Types of Music Videos - Narrative, Concept and Performance

Concept:

Concept videos are based around a single idea and are usually unusual or obscure for an audience. The unusual content is an attraction to many consumers, which draws them in. Concept videos entertain the audience as they're constantly watching what is happening on the screen. Usually the concept of the video doesn't have anything to do with a narrative or the lyrics, it will just be to entertain the audience. However concept videos can have a theme depending on the genre of music i.e. in pop there might be a big dance routine. Or some concepts might be more symbolic to show a meaning this could be using pictures or a montage. An example of a concept video is in Red Hot Chilli Peppers - Californication. In this video the band pretend they are in a video game however it also overlaps with performance as it cuts between shots of the band performing and the band taking part in the game. 

                                                       Narrative  

A narrative video tells the story that could feature in the lyrics or to do with the message of the song, sometimes the narrative can make a mini film with a beginning, middle or end - some involving Todorov's equilibrium theory. Also some narrative music videos mat feature film clips which tell a story if that song is promoting the film for example Bon Jovi - Its my life where it shows the band performing the song so it has that overlap but it also shows the journey of the boy character trying to get to the Bon Jovi concert in order to meet the girl - it shows him not giving up.

Performance

Performance videos are commonly used within the Rock or Pop genre. Performance music videos include a performance by the artist performing the song, it often includes behind the stage footage from the live show for the audience to see. It gives a sence of realism to the audiences to what it would be like to be at that artists concert. The video usually would have a wide range of camera shots which would all focus on the artist on stage if its a band then it would swicth between band members, it wouldn't usually follow a narrative. Performance videos are also used to show that the band/artist can actually perform instead of just being manufactured, it shows their ability within the music industry. An example of this is Aerosmith and Baby, please don't go. In this video you see the band performing as part of a concert therefore its realistic and proves that the band can actually play their own instruments. It also can overlap with concept as it shows shots of people in a bar dancing. 

Evaluation - Lego House by Ed Sheeran Reconstruction

Our task was to reconstruct a music video as realistic as possible, we got given Ed Sheeran - Lego house. For this we watched the original music video and selected a minute which we would reconstruct, after we selected our minute we storyboarded everything that we would need to film along with a shot list of all the types of shots we would need, then we made a list of all the costumes and props that we would need to get in order to make it look like the original version. Then after we went out to film it we would need to edit the video down in time with the song, including syncing the lip singing shots in with the right lyrics, and ensure the music video ran smoothly. The point of this task was to be able to practice getting shots for a music video frame by frame also to enhance our editing skills to match that of a music video as opposed to a film opening. 

We went out to film our shots, the majority of the shots were mid or close up shots however we did include a range of different shots as seen in the video like long shots, wide shots and extreme close ups however they weren't as frequently used in the music video. We needed a range of props including: lamps, guitar, a book, CD's, photo frame, high vis jackets, etc.. For this we searched all over the school to get these props and we were able to use various different settings around school including the drama studio, field and hallways. the costumes were quite simple as it was just one person in one outfit.

Then it came to edit the clips together. We had some trouble trying to import the clips onto the macs however we eventually got it sorted. It was quite tricky trying to get the clips down to a minute and then trying to synch up the lip singing shots. We had to compare it to the original music video multiple times to look for the timings of each shots so that we could cut down each of our shots to the correct timings to that it was in the video. We found that for some of our shots we had to slow them down because the content happened too quickly compared to what they did in the video. The editing was quite tricky for the music video as the edits were quite quick, and we had to get them all very precise to what the original video was. From this I have learnt that the cuts for music video's are very quick and so the editing is more more difficult as the shots have to be more precise as they don't last that long. It is also hard to match up lip synching with the music as some of our clips were either longer or shorter than they should have been.

I think this was a good task as it gave us good practise to what it is like to film and edit a music video even if it was a minute long clip, lots of skills were involved in doing this task and it enabled us to improve on the editing skills.

Analysing a music video - Lawson: Juliet