Evaluation Activity 1

Our music video had to fit the conventions of other real music videos, and when we were planning our video, we tried to incorporate as many of the typical music conventions as we could.
Firstly we had one main character, he was the centre of most of the lip syncing and the narrative. 

The style of the video that we aimed for was a fun upbeat music video to fit the genre of the music and the image of the band. This screenshot shows our characters in the music video having fun, dancing around and enjoying themselves which is what we wanted to achieve.

style of music video

In the video, we used a different variety of settings to make sure that the video wasn't boring and kept the audience entertained throughout the whole of the music video. This is a typical convention that many music videos use in order to keep their audiences interested.

the first setting that we used was in the drama studio, we used this setting for most of the performance section as we could use the lighting to the settings we wanted in order to get the best quality to make it seem as professional as we possibly could.

setting 1

The second setting we used was in Covent Garden, this is where we filmed the narrative and some lip syncing, this not only fit in with the narrative, but also kept the audience interested in the music video as they weren't constantly looking at one setting.

setting 2

The costumes are an important part of our music video as they set up the narrative to show that the main character is obsessed with the singer - Mick Jagger. It also fits with the song and the genre of the music.

For the main character we had one constant outfit for him throughout the video, it was important that every time he wore the same outfit in order to maintain consistency in our video. His outfit was carefully selected by us as a group as we had an image in our minds what we wanted him to look like.

Costumes - main character

The second costume that was important was of the co-star of the music video, as the song isn't just of the band Maroon 5 it features the artist  Christina Aguilera. The outfit we wanted for this character we weren't exactly sure of, but when we went out looking for costumes, we came across a dress which we feel fitted perfectly with the genre and the song.

Costumes - co-star

Finally the outfits of the extra's, we had images in our heads, but they weren't as important as the main character and the co star, therefore we just told our extras what type of outfits we were looking for and asked them to bring in their own. The look we wanted them to have was a hippy look or a rock chick look. Eventually we had a big pile of clothes and combined several different outfits to get our final costumes.

Costumes - extras

Editing was a large factor of our music video, in order for our video to fit the typical conventions of a music video he editing had to make sure that the video was cut to the beat of the song. Our song is an upbeat fast paced song and therefore the editing should reflect this. We cut the video making sure that clips weren't generally longer 2 seconds, with a maximum of 3 seconds. Another factor of editing was lip syncing we had to make sure that the lip syncing we recorded fit the song. Lip syncing is a convention that shows how music videos can be easily separated from a short film since the artist sings the lyrics directly to the camera. We used this convention in our music video.

Lip syncing

Performance was a strong part of our music video. The beginning mainly shows performance. Usually music videos combine a combination of performance and narrative, and we used this convention in our music video too. The performance was mostly lip syncing and this was all filmed in the drama studio as this allowed us to control the light settings. Narrative ties the whole video together as it gives the audience a story to follow.

Performance - lip syncing 

Performance

Narrative

Narrative

For our video genre of the song is a large factor of the video. We tried to suggest the genre through the fun lively performance and the light hearted amusing narrative. The fast paced editing also suggest the lively upbeat genre of the track as it was cut to the beat of the song. The dance scenes show the genre the most as they show the characters enjoying themselves and having a good time, keeping the atmosphere of the video upbeat.

Genre

Our video also reflects the research we did in terms of other artists with the same genre of music as we released in order to make a successful pop video it needed to be lively, interesting, colourful and fast paced. We used the typical music conventions in order to do this. For example for research we used an aspect of Cher Lloyd's video for the beginning of our music video, however this screenshot of a pop video that is full of life shown through dancing which is something we also used in our dance parts of the music video:

Cher Lloyd - Swagger Jagger

The artist Maroon 5, their video also reflect the music genre, they are full of colour and liveliness. The narrative is fun and amusing, for example the video for 'Misery' is very amusing meaning that the audience just cannot possibly take the artist seriously. Which is obviously the effect they wanted to go for. We tried to reflect this image that the band created in our music video.

Maroon 5 - Misery

Maroon 5 - Misery