D2: Discuss How The Final Edit Has Complemented Recorded Cinematography Effects to Create Meaning

 In this report, I will explain how I have created meaning in my music video from the different editing techniques I used.

Here is my final completed music video that I edited. This song is called Nightmare by the band Set It Off. I have applied a wide range of editing techniques to create our pop punk/rock music video. This genre of music is known to be a little dark. Below are some music videos that we used for inspiration. I will compare scenes from our music video to scenes from these professional music videos to show how we have followed genre conventions and created meaning.

              Better Without You- Evanescence

                      

In this music video, you can see Evanescence have used red lighting to symbolise the rage that Amy Lee is feeling while singing the song. Red is usually associated with the rock genre too. 

 

 

                        I'm Not Okay- MCR

We also took inspiration from this music video. You can see they have heavily focused on mise en scene by wearing alternative costumes and makeup. I believe they have also used two point lighting to create the scene above since you can see the spotlights in the background. 

 

 

 

 

 Here are just a few examples where I used editing techniques as well as cinematography techniques to follow genre conventions and draw inspiration from these two professional music videos. As you can see, I decided to create a spotlight editing effect to copy the idea of using spotlights in the MCR music video. We also used two point lighting. Furthermore, we used red lighting to connote how the character is being corrupted by the metaphorical monster. They are angry that they cannot escape their nightmares and it is driving them mad. This creates the same style of meaning that the Evanescence music video. We also used medium close ups in our music video to show how the character is feeling and to create a more dramatic cinematic effect.

                     Editing to Create Meaning

I made the creative decision to include text in the music video. I believe this helps to emphasise the lyrics of the music video and help the audience connect with what the character is feeling. I used a black background to help create a contrast for the text to make sure the lyrics stand out. I also used the colour black since this fits the emo asthetic of the song. The character is trapped in their nightmares, they are alone and scared so having a pitch black background symbolises the nightmare and how alone they feel, they cannot escape. I used the colours red and white for the text since these colours represent the emotions anger and fear that the character is feeling. Red can also connote blood and death and white can symbolise the supernatural. This is important since you could also infer that the character is stuck in some sort of purgatory or that they cannot wake up from their nightmares. Their nightmares and the monster (their) is consuming their thoughts in their waking life. I used the text font TotallyGothic OT because the spikes in the text fits the pop punk/rock genre and it reminds me of horror.

I have used the same editing techniques for all of the verses. You can see a huge difference between the original clip and the edited version. I edited the music video to mute the bright colours of the forest and darken the scenes. I believe this fits the genre better as apposed to the original bright, colourful forest rushes. My intention behind this was to make the music video look hazy as if the character is actually in their nightmare. I think this worked very well. The dutch angle in this footage fits brilliantly with this editing style. I also made the light in the background bright as if they are in a dream. This dutch angle alongside my editing makes the character seem as if they are disorientated and they feel as if they are loosing their mind. They are in a dark place mentally as well and we can infer this from the editing.

Here you can see the editing effects I have used for my verses. The first screenshot shows the editing technique I used for my first verse. I wanted a spotlight effect to show how the character is doing a performance. However, we see that the character is performing to an empty crowd. This feels very strange and eerie to the viewers. This connotes how the character feels all alone and has no one to turn to. They are in this alone. We used red lighting while filming our music video, and I used this to my advantage to create the red and yellow effect in the chorus. The red lighting symbolises how they are so angry that they are tearing themselves apart inside. I also decided to emphasise the shadows in the music video which in turn made the character look scary and this fits the conventions of the music genre. The alternative/emo outfit and makeup the character is wearing really stands out using this effect.

 

How We Created Cinematic Footage

Our music video fits into the pop punk musc genre. There are two theories I would like to highlight here. Steve Neale's Repetition and Difference theory (1980) states that all genres contain instances of repetition and difference. For our music video, we have followed traditional conventions of music videos but we have also follow pop punk genre conventions.

From analysing other professional music videos, I have learnt that pop punk music videos use a lot of mise en scene. The costumes they wear are alternative (white foundation, heavy eyeliner and eyeshadow, dark clothes...) and they use lighting in dark locations to give a pop punk style (dark room lit up, red lighting, flashing lights...). For our music video, we decided to stick to red lighting. The character wears alternative clothing to stick to the genre.

Tzvetan Todorov's theory (1977) states that narratives follow a certain structure. They progess in a chronological order and the character is changed at the end of the music video/movie in some way. I think we did a great job at representing this in our music video. The song Nightmare talks about the character escaping the monster they created in their head "I created a monster, a hell within my head". You can infer this to mean anything from bad thoughts to suicidal thoughts. They are trying to escape the monster inside of themselves that they have tried to supress for so long. This shows through our music video. In the verses (not the choruses) the character is wearing normal clothing and looks frightened. They become increasingly hopeless since they cannot escape the forest. Everytime they try to leave they find themselves returning to the same area "I'm right back where I was before". The pop punk genre does reference dark thoughts etc and so does this song "Walking to the ledge, I find myself looking down". The character is exhausted and frustrated that they cannot escape the monster metaphorically inside of them. In the chorus, the character seems a lot more angry and less scared. This shows how the monster is getting to them and they are changing for the worse (refering to the theory). They are wearing pop punk clothing with red lighting. They are singing to an empty crowd to symbolise how isolated they feel, they cannot turn to anyone for help "With nowhere to go, I'm out on my own oh, I'm so scared". 

 To conclude, I have demostrated how we have created a cinematic music video using our editing techniques and how we have created meaning. I believe we have successfully created cinematic footage and we have shown this by using lots of mise en scene and editing techniques.