Moodboard

Moodboard construction

Our Moodboard- The process and final piece.

We thought it was a good idea to do a moodboard where we would come as a group and put all of our ideas for our music video on a piece of A3. This capitvates our creativity and also the depth of research we have gone into in creating our music video for our genre and target audience. I have taken a couple of close ups of the moodboard so it is easier to analyse. Firstly the first picture simply shows the lyrics and the words and pictures surrounding it, we believe it was essential for our lyrics to be part of it as this is the focal point to our ideas. Futhermore, the next photo is a demonstration of the themes/genre we have picked, the picture shows drug dealing, desperation, indie characters and location. It is essential we did this in order to see our ideas on a big image- this will help visualize our music video as well as bring in additional ideas thought up along the way.

Conclusion of moodboard

We thought it was a good idea to place pictures of location, the type of people we wanted and the overall themes and then discuss it on our blog posts. The moodboard places together many different aspects and also conveys all our ideas as a group. We thought it looked very creative even if it did take a while to piece together. What is important however it that our vision is becoming reality and our moodboard definitely helped his.

MAIN THEMES DISCUSSED:

ROMANCE

DESPAIR

FLUX

PARANOID

IMAGES

LOCATION OF CAMDEN

STEREOTYPICAL INDIE BOYS

IMAGES OF CIGARETTES/DRUG ABUSE

OBSESSIVE CHARACTERS

All these themes will be taken into considering with our planning for our rough cut.

Copyright Letter

COPYRIGHT LETTER ACCEPTANCE

Before using our chosen song, Bloc party- Flux we had to ask permission to use it due to copyright. We emailed info@empire-managament.co.uk as we could not personally contact the producer Paul Epworth. We have requested to use the song however without this request our use of the song would not be law abiding. We hope to hear response from Empire management.

UPDATE

We received a reply from Empire management however they told us to contact "Wichita Recordings" as they were the publishers of the song and would be able to give us a reply. They said "You will need to get in touch with Bloc Party's publishers, Best wishes". Therefore I went directly to their website under contact.

UPDATE
Unfortunately, Wichita were unable to give us a response however advised us to speak to hannah.neaves@umusic.com and we are awaiting a reply from them.

FINAL UPDATE

Within 10 minutes of sending the email to hannah.neaves@umusic.com we received a reply: (This is a screenshot from a blackberry)

Now we have been given the go-ahead we can now use our chosen song freely !! :)

Putting everything together...

Below I have created a prezzi moodboard which puts together all my ideas and mentions the target audience and location:
(created by myself)

Copy of Narrative brainstorm on Prezi

Jarrett Fijal- Editor.

JARRETT FIJAL- THE EDITOR

When researching and planning our music video within editing I came across a well-known editor named "Jarrett Fijal". Firstly I found out the MTV video music award for best editing. In 2009 and 2010 he won best editing award for Lady Gaga Bad romance and Beyonce's famous Single Ladies video.

"Jarrett's unassuming demeanor belies his exceptional editing, seen on some of the most notable music videos of the past decade, his abilities to bring out the full potential in a project spans across all genres and styles".

BEYONCE- SINGLE LADIES

This is a phenominium of a music video that has won many awards for its editing, routine and overall performance. In terms of editing it works greatly with the pace of music and shape of sequence. It is shaped via pan shots- The camera keeps panning around the dancers to emphasize and show detail to their routine. An example of that is at 0.23 when the shot changes into pan to show the 3 dancers. Zoom in shots of Beyonce are also frequently used to aid promotion of the artist- an example of this is at 0.49.

COMPOSITION- Rule of thirds is used at 1.04 which shows that Beyonce is privileged by the camera.

BAD ROMANCE- LADY GAGA

The video initiates with a fade in and gradual zoom with close ups of the artist as well as light sources to create the start of the performance. The transitions are very quick and abrupt however the pace of the music is upbeat and fast therefore this works well. There are many zoom in medium shots that transitions into zoom in close ups throughout the video which create effect and bring us closer to the artist. The pace of editing is rather fast and quite disorientated however this works well with the strange performance and narrative.

Below is an image of Jarrett Fijal and the selection of music videos he has edited.

Editing in music videos

E D I T I N G
Editing is an extremely important part of creating our music video, and in whole an important part of any music video being made. The transitions, pace of editing and lengths of shots all contribute greatly to the success of the video. I shall discuss the style created within the video, who is privileged in the shot and manual dexterity within my genre.
"The important thing to remember is that the purpose of editing is to reduce the source material down to a more manageable size and to try and create a narrative of the events you have captured". This source was taken from http://music.guardian.co.uk/intel/story/0,193046,700.html. I believe it is a fantastic quote that brings the importance of editing into perspective. It is necessary that we capture enough footage at the beginning and end of each shot so we can use it efficiently and effectively. Furthermore the guardian claims "use cuts from one shot to the next, with only perhaps the occasional dissolve". This piece of advice is trying to show that you need to maintain professionalism whilst editing, it can be seen as amateur-like or clumsy if all you use is cross dissolves throughout, therefore uniqueness is key.

WHAT TO DO 1. All edit systems work better if there is spare footage at the end or the beginning of each shot that is being used. 2. Always shoot at least 2 takes of the shot you want. 3. Shoot plenty of angles, make sure that most angles cover the entire song. If you do not shoot enough angles of the whole song, the final edit of the video might be too slow.

WHAT NOT TO DO 1. Avoid jump cuts. 2. Don't use too many cross dissolves. 3. Remember the pace of the music, it needs to correspond with the pace of the editing or it could look clumsy.

I thought it was a good idea to brainstorm the concept of editing, I did this by hand in order to put all my ideas together. From the diagram below you can see that I looked at cuts, dissolves/cross fades, fades, wipes, the shape of the sequence and the pace of the editing. I believe these are a few important factors when researching into editing a music video.

The general use of straight cuts and fast edits creates continuity to the video, as well as linking to the upbeat house style of indie music.

EXAMPLE:KINGS OF LEON- PYRO.

This video helped me greatly when looking at the editing of indie music videos, it proved it could go from one extreme to the other. With indie video's we normally associate the editing with fastness, jump cuts and disorientation. However, the music video for "Pyro- By Kings of Leon" challenges this perspective. The video initiates with a fade in which then goes into a gradual zoom. In the first few seconds there are no cuts and the pace of the music is relatively slow- reinforced by the editing. However, unconventionally the pace of the editing becomes even slower which doesn't necessarily reflect on the pace of the music. Consequently, the type of music is rather echo-like therefore the pace of editing would look odd if it was fast. There are smooth transitions within the video, especially when they are circling round the pub maintaining the 180 degree rule. The pace of the editing allows us to visualize with the characters used and almost see their emotions. The editing definitely corresponds with the whole atmosphere of the video and the moods upon the characters. Despite the unconventional use of editing, the scene with the band is very original to Kings of Leon's house style and shows close ups of the members with the leading vocalist being privileged within the shots. Overall, movement, cuts and transitions are very slow and this reflects on the style of music greatly.

THE FOALS- OLYMPIC AIRWAYS.

Subsequently, I decided to analyse The foals use of editing within their video of Olympic Airways. This is a very opposite video to Kings of Leon, despite the same genre therefore thought it was a good idea to understand and investigate other videos with different uses of editing. The pace of the music initiates and seems very calming with a medium shot and slow transition of a guy jumping into a river, this is a very slow motion and the pace emphasizes this. In addition, the video continues with fades outs of slowly transitioned close ups of the surroundings. This captivates almost a variety of shots which give us a insight into the narrative before the music even initiates. However, the part in which the editing changes is when the guitar solo starts, the pace quickens with many straight cuts of the festival-like atmosphere. Furthermore, in the chorus the editing becomes very unconcordinate which reflects on the music itself. Many wipes are used to show the changing of location in a geometric pattern. Wipe shots are very effective when trying to create chaos and disorientation which is a convention of an Indie music video. Towards the end of the video, it almost becomes cyclical in terms of the editing, the pace of the music slows and so does the transitions, it gives a long wide shot of balloons being left off into the sky and the pace is not tampered with to show the cycle of the video- which no fastening or slowing of speed this in my opinion captivates the moment and brings back to the start of the video.