Conclusion - Music Videos [Progress Tracker]

This conclusion will begin from when I first chose the brief right up to the present day. At the beginning of my research I looked at musics videos I knew, using my film knowledge I analysed these music videos to the best of my ability not knowing what I was really looking for. However I did understand that music videos were different depending on the people making them and the genre of the music. I have learnt that music videos can carry visual jokes and meanings, which can link to the song. I first saw this in the 'Smosh' video "Dixon Cider" in which they have a lot of visual gags that link with the overall on of "Dixon". I further learnt how this same technique is used in Sia's music video "Chandelier" however this is used to create emotion instead of comedy. This is because the music video links the interpretive dance to the lyrics, which heightens the emotion to the song. Lastly I had learnt that green screens are important to the visuals of most music videos because it gives more control over the elements due to the artist being a separate component/ layer to the background. I has to then look into how to achieve this myself because I wanted to be able create a digital feel very similar to 'Rap God'.

Further on in my blog after research narrative in film and music I looked into the song I wanted, however it was clear to me that I can't just take an artists song without his/hers permission. Therefore I went away and constructed a lighthearted by professional email to send off to my chosen artist hoping that he would see my email and respond. A week passed and I was coming to terms with not being able to use his music until I went on his twitter and saw that he was on holiday. This lead to me sending him a tweet asking if he had looked at his emails; he then responded and sure enough he hadn't. This had taught me that it is important to stay patient and professional when dealing with people who are more successful than yourself because they have a lot of emails coming through everyday. He then responded to my email the next week giving me permission to make him a music video with his track. This was a great learning experience for me because it taught me a to about contacting people and copyright restrictions.

After that I then went on to research more music videos and look at how they use the camera to keep the music video interesting and relatable to the music. I wanted to see how the editing and pace slowed down depending to the rhythm of the song, there was no better video to look at than "Youtube Rewind" because they have to change their pace all the time because the song changes. I loved the way that the transitions were clever and simultaneously linked all the different artists and music together in one video. Looking back at the blog post a I may look into more of the pacing instead of the transitions because I think that that style is too hard to achieve on the budget that I am on. However I did want to look into doing this in some parts of my music video just not throughout.

To further extend my research into music videos I looked at the history of them and how their objectives have changed over time and how the technology into making them have changed over time. To do this I looked at several timelines to get a greater understanding of the history. I learnt that they have been around 94 years and that they have developed over time. I learnt that they have evolved because they became more of a promotional video for televisions and helped keep the song memorable. Furthermore the rise of MTV made it easier for these videos to be shared and that directors were now being given credit for them.

I then looked at the construction of my genre, 'nerdcore' this was because I wanted to understand what people expected in a nerdcore video and see if the idea of 'nerds' takes up the hole of the music videos. I found out that the mets en scene included old computers and servers which defiantly connoted nerds and geeks. The setting of a basement, locked away form society further enforces the stereotype that nerds don't socialise. However in my music video I intend to subvert these conventions and show nerdcore as a form of expression compared to the oppression of a 'nerd' stereotype. To show the oppression of nerds in society I looked into 'Film Noir' because this genre created vast shadows and used low keyed lighting to created mystery and show oppression. I researched the history of it and in my group we created our own music video using purley 'Film Noir' techniques. This taught me a lot about lighting and shadows.

Lastly I looked into more abstract music videos because I wanted to see how people have subverted conventions in their work to create something original. I went to several art galleries in hope of finding abstract inspiration, I then found a whole section on music videos and this is where I found the different variants of conventions within music videos. I found: Narrative, Concept and Performance. I then went away and researched these in order to develop and understanding of different types of music videos. I learnt about the different forms of narrative and which one I want to use, how concept is developed off artist and how performance and be made visually interesting through VFX.

After learning all this I created a survey to research into what other people thought of music videos and find out what they expect. Overall I think that I have learnt a great deal to do with music video conventions, genres and audience.