this was done mainly for the fact to show the artists location because doing our research allowed us to see the different locations and conventions used in a hip hop music video and we wanted to copy this fact and so used a long shot to show the setting. We also used a close ups and extreme close ups to show the expressions of the artist as this was vital for the story in the music video and also the fact that the artist is singing so it tells the audience who the artist actually is. In the final scene of the video, we use a low angle shot to show the artist moving on from him drinking and walking into the sunset. Then, like this kind of shot, we used eye level shots again to show the expressions of the artist which will allow the audience learn what is happening the video.
Editing is the process of showing different scenes in the music video and the most common type of editing in my music video is straight cut, which just goes from one shot to another and allows the audiences eye to look at one point of the video and then in the next shot they'll see the next thing the creator wants them to see. We didn't use any other type of fancy shots in the music video due heavily to the genre of the music video. With hip hop being quite a strict and straight forward genre, this is what we wanted to do with ours and also it is quite a serious genre as well as music video so keeping it basic with the editing techniques was the best thing to do.
Lighting is highly important in music video because it allows the viewer to be able to see what is happening. Again linking with the genre of the of the music video as it is quite strict and straight forward, we wanted the lighting to bring this across also; for this then we made the lighting quite dark and did a lot of the filming at night time so it would be dark and have a bit of lighting to create a shadow effect. For example, on the scene on the rooftop, we used the car lights on the artist to make him stand out. Other than this we used low key lighting which is light purposely chosen to create the darkness that we wanted. As we wanted it to be quite dark and shadowed, we chose lighting to create this as in the video it always shows that it is night time in the background.
With sound, we had the music video in the background and just used lip syncing so most of the sound that occurred was the music and this is known as non- digetic sound. However, there is the start scene and the final scene which uses synchronous sound as in the beginning scene, the gears are changed and this can be heard in the music video. This was done this way because we wanted to show the driver moving off and using this to represent that action. Then in the final scene there is the air that can be heard and as the artist is outside this is also synchronous sound. Another area where different sound is used is when the artist is speaking but he cannot be seen in the shot. This is known as Off Screen sound and was done to give the audience better knowledge of the story and what the artists views were.
Mis-En-Scene was vital in the music video due to us using it to represent the genre we were making the music video in even if the audience could not hear the song. The first thing we thought about was costume and tried to dress the artist up to make him look as if he was from the hip hop area, for example using a black New York hat with a black hooded jacket; although this can be seen of as being a stereotype, it is an easy was for the audience to recognise the genre of the song. In other shots, we wanted to him to seem wealthy and dressed him up a bit smarter but with the same hip hop feel and did this in order to link with the story. The locations used were also done to link in with the genre of the song; after we had done our research and analysed the conventions in a hip hop music video regarding location then we tried to copy this, for example the artist in front of a large building. Another thing we used in the video, were props and this was done to link in with the story, for example we used a big white car to show wealth and then a bottle of alcohol to show depression. Therefore, the props that we used were merely for the audience to understand the video better. Casting was another major element we had to think about as we wanted to link it with the genre of the music video. Again we used stereotypes to choose the artist and dressed him up to make him link as much to the genre as possible. Finally, there is the acting done by the artist, i.e. body language and as we had a story behind the music video we needed the artist to use things like body language and facial expression to convey this (hence the extreme close up shots with the camera).
