Star Image applied applied to Bowie

account of prelim

Account of music video shoot day

At the begging of the day we arrived on set and white balanced and prepared our cameras for the first shot. We made sure that the exposure was right for the shot so that we could try and tell a story through how light the camera was.

The studio was set up with 3 camera stations all of which we used. The first was a tracking station where we could move the camera in a tracking shot. The back drop was a simplistic yet effective wall which was simply painted plastic. This was very useful as we could cut from this shot to the other station which was a green screen. This gave us the choice of putting any effect we wanted to behind the green screen. This coupled with the sitting room setting with the sofa it gave us the opportunity to build a narrative out of this.

The shot choices we used at each of the stations varied as we experimented with it to make sure that when we cut into it there was a wide variation of shots. At the tracking station we varied it as we would go down to the person performing feet and we would also make the track a lot faster as we wanted to convey a lot of energy in our final cut piece.

In the sofa area we varied our shots to make sure that we were telling a story. By doing this we ysed shots such as a close up to make sure that we captured the emotions of the person who was performing and then try and convey that in a video.

The green screen was used to any purpose, most of the shots that we took in there were of the girls dancing which worked nicely as we found that when we were editing the shots we found that the dancing shots fit in very well in the song especially with the techno style to it.

We encountered a few problems wit hot exposure of some of our shots with some of them came out darker of lighter and also some of the tracking shots were as focused as we would have hoped. We also found that the sofa station produced the best shots as we were able to change the shots more than in any of the other stations. The medium wide shot particularly effective as we were able to capture the whole set.

The most challenging aspect of using the studio was the contained space that we had to operate in. at times this limited the shots that we were able to use during the day therefore when editing it made it a bit more testing than if we had to studio to ourselves. Having said this studio was also extremely useful as we were able to include green screen shots and also 3 other locations which then able to tell a story through the different stories.

The lighting that we used was called a red light and was very effective. We used a very low key light when we were filming the tracking section which was extremely useful as it made us able to make it a more emotional story.

The editing was very easy and proved to be very fun. We learnt how to sink music by using the cutting button. I learnt how to match up the movement of the person to the lyrics by finding the first beat. There is a monitor on final cut pro which shows how loud it is which made it very easy to sing the music. My editing skills have definitely improved even due to the this session as I can now sink music and this taught me how to make sure that it is in line.

We worked very well as a team and we all did different jobs. We all had a chance to perform and film which made it a very enjoyable experience. I end up editing the final piece by myself. This made it easier as I was able to work out how to edit music quicker and the final piece was very good. I also learnt a lot from the experience.

 

Applying Todorov to the killers

synthetic and organic artists and videos

Synthetic music videos and artists

Synthetic artists are ones that do not write their own songs and do not use instruments in their songs; this normally means that they appeal to a different audience that an organic music artist would appeal to. Synthetic artists are normally based around a pop genre with singers such as Nicki Minaj and Selene Gomez.

Nicki Minajs videos contain a lot of vibrant colours and there are not any clips in her videos of her performing, normally she is seen dancing on the beach with men in a very provocative way. This illustrates that this style of music does not simply sell the music there are certain external factors that attract an audience such as the way which Nicki Minaj normally presents herself in her videos. In contrast this is very different to the style of music and type of music video that you would see in musical groups such as oasis or Mumford and sons who are normally pictured performing in their music videos.

In contrast Nicki Minajs videos will not contain a narrative normally and will simply how her dancing in a club. She does this firstly to symbolise that her music is off a dance and pop genre and secondly because there are not very many musical instruments in any of her songs so she does not have the option of using instruments in her music videos. Instead due to the fact that she is a synthetic artist, she will use science fiction elements such as a space ship appearing in her music videos.

Organic music videos

In contrast to synthetic artists organic artist write their own songs and also use instruments in their videos. They would also be known mainly as performing bands. Bands such as Mumford and sons, oasis and old crow medicine show are all examples of organic artists. In contrast to most synthetic artists, they compose their own songs and there is not artificial sound used (they use instruments).

In Mumford and sons music video I will wait, the video in its entirety shows the band performing the song to a mass audience, all of them playing their instrument. The majority of organic artists are in a band unlike synthetic artists who are normally solo artists, however there are exceptions such as Robbie Williams who writes and performs his own songs. Mumford and sons deliberately include a live performance in their music video to show the popularity of the song to their audience and to illustrate that they are a performing band which specialise in performing live rather than how well their music sells in the charts.

Organic artists normally target a more niche audience rather than the wide spread audience that is targeted by synthetic artists such as Nicki Minaj. The reason that bands such as old crow medicine show target such a niche audience is because of the niche style of music that they perform which is country music. Organic artists tend to earn the majority of their money from touring. Artists such as bon jovi and kasabian are both good examples of this

Analysis of album cover