Music Video Evaluation - Question 1

Frame 1 - Gramophone

In this shot we tried to challenge the conventions of music videos in our genre which is indie/electro/synth pop. We developed our idea from other music videos that usually start of with focusing in on a instrument (usually a keyboard or piano) and someone starting to play it and that is when you hear the music start. However instead of starting of with an instrument, we wanted to give our music video a vintage feel so we decided to demonstrate the music starting in the music video with the needle being put down on a gramophone.

Frame 2 - Reverse effect

In this shot we got one of the main characters to throw flour up into the air with a light shining on it and it dispersed out slowly into the air giving a ghostly cloudy effect. During editing we decided to reverse this shot so we see the ghostly cloud come back together and gave it an artsy feel. When looking at other music videos in this genre we didn't really see a reverse effect used so overall I think we challenged what would usually be done in inde/electro/synth pop videos.

Frame 3 - Candles

We used the reverse effect again on a shot were we lit lots of tea candles and then blew them all out using a fan. We used the reverse effect to look like the candles light up by them selves to go with the title of our song choice 'Illuminated'.

Frame 4 - Woodland

Another convention we used is having a outside setting. We noticed that when looking at music videos in our genre that they sometimes have a outside, suburban looking setting or are sometimes set in a forest or woodland type area. We decided to have one of our main characters walking through a forest to show that she is trying to go somewhere and is looking for something. We challenged this convention however, by having no camera movement as usually shots like this more with the character as they walk so it feels k=like you are walking with them. We wanted our audience to feel separated from our characters.

Frame 5 - Artist

I think that this shot is the shot that uses the most obvious convention of indie/electro/synth-pop which is showcasing the artist miming along to the song on there own with a plain/dark background and not much else is going on. We developed this convention by having the shots if the artist in black and white and only the shots containing the artist are in black and white to separate him out from the rest of the video were we tried to make the colour of the video dull and almost vintage looking. We did this to isolate him, therefore making him the central focus of the music video.

Frame 6 - Fight scene
The fight scene is the pivotal moment in our music video when the storyline comes together and we see the two opposites attract and then. literally collide with each other. This went against the conventions of music videos in this genre because they usually tend to be quite vague and not have a obvious storyline. I think our storyline does use the conventions and remains quite vague and ambiguous for three quarters of the video but then it becomes more noticeable when see the two different characters fight.

Frame 7 - Lighting effects
We used a convention by playing around with the lighting and eventually came to using the strobe lighting to give our  music video a scary/eery feel. Even though it was just the shadow of a hand in front of a strobe light it was simple but effective.

Frame 8 - Instrument (Keyboard)
We used one of the most obvious conventions of a music video which is showing the main instrument in the video from that genre and for us that was a keyboard. We filmed it from a higher angle which was slightly developing the conventions.

Frame  9 - Masks
The masks are representative for our storyline but are also part of the costumes and props. Our costumes conformed with other costumes in our genre as when we were researching we saw costumes used predominantly as something the audience should focus on. However we developed it by creating and designing the masks ourselves so they would be unique to our video as they were handmade, and this isn't something you usually see in synth/electro/pop music videos.

Magazine Advert

When creating the first draft for our magazine advert we looked at the conventions of adverts of a similar genre of our artist which is indie and synth-pop/electro. We chose to have the masks as the main image for our advert because that was the main focus of our video so we showed a strong link between the two. Also the conventions of magazine adverts in our genre don't usually show the artist on the front so we followed the conventions by not having the artist on the front. We also chose to have the masks on the magazine advert because it was a similar image to the one we used as the cover of our digi-paks and the covers and magazine adverts are usually the same or a similar image so that when people go to buy it it they know what to look for and can recognise it easily.

We decided to have the black and white cloth making a divide between the masks to represent the difference between good and evil which we portrayed in our music video. We also did it so it had a ying and yang style look to it it to symbolise the idea of balance and how the bad and the good can tie together.

We chose to have the artists name "HURTS" going across the middle and over the masks because we wanted it to be the central and hopefully most memorable thing that people see. We also wanted "HURTS" to be translucent so it didn't take away completely from the cover art and imagery and you can still see all of it. The reason we chose the title to be like this is because when looking at adverts of successful artists in this genre they used the artist name as the main feature and some time the only feature and it is usually quite large and the central focus.

The single title "ILLUMINATED" is significantly smaller than the artist title but is placed in an empty space at the bottom and is put in bold lettering so that your eyes are still drawn to it even though it is not a main feature and below that it leads on to the release date which follows the conventions of the release date being at the bottom of an advert so it is the last thing people see.

Digipak feedback



We presented our draft of our digipak design today to our media class so we could get feedback on what was good about it and constructive feedback on the elements we could improve.

Pros -

·         They really liked the front cover of our digipak, they liked how we used the two masks that we used whilst filming and had the black and white divide as the background. They thought it fit the theme we had for our music video well.

·         They also liked that we used the image of the candles going across the whole inside of the front cover.

·         Another positive was the colour we used throughout was quite dark and in some points quite monotone. They thought that it was good as it fit the theme of our music video.

·         They thought using the close up of the eye made it quite mysterious.

·         They also thought the image on the back cover was appropriate for the song and we had framed it well.

Cons -

·         It was commented on that our pictures were quite straight forward and it was suggested that we could play around with some of the photos and manipulate them. For example, manipulating the image of the eye to make it look like there is something inside it.

·         It was also suggested that that we play around with the font and colour of the word 'ILLUMINATED' on our inside cover.

·         We were also given different ideas of how to make the title 'HURTS' look on our front cover. It was suggested that we could outline it in black and have the inside transparent or smudge the edges to show the disturbance.

CD covers in our Genre

Our song Illuminated by Hurts falls into the genre of Synthpop.

The Hurts album covers usually are very monotone or black and white and usualy fetaure themselves as the artists on the cover. the Band name is usually always the focus and the album or single title is usually significantly smalelr but still noticeable to the audience.

The Killers also fall into the category of synthpop and their alums and unlike Hurts rarely feature themselves on the covers. Usual the band logo and name of the album is the center focus of the album cover. They also use black and white on there covers but also have quite a few in colour but they have a vintage, monotone tone to them. The look of their covers has an indie feel to them. 

Depeche mode are another band that fall into the category of synthpop and share some of the similar fatures with the previous two album covers. The mover is mostly greay and black without much colour and like The Killers rarely feature the actual band on the cover.

Planning for our digipak

Definition of a digipak
Digipaks are a patented style of DVD and CD packaging made out of heavy card or cardboard material. They can be divided up into portions of 3 or fold out in the style of a book and have one or more plastic trays inside for the CD's. This plastic trays are simply attatched to the card background.
Digipaks don't crack like the standard jewel cases.

What is the purpose of a digipak?
This style of packaging is usually used for special editions or a premium packaging for CD's of DVD's. They are also used as there is more space.

Brainstorm- What should our digipak include?

• Images - Masks, Forests, Feathers, Lights, Hands, Eyes, Cats eyes, Nature.
• Colours - Black and White, Dark, Blue tones, Sepia, Vintage colours.
• Text - Illuminated, Artist name. On the front cover.

What we filmed during the half term.

We were unfortunately left with a very limited amount of time to film what we wanted during the half term as I had to leave London for a week and my Partner had a university open day to go to so we only had 2 days to film.
As we had the whole day we decided to film at different points of the day to get different lighting and we also got the opportunity to film in the dark which gave us much more opportunity to play with light which is the main theme of our music video.

The main problem we face with having to film outside and deciding to have costumes was that the weather was much too cold so we couldn't stay filming one shot for too long, meaning the standard of the shots we got weren't as good as we would like them to be.

Feedback on rough cuts of our music video - Illuminated.

We showed a rough version of our music video to our media class to get some positive and constructive feedback on it so we could improve it.

Positive Feedback

• The positive feedback we received was that they liked how we had change the colour of some of the shots to gave the video a different feel and so the colour was not the same all the way through each shot.
• Our group really liked and enjoyed our shots where we played around with the candles and the lighting.
• We got positive feedback on our use of masks, saying it gave the video a unique feel and and good use of symbolism.

We also got some constructive feedback on what we could improve.

• It was commented that we needed some more action in our shots so not all our shots were static and still.
• We were also told to change the pace of our music video so that our shots would change at the right time with the beat and so they just didn't seem like continuous shots stacked on top of each other.
• Also some of our shots are a bit long or a bit shaky so we should shorten some of our shots.
• It was also suggested that we should have some sort of sound for the beginning of the intro rather than just silence. However, it was also said that they preferred the silence and thought it was a good opening. So we can play around with those two ideas and see which opening we think would be more successful.