D1

 D1 How I’ve met the brief and my proposal.

Overall this has been a difficult project for me to do and you can probably tell why and this is mainly because of COVID 19 but I guess you must be bored of that now.  In many ways I have met the brief and stayed true mostly to my P1 Proposal.  This is because I have checked over and over again so I can make sure all work and effort isn’t a waste of time and also so the client is happy.  The brief told me to make a music video that would have live action/graphics based and I have fulfilled that point from the brief.  As my video has footage and characters like actor Hattie Kelly and also graphics and editing like the black and white filter.  This furthermore shows that I have met the brief.  I also met with the P1 Proposal I made as In the proposal I said I would make a video cover of “I can’t believe your in love with me” with a style that fits with the jazz genre.  I explain more of this in the editing part of this blog below. 

Miss-en-Scene

 

For locations, I chose places quite far from civilisation, this is because I wanted to film without worrying about members of the public but it of course has deeper meaning.  The locations I used where either locations on the moor or in the woods as these places teem with nature.  In some ways the moor can seam like a desolate place especially when there is snow everywhere so I created meaning by showing how sometimes nature is desolate and lonely.  Here is an example of one of the locations I went to film.  Here is a wide shot of actor Hattie Kelly in the forest teeming with nature.  You can see that the photo is in black and white and this is at the start of the video before the lyrics start.  I made it black and white to show the contrast in her mind and to show the audience what she is feeling, and she is feeling alone and unwanted.  When the audience see the black and white they will see that something must be wrong but will also see the nostalgia of the video being in black and white.  This is obviously because most jazz videos and especially old ones where in black and white.  In the shot you can unfortunately not see that clearly but she is wearing a dress and has got ready to meet someone that she loves.  I also wanted and told her to wear a dress to appeal to the target audience of the baby boomers as they wore more traditional clothing back then.  But you can also see she is wearing a coat and that is originally because it Was freezing at the time but it also has deeper meaning.  Here I was trying to represent young women in relationships but that is mainly it, there wasn’t really any stereotypes that I was wanting to deliberately make.  This shot you can see that she is alone and she has got her head on her hands.  This shows that she is doubting if someone can come and overall makes her feel alone.  This is further shown by the fact that the entire shot is in black and white.  This can cause the audience to sympathise with her and see that she is sad.  In this shot there are no props in it but when I was using this shot I told Hattie to sit on the rock.  The rock represents nature holding her up when she's alone.  This overall makes the shot more important and descriptive for the audience as they will think that she has been waiting for a while with the fact that she is sitting down on a dirty rock.  In this shot she is also wearing a coat to further show that she is alone as she is cold and that can hint to her being more alone.  The audience will see this and think she is cold and alone.  The trees around her represent the matureness and wiseness of nature as these trees are more than a hundred years old.  Her being surrounded by these big trees shows that she is isn't that wise and mature and will have to learn from her mistakes.  The audience will see that she is tiny compared to the massive trees.

Editing 

I edited this video the way I did because I wanted to show some beautiful locations.  At first I wanted a storyline but after some thought and a global pandemic I thought that it would be too hard to make a video with a storyline because I couldn’t find any actor that could and even wanted to do this music video.  So even though a storyline might have captivated the audience more and make the video more memorable it was impossible for me at the time to do but this isn’t really a bad thing because my video still shows emotional meaning by the way I have edited this video.

Here are the screenshots of the editing I did to change the filter of black and white to colour in a smooth transition.  I wanted the transition to start as soon as the lyrics started to add greater effect and gracefulness.  This adds meaning to the video by showing how this video is a slow paced video with the fact that the fade is slow.  The black and white filter worked well to show the mood of the video and I’m glad how it panned out.  Overall I wanted the video to look tranquil with the black and white and have a nice transition to colour and then fade to black at the end and it worked well for me as an editor for the video.  This created meaning because the black and white filter easily stood out and showed what type of music video this was going to be and it also shows how it meets the proposal and the brief as I’ve followed my idea of half the music video being black and white the entire time I’ve been planning this, even throughout COVID 19.  Originally before COVID 19 I was planning to have a band play the music on camera and bubbles of colour coming out of a saxophone but because we had no band I had to adapt.  Overall I wanted a two minutes+ music video with the start of the song being in black and white and then the second half of the music video being in colour, this will be when the instrumental ends and the vocals start.  I wanted the video to be in black and white because it would show an alone and depressive side to the song but it will turn to colour in the middle to show everything will turn out ok. When the video changes into colour I wanted there to be a quick fading transition which I think has worked out quite well.  I wanted there to be some sharp cuts between the footage and also some fading transitions.  At the start and the end of the video I wanted there to be a fade from black and a fade to black and overall this has worked very well and has done a good job.  When I edited the audio I wanted the video to span the entire audio and the fade to and from black to span the video as well.  This shows that I’ve met the brief and the proposal as I wanted to keep the video the length of the audio.  When I was planning what audio I would use, I wanted the highest possible audio quality for it that was sung by Billie Holiday but the one with the highest quality was the audio I used for the video so the audio sounded very old.  This however may sound like a downside but i think it is good in some ways, as the old audio gives it more aesthetic and is more nostalgic for the target audience and creates meaning to the music video.  This creates meaning but it also shows how I’ve met the brief as at the start of this unit I wanted this video to seem old fashioned and it is. Overall though, the way I have edited this video helps create meaning of nostalgia by all these factors like the black and white filter and the change from black and white to colour.  The change of colour shows nostalgia by how we are all moving forward through time and technology.  This also shows how I have met the brief and how I have made a video that the client will like as it fits with the brief.   

Camerawork

With the footage I was creating I wanted a video that would show the beauty of nature even with a black and white filter.  I would shoot mainly mid shots of the character as well which would allow the audience to see a more detailed figure of how the character will be feeling while admiring the scenery.  There where also some wide shots to show the scale of a human to nature and to show the audience that we are all very tiny.  There where many wide shots of settings such as the moor and the woods and other places etc.  This is because of course, I wanted to show the beauty of nature as your probably getting sick of that saying now.  There are also other shots of course with an actual person in it.  This example above is a medium shot and shows more emotion even though she is facing away from the camera.

Target audience

The target audience for my music video was aimed at mainly baby boomers and older generations.  Even though the entire cast of one actor is apart of the generation Z the genre is mostly liked by the majority of baby boomers and the video is aimed to make baby boomers feel young again.  Originally I wanted this video to be targeted at my generation, generation Z but after very few thought I realised that Generation Z will be near impossible to admire to with this style of music.  Baby boomers will appeal to this video because they will feel nostalgic with how it fits with similar jazz videos and how it is in black and white for most of the video.  Baby boomers will appeal to the theme of nature because in they’re life they have been outside a lot more than current generations and so that’s also a major reason why I chose this target audience.  This meets the proposal and brief because in the brief I am meant to have a clear target audience and in my proposal I chose baby boomers because over 60% of them listen to jazz (Statistics from Yougov.)

Comparison to original plan.  

Originally what I wanted for music video was an almost 5 minute long video with a full cast of 10-12 and a band to top it of with our own music, there was a full script to do with a love story between two young teenagers and during the instrumental there would be colour expanding from everywhere and all sorts of couples would look around in amazement at it.  Sadly that never happened due to COVID and also because of my own low self esteem after the whole mess.  Now the music video doesn’t really have a story to it but shows the characteristics of a music video.  In the video there is no singing or lip syncing and no band playing but it doesn’t mean I’m upset with how it ended up as I made it to the best of my ability at the time.  I had to completely change it but I did my best to keep it to the theme which was nature.

Conventions and what I wanted to see.

Overall a music video should at least have one person in it so you can connect with them in a way, also it is good to have a character in your music videos to see all the different types of shots, for example mid shot, long shot, establishing shot etc.  These are things I wanted to see in my finished video and I am happy with how it has turned out.  Normally there should be a storyline as well but there isn't really one here that I did.

Symbolic codes

Of course as I have said many times that I want to show the beauty of nature.  The greenery is meant to represent the purity of this world and all things good and it adds greater affect to this when the filter is changed to colour and you can see it in a real light. I wanted this to add more dramatic beauty to the video and it worked out well.

Technical codes

When planning out my video I wanted to have a cover of Billie Holiday singing the song,  I also wanted an instrumental to add contrast to the lyrics when the colour changes.  I also wanted a verity of shots that would be different to each other.  In my music video I did not want any sound effects because I think it would interfere too much with the old audio.