M2: Ensure That Recorded Footage Reflects Generic Conventions

In this report, I will be explaining how we will follow the conventions of pop punk music videos. I will write about the different techniques we will use and how we will also meet the generic conventions of every music video.

 

This song is called Nightmare by a band called Set It Off and the sing was released in 2015. This music fits into the pop punk genre so I will be analysing some rock styled music videos to see what conventions we need to use for our music video. The purpose of my music video is to promote the band Set It Off and the song. Many people enjoy watching music videos to their favourite songs so this is a great way to reach the fanbase and maxamise the success of the product. They also help establish the music genre of the song and create brand identity of the band, reach wider audiences and entertain them. This supports Roy Shuker's theory (2001) that music videos are used as promotional materials to encourage sales. Richard Dyer (1975) theorised that music videos establish a band's star persona. They do this by having the artist or band show off their performance skills and engage with the audience.

                   Music Video Codes and Conventions

Just like other forms of media, most music videos follow the same codes and conventions. There are different types of musci videos. Sven Carlsson's 1999 theory states there are performative, conceptual and hybrid music videos. In performative music videos, the band is just singing and performing the song. In conceptional music videos, the video is all storyline based. Hybrid music videos are a mixture of both. In addition, Andrew Goodwin's theory (1992) states that the music video is a visual representation of the music video. For example, the band will be singing the words or the storyline will correlate to the song. Furthermore, he states that music videos will try to establish a brand image for the artist. They will do this using close up camera shots of the artist/band. In addition, music videos can be labeled as amplification, illustrative or disconjuncture. Amplification music videos over exaggerate the lyrics of the song in the music video. Disconjuncture music videos don't follow the lyrics whatsoever, there is no correlation between the video and the song lyrics.

 

                                                  Rushes

Here you can see a selection of rushes we filmed for our music video. As I mentioned before, the Nightmare song fits into the pop punk music genre so our music video will represent this. I will demonstrate how my music video follows genre conventions by comparing our rushes to professional pop punk/rock music videos.

                                          Evanescence- Better Without You

Evanescence are a famous rock band. This song is from their newest album, The Bitter Truth. This song talks about how women are treated harshly in the rock music industry. You can interpret the song to mean that you are better without your ex and fake friends/people.

From these screenshots, you can see Evanescence has an emphasis on the lighting they used. The red lighting connotes rage and fury. You can see they have also use medium close ups and close ups of Amy Lee to show the anger on her face and to solidify her star persona. This is a performative music video.

                                         My Chemical Romance- I'm Not Okay

 

 MCR's I'm Not Okay music video is an illustrative and performance hybrid music video. They have a loose fun storyline and the band perform the song.

Here you can see that the band are a part of the music video. They are in a simple room to make sure the audience focuses on the band. They use medium, close up and full camera shots as the band performs. What I wanted to point out specifically is the costumes/makeup they are wearing. The singer has white foundation on and heavy, black eye liner and eye shadow. The band are dressed in all black clothing too. This is the generic style of emo/goth/alternative people which is the target audience for these style of music videos.

     Comparing Our Rushes To Professional Music Videos

Now that I have analysed conventions of music videos in the pop punk/rock genre, I will compare my rushes to them. We are creating a hybrid music video (performative and illustrative) since it is more entertaining. We decided to use two different costumes. For the performative chorus scenes, the character is wears punk makeup and clothing with dyed hair. This is what you can see in the MCR and Evanescence music videos above. We decided to do this so that the audience can relate to the music video since it is an unconventional dress style. We decided to use norma clothing for the illustrative scenes to differentiate the two different styles in the music video. In the chorus, our character sings to an empty crowd in a theater. This fits the locationl aspect of the music videos since in the professional music videos above, they use very simple locations. 

We decided to use red two point lighting for the performative chorus. This is very similar to what they did in the Better Without You Evanescence music video. In our song, the character is trying to escape the monster that is chasing them through their nightmares. This could be interpreted as the character having bad thoughts. As mentioned before, red lighting connote anger, but in our case it can also connote fear. The character is being consumed by the monster and desperately wants to escape their nightmares.

We decided to also film in the woods. In our storyline, the character is lost in the woods and they don't feel safe. They try to run through the woods and escape that area howevever as soon as they leave, they end up in the same area again.

Since this is a cinematography unit, we have used a wide selection of camera shots, angles, movements and we have heavily incorporated mise en scene. In out performance chorus scenes, we followed music video conventions and used medium and close up camera shots which is what the other videos above used. We also used a lot of panning shots and different angles. We have used a dutch angle in one of our rushes to show how the character feels disorientated by their nightmares and we also intentionally used some blur to show how the character is trying to fight the nightmares and the monster.

 Our music video follows Goodwin's theory. In the illustrative sections of our music video (in the woods) we decided to action out some of the lyrics in the song such as "I feel the tapping on my shoulder
I turn around in an alarming state" which you an see in one of the rushes above.

 

To conclude, I have denonstrated how our music video rushes compare to other pop punk/rock music videos in the industry. We have used mise en scene (alternative costume), red lighting (symbolising anger) and lots of different camera specifics.