ANALYSIS IN RELATION TO CINEMATOGRAPHY AND EDITING

Foals - My Number

Cinematography

The use of the cinematography in My Number by Foals is much different to that of Alt J - Fitzpleasure, while Fitzpleasure uses pans to make sense of the story, My number also does that but acts as a transition into different scenes also. This is very effective as instead of seeing clear cut edits the transitions are hidden in the cinematography. Tilts are also used in this music video to get different perspectives of the performance and the narrative. For example when the narrative begins the camera angle is tilted down towards the boy, this gives the impression that the bouncer has power over him which is exactly what is happening in the narrative and through the camera angles the audience can see this. The traditional cinematography of music videos is also used, long shots are used to establish the scene and to show the crowd in their hundreds. This demonstrates the popularity of Foals to the audience. Medium close ups are used as well as close ups to see the performance of Foals and to see the audience singing along with them, this again creates a bond between the audience. Extreme close ups are used in My Number however, are not used in Fitzpleasure, Extreme close ups are used for either lip sync or to disorientate the audience and this is exactly what affect the audience get.

Editing

My Number has straight cut edits which allows the imagery to match the lyrics and beat of the song, this is traditional of all music videos. As well as straight cut edits effects such as black and white are used to fit the genre of indie rock. Slow motion is an aspect also used in My Number and is used to show the imagery through one of the crowd members eyes, this involves the imagery being blurred as well as in slow motion which also disorientates the audience. This is effective in demonstrating the overwhelming aspect of a concert.

ANALYSIS IN RELATION TO CINEMATOGRAPHY AND EDITING

Alt J - Fitzpleasure.Cinematography

Alt J stick to Indie Rock conventions and have frequent use of medium close up and close up shots. They do however, also use long shots in Fitzpleasure to establish the setting. The use of these medium close up and close up shots allows us as an audeince to see the facial expressions and the facial features of the people in the video. By doing this we, as an audience, feel apart of the narrative and can understand the background of the people in the video throught the use of mise-en-scene.
The use of pans in the music video allows continuity and is effective in demonstrating the narrative and what the person in the video may be looking at, which then creates a connection between the audience. Having pans at speed shows the fast pace narrative and shows commotion throughout the cinematography. This is an effective feature and I will consider using this in my own media product to create a sense of commotion

Editing

The straight cut edits allow to keep the continutiy and fast pace. This is conventional in music videos in general however what makes the music video specific to indie rock is that use of the black and white effect used throughout. With the effect sillouets are created which is iconic to the genre. Slow motion is also used frequently by Alt J and in the indie rock genre itself which follows conventions and is very effective is explaining the full narrative. It can also make a video that would necessarily be boring more entertaining and interesting.

FOCUS GROUP

I conducted a focus group where I asked questions about their favourite genre of music and how often they watched music videos. From this I was able to ask how they recognised their favourite genre in terms of conventions and iconography within a music video, which then allowed me to understand how existing artists portray themselves. This also allowed me to understand what traits are identifiable to specific genres. Asking my focus group what conventions they thought were used in  Indie Rock music video and from this I was able to understand if the conventions were recognisable.

FOCUS GROUP QUESTIONS

What genre of music do you listen to?

Do you watch music video frequently? If yes, why? If no, why not?

Do you like existing music video? If yes, what do you like about them, if no, what don’t you like?

What do you prefer to see in a music video in terms of narrative?
For example, performance, narrative or abstract.

How do you identify an artist from your preferred genre?

What iconography do you expect to see in your preferred genre?

What iconography would you expect to see in an indie rock music video?

What conventions would you expect to see in an indie rock music video?

CREATING A BLOG POLL

On my blog I created a poll to ask people who visited a few questions regarding their preferred choice of music genre and what they like to see in a music video in relation to narrative. This will help me to create a music video in which the audience, as the consumer, enjoys.

I then emailed fellow media students of wyke college to aks them if they were willing to take my poll on my blog. As they are media students they know what features are effective in music vidoes so their feedback was very important in the basis of conducting research for my music video.
Below is the Poll on my Blog, which has already had a fairly good response. Audience Feedback is really important when creating a media product as it is the consumer that decides if the media prodcut is successful by either buying the material or watching the material.

SVEN CARLSON 1999

Sven Carlson developed the 3 concept of Narrative, them being;

• Performance - where the artists performs their material 
• Narrative - where the artist construct a story for the audience to consume which relates to the lyrics
• Abstract / Art - where the narrative has no real appearance in the video and relies on scenery and art to tell a story, if a story is being told, this concept is rarely used. 

The Kooks -Ooh La is an example of Performance.

Alt J- Taro is an example of narrative.

 

Alt J - Matilda is an example of Art, although it features the band there is no real narrative or performance in the video an has been put together on the basis of art.




In my music video I will use Sven Carlson's theory of Narrative to produce a music video that has a solely narrative aspect to it, there will be no aspect of performance as I feel for the audience to understand the narrative it is not necessary for their to be any aspect of performance. However, I want to also combine the Art aspect of narrative within my music video and will use the male cast member as the abstract center piece to my narrative.

TIM O'SULLIVAN ET AL. 1998 - NARRATIVE

Tim O'Sullivan's theory of Narrative argues that all media texts tell us some kind of story.
Though through careful mediation, media texts offer a way of telling stories about ourselves- not usually our own personal stories but the story of us as a culture or set cultures.

Narrative
The structure of a story.

Mediation
All media is mediated through media language in terms of their ideology, this allows us to follow the narrative. Any media text reflects the ideology and views of its culture and the society which creates that media text.

Verisimilitude
The quality of appearing to be real or true. For the story to engage us it must appear to be real to us.

This theory of narrative relates to my media text on the basis that my media text will tell a story through its narrative and will be understood by its audience due to the mediation and the verisimilitude aspects. The identified conventions of Indie Rock involve using verisimilitude narrative, costume and location to identify with its preferred audience and also to be understood by a wider audience also. In my media text I want to create a Social Realism, therefore, by using Tim O'sullivan et al. theory of Narrative when constructing it, it will enable me to consider how my preferred audience will mediate my music video. Through the Narrative, the audience will experience the hidden undesirable behavior of our culture in today's life and will acknowledge the idea of un voiced accounts of happenings withing a relationship, especially that of a relationship that has broken down due to the effects of society.

CHOSEN IDEA

Fourth Idea:

The music video in which I will create will be a combination of both narrative an abstract, taking elements from all three previous ideas. The beginning will consist of the male sat at a kitchen table being the abstract center piece of the contrast of what is reality and what is in fact a dream. We will see him get frustrated with himself, showing a violent nature, throwing kitchen wear. As the narrative unfolds we see him returning back to the chair and from this the audience will then begin to understand why he is so angry and upset with himself. With a flash back we see him and the girl sat at the table having breakfast, the girl seems anxious and explains that she is going to leave the man for good. The male is angry with this and hurls abuse at the woman. A fight breaks out between the man and woman and he chases her to the bathroom where he places her head in a sink full of water until she struggles to breathe. The male realizes what he is doing and quickly relieves the pressure of the woman and leaves. With a jump cut we see the girl sat against a bathroom wall crying with make up down her face and see the male trying to apologize. With a straight cut we see the male sat back at the table.

INDIE ROCK MUSIC VIDEOS FOR INSPIRATION

Oasis - Sunday Morning Call
2000

Miles Kane - Don't Forget Who You Are

The Killers- Mr Brightside

These music videos are all examples of Indie Rock bands and artists and their music. Through these music videos the conventions are demonstrated effectively despite the narrative being different in each. The conventions of Indie Rock still shine through.

 

BACKGROUND TO INDIE ROCK

The term Indie Rock derived from 'independant', in terms of music labels and describes a small low budget label with the 'do-it-yourself' attitude of the bands and artists involved. Although distribution deals are often struck with major corporate companies, these labels and the bands they host have attempted to retain their autonomy, leaving them free to explore sounds, emotions and subjects of limited appeal to large, mainstream audiences as well as for a Niche Audience. Indie Rock is a genre of Alternative rock and first came around in 1980's in the United Kingdom and the United States. It had many sub genres including Indie Pop and Jangle Pop.
Indie Rock is becoming increasingly popular as the music created by the artists is getting recognised more frequently due to sites such as iTunes and Youtube. The music created which was originally intended for a niche audience but is now becoming appealing to the mainstream audience. There are many bands and artists that fit into the Indie Rock genre and are often recognised by the type of clothing they were and the sounds they create.

Artists in the Indie Rock genre:

Arctic Monkeys
Bastille
Alt J
The Killers
The Wombats
The Kooks
Miles Kane
Nivarna
The Strokes
Imagine Dragons
Oasis

The Indie Rock material produced is the kind of media that will essentially never get old and boring to listen too in comparison to pop. The material is unique and old material is becoming increasinly popular, for example Oasis formed in 1991 originally labeled as a rock band, their material is still listened to by the young, middle aged and the old.
The music videos of Indie Rock all follow the same conventions stated on an earlier post and tend to be Black and White to set the mood. The idea of the combined narrative and performance has been carried through over the years. The idea of a solely narrative msuic video is also used a lot and it is very effective in some cases as with the Arctic Monkey's music video; Leave Before The Lights Come On. Through its narrative the audience begin to understand why the main character does what she does and why the events happen, the lyrics are reflected in the narrative.

Arctic Monkeys - Leave Before The Lights Come On

INITIAL IDEAS

Write a synopsis of what happens in your narrative, explain the plot, what is your story, the message you want the audience to give?

First Idea: Based on the narrative from the music video of Bob Dylan's - 'Beyond here lies
                    nothing'.
   
The beginning of the narrative starts with the males face at a medium close up shot, zooming towards him with a blank expression. His face is the abstract centre piece to the contrast between the dream and the reality of his dysfunctional relationship.  With jump cuts we see the girls face happy and smiling with a fast forward to her crying and upset putting keys on the kitchen side and walking toward the door. Hidden in the narrative there is reference to the 'Where the Wild Things Are' a children's book by Maurice Sendak, as from analysing the lyrics I saw several relations and want to present this to the audience.
The story unfolds as to why she is leaving and shows how the male can see she isn't in love him with anymore. It then rewinds to show how she used to be with him and how she is now. During the development we see how he is too possessive with her but he doesn’t realise and everything he seems to do annoys her in some way.
Clearly hurt by the thought of him loosing her he does all he can to try and convince her he loves her but it ends up physical and we see his face as medium close up, zoomed as he is knelt by her body on the floor in darkness with only flashes showing both his face and hers.


Second Idea:

The narrative starts with a girl sat clenched up against a bathroom wall, clearly been crying as we see the makeup down her face, sat in what looks like soggy clothes. As we zoom out we see a dripping tap and then again the girl, medium close up make up smeared across her face. We see an argument unfold with a flash back and see her packing her belongings while the male lays on the floor with a gash on his head, unconscious. As she begins to runaway a hand closes the door from behind her. The man overpowers her she is tied to the kitchen chair where the mans hauls abuse in her face. She manages to get her arms free when the man turns to get the sedatives in which he has been giving her and grabs the closest thing to her and hits him over the head. It resolves with boy the male and the female sat in the dark staring towards nothing both with blood on their hand and face.

Third Idea:

The narrative begins in a kitchen with the female appearing to be sat at a table looking extremely run down while the male makes breakfast behind her. He forces the breakfast on the table in front of her yet we see the Breezeblock which appears to be on her lap. As the narrative develops we see him giving the female drugs yet she refuses to open her mouth to take them and instead grabs her breakfast bowl and throws it at him. This angers the male and we seem him getting tenser.
We then see him sat in a dark room with an angered expression and through his eyes we see how he wanted things to be but how they are in reality and the audience begin to understand that she wanted to leave him.
Through the females eyes we then see why she wanted to leave him and how he had been treating her over the time they were together. We see how his manipulation led to her feeling isolated.
In the end we see the man laid by the woman on the floor holding a photo of her smiling, as he moves the photo from her face we see her with no emotion.

Fourth Idea:

The music video in which I will create will be a combination of both narrative an abstract, taking elements from all three previous ideas. The beginning will consist of the male sat at a kitchen table being the abstract centre piece of the contrast of what is reality and what is in fact a dream. We will see him get frustrated with himself, showing a violent nature, throwing kitchen wear. As the narrative unfolds we see him returning back to the chair and from this the audience will then begin to understand why he is so angry and upset with himself. With a flash back we see him and the girl sat at the table having breakfast, the girl seems anxious and explains that she is going to leave the man for good. The male is angry with this and hurls abuse at the woman. A fight breaks out between the man and woman and he chases her to the bathroom where he places her head in a sink full of water until she struggles to breathe. The male realises what he is doing and quickly relieves the pressure of the woman and leaves. With a jump cut we see the girl sat against a bathroom wall crying with make up down her face and see the male trying to apologise. With a straight cut we see the male sat back at the table.

INSPIRATION FOR INITIAL IDEAS

My inspiration for my initial ideas is not only from the original video of  'Breezeblocks' as that too demonstrates the idea of love, hate, jealousy and murder but the Bob Dylan music video - Beyond Here Lies Nothing. This music video demonstrates a dysfunctional, violent relationship which portrays love, hate and jealousy but breaks traditional conventions of narrative, in reverse roles the woman eventually over comes the dominating man and shows power. This is nontraditional of music videos as the man is always seen to be more dominant than the woman which is a good aspect of its narrative as it diverges from stereotypes. The music video also in some ways sticks to the social realism of the darker side to relationships for some people in violent relationships. The woman in the video manages to escapes his violence after being violent towards him and continues to drive away, however, she then reverses the car and after several attempts to run him over she gets out of the car and then they both kiss. The kiss at the end of the music video signifies the conventional equilibrium of a love story where the man gets the woman and alls well ends well, however, the narrative building up to the equilibrium breaks conventions throughout.

Beyond Here Lies Nothing - Bob Dylan

WHO ARE ALT J?

Alt J are an Alternative/Indie Rock quartet who formed in Leeds in 2007,also known as ∆, the band consists of Joe Newman, Thom Green, Gwil Sainsbury, Gus Unger-Hamilton who together have produced an EP in 2011 and their debut album An Awesome Wave which was released in May 2012 in Europe and September 2012 in the United States. They won the 2012 British Mercury Prize. Alt-J are becoming more successful and are beginning to get notice a lot more, appearing at festivals such as Leeds and Reading  Latitude, Tramlines, Bestival,  End Of The Road, Milhões de Festa, T in the Park, Green Man, Pukkelpop, Lowlands. The Band also held their own little headline tour in the Uk in 2012.
Alt J's 'Breezeblocks' was released on their Ep in 2011 and is the song I have chosen to re create a music video for. I chose the song as it holds several hidden meanings into love and hate and suggests domination over a weak soul and murder. This song is a clever song that I feel I can create several initial idea to and can create create and effective video that follows and possibly break the conventions of Indie Rock.

Breezeblocks By Alt J.

MEDIA THEORISTS

QUESTIONNAIRE RESULTS

I gave 20 people at random my questionnaire and asked them to complete it honestly. I made sure that there was an equal number of boys against girls to get a better audience feedback. The questions I asked allowed me to understand my audience and what genre of music is much preferred. From this I then understood what type of narrative my audience would prefer and how often they watch music videos.

I made sure I asked an even number of males and females to get a more reliable understanding from my questionnaire.

QUESTIONNARIE

                                            Music Industry Questionnaire


Are you Male or Female?   ___________

What Music Genre do you tend listen to?  ____________

How often to do listen to music?

Everyday  ___   Every week  ____ Once a month  ___   Don’t know ____

How often do you watch Music videos?

Everyday  ___   Every week  ____ Once a month  ___   Don’t know ____

Relating to the music genre you specified earlier, can you recognise the artists that belong to that genre? Please circle…

Jessie J    Arctic Monkeys     Beyoncé     Rihanna   Alt J    Miles Kane   The Kooks 
 Jay Z       Nivarna         Katy Perry       Swedish House Mafia    LadyGaga  
The Wombats     The Killers    Miley Cyrus   Kasabian   M.I.A

What do you expect to see in the music video of your specified genre?
please state…



In a music video do you prefer to see the artist…

 Performing ___     Creating a Narrative ___  or    An abstract Video ____

If more than one please state ____


What do you like to get from a music video?




Thank you for your time.

AUDIENCE & DEMOGRAPHICS

The target audience for my music will be mainly older teenagers and young adults with the higher end age being 27. I have chosen this target audience as they are the age in which tend to listen to Indie Rock music and understand the Indie Rock genre conventions and interests. Appose to being a female myself, I aim to target my video more at a male audience rather than a female audience as the interests in Indie Rock is much higher in males than females, however, female interest is becoming increasingly popular. This is then proved by the questionnaire I conducted, showing that more males than females can recognise Indie Rock artists and bands and listen frequently to the genre.
In relation to the social demographics table I aim to create a media product aimed at the D and E category as I want my music video to have the social recognition that other Indie Rock music videos have. I chose to aim my music video at the given category after taking into account age and interests. Targeting my music video at the male audience will have to include other aspects, other than music, relating to the stereotyped person who listens to Indie Rock (a young adult male), this will include clothing style and iconography through the Mise-en-Scene relating to Indie Rock. I will base my costume choices on existing Indie Rock bands and consider what brands they choose to promote in their videos.
My music video is based on a song by Alt J who are not as obvious in creating iconography, through their music videos, relating to their genre of Indie Rock and because of this are sometimes are labelled as Alternative Band as well as Indie Rock. However, their costume choices in their videos relate to the conventions of their genre so therefore costume is important when creating my music video in order to create recognition with the audience.

AUDIENCE PROFILE

Creating an audience profile allows me to understand what other interests my audience have and allows me to understand what brands I need to reflect in my music video to make it appeal to my audience.

CONVENTIONS OF INDIE ROCK

Conventions of indie rock by laurenbeardshaw on GoAnimate

CONVENTIONS OF MUSIC VIDEOS

HISTORY OF MUSIC VIDEOS