Evaluation Question 1

Script for Question 1

Hello, My name is Ben Woodward and I am the Director/Producer of my A2 Music Video. The Song that I have used for my Music Video is titled The Last Dance, which was written by myself and my band T5. The song is about trying to find love and happiness when everything seems broken.

In regards to the Music Video, many bands have influenced the narrative of the song; the main bands which influenced my narrative are the likes of Busted, McFly and Lawson. McFly’s - The Heart Never Lies mostly influenced the idea of the narrative by using a performance of the band in a remote location with a narrative which tells the story just by looking at the acting and scenery. The idea of filming the music video in a school hall was influenced by Bowling for Soups – High school Never Ends music video where the band are performing on a stage with dominant lighting and wearing appropriate attire for the occasion.

In order to sell the Artist in the Music Video I researched different Print Artefacts by similar bands and artists in the music industry, which are big in countries around the world. The top 3 which appealed the most to me were Green Day with 21^st Century Breakdown, Busted with Present for everyone and McFly with Radioactive. Each album sleeve which I saw has influenced my Print artefact in more ways than one. The style of my poster/album cover was influenced by Green Days 21^st Century Breakdown album cover using the pop art texture and bright colours. I incorporated this feature in my album cover and cd sleeve using Photoshop where I made the band image grey then editing with the threshold to create a gritty black image. Busted influenced my Print artefacts by making the band pose during a performance to get the best image possible, with that image I then re-sized the image to makes sure each member is equally visible on the cover, I then added a blue and green filter over the top of it to develop a contrast between the bold black colour to make it look more positive. McFly also influenced my print artefact with the use of their album Radioactive; this influenced my print artefact by placing the band title/logo in the centre of the cover and placing the different band members in different areas of the cover. The Logo of the band T5 was designed again using Photoshop, but with audience feedback they found the image too look like TV instead of the roman numeral for 5 so to display a clear title I created a text layer at the bottom of the logo in a thin black text reading T5, then on the ‘T’ I placed the album title in the centre in a different colour compared to the band name to display a contrast in colours.

When planning my music video I needed to find ways of promoting the artist/band in the video in ways other than the performance. I did this by using different instruments and props in the video. For instance, in the first verse of the narrative we can see the main character Thomas pick up an acoustic guitar. On the guitar is an engraved ‘V’, which is the Roman numeral for 5, this is also the form of the band logo, which the audience will be able to see a number of times in the video. This was done by drawing the design onto an acoustic guitar then chiselling the outline out, after that was done I then filled in the groves with black paint as seen on another guitar in this video. Again in the video during the performance we can see the lead singers guitar, which is a white Squier Stratocaster. On the scratch plate of the guitar we can also see a white ‘V’, which again helps to promote the artist, as the ‘V’ is another formation of the bands logo. Finally at the end of the video we can see a focus shot of the bands guitar picks which have the bands full logo on each pick, this really helps to promote the artist as the audience can look at the logo and instantly think of the artist. This was also done at the start of the music video as we could briefly see the band logo in full before the song title appears.

After watching many music videos such as Busted’s - Sleeping with the light on, Green Days - American Idiot and Mcfly’s – That Girl I noticed each video used Cinemascope Bars at the top and bottom of their videos to give it more of a cinematic look, with this I incorporated this into my media product as this is common in music videos. When filming the music video ‘Performance’ of the band, I used a number of shots including a close-up, corner stage shots, medium shots, extreme-close ups and many more. The shots of the singers face was influenced by Slipknots – Before I Forget video where the identity of the singers remain a mystery to the audience because the band wears face masks and jump suits. Other shots of the instruments were influenced by Blink-182’s – First Date music video where the drum kit is seen in the centre of the screen during a drum solo with low angles and high angles on the singers.

When editing the music video I used colour correction to demonstrate a contrasting section between each scene, for instance during the second verse we can see the male character walking down a footpath whilst looking at a girl. In this scene I used a dark/dull colour filter to connote sadness and depression but when the scene changes when he’s thinking about the girl, the colour of the filter brightens up where we can see the green grass in more depth. Also, later on in the video when the girl fades away, the contrast slowly starts to dip back to the dull colour seen at the second verse but doesn’t go too grey as she is still in his mind and he wants her to stay, she’s still the light in his life.  (COMPARE SHOTS BETWEEN ORIGINAL AND FINAL)

When looking at the music videos during my research I found VEVO was one of the most reliable music channels on YouTube and on the World Wide Web. With this I incorporated the VEVO logo into my music video by placing it in the bottom right of the music video on the cinemascope bar lines. This helps to not only promote the artist but also promotes VEVO as a channel/company.