In this edit I really wanted to emphasise the idea of a day in the life as we follow the couple from start to finish. I included more activities like watching TV and making dinner as well as scenes where the couple mime lyrics.
Linking back to research:
Over the past few months I have been researching music videos from the same genre and finding key concepts and trends behind them all. Here I'm going to demonstrate how my ideas came about and why my video is suited for the indie/folk genre.
Behaviour
Across the several videos I looked at, the behaviour imitated varied. Depending on the theme of the video, the behaviour matched it. For example, Florence and the Machine's What Kind of Man displayed very serious behaviour. This was because the theme of the video was about a very fragile and explosive relationship between the couple. She struggles to contain her emotions but doesn't seem able to let the man go - such a serious topic demands serous behaviour.
In contrast, Mumford and Sons' Hopeless Wanderer contained a completely different theme. The featured actors and their behaviour aren't serious in the slightest. The running theme throughout has a humorous twist and the use of famous comedy actors allows the behaviour to be non serious - it gives the audience something to laugh at.
For my video, I chose to have my actors imitate silly behaviour. This is because it depicts the relationship between the couple and I wanted it to seem as genuine as possible. The fact they can be silly with one another helps to show their love for one another. It helps to establish the love between the couple whilst allowing the audience to understand the tone of the video. It's heartfelt with a pinch of humour, in my opinion.
Performance and/or narrative clips
Some of the videos I research contained performance clips such as What Kind of Man, Greek Tragedy and Hopeless Wanderer. However, other videos such as Yeah Yeah Yeah's Sacrilege and Mumford and Sons' Lover of the Light contain all narrative clips. This is common in the indie genre. There really isn't any set rules as to what clips should be featured unlike the pop genre which demands close ups of the artists face signing the song.
For my video, I chose to include a mixture. The majority of the clips are narrative, however I've combined the performance into the narrative to carry the story along. I've only done this subtly so I may have to include more performance. However, this is another trait of the indie genre I have managed to incorporate into my video.
Setting
In the majority of the video, there is the use of a natural setting. Mumford and Son's Lover of the Light heavily includes the use of a forest/woodland area as well as scenes of the man at the beach. Completely coincidently I also filmed in similar surroundings.
Behaviour
Across the several videos I looked at, the behaviour imitated varied. Depending on the theme of the video, the behaviour matched it. For example, Florence and the Machine's What Kind of Man displayed very serious behaviour. This was because the theme of the video was about a very fragile and explosive relationship between the couple. She struggles to contain her emotions but doesn't seem able to let the man go - such a serious topic demands serous behaviour.
In contrast, Mumford and Sons' Hopeless Wanderer contained a completely different theme. The featured actors and their behaviour aren't serious in the slightest. The running theme throughout has a humorous twist and the use of famous comedy actors allows the behaviour to be non serious - it gives the audience something to laugh at.
For my video, I chose to have my actors imitate silly behaviour. This is because it depicts the relationship between the couple and I wanted it to seem as genuine as possible. The fact they can be silly with one another helps to show their love for one another. It helps to establish the love between the couple whilst allowing the audience to understand the tone of the video. It's heartfelt with a pinch of humour, in my opinion.
Performance and/or narrative clips
Some of the videos I research contained performance clips such as What Kind of Man, Greek Tragedy and Hopeless Wanderer. However, other videos such as Yeah Yeah Yeah's Sacrilege and Mumford and Sons' Lover of the Light contain all narrative clips. This is common in the indie genre. There really isn't any set rules as to what clips should be featured unlike the pop genre which demands close ups of the artists face signing the song.
For my video, I chose to include a mixture. The majority of the clips are narrative, however I've combined the performance into the narrative to carry the story along. I've only done this subtly so I may have to include more performance. However, this is another trait of the indie genre I have managed to incorporate into my video.
Setting
In the majority of the video, there is the use of a natural setting. Mumford and Son's Lover of the Light heavily includes the use of a forest/woodland area as well as scenes of the man at the beach. Completely coincidently I also filmed in similar surroundings.
The woodland area is heavily used throughout the video. 
I also used the woodlands as one of the scenes for my video. However, my visuals use a different style.
The video showed a day in the life of a blind man dealing with grief. Here he is making breakfast and setting the table for two places out of habit.
As my video is also a day in the life, I wanted a scene of the couple having dinner together. I used a similar scene of the couple at the table eating together and enjoying one another's company. This helps to further their relationship as they enjoy spending time together.
In another scene, I chose to film at a local beach which has also been used in Mumford and Sons' video. In my video, the beaches introduced when the song reaches its climax whereas MaS use it as a filler scene.
The use of a natural setting is common in the indie/folk genre as usually there is a lower production value, so the use of natural setting and lighting is very common to see - there is rare;y any use of huge studios with high production value. Also, it helps to establish the star image as genuine and real - if they were to use artificial lighting and huge fake sets in production studios it would give the appearance of an artificial artist. The fact I've used genuine settings and lighting shows the audience my artist wants their songs to depict true meaning in a true environment.
I feel that I have used these concepts in my video in my own ways. As these are the key concepts of the indie/folk genre and I've included them in my video, it can be included in the genre as it looks the part, literally in more cases than some. Therefore, I believe that my video has taken into consideration the concepts and used it to its advantage.
There are a few things I'd still like to tweak about my video, however. When the beat kicks in and it gradually changes form black and white to full colour, I adjusted the saturation and colours to make it look more vibrant, yet I feel the contrast appears all of a sudden rather than the gradual effect I was hoping for. This will need to be changed when I continue the editing in January. Also, I feel my editing still needs improving in some areas. I deleted a lot of the short clips in the beginning of the song as the tone and pace required a lot of longer shots. I also made sure all clips were in slow motion and that it would be consistent throughout. These are some things I need to take into consideration for my final cut.
Now I need to focus on the print products for my album and magazine advert as well as taking into consideration the planning for the first section of my exam where I discuss my coursework. The research and planning for this will become apparent over the next couple of weeks.
Until next time,
Toni
I agree that this is the best edit so far; the miming works well and the structure is tighter. You still need to work on the narrative flow - the "logic" of the story isn't quite there and you need to make the beginning of the day clearer (starting in the car is a little odd, as are the night-time shots early in the film). You need a more structured "timeline".
ReplyDeleteThe editing is better, but as you identify still needs to be tightened (I think you should be using cross dissolves until you go into colour at the start, and you need to hit either the beat or the end of a bar for each edit).
Does it actually need to go into colour? Thinking about it, I think you communicate more with the pace of the editing and the camera movement. You might want to keep it in black and white as an experiment? (You could export the video as it is, drop it back into Premier make the whole thing black and white in one go rather than doing every clip).
I would say it's upper 20s now, which is certainly better, but you need to really nail the editing to get it into the 30s.