Genre conventions

In todays lesson we put together screen shots of similar artist music videos. We discovered two R&B music videos each and printed pictures off and began discussing. Here are all the videos my group screen shotted. 

          (1)

The first aspect we noticed was the costume and how it matches with the set. The bold patterns and colours on her jacket immediately present her as having a confident and uplifting personality. The colours in the background and the location furthermore reflects these traits. The whole video is filmed in an urban setting as it shows the viewers she enjoy's going out and therefore can be seen as fun and outgoing. Overall the video directly complements the upbeat music through the mise en scene.

                                                                                                                                                          (2)

                                                                                                                                                         

The first aspect we noticed is the continuous use of red throughout the whole video. We can clearly see the red theme in the costumes, lighting, backdrop and props. This immediately sets a more relaxed tone to the video. In multiple sections the singer is either sat on the floor or on a sofa. This creates a relaxed tone though how the singer is positioned. 

                 (3)

This music video is very simplistic compared to the other videos I have spoken about. This is because the whole video is shot in one location. Once again, the red colouring that is present throughout the entire video creates a relaxed tone. This reflects the slower paced R&B style music showcased in this video.

                                                                                                                                                        (4)

This music video is a lot more natural and has a vintage look to it. The nature aspect of this video creates a soft and calm atmosphere. This is because we mainly associate nature with peace. This soft and calm tone reflects the song. 

All of these music videos share the fact that the style, pace and tone of the song is reflected within the video through the mise en scene. As a group we decided that the first and third videos are the most similar to what we have envisioned ours to be like. This is because we felt that the first video communicates the persona and characteristics of the singer the best. This is something we would like to establish in our video. The third video is very similar to what we envisioned because off the bold colour and a silhouette. 

Securing our lead singer

Today we picked our lead singer for our music video.

We chose Kiera as we believe she has the confidence and the look to fill the space and carry the music video. Kiera also has lots of experience with performing in music videos which helps our group a lot as she is used to the process. 

After we had finalised who our lead singer would be we began researching and planning into possible sets for our video. We decided to have multiple sets with different colours and small changes in the props and backdrop. 

Here are some YouTube, Vevo and Film clips that we found that intrigued us.

This is a LED cotton design we found on YouTube that someone made for their bedroom. We were intrigued by this as it is cheap and easy as it's made from LED lights and cotton wool. It also creates a very vibrant LED thunderstorm look. 

These screen shots are from the music video of Drake's song 'Hotline Bling'. We were intrigued by how such a simplistic look can give off so much energy. I think this colourful box look also shows off our character's personality extremely well 

This picture is from the movie 'Step up 3 - Revolution'. The dangling jellyfish lights intrigued us as we thought that our singer could use / move around them in certain ways. 

All of these are just initial thoughts and tomorrow we are going to start properly planning and drawing out our sets. 

Here are some drawings that Matilda did of the ideas we had today.

Potential lead singers

Today we decided to go through some details such as our different sets and finding potential lead singers.

We began to research similar artist music videos to see if we could get any inspiration for our sets. 

'Just a boy' by Alaina Castillo stuck out to us and gave us some inspiration as we thought of having six different sets that consist of different bright colours and small adjustments of props and background patterns.

  

Whilst Matilda carried on looking for similar artist music videos that we could potentially get inspiration from, Carl and I went around the school campus searching for potential lead singers. We found four female theatre students who are also singers. However, we are still going to keep an open mind for other lead singers.

Here is a comparison of the real artist and one of our potential candidates, 'Daisy'.

     The real artist (RUBII)                                             One of our potential candidates 

Once we had found some potential lead singers for our music video we decided to test how they would look lip-syncing to the song. We gave them the first four lines of our song and told them "to vibe to the song". 

Our potential lead singers

Choosing our artist

As a group we have decided to pick RUBII as our artist, using the song 'Manifest'.

We researched into similar artist music videos to get some inspiration and we're going to get together next week and discuss the music videos we found and anything that we liked about them.

Researching possible artists

Researching the amount of views or listens each artist has.

RUBII has 958 monthly listens on Spotify and just below 40,000 listens on her most popular song. These numbers are perfect for this product as she is not signed to a record label and is not hugely well known.

'Manifest', the song we had on our shortlist has just over 17,000 listens which is over the recommended number but as her monthly listens are so low it means we could still create a music video for it.

Loveless Death Scene has just over 600 monthly listens on Spotify and just over 16,000 listens on their most popular song. This is perfect as they're also not signed to a record label and not hugely known.

'Midnight Blue', the song we had on our shortlist is also their most popular song but doesn't have too many listens and so using it for our music video would be perfect.

Creating a shortlist for possible artists

Firstly, we were allocated our groups for the music video project for our year 2 coursework. I was placed into a group with Matilda and Carl. I'm very pleased as I was in a group with Matilda for our Year 1 coursework project and I was extremely pleased with the outcome and how well we worked together. 

In today's lesson we also created a shortlist of artists and discussed the benefits of each artist. We created the shortlist by listening to each others songs that we had discovered over the summer and picked our favourites. Above is the shortlist my group and I created today.

Music video artist shortlist

Click here to see artist two!

 

Loveless Death Scene

Q. Group or Solo?    A. Group / Band

Q. Different roles?   A. Pianist / Singer / Guitarist 

Q. Nationality?        A. American 

Q. Age?                   A. Mid 20's

WHAT I DID IN LESSON ONE

Click here to see artist three!