Hi and welcome to my blog where you can see the research, planning and pre-production work of a new music video for Daft Punk's Around The World.You can also find on here sample footage, rough cuts, behind the scenes and other vodcasts, weekly podcasts, and ongoing reflection on the process. Please use the links list provided to quickly find what you looking for!
We decided to cut to the beat in our edit for Brown Paper Bag because it is a fast paced song with a. We did this and increased shot variation by adding jump cuts, always going back to the same framing every other shot.
We added a fisheye effect to one of the clips because it is a convention used in music videos when a person leans in towards the camera. It also adds a feeling of unease. It was easy to access and add to our video.
We also played around with the speeds and played some shot in reverse. This fitted well with the music and made the video more interesting.
Retime Clips
The lighting wasnt very interesting and didn't reflect the style of Chris Cunningham, so we changed this in Final Cut Pro X using effects. We added a night vision effect to one clip and changed colours and lighting to some others to add to the impact of the video and reflect the style of Cunningham more. There are more effects on Final Cut Pro X and they are easier to find and apply than in Final Cut Express or iMovie. You can also change the settings of each individual effect which means we can change the intensity of an effect on a clip and other settings. This means that we can easily add selective effects to our footage which would be especially useful in pop videos or metal where you want to create a certain mood.
For the Directors Challenge we had to research a music video director and their style, and come up with a music video idea to produce using that directors style. I researched Michel Gondry and have come up with a video idea that uses his style.
I have chosen to make a video for the song All I Wanna Do by Splashh, which would start at 1 minute 27 and last approximately 30 seconds. My idea incorporates ideas used by Gondry in other videos, as stated.
It begins by following the singer walking down a street. By holding two cameras next to each other, then editing the two videos transitioning into each other it can create an effect like in Like a Rolling Stone by The Rolling Stones (1:02).
The singer then walks straight past a guitarist who is standing on the street. Guitarist recorded three times playing guitar on street in front of a wall - once on the left of the screen, once in the center of the screen and once at the right. This is then edited together so it first shows him on the left, then shows him in the middle while the first one is still playing, then on the right, so three shots of the guitarist are on screen at the same time. This is similar to in The White Stripes Hardest Button to Button.
Cuts away to people on stairs in different coloured plain t-shirts hitting the railings to the beat (as in Mia Doi Todd Open Your Heart) and then Tom walks down the stairs behind them wearing his bear head (like the bear in Beck's Cellphone's Dead). People on stairs follow on behind him.
Shot transitions – Gondry uses interesting shot transitions which are hard to describe but look like one shot is warping into a very similar shot. A way we could create a similar effect would be to record using two cameras that are right next to each other then edit them together with transitions in Final Cut.
Bullet time – Bullet time is used at some points in the video. Although we wouldn't be able to recreate this, the closest we could get would be for everyone in the scene to freeze while the camera moves around them.
Paul McCartney – Dance Tonight
Ghost effect – The ghosting effect is one of the most important and interesting parts of this video. Gondry probably used a green screen for the 'ghosts' and edited them in to the main shots. We could create a similar effect though by keeping the camera on tripod, filming the scene once normally, then again with different action. If we made sure no action was taking place in the same position on screen in each shot, we could use layering to lower one of the shot's opacities to create the ghosting effect.
The White Stripes – The Hardest Button to Button
Pixilation – From Wikipedia: ‘Pixilation is a stop motion technique where live actors are used as a frame-by-frame subject in an animated film, by repeatedly posing while one or more frame is taken and changing pose slightly before the next frame or frames. This technique is often used as a way to blend live actors with animated ones’. I think we could use this by filming a continuation of an action in a different position in the shot then using the tools in Final Cut to edit them into a pixilation effect.
Charcters are use to represent the instruments. For example the people in Around The World who walk up and down the stairs represent the bass guitar, when it goes up they go up the stairs and vice versa.
[on his films] Most of Gondry’s ideas seem to spring out of romantic turmoil or joy (or both). “The Science of Sleep” is based on a broken love affair; “Eternal Sunshine” is inspired by another. “It’s probably childlike of me,” Gondry said. “When people want to criticize me, they call me puerile.
In 1988, Gondry was playing drums in a moderately successful band called Oui Oui, and he began making stop-motion animation videos to promote the group’s second album.
Gondry uses his low-tech version of special effects to enhance the drama in his videos and movies, never just for show.
If I was redoing last years coursework video I would have added more shot variety and filmed more as we used quite a lot of the takes we had for multiple layering, so were left with some long takes. I also think we needed to give clearer directing as we had to use multiple layering last year to compensate for the acting. We also needed some more diegetic sound to add to the realism.
The music video for OutKast's Hey Ya! uses intertextuality from The Beatles appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964 which makes it a postmodern video. The video begins backstage where there is diegetic sound of the manager talking to Andre 3000, then the band goes on stage and performs the song. A family is also show watching and dancing to the performance on TV, which the screen shown is in black and white but the rest of the video is in colour. Each band member is played by Andre 3000.
B&W TV Screen
The song was performed and filmed 23 times which allowed the video to have a lot of shot variety. The video combines performance with narrative and the setting switches between backstage, the stage and the family watching the performance on TV.
Band
The audience are also shown who are a representation of OutKast's primary target audience. They are all female and predominantly black, older teenagers/young adults. The audience is very similar to the one of The Beatles performance on The Ed Sullivan Show as they are excited and jumping and screaming.
The narrative for the Girlfriend music video is that there are two females, both played by Avril Lavigne, one with a boyfriend and one who wants to go out with the other girls boyfriend. The two girls intimidate each other until eventually the boy is won over by the originally single girl. The narrative is an interpretation of the songs lyrics. The single girl is represented as a rocker, connoted by her black hair, black clothing and accessories as well as her attitude. The boy is similar to this in appearance. The other girl however has ginger hair, wears glasses and boring, plain clothing which connotes her personality as being boring and intellectual.
Couple
Rocker
Girlfriend was the first video ever to reach 100 million views on YouTube. There is also performance footage of Avril Lavigne and backing band members. It is filmed in a large studio and has three backdrops styled with Avril Lavigne's skull logo.
The Papa Don't Preach music video combines narrative, set in New York where Madonna plays a tomboy, juxtaposed with performance where she is alone in a large dark room and looking glamorous. In the video Madonna meets a guy, gets pregnant and struggles to tell her father who she is shown to be close to, but does tell him and he eventually accepts it and hugs her. The visual narrative of the video corresponds directly to the song lyrics.
Glamorous Madonna
Tomboy Madonna
At the start of the video there is a different shot of the same location in New York for every beat, which I think works effectively for this song as the beats at the start of the song are so prominent.
The video was directed by James Foley who also directed Madonna's Live to Tell. The two videos are very similar in style, most noticeably in the performance where Madonna is in a dark large room singing alone.
The Here It Goes Again music video is just one continuous take, and shows the band members of OK Go doing a dance routine on eight treadmills. The video was filmed 17 times to get it right.
The dance routine was choreographed by Trish Sie, who is the sister of OK Go front man Damian Kulash. The original video was taken down from YouTube and re-posted, but has in total received around 65 million views to date. The video was praised for its creativity, winning the 2007 Grammy Award for Best Short Form Music Video and the 2006 YouTube Award for Most Creative Video. Because of this the video has been reproduced many times, both by fans and TV shows such as The Simpsons and Big Brother.
The music video for Wide Awake begins with the end of the filming for Katy Perry's California Gurls video. Katy Perry goes into her dressing room, which turns into a fantasy world which she walks through and explores, eventually meeting a girl who turns out to be her as a young girl. Her younger self puts something in Katy Perrys hand. She 'wakes up' in her dressing room, opens her hands and a butterfly flies out. She then goes on stage and begins to perform Teenage Dream. The most prominent aspect of the video is the use of FX. It helps to add to the fantasy theme of the video as there are lots of sparkles and fairy tale style effects.
FX adds a sense of fantasy
There is a lot of intertextual reference to Katy Perry's other songs and videos in this music video. Firstly there is the continuation of the California Gurls video at the start, she punches a prince who shows affection for her which is a reference to Part of Me and she begins to sing Teenage Dream at the end of the video.
Punching the prince is one of the many references to her other songs and videos
The fantasy style is further emphasised through the use of location and mise-en-scene. She enters a labyrinth where there are a lot of flowers, she has purple hair and wears a purple dress.
Mise-en-scene helps to create the mood of the video
The videos visuals relate partly to the lyrics as she sings about wishing she knew what she knows now when she was young, and in the video she meets her younger self.
The video combines performance and narrative in the same scenes. The band members of Bowling For Soup feature in the video and after seeing the woman who lives across the road who is still immersed with 1985, go into their garage and play the song dressed as 80s musicians.
Bowling For Soup as Robert Palmer
The video is full of intertextual references which is postmodern. The lyrics mention a lot of 80s bands and films. When playing in the garage they reference Robert Palmer's Addicted To Love, George Michael's Faith and finally Whitesnake. The woman in the video is Tawny Kitaen who used to date the lead singer of Whitesnake and appeared in some of their music videos. When Bowling For Soup are dressed as Whitesnake, Tawny Kitaen gets on the Jaguar as she did in the video Here I Go Again.
Jaret Reddick as George Michael
Tawny Kitaen could be there for the male gaze. There are several shots of just her body and this is mostly supported at the end of the video when she is on the car. It could be argued though that she is there for the intertextuality so is an important character in the video.
Tawny Kitaen on Jaguar
The visuals are connected to the lyrics a lot through the video. The main theme of the video is the mid 80s, which is also what the song references.
Bowling For Soup as Whitesnake
The location is a quiet neighborhood which is important to the video as the woman is meant to be a traditional housewife. This is supported by the songs lyrics and the toys and kids bikes in her garden which she is tidying up.
The video uses humour which is sometimes used in videos, most commonly in rock and pop punk videos such as in Learn to Fly by Foo Fighters.
Continuity editing is used which is a common convention of music videos. It makes it run more smoothly and allows the narrative to be easily followed.
The music video for You Need Me, I Don't Need You focuses on a young male doing the lyrics in sign language which is incorporated with dance. There are also some shots of dancers and Ed Sheeran. It is predominantly narrative with some performance. The whole video is in black and white and there is high contrast, which creates an edgy feel to the video. There are a few shots where the visuals represent the lyrics, for example when he sings 'I haven’t got a house plus I live on the couch' it shows a sofa in the same location and lighting as with the signing actor.
'Selling CD's from my rucksack aiming for the majors'
The dancing in the video is hip hop dance which suits the genre of the song.
Dancers
The location is a very large studio and there are very little props other than those occasionally shown which match the lyrics. All but one of the characters are male and they are all late teens/young adults. They wear casual, urban clothing.
The editing is quite fast paced which adds excitement to the video. Because of the fast paced editing there are a lot of different shots. The camera zooms in or out on a lot of the shots and some of the takes that are next to each other are very similar which gives a jumpy effect which I think works well.
Emil Nava, the director of the video, has directed music videos for Jessie J, Rita Ora and Paloma Faith as well as Ed Sheeran. Similarities can be seen between this music video and others he has directed, for example Jessie J's Price Tag was also filmed in a large open space.
The video for After Midnight has both narrative and performance footage. The narrative is set in a youth psychiatric ward and shows two characters in troubled love who explore the hospital.
The mise-en-scene for both performance and narrative is important to the video. The performance is in a large hangar which suits the pop punk style of Blink 182.
