Planning cinematography

Cinematography is the creation of pictures in motion. It is known as a very important aspect of creating a music video as the use of different camera shots can help build a relationship between the audience and the artist. For example an extreme close up of an artist’s eye which is crying in a song about heartbreak may lead the audience to feel sorry for the artist and relate it to their heartbreak, therefore building a relationship between the artist and the audience. The use of cinematography can also help the audience understand the narrative/concept or performance more easily, as the camera shot allows the directors and producers to manipulate what the audience view.

The first camera shot my group and I decided to use was a panning shot. This shot is simply a camera movement technique that involves moving the camera horizontally to the right or left. The purpose of this shot is to establish our opening setting scene of London. The shot allows us to give the audience a wider view of London and how big it is, which will throughout our music video portray the big city that the boys are lost in. As this will be the first shot used in our music video we hope it will grab our audiences attention as London is a very iconic city and help them build a relationship with our actors as the audience can probably imagine and relate to what it must feel like waking up in the middle of a big city like London after a night out. A panning shot is not necessarily conventional to our chosen genre as it has many purposes however we feel it is necessary in order to portray the scene of how big London is. A similar panning shot is used in Swedish House Mafia’s – ‘don’t you worry child’ in order to show the empty space which later will be filled with fans of the group dancing to their music, this particular panning shot was used to highlight how popular the group are and how many people enjoy their music and will pay to see them.

panning shot highlighting empty space which will be filled 

long shot of space being filled 

The second camera we chose to use was a high angle. We feel that by including high angles and other camera shots which are not mid-shot will help add variety to our music video. Hopefully this will help us grasp our audience’s attention as our music video will not just consist of the common mid-shot and have variety. We specifically chose to use high angle for our party scene, this is because we wanted the camera shot to involve the whole of the party so the audience could see how fun it looked and how many people the boys where partying with, rather than using a camera shot which would only allow us the see the boys with a few other people. By using this high angle shot we can portray a big party scene where the audience can see exactly what’s going on, from the flashing lights, dancing, drinking and people having fun. By portraying this type of scene we are hopefully able to build a relationship with our target audience (15-25), as our target audience ranges from young teen to young adult we know that most have them would have been at a party. Therefore we hope that they will be able to relate to the party scene the boys are attending and know how much of a good time they are having and know what it’s like to be a drunk teen at a party. This camera shot is also very conventional to the dance genre as it is used in a lot of music videos to portray partying for example in Swedish House Mafia’s – ‘don’t you worry child’ high angles are used often throughout the music video to show the audience how many people attended their last concert and how many people where dancing and enjoying their music.

high angle showing audience what is going on 

The third camera shot we will aim to use within our music video is a close up. Close ups are camera shots which show something up close, they can be used to show the significance of something for example, a close-up of someone smiling may be used to show they are happy. Throughout our music video we will aim to use this camera shot for the same reason. We will try to include close-ups of important facial expressions in order to show the audience how Jake and George are feeling, helping them build a relationship with the audience as it may help the audience relate to their emotions for example; feeling lost when they boys are in London, happy and enjoying themselves at the party, feeling relieved to be home and sad that Jake has no family to go home to. We will also use camera shots in order to help the audience understand our narrative, for example a close up of wine glasses will show the boys are at a party where there is alcohol which will imply to the audience that they are getting drunk ect. I feel that close ups are conventional to any genre within the music industry as generally close-up are used to display emotion and songs are used to express emotion through words so it is common for a music video to include close-ups to help express the emotions of the song. Swedish House Mafia also use close ups within their music video to show people having fun. 

close up of people having fun at concert 

The last camera shot we will try to include while filming our music video is a point of view shot. This is a shot which shows you what the actor or artist sees through their point of view. We felt it would be good to use this as we could use it put the audience in the boys shoes, the audience could then relate to the boys and think what they would do and feel like in the boys situation and wonder what emotions they would feel. After watching some dance music videos I feel that in the typical party dance video with the DJ it is conventional for either a point of view shot from either the audience watching the DJ or vice versa, this camera shot is probably used for the same reason we aim to use it. Point of view is again used in The Swedish House Mafias music video for ‘don’t you worry child’. It the audiences point of view, watching the DJ’s (Swedish House Mafia), and highlight how good they are on stage.  

point of view from audience showing Swedish House Mafia 

We will also include more camera shots as we want to use a variety however we feel these are the main ones which aren't so easy to include. Therefore will try to include them in order to help our video build a relationship with our audience and make our music video conventional. 

 

Rough Cut

Once my group and I had filmed all the footage we needed and edited most of it we decided to share our video as a rough cut. The rough cut resembled our final product however did not yet have as much detail as we would like and was not fully developed. We felt it was important for us to share our video as a rough cut before completing editing as it allowed us to gain feedback from our target audience.

Gaining this feedback from our target audience is vital as we can use this feedback to improve our music video whilst it is still in production, saving time as we can make changed now rather than having to change it after it has been produced or even preventing it from being unsuccessful as we can change anything our target audience does not like now rather than sharing the final product thinking it will appeal to our target audience and it being rejected. Audience feedback is also important as it allows us to see what we have done successfully and how successful we were when carrying out and following target market research.

In order to gain feedback from our target audience we shared our music video on youtube. We chose to share our music video through this media channel as it is accessible to everyone who has the internet and also allows people to comment and like bellow, we felt this would be helpful as it would not take people much time and could get more feedback through this way of sharing our music video. After sharing our clip we emailed some students in our school who were within our target audience and told them to comment on what they thought of it. We also carried out interviews asking our target audience what they liked and what they thought could be improved.

What feedback did you receive?
How will the feedback assist you with finalising your final music video?

Storyboards

A storyboard is a graphic representation of a narrative, in our case the narrative to our music video. The purpose of a storyboard is to help plan production more efficiently. It helps us as a production team to do this as when creating the storyboards we can plan and consider fundamental elements of our music video such as camera shots/angles, editing techniques, sound, setting/location, characters and positioning, iconography, make-up/costume. This allows us to make most decisions now on what we feel will create the best music video possible and also saves us time during filming deciding what we want to film as we will already have a rough idea. Through using a storyboard our group can be more organised as we will have clear criteria of each shot and what we need to film allowing us to stick to our filming schedule as closely as possible.

When creating our story boards we had to consider what our primary and secondary research we had collected. We did this by putting our research into graphs and watching our vox pops over. We started off by specifying who our target audience would be and whether they liked the dace genre. The results presented to us that 11-25 did like dance and had heard of Avicci therefor we chose to stick to our first choice of song (Wake me up – By Avicci). We then considered what type of music video they would prefer which was narrative so then choice to add lots of close ups and mid shots to show the emotions of our characters. Other questioned we looked at when carrying out primary and secondary research where conventions the audience expected to see within the genre, all of which were conventional to the genre therefor we tried to include most of them and also what editing styles they expected to see which like we guessed consisted of fast paced editing ect therefor we kept our shots short but to the point as we wanted to meet the expectation of the audience.

Our group started storyboarding the music video by all suggesting ideas and ways we could create a good meaningful narrative while following conventions and the expectations of the audience. We all suggested ideas and then discussed who’s idea we thought would create the best music video and sometimes compromising and combining all ideas into one for example George wanted a shot of him waking up from a party however Amiee Austin wanting the setting to be in London there for me and Jake suggested that we have George and Jake waking up from a party and being lost in London after a drunken night out. Although we all input ideas into each shot and wrote our ideas onto our story boards, Amiee Austin put our ideas into pictures as she was most talented at drawing and making our storyboard graphics more understandable.

While filming, we used our story boards as a guide however we also added lots of shots as we discovered that we would need more shots to portray our narrative and create a full music video. These shots included shots such as, more party scenes in order to make the music video more consistent with the fast beat, close-ups and mid-shots of Jake and George to show their emotions, shots of the boys going into the train station to portray that they are going home and also more shots of them laughing and joking in order to portray their close friendship to the audience. Other than adding shots we followed a majority of the shots which we planned to within our story boards however perhaps divided them into 2 shots in order to make them more detailed and the narrative flow.

Research into major and independent record labels

Major Record Labels are large companies within the music industry that may also own smaller record labels. There are currently 3 major record labels who dominate the music industry. 

One of the top 4 record labels in the music industry is the Universal Music Group (UMG). Many well-known artist are signed to UMG. These include artist like Rihanna, Ellie Goulding, The Rolling Stones and Eminem. UMG also own smaller record companies within the music industry such as Republic Records, and Def Jam Records and many more. Artist signed to these smaller record labels such as Republic Records include: Arianna Grande, Drake, Jessie J and Nelly. UMG are linked with Vevo as the company helped develop them. This is an advantage to UMG as it allows them to stream their artist’s music videos for free helping to promote each artist. UMG also have their own website, which also helps to promote their artists. Their website is (http://www.universalmusic.com/) where the public can find out information like when artists will be releasing new singles and albums and even going on tour.

Another major record label within the music industry is Sony Entertainment. Sony manage/’own’ well known artists such as Miley Cyrus, Britney Spears, John Legend and Justin Timberlake. Sony also owns, the smaller record labels including the less recognisable label ‘Arista’. The Arista music group manage artists like Alicia Keys, Christiana Aguilera and Ozzy Osborne. Sony Entertainment (http://www.sonymusic.com/) has their own website in order to promote their artist by publishing information about them along with the latest news, tour dates, and album releases. Sony also helps to promote their artist through their brand image. Sony are also recognised for its electronic products which sell within a wide market, there for the record label becomes more successful as audience find the brand name familiar and are more aware of it and more likely to pursue the brand name. 

The third record label I will be discussing is The Warner Music Group (WGM) , based in the US, who manage popular artists like Wiz Kalifa, Christiana Peri, Lupe Fiasco and Birdy. Subsidiaries in which WGM manage/own along with artist are smaller however still recognisable record labels such as Atlantic Records who manage artists like Meek Mill, Ed Sheeran and Marina and the diamonds. The Warner Music group is owned by Time Warner which is the world’s largest media conglomerate, meaning the music group has lots of link to film, entertainment, publishing and television. Allowing the Warner Music Group to promote their artist through a number of media channels possibly leading to attracting more audiences or being able to specifically target the certain audience they want to be interested in the artist.

The last record label I will look at which also dominates the music industry worldwide is Emi. The record label manages/have managed artists such as Robbie Williams, Katy Perry, You Me At Six, and The rolling stones. An example of a smaller record label that Emi owns is Capitol who have signed artists like Deana Carter. Emi are linked to Emi films and also HMV allowing them to have easier access to selling their artists records through well-known and trusted shops.

Although these 4 record labels dominate the music industry there is still room for smaller independent record labels. Independent record labels only operate one or few record labels however can be just as successful. They are commonly known for offering more ‘organic’ music rather than typical mainstream styles however style varies with artists.

Rough Trade is one example of an independent record label that operates in the UK. Rough Trade began as a shop in West London, which was opened by a man names Geoff Travis. After successfully promoting and selling record by Punk and early posy punk bands such as The Buzzcocks, Travis began to manage artists and began the label. The record label currently has artists like ‘Strange Boys’ and ‘Little Joy’ signed to them.

Another independent record label which operates in the UK is Boy Better Know, this record label are an English grime collective record label founded by JME and his older brother Skepta in 2005. Artists from Boy Better Know such as JME, Skepta and Wiley have featured on You Tubes SB.TV and helped mark their celebration of 100 million YouTube views.

From a music point of view I feel there is nothing wrong with 4 record labels dominating the music industry as it is that way for a reason. The audiences of the music those 4 record labels promote are obviously most popular so those record labels are bound to make more profit and dominate the market. This also allows smaller record labels to specialise and cater for the needs of niche markets which may like not so popular music genres and there for do not need huge record labels and promotion to sell their artists. Also having smaller record labels allows unknown artists to slowly become more recognised and if good enough go on to signing to bigger record labels, this is fair as if small record labels did not exist then unknown artist who still may need some practise may never be recognised however it is also unfair as it is the smaller record labels that may make the unknown artist recognisable however big record labels end up attracting the artist as obviously once the artist has made it they want to sell as many records as possible. Industry wise I feel it is slightly unfair that the 4 record labels dominate the music industry as independent record labels are less likely to survive there for need money although all the major record labels once started off small.

It is hard to judge whether major record labels are more successful than independent record labels as major record labels may make more profit as they have more artists and smaller record labels signed to them however independent record labels may take up more market share of the unique ‘organic’ music they do offer which not many there record labels offer, whereas major record labels may each only take up a quarte of the market share of the mainstream music.  

Filming schedule

Filming schedules are essential within the filming process as it is important for us to have some guidance in order to manage our time efficiently. A film schedule enables to us to plan when and what we will film in order to have all the footage we need within the time limit we have. If we plan and use our time wisely it may also give us extra time which is important in the filming process as we may need to re film shots which are not up to our standards or film any ideas we have whilst filming.
 

When filming the party scenes my group managed to stick to the filming schedule. It was important for us to stick to the schedule at this point of our filming as we filmed at a real party in order to make our narrative more realistic. If we hadn't of got the footage we needed we may have had to recreate the party scene which may not have looked as realistic, which may not have intrigued or appealed to our target audience of 15-25 year old's as much. We managed to shoot a variety of camera shots, some of which we did not plan however our time management skills allowed us to do this. We also remained on schedule when filming the London scene, this was also important for us as it was hard for us to find a time when we where all available at the same time to travel up to London. Finally, we also managed to remain on schedule for our last scenes of Jake and George making their way home, although we did not film on the day we had planned because of other commitments.

Overall, I feel that creating a filming schedule was very useful to our production team and fulfilled its purpose as it allowed us to be organised and manage our time well when filming. Without our filming schedule we may have had troubles communicating when each of us where able to film which may have resulted in our filming taking longer than it should, possible leading to our editing being affected. However as we remained on target and managed to film the shots we wanted and more within the time limit we allowed ourselves, we did not have to re film and our editing was also not affected.

Risk Assesment

For our risk assessment we analysed what risks there were and how we could overcome them in order to prepare for filming.

It is important to consider risks which may occur during filming before hand as we must ensure the safety of the production team as well as equipment. Being aware of these risks through risk assessments will assist us in filming as it enables us to be prepared for any obstacles which may disrupt filming and how to deal with them. Taking time to identify these risks through a risk assessment may come to an advantage to us as it means we are more organised and prepared. This may result in us remaining on schedule for filming or even speed up the process of filming as we are less likely to waste filming time as we are aware of any disruptions.

Inspirations and ideas for music video

In order to gain inspiration and ideas for the music video i am going to create i have been researching into current music which is doing well in the charts. I done this in order to see what artists, genre and type of music video were most successful in hope that my music video would share that success. I watched music channels and analysed what music was played and what target audience they were directed at as i had a specific target audience in mind. 

One of the first inspirations i had was the genre of music. Recently, house and dance music has become very popular. After watching music videos which belonged to these genre i noticed some of the conventions that the genre had adopted. Both genres are quite upbeat and therefor the videos include lots of fast editing. Songs within the genre are also very 'feel good' songs which is portrayed in the music videos as there is lots of dancing, partying with friends and family and enjoying life. This has inspired me to portray the same concept of happiness within my music video, rather than a song which is very emotional and causes viewers to think negatively upon life. 

An example of a music video which portrays happiness and having fun which has recently been in the charts is'Dont you worry child' by Sweidish House Mafia.

Earlier i mentioned fast editing. I feel that if i use an upbeat song fast editing will be a good idea as the music will match the visuals which will be appealing to the audience eyes. The song which gave me this idea is Rihannas 'We found love' The song is very upbeat with the beat kicking in and gettin faster at certain points of the song. A t these points the editing becomes very fast. I feel this would appeal to an audience of my age as i, myself enjoy watching the music video and think the editing creates a build up of anticipation within the song.