research into conventions - major task

For my major task, I chose to do a music video. I had a concept planned, and before I could really plan anything, I tried to film with a friend.

Initially I had a concept in mind for the song "Center Mass" by Twenty One Pilots. It wasn't complete, I just had a few ideas for certain parts of the song so we tried to see how we could work together for this project.

To be very honest, it did not go well. We had a hard time finding a day where we both could meet up and film, and when we got to the filming part, nothing was working. I realised that I had no idea what I actually wanted to do, I couldn't explain well to my friend what I wanted him to do and he didn't know how to show the proper emotions the song needs on camera.

I won't get into it too much, but I struggle a lot with my mental health and especially panic attacks. So with how overwhelmed I was, I had a pretty bad panic attack in public, and those are always worse. Overall it was all a bad experience so I decided to change the song and concept.

So this time, I would like to do it better. Here I wrote about conventions in music videos. I will make a separate post with conventions of stereotypical portrayal of mental health because the song I chose, "Redecorate" by Twenty One Pilots is related to that topic.

MUSIC VIDEO

• a music video is a short film the accompanies a song.

• artists use music videos to add a visual story to a song, and they are often used to promote singles before a full album comes out

• music videos are a great marketing tool for artists to promote their identity and turn it even more into a brand for profit

• songs of different music genres (pop, rock, rap, etc) also have different characteristics when it comes to their music videos

STYLE

• illustrative music video - uses the lyrical content as a basis for the visuals (the lyrics are the most important part of this song in my opinion, so I will definitely use them for inspiration)

• interpretive - the visual narrative doesn’t follow the lyrics directly, with the intention of letting the audience find their own deeper meaning of the song

• performance music video - used more in music videos for indie and rock bands; uses real-life footage of the band performing live (I don't think the song would work with a performance style music video because the studio version has a lot of electronic instruments; however, I feel like an acoustic version of the song would work with a performance music video)

• performance videos are the cheapest to make because they don’t require different locations; they also increase the chance of people coming to watch them live because they give a preview as to what a concert from them would look like.

NARRATIVE

• illustration - the narrative in the music video closely reflects the lyrical content of the song

• amplification - the narrative is sightly influenced by the lyrical content but it uses different elements to portray how the song makes people feel ( even though I want to portray some of the lyrics directly, I don't want to transform every single lyric in a visual because I think the final product is more creative and balanced when there is a mix of both)

• disjuncture - the narrative is barely related to the lyrics and it provides space for different meanings and interpretations

• while a narrative plot can engage the audience further than just listening to the song and show more interest from the artists to go further with their creation, they can be expensive to produce

• conceptual - concept music videos usually have no storyline and have no relation with the lyrical content of the song ( I'm not creating a conceptual music video because I wouldn't want to accidentally create something random that doesn't make sense in the context of the song)

• thematic concept music video - based around a theme

• symbolic concept music video - lots of symbols to build up a certain meaning, even more open to interpretation

• while conceptual videos are very creative and memorable, they can come across as random and strange, leading to a confused audience

• animation - often used in music videos

• surrealist - inspired by the art movement which aims to break down the boundaries between fantasy, dreams and reality; in music videos this means using bizarre and jarring imagery

• pastiche & homage - where one music video references another media text as a form of tribute

• parody - this still refers to a music video imitating another media text, but in this case it’s not meant as a tribute, more so mockingly ( the song would not work with a parody music video and while I think they can be funny, I don't really like them)

TECHNIQUES

• cutting to beat - editing element in music videos where the different clips are cut to the beat and tempo of the song

• visual effects - music videos have an experimental nature and allow a lot of freedom of expression, and they were used a lot for experimenting with new visual effects, especially in the early days of CGI

• lip-syncing - often used in music videos, this is where artists pretend to sing the song and say mime all the lyrics as if they were singing the song live

• green - screen - also referred to as chroma key; a special effects / post - production technique for layering two images or videos together based on color hues (I don't have the skills necessary for working with a green screen nor do I really want to for this specific project)

I wrote the conventions I would like to follow in Bold + reasons why

I wrote the conventions I would not like to follow in Italic + reasons why