My Track Choice

The track i chose from the 5 available was:
R.E.M- Shiny Happy People

Mini-Vid Task Explained

This task is very similair to the tasks we did last year. For example the Micro-Drama and the prelim. it is to create some experience of making music videos and what it will be like making the final piece of coursework.

we were given a list of songs and had to choose one of them to make a video on. We thought of our ideas and had to pitch them to the class to try convince the class to go with my idea. Once we chose the video we will make a 60 second maximum music video. There were many aims of the Mini-Vid...

The aims are-

• To advance our understanding of the factors behind track selection
• To provide practice of pitching
• To provide a sense of scale: music videos being more demanding than a film opening
• To provide opportunities of experimenting with editing and creativity
• To deepen familiarity with FCProX tools and FX
• Generating significant evidence on several A2 coursework assessment criteria.

Macklemore-Can't hold us

ACT: Macklemore & Ryan Lewis 

TRACK: Can't Hold Us
YEAR: 2013

DIRECTOR:  Ryan Lewis, Jon Jon Augustavo & Jason Koenig

GENRE: Hip Hop/ R&B

Relationship between visuals and lyrics:

When Macklemore is rapping he talks about a great white shark, there is then a very quick 2 second burst of a mid shot of him by the sea obviously to represent the shark.

'so we put our hands up like the ceiling cant hold us' these lyrics are sung whilst a panning shot of a crowd holding their hands up and dancing is played, this is done throughout the video in different scenarios.

Genre Characteristics: 

 In most of the Hip Hop/ R&B videos i have seen there is a shot of the artist rapping in a unique location. For example The first picture on the left is a long shot of macklemore rapping on a beach. It focuses on this for around 5 seconds then changes shot. 

This shot is of chris brown in his video 'champion' and like above with macklemore they do the same thing lip sync and a solo 'dance' 

Intertextuality:

in terms of intertextuality there isn't much of it in terms of music videos. However there is some slight intertextuality with the pirate ship, as their are many films that have the stereotypical pirate boat like pirates of the Caribbean. 

Linear Narrative:

There is very little narrative in this video, like many music videos it's very random. However the narrative i could pick out is that many people are going on a long journey to get their flag flying on the sky scraper.

I would say as this video has very little narrative todorovs 5 part theory narrative can't really be applied. However it does start with equilibrium then when starting the song fully it reaches a kind of disequilibrium stage.

Representations:

One of the main representations in this Video would be race as there is such a variety in race in the video. I think this video tries to signify that in america there is such a large variety of cultures from the african american boy gettting his hair done to the Indian looking man at the start. There were many representations like the african american boy having his afro groomed to an arab looking man walking a camel. therefore many representations and stereotypes we used

No. of setups

There was a large variety of set ups in this music video as the location and the people in it varied so much here are just afew:

In the desert 

Macklemore  on the boat set up

Snowy area where the video starts

Locations and Mise En Scene:

Macklemore when inbetween the boat scenes, as part of the beach and ship mise en scene; wears a sailor type jacket to signify further the boat location

there were many 4 main locations in the film, here is the snow scene in which it started where a native finds the flag that is then carried around the america. This gives the music video alot of variety and uniqueness.

The final location is the city where the flag is raised on the top of the famous sky scraper. This signifys how high budget this music video is, as they have a helicopter filming the scene as it shows the extreme longshot

Notable Shots:

Many of the shots in this video are very notable as macklemore & ryan lewis videos are always very unique. A great example is this shot of him laying on a sofa in a portable living room. I like it because it is very creative and unique.

E.G2 - Naughty Boy - La La La ft. Sam Smith

ACT: Naughty Boy

TRACK: La La La ft. Sam Smith
YEAR: 2013

DIRECTOR: Ian Pons Jewell

GENRE: POP/UK Garage

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN VISUALS + LYRICS: 
at the beginning of the video the relationship is very apparent as this represents the rest of the video. The lyrics are: 'i'm covering my ears like a kid, when your words mean nothing i go lalala.' this is the chorus. The medium close up shows the 'kid' covering his ears. He then mimes 'lalala' as he is shouted at by what appears to be his father.

The child then represents the whole video as the words link into his actions of holding his ears and saying la la la. various characters do this and block their ears when the lyrics go 'when your words mean nothing i found a way to block it.'

Apart from this the video is very random, with very random characters. it is like alot of modern videos, they don't tell much of a story it is much more random.

GENRE CHARACTERISTICS: 
With pop there is such a wide variety of different types of videos, in modern day these videos have got even more random, from videos like miley cyrus wrecking ball to Lady GaGa - Edge Of Glory. It has become fashionable to be more and more different. Gone are the days of most videos been the artist performing. Now it is a competition for the most artistic.

INTERTEXTUALITY?

With this video being so unique there isnt any intertextuality i could identify, like the point above, pop videos tend to try and be as unique as they can

PERFORMANCE, NARRATIVE AND/OR CONCEPT?:

The video is a concept video as it has a narrative but a very random one. It is has alot of continuity however very different in the way they have made the video, it isnt a clear story.

PERFORMANCE STYLE: 
The performance style is acting and dance. it has a story throughout, acted out with various different characters. 3 main characters

STAR TREATMENT

The little boy in the video is the main character, neither Naughty Boy or Sam Smith are in the video. That is stereotypical of naughty boy who is famously a hidden face, someone who is huge in the music industry, however is un recognisable to most people as he doesn't involve himself in music videos. Never the less naughty boy has produced for the likes of Pink, Rihanna and Emile Sande.

PACE + ANY VARIATION OF PACE: 

This video goes along with the same kind of pace throughout, it has alot of continuity as there are alot of clever transitions that make the video look like most of it is one long take. However it is the same paced filming throughout.
SHOT VARIETY + NO. OF SETUPS: 

LOCATION/S + MISE-EN-SCENE: 

NOTABLE SHOTS/FRAMING: 

DIRECTOR STYLE:

.Ian pons jewell's style is very unique and different, he has directed a number of music videos with La La La and the picture to the right, jargon probably being the biggest two.

He creates videos like no others each one as unique as the last. With the music video Jargon its about a police officer who takes what he thinks is just sherbert but turn out to be drugs. It then follows the police officer while on drugs. 

The director has won many awards and set to win more as he is so unique in what he does

Faithless-Insomnia tbc

ACT: Faithless

TRACK: Insomnia
YEAR: 1995

DIRECTOR: -

GENRE: Trance, Dream house

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN VISUALS + LYRICS: 
there is a relationship in the fact that the song is a very dark song, this is emphasised by the dark lighting used. The lyrics go 'no electricity' during these lyrics there is just the artists face visable. 

The song is also obviously about insomnia the inability to sleep, therefore the director has cleverly made the 
video very dark and gloomy, this is what you would imagine it being like if you couldn't get any sleep.

There is no clear narrative in the visuals as it is very random, however you get a general feel of the aim of the video. The flashes of rndom images are what i believe nightmares of what keeps the character in the video up at night. therefore the narrative isnt clear however you can pick out what the artist is trying to get across. it is a clever concept video

GENRE CHARACTERISTICS: 
with alot of trance songs the videos are very random as that type of music is very energetic and has the sole intention of being used in nightclubs etc for people to dance to therefore there rarely is a main narrative to the songs.

INTERTEXTUALITY?

in this video there is no intertextuality i could find it is a very unique video and was something that hadn't been seen before with the randomness of the video.

PERFORMANCE, NARRATIVE AND/OR CONCEPT?:

the video i think is a concept video.

PERFORMANCE STYLE: 
the performance style of this video is very much unique as it is mainly lip synching and acting by various characters. it is all very random. there is no clear idea of what they are doing. however the lip synching is very serious, with alot of intent in connection with the words 'getting stressed' 'insomnia release me' the character never breaks a smile he is very serious and emotional.

STAR TREATMENT

 the singer in faithless is the main character (Maxi Jazz) who is the character who lip synchs for nearly all the song. this is because he is telling a story of his personal experience of insomnia.

PACE + ANY VARIATION OF PACE: 
when the song drops into the up pace beat the shot variety becomes much more. however the song in general to say it is trance isn't very upbeat there are very long takes, not going with the beat like many dance videos do

SHOT VARIETY + NO. OF SETUPS: 

LOCATION/S + MISE-EN-SCENE: 

NOTABLE SHOTS/FRAMING: 

DIRECTOR STYLE:

The directors style is very unique and different it was a pioneer in music videos as nothing like that had been seen before. The lip synching and nightmares that the character has was just different, most videos then either told a story or had a performance (e.g dance routine).

the way the words go with the video was very clever as the whose song is about him getting no sleep. It then puts you in his mind with the boy in red paint which suggest satanic spirits is why he cant sleep, the boy keeps him awake! everything is dark, which the director cleverly chose in every scene as he is in a dark place.

MiniVid Pitch

My MiniVid Pitch

• The song i chose was R.E.M- Shiny Happy People
• As you can hear it is a rock song much like the Beatles kind of music
• The idea is to Wrap George Holmes in tin foil, hence the name SHINY happy people. Therefore George would need to be smiling throughout the video. Like a big cheesy grin
• Then George would do all the things it says in the video like shiny happy people go into the crowd and he would do exactly so..
• when the song says "shiny happy people throw their love around" he would throw paper love hearts.

I think my idea would be a good one to go with as it brings alot of humour and is a very unique idea. It would be very easy to do, and the amount of different shots and things we could do is huge.