For
our media production we have created a music video based on the hardcore genre.
To accompany this we have created a digipak and website which will make a full
media promotional package. We chose to create our promotional package for an
unsigned band called ‘Two Hundred Kings’
which includes members of our media group.
We felt this would enable us to make the package more personal and easier for
our fans to relate to.
Purpose
- Music Video – The main purpose of a music video is to promote a particular track for the band with visual media to accompany the track; music videos also allow bands to create an identity and style. In a music video it is very common to see live performance, especially for bands, as it gives them the ability to show their musicianship and will give the audience an insight into what the band would be like when playing at a live gig. Showing what the band is like live could persuade the audience to purchase live gig tickets so that they can experience the talented performance and lively atmosphere.
In Deaf Havanas video it is clear to see that the promotion of the band is key by staring the members of the band in both a narrative and live performance style. This therefore reinforces the common purpose of a promotional video and shots how the live performance is shown to sell the band gig tickets whilst being mixed with narrative to keep the video interesting to the audience.
- Digipak – The purpose of a digipak is to promote an album in a hard copy format giving the audience something extra rather than just an ordinary album CD in a case. The artist will normally incorporate their theme/identity with the band name or logo; this helps their fans recognise the new and available content like Deaf Havana does on their digipak and website as seen in the screenshots.
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| Deaf Havana - Old Souls |
Digipaks also tend to be limited edition as the above ‘Deaf
Havana – Old Souls’ digipak is. This is to make the content special and tends
to be a lyric book or extra artwork relating to the band; this one has a
pull-out including song lyrics and some band artwork.
- Website – The purpose of a band website is to promote the band and their style of music as a whole; usually the band will create a full production package featured on the website, to sell products and band merchandise as well as promoting new albums and singles through advertising.
http://www.deafhavanaofficial.com/
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On the ‘Deaf Havana’
website home page the main features are an embedded Soundcloud and Youtube
player linked to their current single. Also featured is the title of the band
in their usual font and feeds of ‘Twitter’ and other current news about the
band.
Requirements Of Music Promo
- Performance - The performance in a music promo needs to emphasise the artists talent and musicianship to the audience. It is common that they perform to the camera or to a live audience in the video to show the viewers of the promo what it would be like to see the band live and make them want to purchase tickets to see them. The glamour of the artists and showing the high rolling lifestyle that they live is shown to make their audience inspire towards them and see them as idols.
- Narrative - Narrative is conventional in a music promo alongside the performance to adapt the video and create a concept and theme to the video to work alongside the performance shots. The narrative can feature the artists, other actors, or both, however the artists will not be performing in these shots as they will focus on telling the story of the video that may be related to the song. There are three ways in which to construct narrative, these are: Illustration, Amplification, and Disjuncture.
Illustration – This is where the lyrics are illustrated by the footage and is common in the ‘Pop’ genre; this is because the tracks are at a slower tempo where it is possible to illustrate the lyrics in the footage without a video that is to fast paced to watch comfortably and understand properly.
Amplification – This is where a concept or phrase of the lyrics is taken and key idea for the music video is created and displayed through the narrative; this is very common in the hardcore genre as the songs lyrics are usually very emotional and the music video is very often used as a factor to reinforce this emotion and emphasise key parts of the lyrics.
Disjuncture – With the disjuncture method
there is no relation between the video and the lyrics; this is mainly only seen
in the ‘Pop’ genre and might be used in songs from artist such as ‘Lady GaGa’
where the lyrics do not make enough sense to create an video that would be
understood by the audience. As the idea of disjuncture is to be completely
random in a creative way they can turn out to be a video that is intriguing as
they are practically impossible to predict.
- Camera Work - A wide range of shots will be used to establish the location of both the narrative and performance including long shots and then close ups on certain features of the location that might link with the video. Close ups will be used in the video especially in any performance shots; this is to show off the performers talent. This is a feature of the hardcore genre as they tend to use the live gig style atmosphere running along with a basic narrative that may explain the meanings of the song lyrics. For a promotional video in the ‘Pop’ genre it would still be conventional to see some close ups, however these would probably be focused on the actor/artist featured in the video singing the lyrics.
- Editing - The editing will be at the pace of the song and most likely cut to the beat especially in the hardcore genre. The faster pace of the song the quicker the cuts will be as they should help build tension on the main part of the track.
In
the video ‘Seven Hills – While She Sleeps’ the editing is cut along with the
beat of the song in relation of the song composition as the shots will focus
mainly on the vocalist and then cycle between other shots in between lines,
verses, and choruses. Also as the chorus is approached in the song the pace of
the editing is increased as the cuts get much faster to help build up the
emotion of the song.
- Mise-en-Scene - Lighting is very important in a music promo as it helps to create the atmosphere which is indented in the video; by using un-natural lighting the video can be made to look very glamorous through bright and colourful lighting or very dramatic through plain lighting which creates lots of shadows. Reinforcing this is the costumes worn as in the same way they can make the artist or actors contrast from very glamorous and attractive to something cheap and casual.
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Both
of these factors relate to the genre and the conventional images created for
that particular style of video, in the hardcore genre the music videos tend to
be low budget and not very glamorous but show people having a good time in this
contrasting atmosphere.
When
a new band is creating is first promotional video it is important that they
plan their mise-en-scene for every aspect of the video as this is the main
thing that the audience will use to create that initial band image. Because of
this the band need to ensure they are presenting themselves in a manor that
will categorize them into the correct genre and attract the correct target
audience towards them. For example if an upbeat Indie bands first video
featured the band in leather jackets with lots of tattoos and being filmed in a
dark and gloomy abandoned house, it would create the wrong impression and would
deter the target audience as it would not be the way similar kinds of bands are
presented.
Conventions
Of Hardcore Video
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This video is a
stereotypical hardcore music video and follows the conventions of this genre by
being in a conventional setting where the band are pretending to be playing a live
perforance. The video features the typical shots of close ups on instruments
being played by the musician along with a lot of fast cuts on the beat
intertwining mid shots showing the band members giving a lively performance to
the audience. This video has been set in a small budget venue where local bands
would play, this has been done to make the live performance feel more personal
to the viewer as the shots are in first person. This relates to how we have set
our live performance in a barn as this could be used as a venue in this genre
for a more personal and private gig with a limited crowd.
In this video the general
conventions of the genre have been broken as there is no footage of the band at
all giving the audience no perspective of band image; as hardcore videos are
generally footage based it is unusual to see aspects such as CGI being used to
create the video and therefore makes this video very unique to its genre. In
this video an illustrative approach has been taken as the lyrics of the song
are told through the imagery of the video This is not conventional for a video
in this genre as using footage to illustrate the lyrics can become complicated;
this is because the lyrics would be sang much faster than the video could
progress with the audience still being able to watch it comfortably.
This video is also unique
as it does not use a combination of performance and narrative shots but instead
uses purely narrative throughout the video. This is a convention of more mellow
genres, such as pop. This is a very effective video as it is unusual to see a
full band featuring in a full narrative video rather than odd clips in
combinations with the performance. This helps them to amplify the lyrics in a
whole story which makes it much clearer and easier to understand for the
audience.
Influences
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In the narrative part of
our music video we have based the story around the lyrics of ‘dig a whole and
bury your feelings’ where a hole is being dug in an unknown woodland setting.
The way in which we filmed this part of the narrative was influenced and
developed from the Slipknot video ‘Dead Memories’ where a character is seen
walking towards an unknown woodland area where a hole is dug emphasising frustrated emotions.
Location & Equipment –
Performance
For our live performance
shots we used a barn that is located on a farm in Pickworth; we choose this
location as other location plans fell through we needed to find somewhere that
we could rely on to be flexible for when we needed to film. This is a
conventional location as the building is old and looks abandoned which is a common
hardcore video location. As we knew
people who worked at the farm, we were able to contact the owner, who was more
than happy to help us out. He ensured us we could use the barn and surrounding
farm area for anything we needed to on the filming days. We were pleased when
we found this location as the inside of the barn looked old with wooden beams
and worn away brickwork that would look interesting under the stage lighting we
were using.
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| While She Sleeps - Our Courage, Our Cancer (Conventional Performance Location) |
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| While She Sleeps - Our Courage, Our Cancer (Conventional Performance Location) |
Our Location Before Setup
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Our Location After Setup
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On a positive side we told
that we were able to use electricity from the farm meaning that we did not have
to pay to rent out a generator that we had already prepared plans for if this
was not the case. As we were able to use power from the national grid we could
use high power and professional stage lighting, which would not have been
possible to power with a budget generator.
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| High Power Lighting - Rear (4 X PARcan 36 & 4 Lens Laser Light) |
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| High Power Lighting - Front Of House ( 2 X PARcan 64 & Profile) |
Performance Location -
Narrative
For the narrative of our
music video we chose to film various clips in a two locations. This is because
the narrative was small sections of story that happened over a longer period of
time and we needed to have a location for both the past and the present. Both
of the locations were woodland areas but looked very different in context. We
decided to use these two locations together, as in a woodland area there is
nothing to immediately draw the attention away from the storyline and what is
going on in the shots, as the sections of narrative will only be brief in the
final video.
Location For The Past (Pickworth Farm Land)
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Location Of The Present (Elsea Woods)
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Slipknot - Dead Memories Location
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Props – Live Performance
The props used in the
performance our music video were also conventional to a hardcore music video being
heavy instruments such as: drums, 8 string guitar, large guitar amps & heads,
and a vocal microphone. The live performance requires them to look realistic
and enable the playing to be synced with the track imitating the band playing
live and showing off their talent to the audience.
The props we used in the
narrative included a old looking wooden box which held some items related to
the relationship in the story such as bracelets and photos, and a shovel which
was used to bury the box containing these items. This is related to our genre
and how we are amplifying the lyrics of ‘Dig a hole and bury your feelings’ as
it builds the story around this phrase where a happy couple have a breakdown in
relationship.
Techniques Used In Our
Video
Editing Technique - Fade To Black
In the intro of our video
when the tempo of the song is much slower and the sound is all piano based, we
have used fade to blacks between clips. We have used this technique in order to
introduce the different settings and to also give an insight into the different
time zones of the video: the happy past and the unhappy present.
This editing technique is
generally unconventional in this genre; normally the songs are far too fast in
tempo to have fades to black between clips. We have been able to use this
technique in a creative way in the narrative of video as a quick insight while
our track is a slow tempo during the introduction.
Editing Technique – Colour Correction
Colour correction was one
of the final stages of editing that was very important for our video. Firstly
we used colour correction so that all of the shots taken did not have
noticeably different tints and brightness, hence having a negative effect on
the professionalism of the video. Secondly we needed to add colour correction
to reduce the vibrancy of the clips so that the clips only had pastel colours
in them; the reason for this was to make them look more negative to fit in with
the genre of music and the emotional lyrics of the song. If these shots were
vibrant they would not work with the music to show the negative emotion of the
song and the footage would not flow from the darker live performance shots.
This editing technique is
conventional as most hardcore song lyrics have an emotional meaning to them.
The colour of the clips will have an impact on how positive they seem to the
viewer; if a clip has less colour it looks more gloomy and lifeless therefore
in enhancing the emotion of the song.
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Filming Technique – Manual Tracking & Panning Shots
Whilst filming our music
video we did not use a tripod as it would limit the speed of movement in the
shot, this is because we wanted to incorporate a lot of movement in our shots
to keep them interesting and up to pace with the energetic actors. Another
reason for this technique is to make the shots seem more like a point of view
shot where they are live watching the band through their own eyes. Instead of a
tripod we used a chestcam which reduced the shaking of the camera that would
have occurred if it was held by hand. However, due to it being strapped to the
chest of the camera operator it allowed us to capture the body movement of them
much like a human dolly; this then resulted in shots that were not too static
or too shaky.
This filming technique is
very conventional in this genre especially during live performance shots as it
is used to make the viewers relate to the video as if they are watching the
band live. Tripod shots are very unusual as they are less interesting and make
the video much more distant from the viewers; other options would be using a
glidecam to allow fast movement of the camera without jerking motion and with
much more complex camera paths.
We have used amplification in our music video as it was the most
appropriate to the genre because it allowed us to show a performance and narrative
separately within our video that relates to the song lyrics. We have used the
performance side of our video to attract new fans and show an insight of the
bands musicianship whilst running a narrative alongside to keep the video
interesting, give it a memorable theme, and emphasising the meaning and
emotions of the lyrics.
Theory
In order to create our
music video we used some ideas presented in Andrew Goodwins theory. We have
used some conventions relating to our genre as we feel they are very important
to attract the correct audience and enable the product to be a success in the
right market. We feel that music videos can be creative and break some
conventions successfully but if there is no relation between the genre and the
products at all then it will struggle to be a successful promotional package.
We applied this theory when
planning our promotional video by researching thoroughly into the hardcore
genre and looking at the conventions used by other hardcore videos. Once we had
found the conventions and looked at similar products we used these to inspire
our ideas and planned our video around the basic conventions of a hardcore
genre. This is things such as using a live performance element with carefully
constructed lighting and including lots of close up shots of the instruments.
