Music video ideas

Something’s Gonna Happen

My first idea for a music video is to use the song Something’s Gonna Happen of Ivory Layne. I chose this song for several reasons, firstly it’s an unknown song so it will be a discover for lots of people making it more interesting for the viewers. Secondly is has a different style, remind me of the 60s, lastly there is not an official video or any previous videos that I could compare with making mine a 

unique version.

The main start is a female singe with a strong voice, listening it at fist I would say that it’s a band playing for all the music instruments introduced in the songs, however the artist is considered a solo singer, this could be changes or kept as it is, giving us more space of creativity making our own artist or band for the campaign.

Piano, drums and trumpets are used to create the beat and the music; the genre of the music is jazz and soul mix together.

Parts of the lyrics could be easily use as a narrative for the music video, also the song has a good drop that could be symbolised as an important for the music video.

The first time you hear the song the message that you get is to change your life from rebelling and you’ll obtain a dramatic change that you might love.    

For the music video firstly I though that the style should be clearly presented in every scene, and listening to the song the first thought that came into my head is the 60s so I’d like to respects this idea.

The different characters and the locations could all be styles to remind the 60s, starting from the main start and socialising her with that particular genre of music and style.

To start up I have decided to do more research about the 60s looking at hair, make up and clothing style. All this could be used for a simple straightforward scene with only the main start performing clarifying to the viewers how is the main character and the artist. She would be groomed and styled, making the person more appealing and increasing the interest. The location for this place I think should be simple and clear form any possible distractions that could take away the concentration from the main singer, so the studio with a black/grey background would be ideal. Soft light will be used to reclaim the idea of the 60s; the lights would be crucial in the set as they could change the idea of the scene by looking on camera too modern or too overwhelming over coming the star. Prop wise only an old mike could be used to add the idea of vintage. Using the studio we would have more control over the project, making easier to have clear shots and play more with the camera (mid-shots, close-up and wide) also with the lighting creating different effects and ending up with the perfect one.

An entire scene of the main singer performing could be used through out the whole video so it will be very useful to have a good scene of it.

The second scene I thought it could be located in a small bar/pub with a small stage in it or a performing space. This would creative a good contrast with the studio even though I would like to maintain the 60s style, by adding to the location a vintage look.

There will be several characters in this scene, and it will be more complicated to shot as it could end up chaotic.

The idea was of having around five or more people in the bar acting to be usual customers, a waitress working, plus the main artist and her band giving a life performance.

This scene will be presenting more of a narrative telling the story of the waitress getting bored of her usual and boring life so rebelling by braking all the rules in the bar and resign her self by the end of it.

Here the protagonist will be the character acting as the waitress and the her story as it would relate back to the lyrics of the music, also it would add movements to the video and it won’t exclude the ain singer and the player as they would be in it as well.

My idea was her being bother by few men and she decides to stand up for her self and she starts to break everything and throwing glass and spilling drinks all over the place.

Some of this could be shot in slow motion having the background of the band playing. The slow motion will create a contrast from the music and the happening also adding a more dramatic feeling to it.

The video will show the main character performing in the studio, than in the bar plus also a small narrative reclaim the title of the song Something’s Gonna Happen. All the characters presented in the scene will be styled as needed to keep up with the theme e of the 60s.

Lip sync exercise

The other day we spend a whole morning into the studio working around the idea of making a music video, especially the lip sync, as it is one of the main features.

In the studio we had three different sets up, so that we could work around in groups and have lots of takes by the end of the day.

We worked with three different cameras (we looked at them in our previous tasks for the thrillers) to be more familiar with. We learnt how to use a Lolly to increate the idea of movement into the music video.

However as the working environment can become a bit overwhelming and loud, to keep everything under control we had a person checking all the camera men and actors where in place at the right time and all the takes were well conduced. Another new role it was introduced was the clapper (it indicates the time of the lip sync starting, giving a base to everyone’s work), important later on for the editing session.

The camera wok is different than from a TV show, for example we completely broke the fourth wall, making direct contact with the audience to engage them more. The main shots use are mid shots and close up to illustrate details of the character, understanding of their personality, fashion style and beauty style.

Editing was more challenging as we needed to layer different takes to track, matching the lip sync and length them all up to the same time, renamed them and grouped them by model and set used, all to present organisation and make the editing process quicker and more efficient.

We used Adobe Premier, the same software previously used to make our thrillers.

For a music video the style of editing depends of the genre of music we are looking for, in this case pop music. You decide your editing style in different ways, for example based from the pase of the music, the drops of the song or the lyrics. Music videos don’t present the idea of continuity as you can cut, change a scene and come back to it whenever you have as soon as you don’t want to tell a narrative, or show a story with a beginning and an end.

Because of this a music video needs to present the right amount of element other wise it be see as boring or chaotic, the right balance of elements it’s one of the biggest challenge.

Lip sync is shown as a live performance of the artist.

Music video is done to promote the artist and to sell them selves as a talented artist and to create an idea of positive connection, making the want and need to buy album, concert tickets, etc. It is not done to make money for the artist as the audience is free to watch them, however the artist could make profit from advertisement and sponsors, included within the video.

Making a video isn’t easy as you need to be updated with the upcoming and current trends, plus what the audience is looking for, grouping them and deciding specifically what the artist will be best for (teenagers, adults, children, etc), the genre it self will change the appeal of the artist as well as the typology of video, the lip sync could be affected depending of the message they want to transmit and the performance style.

It was great to get us started with such a small project to be able to experiment and play around with the roles, I hope once will be actually working with those things the process will become easier and quicker.

Photomontage

Last week we attended around three lessons of photomontage with Matt our technical of editing. Photomontage is an essential part of editing for the film industry, as it is the manipulation of more images done to create a new one.

The process it self can be seen as complicated but if you manage you self with Photoshop, the job become a lot quicker and easier.

Photoshop is a professional software used for the editing of images, in this case it is mainly used for the digipack process, and all the online pictures used for online website, social media and more.

The main thing to know if you are a beginner with Photoshop is to organisation, creation and blending of files three different steps that you will just need to get used to and repeat them several times. There are different sections in Photoshop that you need to click and automatically it will do the job for you.

 Photoshop as it is a professional software it gives more options (tools) for the same things, for example something you will find once starting the Photomontage process is the selecting tool, here it varies from people and their preferences.

I personally prefer the selecting tool W as it autocratically separate the different elements presented in a picture giving you the possibility to change the thickness of the brush.

The Lasso tool it’s the same function but it is more manual and it give only straight lines for a less precise result.

So the steps for photomontage are: Open a new file with the right resolution and size, a black page will appear this step is optional, then all the interested pictures needs to be open and automatically will appear.

You then select the interested part and drag them to the main picture that you want to montage that would do as base of your final work, you can either cut the not interested bit that will be covered in the original picture or leave and just cover them, you then need to blend than making the outline let strong and smoother within the picture.

You can then change the saturation to make the colour as realistic as possible, once you are satisfied with your final work, it’s best to blend all the different layers together, however once this step is done you can’t make any changes to the picture without affecting the whole picture.

Original Picture

My own version of it

Digipack front cover

As for A2 we started to study the media music industry as part of or course work we had to look at album covers and create one, after have had some Photoshop lesson fro beginner.

Firstly you need to have a general understanding of Photoshop and of the music industry, choosing a defined genre.

Once you’ve chosen you genre you use pen and paper to write down all the thoughts that describe and represent it specifically, anything could be valid so don’t get shy just write everything that come into you head (spider graphs are better to have a more detailed research and well displayed).

Once you came out with a final idea you can start creating, with the use of Photoshop, opening a new document and be sure you typed 12cm per 12cm and 300 resolution. It is really important to get those figures accurate, to obtain a high quality album cover and the right measurements straight away to income any problems later on.

From here is your imagination playing to create a unique cover, however there can be different type of genre of music, this means that it would chance depending on the chosen one.

If we talk about a single artist you may or not want to include the protagonist in the front cover, same for a band. It could be a symbol or logo that represents the band or artist.

Why is it so important to make front covers?

It is a method of recognition, you can underline some essential aspect of the artist, for example organic or not, single or band. It can help promoting the object by emphasising the type of audience and few features that can create a USP for the artist, for example if they collaborate with some important record label or maybe the look or style.

In any album cover you could buy, they will have something in common, like a picture, the name of the artist or band and the album name, a code bar, record label name or logo as well as a playlist.

For my album cover house/soul music inspired me, and I decided to use my own picture to make it more personal.

The purpose of my album is to represent a solo artist, plus describe what the song or the whole album is going to talk about.

The picture represent a well-styled girl surrounded my smoke; the whole was taken with a blue filter adding a modern aspect to picture. I chose this picture, as I know that blue and red lights are the trends of the moment as you can find them in many music videos, so I would have started with a understanding and knowledge of trends and the music industry.

As it was own picture the post editing was already accurately made, making the process a lot quicker and easier.

The next step was to choose a name for the artist, the title of the album or single plus the font.

In this case I decided to copy the name of an unknown artist and one of his song that would fit the character and the whole theme, the name is Mako and the title Smoke Filled Room, for the font I chose something simple and straight forward but that would add a bit of character, Bodoni 72 Smallcaps, I have used it before so I knew already the final result.

Finally to add something modern and different I have cut three little triangle from the original picture, picking three different places and their different tones of blue, then I lined them up on the top left cona, and my front cover was completed.

That third element helped me to make more creative and interesting

To complete the work I blended all the different layers making a single one, you need to be 100% sure that you happy with it cause once you blend all the layer together you won’t be able to edit them anymore.

That was just a practise for a front cover, so there is lots of room for improvement.