Conventions in a Music VideoVs.

Conventions in My Music Video

Mise - en - Scene Location/Lighting

These are screen shots made from Ben Howards music video of ‘The Old Pine’. As you can see, there are a range of different shots with different types of lighting, it ranges from light to dark throughout. Making it obvious that it is being shot in different locations. The different lighting is important in a music video because it can give off the effect that there is more of a story being told. With different locations, different backgrounds and different places he is going. When listening to the lyrics, it goes well with the locations used because like most folk/Indie music, the lyrics are meaningful, and so it would look very out of place to shoot this sort of song in a studio with backing dancers.

Mise - en - Scene Costume/Makeup

The main costume in this music video, as you can see, is casual clothing. A grey hoodie and black jeans shows that he is just a normal person. In other genres, there may be loads of sequins and large over-the-top costumes, and that suits a music video for a pop song, but with this genre, the lyrics are related to true events, therefore it would be wrong to have everything fake in the music video. The make up, is kept to a minimum to match the tempo of the song as well as the lyrics themselves. If Ben Howard was the sort of artists that wears ‘Guy liner’ the whole identity of his music would not be the same. The calmness and peacefulness of his music wouldn’t be there, and his demographic would not relate in the same way, because it would seem like he’s not being himself.

Camerawork/Editing

The main shots that are used in this music video are establishing shots, mid shots, close ups and long shots. I think the establishing shot is the most important when making a music video like this because location is key. This has been used to show the ocean, the cliffs and also the dusty road – these are all locations that don’t have anything that special about them and most people would have seen types of them themselves. The mid shots and long shots are used for the same purpose, as well as to show the costume and make up. Just like a lot of music videos, the close ups or extreme close ups are always used to show something important, whether it’s the emotion that the person is showing in there expression, or a small part of a location they are in that is significant to the song.

Mise - en - Scene Location/Lighting

These are some of the shots from my music video. They show that the main type of lighting throughout is low key. This is to reflect on the mood of the song. The lyrics are about a girl who has lost her way, therefore it wouldn’t be right for the lighting to be constantly bright which could connote a cheerful type of video. Two of the shots as you can see, have a brighter lighting than the rest, this is because it is in the scenes where she finally finds her way home – the bright lighting shows that she isn’t outside in the cold and dark anymore. There are several different locations that this video was shot, as you can see the ones outside were shown as much as possible by using an establishing shot because the audience needed to know where she had ended up at the start. The other different scenes all link in with the story line well and it does a good job in portraying to the audience what type of story this is going to be.

Mise - en - Scene Costume/Makeup

Throughout the production of my music video, I wanted to make the make up and costume as obvious and as clear as possible. The ripped tights are something that can be associated with a girl who probably doesn’t have much respect for her appearance and is beyond the point of caring. This can be said for her make up also, the smudged eyeliner and bright lipstick were used to try and represent the same thing as the tights, its also meant to perceive the message that she could have been dressed a lot nicer the night before, meaning something had happened for her to look this way now. The scene at the end in the bath, I think is important because it shows her make up finally coming off, she’s revealing who she really is, with natural wet hair and a cleaner face, hopefully bringing the audience to understand more about her.

Camerawork/Editing

When I conducted my research into the different shot types and camera movements in conventional music videos, I found that with this genre in particular, there was a lot of close ups to show the facial expressions of the character, and also to show something significant which matches the lyrics – I did this using the close up, over-the-shoulder shot which match the words being sung at that moment. I also used tracking to show her journey through the cold early morning, giving the impression to the audience that she just wants to walk and walk. In terms of editing, I did a lot of jump cuts to give the effect that its taking a long time and she has to walk along way.

Conventions in an Album Cover and Poster

Conventions in my Album Cover and PosterVs.

Album CoversThe album covers that are shown here all have quite a lot of things in common, and that includes, minimal writing, fonts that are recognized instantly by fans, colours that represent the type of album it is, and just the basic information that is needed on an album cover. All of these things, I believe my album cover has too, the font is going to be known as ‘Good Morning Afternoon’s’ font, minimal writing with just the basic information of who they are and what the album is called, a single Image in the middle of the front cover, and colour that represents the type of album that has been created.

I think that overall, the album cover that I have created looks conventional to other album covers, however according to resent audience feedback the one thing that could have been improved was the size of the writing, and making it stand out a lot more. Although I tried to put it on the left hand side, which what our natural line of sight looks at first, it obviously isn’t that bold.

Album PostersThese album posters that were used to show the upcoming release of an album look similar to the album covers in the previous slide, the imaging is simple and matches in some way to the ones on the album cover, the font is simple, and the information is minimal and only includes need-to-know information – the artists, the albums name and when its out. I think that again, my album poster matches all of these conventions in that there is only need-to-know information, the image used is of the same girl on the back of my album cover, and also features in the music video.

The main positive feedback I got on this was that it is clear who it is advertising, however I was told that I could improve this further by making the writing blue instead of red to match the back of my album cover, which I definitely agree with.