Music Video Practice 3

Music Video Practice 3

In this practice we tried playing with lighting and the different effects that they have when used in a music video, for example, light behind the head or to one side of the face.

Music Video Practice 2

Music Video Practice 2

In this practice we filmed ourselves disappearing behind a pole. We were trying out a technique that might be useful in our music video.

Music Video Practice 1

Music Video Practice #1

This is our first practise video. We did Rather Be by Clean Bandit and we tried to see what kind of different shots we could use.

Music Video Director Profile: Ruffmercy

Ruffmercy

Ruffmercy (Russ Murphy) is a British music video director. He is well-known in the music industry for his distinctive illustrations and graphics in videos. He works with all types of artists, from heavy hip hop artists like ScHoolboy Q and Danny Brown, to pop and electronic music artists like Lily Allen and Disclosure. He even created Disclosure's trademark image of the drawn face that was featured on the cover of their popular album 'Settle'.

Whereas some music video directors like to focus on the narratives of the video, Russ Murphy has a signature video style. No matter what the message or genre of the song is, he includes his familiar sketch-like drawings in each video which are eye-catching and in some videos they are slightly hypnotic and haunting.

Lily Allen - Sheezus

One example of a haunting and hypnotic video is Lily Allen's "Sheezus". The way that he colours the  whites of her eyes, and flashes all kinds of patterns and dark colours behind her makes the video seem disjointed and jumbled. Even though the video is slightly creepy, I really like it because it's never boring. There's always something on the screen that keeps you fixated and I think usually that would be hard to do in a music video with only one location and only four different costumes. The drawings really help to enhance the tenacious/fiery diva persona she is displaying.

Disclosure - F For You ft. Mary J Blige

In Disclosure's video for 'F For You', Ruffmercy uses the same kinds of drawings like the halo around the artist and outlines of their body, but it has a different effect. Disclosure has a more electronic dance sound than Lily Allen, so Ruffmercy's illustrations have a strobe light kind of effect that makes people want to dance. He includes a lot of flashes of white backgrounds on the beat, which also feels steady to expose the beat. Also none of the illustrations connote something dark and creepy, like in Sheezus he draws a few crucifixes and horns on her head. In this he mostly just outlines their bodies while they dance or draw a simplistic version of them while they dance to accentuate their movements.

MNEK - Wrote A Song About You

The way I came across Ruffmercy in the first place is from MNEK's "Wrote A Song About You". As well as loving the song, I thought the mix of normal time and slowed down clips used was interesting and wanted to see if the director used this as a motif in all of their videos. After researching a bit more about him I found that he had worked on many music videos that I'd seen before. I like the colours he used in this one, and the bold strokes that contrast with the thin squiggly lines. The waves and straight lines together match the song with its steady beat and changing melody.

Music Video Director Profile: Rémy Cayuela

Rémy Cayuela

Rémy Cayuela is a French director based in Paris, though he has representatives based around the world in countries like the UK, the US and Switzerland. He directs short films, commercials and music videos. His music videos are focused more on narrative than post-production editing (though it is included). What is most engaging about them is the mise-en-scene and the locations that add to the story.

WAT - Kill Kill

His music video narratives are recognisable through their quirky humour and sometimes shocking and thought-provoking storylines. An example of the latter would be his video for 'Kill Kill' by WAT. This was also his debut in music video direction.

Tensnake - Feel The Love

He has directed a total of 8 music videos since 'Kill Kill' in 2011. He has also directed 4 short films and 8 commercials. Many of these have a running theme of humour including these two, which are unusual and unpredictably funny.

Naive New Beaters - Jersey

I like Rémy Cayuela's music videos because they feel like films, in terms of the way that they are filmed (the frame positioning, the camera movement etc.) and the way that he tells the story. In his video for Dinosaur Pile-Up's song 'Derail', he even includes a section inspired by the film 'Psycho', and it also has kind of a circular narrative.

Dinosaur Pile-Up - Derail

His rising success as a music video director has allowed him to work with big names in the music world, like Duke Dumont on his song 'I Got You'. 

Duke Dumont - I Got You

The video that first caught my attention and how I found out about Rémy Cayuela in the first place was his video for Wilkinson's 'Afterglow'. I liked the song but what I liked most was the video because its such an original idea that it draws you in. The video tells the story of a couple and reminisces of all the time that they've spent together (which has been done before) but it tells their story in numbers, for instance, the number of calls they've made to each other, the number of wine bottles they've gotten through... which is a concept that no ones done before. Cayuela's video even did so well, he won the 1st prize Young Directors Award at the Cannes Festival 2014 for it.

Wilkinson - Afterglow

A2 Music Video Rankings 2012-2013

A2 Music Video Rankings 

2012-2013

1st: 13E4 - If You Wanna

It had a great narrative and was a really fun video. There was a lot of good close up shots and the performers singing looks authentic and not mimed. The first shot of the singers face have illuminated was really interesting, but in some of the shots after that he isn't focused on the camera and glances at something behind it which is distracting for an audience. The costumes, props and make up were great for all of the 'time settings' and the locations were used well.

2nd: 13E6 - Go In, Go Hard

I liked the camera movement in this video, especially when the performers are on the roof top. The location is great because you can tell that the artist is from the UK and the background shows the skyline with buildings that look typically british. The narrative is clear and interesting, and it also links to the lyrics which emphasises their meaning. The camera is handheld and rarely stationary which makes it a really interesting video.

3rd: 13E7 - Pretty Little Angel

This had a good range of close ups (e.g. lips, half face etc) that make it feel intimate and voyeuristic. The black & white and the 'negative' effect matches the mood of the song, which is dark and seedy and sensual. The flashing effect created by editing was a great idea because it was done to the beat and it feels almost like strobe lighting in a club. At some points the close up goes on for too long and starts to get boring especially at the repeat of the chorus, but overall it was a really good music video.

4th: 13E5 - Foundations

The lip syncing was really accurate and in time, the singer gave a great performance and make-up was used well. There were a lot of good close ups as well as good camera angles like the high angle while they're on the bed and the over-the-shoulder shot of him flirting with the bartender. I think the camera stayed too stationary through the whole video and they could have moved it around a bit more. Other than that the narrative was clear and represented the lyrics really well.

5th: 13A3 - Nine2Five

I liked the start with the jump cuts towards the camera and I like how they were in time with the beat. Lots of different locations were used and the close up shots were good, with the singer moving to the camera rather than the other way around. Costume was used and the background fit with the performer (the graffiti wall). I liked how the performer really interacted with the camera, by moving closer to it and throwing things over the lens. However, at some points you can tell that he is miming the words, and when the instruments are shown they dont look like they are being played in time with the music at all.

6th: 13A2 - Life Happens

The first shot of the singer's mouth at the beginning is really good and gets people's attention. Then there are a few really good shots after that where she is obscured by the light in the mirror and a shot of her back through a window that were cool because of the hidden element. Another thing I thought was engaging was when she holds the camera while walking, because it feels playful and fun which matches the mood of the song but also it feels like the performer is making a connection to the audience. If costume was used to emphasise the feel of the song I think it would have been a huge improvement. There was a really nice concept edit of the boat floating on water that was compelling. To improve it I think in some places the performance felt a bit half hearted when it should have been really lively, and she has an instrument so I think there could have been a few close ups for that.

7th: 13A1 - Sparks Fly

There was a good use of camera movement when the singer is being circled, and some of the transitions like the use of dissolve adds to the sentimental feel of the song. One of the shots of the guy has a foggy, faded kind of effect that makes it clear that its a flashback. However the shaped transitions like the diamond are distracting and would look better in a fun pop video rather than this. There aren't a lot of close ups which a video like this, with a slow and sad song usually needs because there isn't enough intimacy except for the shot of the singer crying. I also noticed that there was some reused footage which made me feel a bit bored.

Practising Photoshop

Practising Photoshop

Removing Blemishes

           

               Before 

After

Lighten/Darken an Image

Removing objects from photos

Moving Objects

Work on two images at once

Remove the background

Mask

Music Videos for Inspiration No. 3

Azealia Banks - 212 Ft. Lazy Jay

Music Videos for Inspiration No. 2

Wilkinson - Afterglow

Music Videos for Inspiration No. 1

MNEK- Wrote a Song About You

AS Opening Sequence Review

AS Opening Sequence Review

(The sound disappeared when we uploaded it to YouTube and we couldn't figure out how to fix it.)

What Went Well:

I think our choice of location was good because it was easy to get to for everyone in our group, and it also had everything we needed (a garage, driveway, dark rooms, quiet roads to do the car scenes etc). I also think as a group we worked well together because everyone was willing to give up time to get the scenes done. We did well to keep the conventions of our genre, e.g. the costumes (dark clothes and masks for burglars, formal clothes for detectives), the fast editing, most of the dialogue (swearing, police jargon).

The titles were quite good, and the way that the names appear on the screen. I think they are positioned in good places in the frame with an appropriate font and gaps between each name.

Even Better If:

Some of our shots were really dark, like the part while stealing from the safe. We wanted to keep the room dark so that the lighting would be consistent in the video but during post production we found that the 'safe' scene was much darker than it needed to be. After trying to lighten it using premiere pro effects and not finding an effect that made the lighting look similar to the rest of the video, we didn't have enough time to re shoot.

Another thing we could have improved on (even though it is really funny) is that we didn't stick to our script for the burglary, so Katie ends up saying "Guys, let's go," too many times. If we had remembered to bring the script with us to film the scenes that probably wouldn't have happened.