A2 Media Studies Music Video: Our Video

Our Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UP4t-gscUo0

We had picked this song, 'Darling' by Eyes Set To Kill, because it was a pretty simple concept. All we needed to do was to film me, as the male singer, get some props to smash up safely, and to film our actress, Kirsty, as the female vocalist. We had also filmed me and my group partner, Rich, playing guitar. It went quite well, apart from that we were trying to imitate the original video to the exact angle, etc, but it would've took too long to create.


The audience reaction to the video is mainly positive because of aspects like the split-screen section where the male and female vocalist are looking at each other singing; and also of the sections of the video where there is stuff being smashed up because it fits with the song; where-as the downsides to the video include that the lighting has to be consistant and also the costume of the female vocalist wasn't that consistant with the conventions of the genre.
The guitaring in the video needed to have a darker lighting technique and they also need to fill up more of the screen when they are playing as the split-screen sections of the video.
The text also had a bit of a downside to it because it needed to be squashed more onto the screen so that it could be read perfectly.

Picture Examples.

This shows the 'Thresh-hold' filter that we had used for these scenes. What this does is it turns it into black-and-white and then the dark colours get darker, whilst the light colours get lighter. We had used this because it shows how emotionally dark the song is and to reinforce how harsh the male vocals are.

This is showing one of the scenes where an object gets smashed up. We had put these scenes in black-and-white because it represents flashbacks.

This scene is showing the text on the male vocals scenes and also in the female vocals at the end. This font is 'Cracked' with an 'Earthquake' animation to the text.

What we had done for most of the guitar sequences was we had cropped them so that we didn't have any unnecessary scenery in the background, and we had them stretched the sequences to fit fully into the screen, so it looked like we hadn't cut any bits off the scenes.

This text is used mainly for the female vocalist. This is to have a softer look at the song, and also to show the female vocals are sung melodically and clean. The font is 'Edwardian Script', to also comply with the typical conventions of the genre.

 With this guitar sequence, we had inflated the image to see the guitar technique being played. This is to keep up with the continuity of the songs rhythm.

With this guitar sequence, we had shrunk both guitarists so we could see them both play and also to put a cool background onto it. The filter we had used was 'Caustics' because it had a relaxing feel to it and it fitted well with the style of guitaring that is in this sequence, which is lighter and more melodic than other sections in the video.

This guitar scene, however, is heavier than the one that's described above. The filter we had used for the background is 'Clouds' for the texture and 'Overdrive' for the colours. This was used because we wanted to reinforce the heavier section of the guitar style and to add a stylistic view into the background, instead of it being plain black. The guitar at the top wasn't supposed to be there because we had planned to have some drums in that space, but we didn't find the time to get a drummer to perform for the video.

This scene is of the two vocalists 'looking' at each other because of the double vocals. This is useful because it allows the audience to see both vocalists performing and also to show that the lyrics are about a break-up in a relationship, which is about a guy and a girl.

This snippet of the video shows a guitar crossing up into another guitar. This is something we had done to make sure that the guitar sequences in this instrumental section of the video didn't drag on a lot. We had also done this to the female vocals because it makes sure that there is a break in the vocals, so that it doesn't drag along.

This sequence was left alone because of the emotion that the male vocalists facial language conveys. This is a strong point for the video because it keeps the emotional atmosphere of the song.

This scene is at the end of the song. The reason why we had done it was to do something different by shooting some footage of a piece of paper that we would drip wax onto. Another reason why we had chosen to put this into the video is because it relates to the lyrics to the song.

Theories.

Our video theoretically mainly relates to the 'Uses and Gratifications' theory by Blumler & Katz. The broad needs that are useful to explain the video are Diversion and Personal Identity. The Diversion aspect of the video relates to how the lyrics and the song itself is used as a form of emotional escapism. This is used by the audience to get away from everyday pressures either physically or emotionally. The use of Personal Identity in the video is to let the audience compare their life to the lives of the persons involved in the video and how that no-one is on their own in this world.


The other theory that could be used to describe the video is Richard Dyer's 'Four Notions of Representation' theory. The reasoning for this is through the typical representations of sociological groups. The typical representations of the Metal genre in the aspect of gender is typically male-dominant, even-though there are female members in some of the bands, mainly playing keyboards at the back of the stage. The stereotypes of the Metal genre include the use of dark colours, mainly black and red; wearing jeans, T-Shirts, chains, etc.; tattoos that relate to other Metal bands; and also singing about personal pain.