Features That Have Influenced My Video

I have now evaluated three videos by bands assocated with the 'Alternative Rock' genre. In this post I am going to explain what features from the videos I liked, and will try and incorporate into my video. I will also be exaplaining the conventions that I have found run through out the videos. This will include camera shots, angles, lighting, editing and clothing.

- The use of the hand held camera in 'For The First Time,' works really well to make teh audience feel as though they are in the video. By creating this sense of 'being there,' the emotions and feelings are intensified and felt more by the audience. Which influences the audience to carry on watching the video.

- It seems to be a convention through out the videos to have the band in an isolated area. When the video shows the band shots, they are always in an isolated area, such as a warehouse, parking lot etc. This isolation helps to seperate the band from the story. When creating my video I must have the band in a similar isolated evnironment, this will help the audience to seperate the band and story, but it will also help the identify the video as part of the 'Alternative Rock' genre.

- I like how close up shots are used on the singer during the key points of the song. By getting the key words from the singer, it helps to emphasise the emotions and feelings of the song. This is something that I will experiment with when creating the songs.

- Mid shots are used on the lead guitarist, to show the audience the guitarist playing to the song, which seems to be a convention in many of the music videos. I will use this in order to make my video assocate with the genre, and make the video look more professional and better quility.

- Another convention that I have found that runs through each of the videos, is during the chorus there are more frequent cuts between the band shots and the narrative shots. This may be to build the tension and exciment during the key points of the song, and encourage the audience to watch the rest of the video.

- All of the members of the band in 'The Script,' are wearing black and white, which is kept to throughout the video. It seems to be a convention of the band, as they are the colours used in other videos that I have also looked at. These colours seem to be a convention of all the 'Alternative Rock' bands I have looked at, something I must consider when creating my video.

- I like the use of an establishing shot at the start of 'After Midnight.' It shows the audience where the video is set and makes the audience feel comfortable, encouraging them to watch the whole film.

- I like the use of a close up zoom to emphasise the emotions, it makes the feelings stronger for the audience.

- I felt that the narrative at the start of 'When September Ends' made the story more intriguing for the audience. I did feel that it was too long in their video and so maybe a short starting narrative or ending would make my video more appealing.

Evaluating Videos 3

Green day – When September Ends

Green day falls into three genres, Punk Rock, Pop Rock and Alternative Rock.

The video starts with close ups, of two people kissing in a field. This tells the audience that they are a couple. The narrative then moves to the two telling how much they love each other. The use of the close up and zooms, emphasise the emotions and make it stronger for the audience. A close up is then used, of the singer as he starts to sing. With cuts between the singer and the story. The song then stops and the narrative is then moved forward, with the boy leaving the girl to join army. To show the anger of the couple, there is quick movement of the camera and fast cuts. Building the tension for the audience and making the anger more intense. The band shots are all in isolated area, which help to separate the band from the story. Close up shots of each individual instrument is used, to show the audience them being played, this makes the video more appealing. The close up of the singer during the key words in the song, emphasise them and makes the tension and feelings in the words more intense for the audience.

The clothing for the band is black and white. These colours contrast with each other and make the members stand out more. The black and white colour for the band seems to be a convention used by many of the videos. This is something that I am going to have to consider when creating my video, if my video follows this convention it will make it easier for the audience to identify the video as 'Alternative Rock.'

Evaluating videos 2

Blink 182 - After Midnight

The video starts with an establishing shot, of a board, which tells the audience it is based in a ‘Youth Psychiatric Ward.’ It then moves to a short narrative, giving the audience more insight into the story behind the songs. The basic spine of the story being a boy liking a girl. In order to emphasise the feelings from the boy, a close up shot is used to show the boy smiling, which then cuts to an over the shoulder shot looking towards the girl, which then cuts to a close up zoom towards the girl. While the narrative is being shown, it is silent apart from the natural sound, which has been quietened more then natural. This makes the audience feel more involved in the story, and the audience are able to understand the story more as the music is not distracting them. As the music starts, the video cuts to the drums first and then the rest of the band. A convention I have found is to have the band shots in an isolated area, with just them in it. I believe this is to help the audience split band form the story. As the song build to someone singing, fast cuts are used between the story and band. Showing the story still moving forward. A lot of low angle shots are used on the main singer.

During the chorus there are more fast cuts used between the band and story. The camera movement is also a lot faster, using long shots and tracking shots to emphasise moment and action. There is also a lot more action happening in the story during the chorus, making the video more exciting and building some tension for the audience. The clothes worn by the actors are grey, dull colours to show represent the life in the psychiatric ward, which is meant to be boring and dull. The band members wear dark colours, mainly sticking to black, white and red. The video then ends the same as it began, silent and bringing the narrative to a conclusion. 

Evaluating Video 1

The Script - The Man Who Can't Be Moved

It starts with a mix between handheld camera and a tracking shot of his feet, which makes the audience feel as though in the video. By making the audience feel as though in the video, the audience is intrigued and is influenced to carry on watching the video. This technique also makes the feelings and emotions more intense for the audience, another way of encouraging them to watch the whole video. Before the singer even start to sing, there is a quick burst of shots. Using fast cuts to show the feet walking and the singer looking around. The main singer is singing throughout the narrative while still acting. As it goes to the band shots, they are in an isolated area, which helps to split the narrative from the band. The camera uses a wide shot to capture and show the whole band to the audience. It changes to the close up shots of the main singer, this is done during a key part of the song, to help emphasise the emotion and feelings for the audience. Then mid shots are used on the lead guitarist, to show the audience the guitarist playing to the song, which seems to be a convention in many music videos.

During the chorus there are more frequent cuts between the band shots and the narrative shots. Fast cuts are used during the chorus, however during the key words the camera sticks on the singer, using longer shots, so to capture the feelings the audience should be feeling. I have noticed that the band members rarely look directly at the camera, but when they do it is during the circular tracking shots. All of the members of the band are wearing black and white, which is kept to throughout the video. It seems to be a convention of the band, as they are the colours used in other videos that I have also looked at. 

Style Guide

The style guide below is a collection of font styles, sizes, colours, layouts etc. That will run across the group’s project. The reason that we are creating a style guide is because we want all of our products to relate, this makes it easier for the audience to recognise our work and relate them back to the video.

The font that we will be using for our body copy is the ‘Prestige Elite STD’ and the size will be appropriate to the product that is being created. The font that we will be using for the subheadings is ‘Prestige Elite Std’ again but use bold or italic. A size that is suitable to the product. The reason that we have chosen to use this font is because it is similar to the font style used on the logo, this means that the sense of a typewriter is followed throughout the project and becomes a convention of our band.

The colour scheme for the house style that we will be using across the project is black and white, this is because the colours contrast with each other and stand out more to the audience. The music is quite mellow and not a very upbeat song, the lyrics are about a couple just trying to make the relationship work. The colours represent the narrative. Black and white are contrasting colours, they show two sides to the story.

Props – The props include a pregnancy test, the reason that the pregnancy test is being used is to show the loss of innocence; teddy bear, the reason that we are using the bear is to show the childhood, the innocence.

Costumes – It is going to be black and white. This will be white shirts, black shirts, black leather jacket etc.  The idea is to have the two members of the couple, one in black and one in white. As the story moves towards the conclusion, we are having the members slowly change to wearing grey, a middle colour that represents that life is not black and white. The band members will be wearing black and white throughout the whole video, showing they are out of the narrative but part of the story. While I was evaluating the pop videos I found that the band members wore black and white, this helps to position the video in the genre by following the conventions.

Locations – House, the house needs to look like a family house, owned by parents. This makes it more realistic, as it follows real life and shows how young the people are. Car, the reason that we are using a car to show the boy drinking being depressed, instead of a bar is because it is more isolated. It emphasises the feeling of depression and sadness. Bedroom, we are going to be using a bedroom, as it is another way of showing isolation, it also makes adds to the sense of innocence and childhood. We are going to be using an isolated area for band shots, this is to help the audience to separate the band from the story.

Photography – The photography is going to include low key lighting, with the three band members next to each other, behind each other etc. We are using low key lighting for the photography as it makes the photo more dramatic, creating intriguing and appealing shadows. The shadows also make the features on the models face stand out, making the photo more attractive. From the research undertaken on the genre, it is also a convention used by many bands.

Chosen song

The chosen band and song to base our music video around is the band 'The Script' and their song 'For the first time.'

The reason that we have decided to focus on this band is because it is one of the most popular bands at the moment, due to their new album '3.' They are also a favourite band for many, which means that it should be popular from the start. Due to it being popular we can also get honest feedback after the video has been created from these fans.

We have decided to focus on the song 'For the first time.' The reason for this is because, it is in the top 5 most popular songs by 'The Script.' The other reason for focusing on this song is because of its lyrics and the basic story we have created for them. Before we decided on a song to base the project around, the group and I listened to several songs, listening to the lyrics and coming up with ideas (storylines) for each song. At the end, we gathered all of the possible stories and decided that the basic idea for 'For the first time' was the best. We believe, as a group that we can create a good, professional, high quality video by using 'The Script - For the first time.'

The next step is to evaluate several videos from the 'Alternative Rock' genre, looking at the camera angles, editing and mise-en-scene used throughout them. Looking for the conventions that run in each of the videos. At the end of the evaluations, I am going to create a post showing all of the conventions and all of the features that I liked, and say how they are going to influence my work when creating the video.

Chosen Genre

After careful consideration we have decided to focus the project around the Pop Rock genre, or what some people may call 'Alternative Rock.' The reason that we have chosen to focus on this genre is because, it is one of the most popular around the world. Within the genre are some very popular bands, bands that the group and I feel would be very suitable to our video. Another reason that we have chosen to focus on 'Alternative Rock' is because we feel that we can create a good final video for it, as we believe we have a good undersanding of this genre, as it is one we have more knowledge about. The next step for the group is to decide what band and song to base our project around.

Below I have created a list of bands from the Alternative Rock genre, they are a list of bands that, as a group have narrowed to the ones we are considering to focus on:

• Blink 182
• Coldplay
• Foo Fighters
• Greenday 
• The Killers
• Nickelback
• Slipknot
• Simple Plan
• The Script
• Slipknot
  
  
  

Mood Boards

As a group we created  mood boards on some genres that we were considering to focus our music video on. We collected images of bands from each genre that we admired and has thought about using for our project. Below are the mood boards that we created:

Pop Bands

The above is a collection of bands that are assocated with the pop genre. As a group we have looked at each of these bands and what songs that belong to them. We looked at the songs that we might enjoy to video or base our project around and what song we would be able to create a proffestional good quility video for.


Rock Bands

The above is a collection of bands that are assocated with the rock genre. We have looked at each of these bands and what their most popular songs are. We looked at the songs that we might enjoy to base our project around and what song we would be able to create a good quility and high level video for.

Pop Rock Bands

The above is a collection of bands that are assocated with the pop rock genre. We have looked at each of  their most popular songs and what songs we would consider basing the project and video around. We looked at the songs that we would enjoy to base our project around and what song we would be able to create a good and realistic video for.