Sunday 31 July 2011

Music Video Deconstruction 1

Song: Jetpacks Was Yes!
Band: Periphery
Year: 2011


  • The video starts with an establishing shot, done with CGI, of a space landscape, with a slight zoom effect, and a fade out transition into the next shot...
  • A broad cityscape is depicted with a wide angle shot, until a quick effect reduced the same image to rubble. This introduction is all done with CGI animation. 
  • The vocals of the song start and the narrative of the music video begins, a man is depicted walking along in synchronisation with the vocal effects, and this is shot using a low angle.
  • After a few close up shots of the video's protagonist, the performance is initiated with a mid shot of the drummer beginning to play. 
  • The vocalist is then shown singing through a close up shot, and the scene changes to a long shot of the video's protagonist walking down a street.
  • The scene changes again and depicts the whole band playing, in a dark, smoky atmosphere. 
  • There are various close ups of the band as the song progresses, i.e. the lead guitarist and the drummer.
  • Throughout the video, there is a clear cut between the band's performance and the music video's narrative. Once again, there are more and more shots of the protagonist, most times filmed with close up shots or low angles.
  • As the protagonist approaches a gravestone, the narrative aspect of the music video becomes more clear.
  • The narrative is briefly stopped to focus on the song's guitar solo, and there are lots of close ups of the guitar and the guitarist respectively while the solo is played.
  • The video then takes a rather odd turn when the protagonist looks at a photo which is significantly dated and looks like it should be from the Victorian era, and there is a sudden flashback of the protagonist and his wife, who is obviously the same name on the gravestone he is kneeling at. The male gaze theory may have been implemented here as his wife is attractive, and he is remorseful during close up shots.
  • The final shots of the video are very focused on visual effects; there are shots of the gravestone cracking, burning and exploding, and whatever the protagonist touches seem to follow the same idea; much of the scenery becomes destructive. 
  • There is also a similar shot as the establishing one at the beginning, depicting the ruined city again. 
  • The final shot is simply the protagonist standing on what is left of his world after it seems to have been destroyed, looking into space, the same shot used in the beginning.  



Thursday 21 July 2011

Censorship in Music Videos

Some music videos which are created are thought to be inappropriate to be viewed on television so they are either censored or banned. Here are some examples and the reasoning behind the censorship/ban below.

- Sean Kingston - Beautiful Girls. The word "suicidal" was mentioned, therefore was censored.

- Madonna - Justify My Love. Completely banned from MTV as it had multiple sex or "hot" scenes in it. The main reason was due to one specific scene where a woman's breast was seen with no censorship.

- N.W.A - Express yourself. The words "I have a dream" were censored.

- Periphery - Icarus Lives!. A few profanities were omitted during the duration.

- The Acacia Strain - Hills Have Eyes. Many profanities were removed, and aspects of the video such as fight scenes were barred due to excessive violence.

- Avenged Sevenfold - The Beast And The Harlot. Much of the video's content was restricted due to sexual references, drug use and violence.

- Emmure - Solar Flare Homicide. MTV censored the frequent swearing and scenes of violence in the performance video.

- Bullet For My Valentine - Hand Of Blood. The live performance received some censorship due to flashes of blood, and profanities. 


Monday 18 July 2011

Aspects of filming our minivid

We made sure we included various different things when we were deciding what to do for our music video. Firstly, we made sure we included some important codes and conventions of music video; primarily narrative and performance. We got two guitars from the school for the performance aspect of the video, and we utilised these by having two guitar players and a vocalist when the song started playing, doing various actions in synch with the song playing.

Secondly, we made sure we included a narrative. The narrative in our video was fairly broad, with a play on the song's title by people literally "feeling free" by doing various happiness-fuelled actions, such as jumping over benches and dancing around. We also made sure we used a variety of camera shots, including low-angle, mid-shots and POV shots to name a few. We are currently split into two groups producing different editions of the video on iMovie.

Editing our MiniVid

After a few days spent shooting our video rendition of I Feel Free by Cream, we have begun editing the footage we got from it. We are using Final Cut Express, and at this precise moment in time, are deciding which of the shots to use for the establishing parts/shots of the video. We are also experimenting with various filters and effects, such as sepia and black & white.

Behind-the-scenes Vodcast uploaded

We have successfully completed editing the vodcast and it has now been uploaded to Vimeo and our teacher's computer. It will soon be uploaded to YouTube.

Thursday 14 July 2011

HMBOMT update

On Wednesday, we (both media A2 classes) split up into four separate groups to record different parts of the music video. I was assigned to the section working in the gym, so before we went in there to record, we took a few minutes elsewhere to rehearse and plan what we were going to do. This is all documented in the behind-the-scenes vodcast. We are now in the collective process of editing all the footage on Final Cut and combining the shots together to create the finished video!

Herp derp.

MiniVid update

We (our group) recorded some footage for our mini music video preliminary task yesterday, but unfortunately we have had to abandon/scrape it due to a number of reasons, primarily due to only have 20 minutes of recording time meaning that the shots we got, combined weren't long enough. In addition, one of our performers did not look as presentable as possible due to having marker on his face from a previous lesson, and this did not look good enough.We are scheduled to film all shots tomorrow and begin editing as well as we have two lessons that day.

Gym Group Vodcast 1 complete

I have finished editing our vodcast of the BritVid music video, the behind-the-scenes footage, so to speak. All I have to do is convert and upload it to YouTube and this blog. It contains the members of the cast/crew, the aspects of the set, lip-synching practice, dance choreography, clips of the crew members in action and more. It was recorded on a DV camera, meaning I used iMovie to edit it rather than Final Cut, and it will be ready by tomorrow.

Monday 11 July 2011

HMBOMT video

Tomorrow, both media classes in Year 12 are going to be involved in a shot-by-shot recreation of Britney Spear's iconic video, Hit Me Baby One More Time. To recreate it well, we will incorporate similar camera shots, timings, props, lip synching and more. I personally am in charge of choreography for my group, which is the Gym scene, so I have documented each move and dance sequence done in the video in hope to redo it properly tomorrow. In addition, we also have call sheets prepared for sufficient camera angles.

Saturday 9 July 2011

Month of Media Chatshow

Today, me, Rob Shaw and Sam Pollock are documenting our progress around this region of the year. We shall include questions and answers centred around a chatshow style, with questions concerning our coursework and tasks.

Friday 8 July 2011

A2 Coursework Task

For the A2 coursework task, I will be working in a small group to create a music video for a selected song, a digipak cover and a magazine advertisement for the cover. We will be taking into account certain codes and conventions of music videos, whilst retaining a level of originality. So far I have learned various aspects of music video deconstruction. An example includes the theory of Goodwin regarding three codes of music videos. The three codes and conventions supporting Goodwin's Theory consist of 

1. Performance (The singer or band actually playing the song)
2. Narrative (a story that accompanies the song)
3. Concept




Others codes and conventions include:

3. Alot of cut shots and not too many transitions between shots
4. Very fast paced editing
5. Short takes
6. Male/female gaze theory
7. Lip syncing
8. Backing dancers

Saturday 2 July 2011

RM - Goodwin's Theory

Goodwin's Theory for music video contains three aspects which are: Performance, Narrative and Concept.

Performance – This sort of music video will contain footage of the artist playing the song live to a crowd or to the camera. Performance videos are normally taken from filmed gigs such as Muse has done with HAARP releasing a live video of Feeling Good. As well as this performance videos can also contain some narrative features.

Narrative – This sort of music video is footage based on the lyrics of the song, which forms into a story.

Concept – This music video is the opposite of a narrative based music video. It is where the music video has no connection to the lyrics.

Friday 1 July 2011

RM - Fisheye Lens

"In photography, a fisheye lens is a wide-angle lens that takes in an extremely wide, hemispherical image. Originally developed for use in meteorology to study cloud formation and called "whole-sky lenses", fisheye lenses quickly became popular in general photography for their unique, distorted appearance. They are often used by photographers shooting broad landscapes to suggest the curve of the Earth. Hemispherical photography is used for various scientific purposes to study plant canopy geometry and to calculate near-ground solar radiation."Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisheye_lens


In photography, a fisheye lens is a wide-angle lens that takes in an extremely wide, hemispherical image. Originally developed for use in meteorology to study cloud formation and called "whole-sky lenses", fisheye lenses quickly became popular in general photography for their unique, distorted appearance. They are often used by photographers shooting broad landscapes to suggest the curve of the Earth. Hemispherical photography is used for various scientific purposes to study plant canopy geometry and to calculate near-ground solar radiation.


The fisheye lens is most commonly used by Hype Williams who has produced music videos for such artists as Coldplay, Jay Z, Kanye West.

"In 1996 Williams won the award for best Director of the Year, the Jackson Limo Award for Best Rap Video of the Year. In 1997 Busta Rhymes' "Woo Hah" won Williams the NAACP Image Award. In 1998 MTV Video Music Award awarded him the Best Rap Video of the year for Will Smith's "Gettin' Jiggy Wit It," A year later the MTV Video Music Award awarded him for Best Group Video for TLC's "No Scrubs". William is still producing music videos with the latest being Kanye West’s song entitled Runaway."Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_Williams