Review of recent music videos (Part 1)

Here is the first part of my music video review. during these three parts, I will look at one well known artist, one lesser known artist and then finally compare the differences between both and relate it back to our own music video. Firstly I'll start off with the lesser known artist music video: SZA - Ice Moon.

Camera: The video has a limited type of camera shots. Most of the camera shots are either various types of wide shots, or close ups with a cut-ins and cut aways thrown in. Along with that the video is quite repetitive with the shots it uses. There are a few times where theres a different camera shot used such an underhead shot. The video however makes up for this by incredibly vivid imagery with a lot of the shots used and in my opinion makes the video quite good.

• A wide shot

• A mid shot

• Another mid shot

• Another wide shot

• A shot of the weather/nature

• Another wide shot

• And another...

• Close up of the artist

• A mid shot of the artist

• An underhead shot

Close up

• establishing/very wide shot

• A close up

• A wide shot

• A wide shot and my favourite shot due to the imagery involved.

Editing: Editing with this video focuses mainly on fade ins, and amplification of imagery through use of tinting. I also like the fonts used in the video, as I feel it's appropriate to the theme the artist has embraced herself in and also the general theme of the video. I think the uniqueness of the font, fused with the imagery within the video creates a lot of stunning shots.

• Amplification

• Fade in and font

• Fade in

• More amplifcation

• Credits

Mise en Scene: The theme of 'SZA - Ice Moon'  very obviously focuses on nature and easiness. This is strongly supported by the various shots of nature as well as the occasional sweets; and in fact the video starts off with a shot of the artists hand on a piece of wood. The lighting of the video in my opinion is very good, and amplified by the editing creates incredible visual imagery.

Incorporating synergy into the three products

We'll be incorporating synergy into our videos through the use of Deseree Diamond's signature brand: Diamonds. Within our music video we have actual imagery of diamonds, planning for our digipack and advertisement haven't taken off completely, but a few ideas I've had both are:

For the digipack:

• The artist incased in a picture of a diamond; With one overlapping the other. Both will be central within the digipack.
• A picture of the artist surrounded by diamonds or with diamonds on the side. For example: 

• A picture of the artist, with diamonds in her eyes.

As seen by the ideas above, I think we should strongly incorporate the artist and the brand image, and should try to make them fairly equal. This however may be a bit harder due to diamonds not being unique in terms of branding.

As for advertisements the ideas are very, very similar with the artist and her brand being the only factors within both. The advertisement will most likely have more usage of fonts as well as various types of font, but will for the most part go unchanged.

Instagram Account

As we already created a twitter account to share personal reviews and updates about recording the music video, we decided it was time for us to create an Instagram account. What is Instagram? Instagram is a social networking that allows users to posts images to share with those that are following them. They communicate by liking photos and leaving comments below pictures. The site also allows users to edit their picture in a certain way, they can change the colour, rotate and add filter to any of their pictures to creating deeper meaning or emotion to their posts. The pictures that we decided to post on our Instagram account was the pictures we took on the days of filming the music video, this is to show Deseree Diamond's audience the process she went through to film the music video and also to boost her recognition as an artist within the world of social networking. Here is an example of some of the pictures that were posted.





To see more images, please click the following link below:
http://instagram.com/

Images taken by: Benjamin, Amina and Phoebe
Instagram created by: Benjamin

Skills development.

How i will approach the planning on this production:

• I will make sure i attend workshop to work on the editing or other things that need updating rather than leaving it till last minute.
• Make sure that the edit goes with the lip syncing to allow the flow of the song to go in time with the syncing.
• Look back to our research and planning to make use of previous ideas to include in our music video, that way it will help us to move a lot faster in the production stage.
• I will use the storyboard to keep track of what scenes we have done and if we have covered the base tracks.

I will make sure this is done to the best of my ability as i want to do a lot better then what i did in AS. During my time in AS media we created a thriller and it was quite successful as we were organised and got a lot of work done which lead to me getting a good grade in the coursework. So i am hoping to be just as successful in A2 media.

Reflecting on the filming process

During our time filming we did have quite a few problems which were mainly to do with the lack of equipment we had for example on one of the filming days one of our team members didn't bring the fig rig and the tripod which meant that we had to improvise and hold the camera steadily. This was a big issue as we needed it for the base tracks and also to make the scene look clear and steady. Once we started editing we noticed that one of the scenes was too shaky and didn't look as good as the other scenes so we have decided to add in a smooth cam to make the image more clear and steady. However despite the lack of equipment we also had issues with the weather and so had to film on another day which did waste time. I made sure i was keeping up to date with the weather forecast as it would help us to know what days are suitable for filming which i could then go back and tell my other team members. Overall the filming process did go well as everyone was organised in a sense where we knew what costume we wanted the main artist to wear and what locations to film at. Also we managed to get a lot of footage at different angles.

Skills development during the editing process.

During the editing of the music video i learnt new skills such as how to make a shaky image smooth which was obviously using smooth cam. I also learnt how to add filters and effects to the video and how to cut in between scenes using the razor blade tool, to create a structure of the video and to keep the viewers intrigued. Base tracks were also put in over the original song and we made sure the lip syncing was in time with the song which was quite difficult to do at the start of the editing process but then we kept on practicing and eventually got it on time with the song.

Photos Of Filming (Day 3)

These pictures were taken at canary wharf. We went there to film one of our scenes for the music video.