Main Task - Ideas for Shoot

Main Ideas:

Draft/initial idea storyboards

• Performance based music video
• Performance and narrative based music video

Main Task - Lyrics Analysis - 'Wasting Time'

(click to expand)

Main Task - Chosen Song - Littlewing 'Wasting Time'

Main Task - Mood Board

Main Task - Chosen Artist - 'Littlewing'

For our music video we chose a band who were easily accessible:

'Littlewing'
3-Piece Alt-rock band from Bucks
'Barricades' EP
Annie Needham - Guitar / Vox
Joe Humphrey - Drums
Nick Morgan - Bass / BV's
(( Lewys Blore - Alto Sax / keys/ BV's ))

In this way, I wanted to ensure that the band would be willing to be in the music video - since we were keen to do a mostly performance based video - and would be happy to use their music for our piece. The reason why why chose this track was perhaps becauase it is quite light hearted, and since we knew were going to be completing production in summer, weather conditions would (hopefully) be nice and thus, reflective of the light-hearted song.

Main Task - Initial Ideas

Andrew Goodwin's Theory

Goodwin's key features applied to music videos:

• Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics, for example, a stage performance in metal video or a dance routine for boy/girl band.
• There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals: either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting.
• There is a relationship between music and visuals: either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting.
• The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close-ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work (a visual style).
• There is frequently reference to the notion of looking (screens within screens, telescopes, etc) and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body.
• There is often intertextual references (to films, TV programmes, other music videos, etc).

All these features will be useful towards the assemblement of making our music videos and analysing the key conventions which are conveyed in them overall.

Editing in Music Videos

Editing

The process of manipulating and rearranging video shots to create a new work. Editing is usually considered to be one part of the post production process — other post-production tasks include titling, colour correction, sound mixing, etc.

Match on action -matching on action refers to film editing and video editing techniques where the editor cuts from one shot to another view that matches the first shot's action.

Shrinking time - throughout a music video time can be shrunk depending on the pace of the track. This can be completed through using quick cuts and even speeding up the image.

Expanding time - similarly to 'shrinking time' time can be 'dragged out' and expanded through slowing down the image.

Finding the rhythm - rhythm in a music video can be established through having cuts on the beat of the music, or on the drum etc.

Types of music videos:

Narrative - A video that features a visual story that is easy to follow. Narrative music videos can also use diegetic sound, particularly if there is dialogue between a few characters. Perhaps a good example for a narrative music video is 'Money' by Peace:

Concept - Concept videos are usually based around a single idea or concept and are often unusual or even surreal for the audience. This unusual content often draws the audience in and is attractive to them. They often have no storyline and sometimes no relation to the lyrics of the music itself. The perfect music video for demonstrating a completely pointless but utterly brilliant music video is OK go's 'Here It Goes Again':

If there was any other music video that embodies what a concept based video should be, it is this one.

Of course, music videos do not all have to fit in one category/type. An example of a performance and concept based music video is Vampire Weekend's 'Cousins' which displays the band performing while on a set of train-like tracks:

Performance - A performance based video shows the artist/band/group performance throughout the song and sometimes can play throughout the whole video. This type of video is good to use on a lower budget. Swim Deep's 'Honey is a good example:

There are three main types of music videos: narrative, concept and performance. Depending on the type of music video, which can be a 'hybrid' of the two or even all three, editing can be different. For example, match on action is perhaps more important when creating a narrative based music video, whereas in a performance based video this is not as important. In this way, many music videos are narrative/performance based, concept/performance or all three. Another example of this is Noah and the Whales 'Life is Life':

Synaesthesia

Synaesthesia
noun
The process of picturing sounds in the mind's eye.


"A film that responds to the pleasures of music, and in which that music is made visual, either in new ways or in ways that accentuate existing visual associations."

- Andrew Goodwin (1992) - Dancing in the Distraction Factory

We completed an exercise in class in which we listened to the music alone, without any visuals, and had to draw what we 'saw' through the music.  Firstly we listened to 'For Your Love' by Josh Record. The music to me seemed quite romantic and so, stereotypically, I drew a starry sky above a busy city. To be it seemed like a very John Green 'Fault in Our Stars' kind of romanticism and so the influence for my drawing definitely stemmed from almost the reverse of the film poster or the moment in the book where they lie on the ground gazing at the stars, totally in love.

Surprisingly, the actual music video was a little different to what I envisaged. Instead it was still centered around the theme for love or perhaps, in my opinion, obsession as the male character watches the female love interest. Maybe the reason for my visualisation of the music video was different as I only listened to just the music rather then the lyrics. The main lyric that did stick out however was 'For Your Love', the title of the song.

Secondly we repeated the task just with 'Intro' by the xx instead. This time it seemed to really work accurately since I almost imagined the whole music video correctly. Similar features were present in the official music video which I had not even previously seen. Some reason the music just reminded me of being in a car at night, while looking at all the street lights as they flew past. It also made me think of dark alleyways, barley lit with ominous looking people down them.

Matching Visuals to Sounds vs Matching Visuals to Lyrics

The importance of matching visuals to sounds perhaps is the most essential thing in a music video since if you were to have an upbeat song matched with dark visuals it may seem unusual an a little confusing. Unless the director is trying to draw juxtapositions, it very rarely comes out effectively. However, matching visuals to lyrics is arguably more important despite it not being necessarily the first thing the audience would notice when initially listening to the track. But I think it should equally be given the chance to have the same importance as sounds which inevitably takes over most of the time.

An example of matching visuals to sounds is in Years & Years' 'King' video whereby approximately in the middle of the music video all the bass and drum drops out, leaving just the lyrics and keyboard as the lead singer falls into water, leaving him engulfed by blue and bubbles. Compared to the rest of the video where there are contemporary dancers clinging on to the lead singer, this seems very 'mild' and in this way the visuals effectively match the sounds by becoming less 'manic' in this part of the video as the sounds/music becomes less 'manic'. Equally at this point the lyrics state 'let go' as the lead singer it 'let go' into the water below. Similarly, the chorus lyrics of 'I was a King under your control' is matched to the visuals through the band being 'controlled' by the dancers who cling to them thus, I think it is just as important to match visuals to lyrics as it is to match sounds to visuals. The Years & Years 'King' video is a narrative/concept/performance based video.

The lyrics similarly match the visuals in Catfish and Bottlemen's 'Cocoon' music video whereby as a narrative based video, the main story line revolves around a mental institution and a small love story which restricted by their situation, thus the two are forced apart and metaphorically 'cocooned' by the workers at the mental institution who prevent them from being together. Also, during the last chorus, the music gets louder as it reaches the climax of the story (when the main boy and girl get together). In this way, this emphasises the importance of matching sounds to visuals.

Perhaps a more iconic music video, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ by Queen demonstrates the importance of matching sounds to visuals. At the beginning of the music video there is a choir-like and classical sound to the music which is reflected in the visuals through the band being in a similar position to how a choir would sounds however, through the use of ‘dramatic’ lighting you can only just see the outline of their faces which could also be representative of the bands ‘rock’ roots. Thus, as the song gets more ‘rocky’ it switches from this more classical shot to performance, with mostly green/red lighting, compared to the black and white ‘choir boy’ section which vastly contrasts. Another example of matching visuals to sounds in this music video is when there are more voices in the song, more faces appear in shot, reflecting the sound quite directly. Equally, the lyric ‘I’m just a poor boy, I need no sympathy’ matches the ‘choir boy’ aspect of the shot and also reflects perhaps the innocence of both the lyric and the shot as the shot is quite innocent through the basic lighting and basic black and white colouring. However, the fact that it is black and white could also add to the fact that they are a 'rock' band and therefore having just the outlines of their faces makes the band have a very memorable image rather than just imitating the 'choir boy' aspect the band collectively need to create an image which will stay in people's minds.

The importance of matching visuals to lyrics could be less important in Duke Dermont’s ‘I Got U’ music video which is a narrative based music video whereby the concept of the video revolves around a virtual world which is created and the main boys goes on ‘an adventure’ through various places on a mini holiday, whilst still being in the comfort of his living room. The majority of the video is shot in a point-of-view shot, reflecting his virtual ‘reality’.