Planning the Music Video by Researching Contemporary Music Video's

Music Video – The Content of Scenes

Studio Singing

I have decided that all the singing for my video will be done in a studio. This is because I want the song to be a narrative of a story which I will need actors to portray. I have found songs that use this same technique that there is more emphasis on close up shots and special effects like smoke machines, balloons and candles. I have also found that there is less movement in slow songs that use a studio, such as the video for Alexandra Burke – Hallelujah, who restricts her movement to her hands and head. However, the more lively songs that use a studio involve lots of; jumping around, dancers, balloons and colour, such as the video for MIKA – Love Today. I think that because the theme of the song I am using is quite serious and slow, it is probably more sensible to create a peaceful scene with barely any movement and focus on the lyrics of the song.
The props I have found other artists have used in their videos include; candles, smoke machines, air fans and a huge importance on the use of lighting.
Costumes of the singers in the songs that are of a slow nature are mostly quite classy. The women seem to be wearing luxury dresses and lots of jewelry, and the men look very slick in smart suits, like Robbie Williams in the “Millennium” video.
The shots of these slower natured songs in the studio scenes are more likely to include more close up shots on the singers face, the instruments being played at key times and high and low angle shots of the band together. I have found that the music videos that do use a simple mid-shot for the studio scene are very short as this would bore viewers; the majority of the slow songs still use a variety of shots to maintain interest.

Flashback scenes

There are a range of flashbacks the video could go to, however for the research I am looking very generally at all areas before I can begin to narrow my research to fit the scenes I have chosen to do. I have looked at
I want the flashbacks to tell a story of the cancer victim’s life at school. I feel as though it would be too broad to include parents, siblings, pets and home life in one short video. Also it is difficult for me to get video footage of the cancer victim’s life at home pre-school because I cannot go back in time! I have looked at the layout for Alicia Keys video for “No One” and found that most of the time in the video is spent on her singing, I stop watched the video and found that 2:34 seconds of it was taken up by her singing alone and the other 58 seconds were of acting or close ups of the piano. This shows that the “Divas” that sing the high ballad songs seem to have more camera work on their singing than of the message or the acting that represents the song. I think that it is important to have a narrative to go along with the song because I feel as though viewers need to maintain interesting throughout the video otherwise they will simply turn it off, therefore I have come to the conclusion that most of the video’s time proportions will be of the acting and only a ¼ will be of singers in the studio. I have found that interesting and different camera work is important when filming because this is a method of retaining the viewer’s interest.

The image of my band is a traditional girl group, but with a special meaning and don’t sing about traditional issues like boys, make-up and shoes. I want the girls to be a good role model for all youngsters, they will wear sensible clothing so that the boys see them as individuals and not sex objects like many young girls are portrayed nowadays in music videos.


Theme

I have looked at music videos from a range of themes and can honestly rule out now the rock and drum and base genres. I found that they were very niche in audience suitability and is something I personally don’t feel that engrossed in. The dance music genre I think alienates other groups of audience too much. It is heavily based upon young thin girls dancing around with barely any clothes on and focuses too much on trivial issues like cars, make up, clothes and image rather than focusing on character and substance. This has influenced me to focus my music video on something that is substantial in society. I found the RnB video by Ciara quite promiscuous and similar to the dance video it focused on lighthearted issues like clothes and unsuitable dancing for a general audience. The Hip Hop video was similar to the RnB video in that it was about coming down for a party and showing off lots of expensive cars and jewelry. My favorite video of the bunch was definitely Pink’s “I don’t believe you” which focused on a bride who has been jilted. The mood was very sad and related to the song lyrics and tempo. I have definitely been influenced by this video to focus on something sad in society and make it very substantial and important to everyone’s life, but give it a youthful perspective to keep a youthful audience.
In conclusion I think that my theme will be of a terminal disease like cancer because it can reach so many people, the video will be sad and will use props such as candles and have a narrative flow story like in Taylor Swifts country video.