8. My music video

To make a successful pop music video, it is necessary that I draw on and organise the research that I have done and convert this into a plan for production.  I will be utilising the research of the pop genre, the other forms of media that I wish to be intertextual with and the material that I am working with (the song) to put together my music video.

To gain some inspiration in regards to my music video, I decided to analyze two videos closely which I have drawn some inspiration from:

Girls - The 1975

From a visual standpoint, the pop-rock song 'Girl's has been a a strong inspiration to my project.  This video demonstrates how to create a narrative in a stylistic fashion; the large majority of the video takes place in a studio environment (the rest takes place at the pool set).  The music video as a whole feels very artificial.  There are a series of close ups, with the lips of the girl in focus which contributes towards the representations formed in the video.  To a degree, the female figures are sexualised through such close-ups and the clothing they wear, but this is contradicted by the fact that they are equally as capable of being 'band members' as their male counterparts.  With this being said, the video explores the contrast between men and women; this can be assigned as an attribute of postmodern media and the notion of deconstruction in the way it's handled, since the 'grey area' between the two and their roles is equally explored.  An example of this would be the lead singer's (Matt) ability to show affection and compassion to who we can infer to be his 'other half.'

The editing on the whole is conventional to the pop genre, with constant cuts to the drum beats and close ups on the guitar.  There is often a tendency to cut from a long-shot to a close-up on the beat.  This is also done with a series of items to literally convey messages, such as the shot of the cupcake with the cupcake with the '17' candles.  This is a demonstration of Illustration (in Goodwin's terms) as it is a direct method of conveying the girl's age that is being discussed in the video.  Additionally, the shots that feature Matt and one of the main girls in the video, although not being a part of the core narrative (within a video with a loose narrative as a whole), these two shots provide us with an insight into the synergy between the two characters outside of it.

'Girls' by The 1975 has mostly inspired my video from a visual point of view, bringing me to include shots in a studio environment that will still contribute to the overall theme of the narrative.  This will mostly be through close ups, two-shots and even individual, short duration shots of objects for the purpose of illustration.

Anne Marie - 2002

Anne-Marie's hit song '2002' has also had a lot of influence on my project.  Initially, the video interested me due the grading and aspect ratio.  The aspect ratio of the video, instead of the traditional 16:9, is 4:3 (on the default 16:9 of Youtube), which creates the 'old' effect, as if shot on film or an older camera.  This is reinforced by the costumes that the characters are wearing including the artist (such as the 'old-school' style of uniform).

The narrative explores her 'love story' over the years, particularly in the year of 2002, as the title suggests.  There is a positive representation of relationships and in particular the people within them.  Both characters are very much faithful to one another, reflecting the message that those of this age group who are infamously known not to 'commit' in relationships or partnerships do not all fit this characteristic.  The romantic relationship in this video is mostly idealistic and does not necessarily introduce any narrative disruptions when it comes to the passion they have for one another; the disruptions in the video are mostly cliches found in the likes of high school movies.  This in turn creates an overall positive mood for the narrative and entire video, as it conforms to the notion of 'love' that is emphasised a lot in the lyrics in the song; it is the relationship between the two of them that remedies problems that occur on a daily basis.

It was from these influences that I was able to create a narrative for my music video; this was converted into a storyboard in order to capture the visual element (in regards to framing, camera movement, angles, mise-en-scene, etc.) alongside the the sequential element, which is vital to the pacing of the shots, hence I had to think very hard on which shots came after the other for it to flow (and be spontaneous to suit the conventions of a pop genre).

In summary, my narrative is themed around unrequited love at first; two actors partake in a silent film which requires them to act as lovers.  However, when the person behind the camera says 'cut', it is revealed that the male actor is in love with his female co-star outside of the film.  As they progress, the female actor develops what seems to be a mutual feeling but by the very realises that it is not the type of relationship she would like. 
The theme for this came mostly from the line in the song 'The way we do its like a movie', which I decided to turn this into an illustrative interpretation.  The notion of the mood being almost perfect and flawless was also something I picked up on as a general theme in the video, so I attempted to amplify this message as a general thread throughout the song.  This was the process I went through for other lyrics as well when I performed an analysis of the song for the purpose of interpreting it for a video.

Additionally, I put together a Steal-o-matic, compiling some of my main intertextual references with some of the shots I intended to get for my performance and finally some of the things I wanted to achieve in post-production:

After this was decided, I had to establish the locations which I was going to film at (with a timeplan and risk assessments to go with this), a cast & crew list and a visual reference for the costume that I wanted them to wear:

COSTUME REFERENCE:

LOCATION RECCIES & RISK ASSESSMENT(S):

CAST & CREW LIST:

TIMEPLAN:

SHOOTBOARD:

This has been the process of me becoming inspired by other music videos in the genre to then going ahead and making one.  The large amount of organisation has been essential for shooting a video that will be of a high standard, similarly to the likes of other music videos at the moment; all of the planning has been needed to resemble the high production values that pop videos have today.  Moving forward, I will work to get the video edited and complete for review.