I have just recently conducted my photoshoot in order to gain the images I will be using for my digipack and magazine advert.
I took photos of both me and my actress, as I am playing the part of the artist and she of course is involved in my music video (so it is vital she appears in my digipack/advert).
Some of the photos I took can be seen below:
I have not yet decided which, out of my many photos, I will use.
Let me know how all of your photoshoots are going in the comments and be sure to tell me how you think these photos turned out :)
After reading the comments on my blog about my first rough cut, one of the issues I decided to resolve was that of some shots in my music video being slightly grainy and dark, and therefore slightly hard to see. I have been resolving this issue through the use of the effects available in Final Cut Pro X.
I looked at all of the effects available under the "light" section, but after trying each effect out such as "aura" and "side lights" , I still did not get more visible shots.
I also looked into manually adjusting the colour, saturation and exposure of the shots, attempting to make it more visible, but while this did help somewhat, it was not ideal.
Luckily though I did find something that worked; I used the "match colour" utility to match the colours of the shots that were too dark to shots that were lighter, thus giving the darker shots a more lighted look overall and making the shots more visible than before, as you can see below:
BEFORE
AFTER
BEFORE
AFTER
In the after pictures, what you are seeing is the shot I wished to change on the right (which has now been changed) and the shot I colour matched it with on the left.
Anyway everyone, that raps it up for this post :) I'll be sure to post my second rough cut soon and be sure to tell me what you think of these changes (whether you think the shots are more visible or not) as I really value your opinions on my music video :)
Andrew Goodwin identified a number of features of music videos:
1. Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics (e.g. stage preformace in a metal genre music video, dance routine for boy/girl bands).
2. A relationship between lyrics and visuals (either illustrative, amplifying or contradicting).
3. A relationship between music and visuals (either illustrative, amplifying or contradicting).
4. 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)
5. There is frequently reference to the notion of looking (screens within screens, telescopes, etc.) and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body.
6. There is often intertextual reference (to films, TV programs, other music videos, etc.)
Now I am looking back to identify whether any of these features are present within my music video.
1. The genre of my music is acoustic and therefore I have created an acoustic music video. My music video demonstrates a number of genre characteristics. It uses clothing that are seen as normal/casual and not glamorous/showy. It uses long takes for the majority of the video. It uses "soft" editing (meaning the video is generally slow paced and doesn't use cuts such as "jump cuts"), and finally it uses locations that are quiet/isolated i.e. with little or no people in the shot besides the star of the music video. However my music video doesn't use both performance and narrative, which can be seen quite often in acoustic music videos.
2. Within my music video there is a link between the lyrics and the visuals.The link is that the place my actress goes to is the room she draws in, within the
video. The part which says "it is us I see" relates to the fact the actress has
drawn what are supposed to be her and her (ex) boyfriend. And finally, the part
which says the words "dream catch me when I fall, or else I won't come back at
all" relates to how the drawings make her feel better when she's sad, as it
seems otherwise she may remain heartbroken.
3. In terms of links between music and visuals there aren't many in my music video. When certain parts od the song enter and certain parts end, the visual change, but besides this there isn't anything notable.
4. Since my video used a male artist and only one person within the music video; a female, this means that my music video doesn't use a vast amount of time to show close-ups of the girl, as she is not the artist and therefore not so important to the task of raising awareness of the artist. Even though my artist doesn't have an active part in the music video, there is a small part where the girl looks at a picture of her with her ex-boyfriend, who happens to be the artist, therefore the motif I created is that my artist doesn't play major roles within his music videos, but has small cameo roles/appears somewhere with no major part (such as in the picture in my music video).
5. Within my music video the animations are seen taking an active interest in the girl's life, as they care about her since she created them as well as the fact they are kindhearted drawings that only aim to make her happy. My music video treats the female form in a very respectful way, as at no point is the girl seen in revealing clothing or shown trying to get the attention of the audience through seductive body language or suggestive lyrics within the song. This is quite a contrast to how music videos show women nowadays, but it also conforms to the acoustic music video genre, as acoustic videos are not seen showing off women in voyeuristic ways.
6. Within my music video the animation style I used was heavily based off of the Flash animations of someone who goes by the name of "BarfQuestion". He animates short cartoons that contain incredibly simple drawings (often a boy and girl) that always have a very cute quality to them. The cartoons he creates also have very cute stories and even though they don't use any speech, they don't need it, as the story explains itself by the end and always gives a heartwarming feeling to the viewer, as I and many others have experienced. Therefore my animations are an intertextual reference to "BarfQuestion". Also, the way my artist is part of the video but does not appear in a main role is an intertextual reference to the artist "Fatboy Slim", who appears in his music videos as supporting roles/background characters but never as a major role, thus causing fans to seek him out when watching his music videos.
Anyway guys and girls that's the end of this post :)
I hope you enjoyed my analysis of Goodwin's features of music video within my own, and I hope it helps anyone who is not sure what to do when looking at Goodwin's features of music videos in relation to their own music video.
In this post I am going to talk about representation, and then about the representation within my music video.
So what is representation?
To represent something is to portray it, as you are re-presenting it in some form or another, in this case through music video. All media are forms of representation though, not just music videos, and the people behind the representation all have their own beliefs, values and attitudes. This means that no representation is objective, since we all have our own views. The majority of media products reproduce dominant ideologies in the way they represent the world, which has actually led to minorities complaining that they have been misinterpreted by the media.
What is a stereotype?
A stereotype is a particular view of something, or perhaps most commonly, a group of individuals, that may often not reflect reality. For example, a stereotype for someone to adopt may be a belief that all men are stronger than women, when in reality we know this isn't true. Another may be that all people with black skin can run faster than people with white skin, but again this isn't true in reality.
Stereotypes can often offend the particular group they involve, as many stereotypes are negative, such as the one above about women, although this isn't the case the entire time.
As mentioned above, media products can have the ability to offend by mis-representing certain groups. Also, it is important to remember that while a media product can try hard to represent a certain group in a particular way, we still make our own decision as to what we take from media products. A good example of this is the music video for the song "Dirrty" by Christina Aguilera, which can be seen below:
Many would argue that Christina Aguilera is merely representing women as objects to be used to get more male viewers to watch music videos, thanks to elements such as their costume, although Christina Aguilera feels differently;
"OK, I may have been the naked-ass girl in the video, but if you look at it carefully, I'm also at the forefront. I'm not just some lame chick in a rap video; I'm in the power position, in complete command of everything and everybody around me. To be totally balls-out like that is, for me, the measure of a true artist" - Christina Aguilera
So clearly Christina Aguilera feels she is anything but an object, and feels she is the controlling force in her music video.
So what representations were there in my music video?
Within my music video there was one character, a girl. In the narrative we see her boyfriend break up with her and as a result she is very upset. Therefore the representation I gave was one that showed the girl in this relationship to be the less powerful. Clearly she cared much more for him than he did for her and as a result the break up is instigated by him and affects her to a great degree. This means of course that I represented the male as the more dominant, and by the way he breaks up with the girl (by text), much more cold in terms of character, whereas the girl is more warm, kind and quite innocent (as shown by her drawing of her and her boyfriend with a heart on the drawing). Although towards the end of the video the girl is actually represented as quite strong-willed, as she single handedly summons up the courage to return to the place where she was hurt and over the course of the video becomes more and more stable in terms of her emotions, contrasting the earlier representation of her as emotional and weak.
Were there any stereotypes in my music video?
Yes, within my video there were. The stereotype seen in my music video was the typical boy-girl relationship, ending with the boy breaking up with the girl, which is very stereotypical for relationships within music videos. The other sterotype was that women take break-ups very emotionally, as the girl in my music video is seen crying and running away from her troubles after the boy breaks up with her via text. Finally I would like to add that I also subverted a stereotype within my music video, this being that the girl in the relationship gets over the break-up relatively quickly and does so on her own, showing she is very strong-willed and independent. Even though the animations make her feel much better at the end, she overcomes the adversity mainly on her own, as she is only made aware of the animations support near the end of the video. This of course subverts the stereotype that women are very dependant on others and require the help of others to overcome the emotions brought on by being broken up with.
I hope you all enjoyed this post and now have a better idea of what representation and stereotypes are, as well as now knowing the representations and stereotypes within my music video.
Thank you everyone for commenting on my Music Video Rough Cut.
I have taken all your comments into account and will now look into the following areas:
Reducing the number of pauses in the animation sections of my video (by adding in more animation).
Look into effects and enhancements to see if any compliment my video.
Beside these there isn't any other things I would like to change. During the process of these tasks I may look at other transitions for the music video as well, although it is unlikely I will use any more as I am happy with that area of the music video as it currently is.
I will make a post of all the changes I have made soon.
Anyway, that's all for now everyone, see you all soon :D
I have now finished the rough cut of my music video, which can be seen below.
Keep in mind this is the first full version of my music video, and also keep in mind I will be sure to list any changes I've made to it when I post my final version of my music video.
I hope you all enjoy it. Be sure to leave plenty of comments on what you do and don't like :)
