•This is a song about a long distance relationship. A boy writes a love song for a girl in another city saying they’ll be back together soon, expressing his love for her. We liked it because it was a simple, calm and easy feeling song.
Pack Up by Eliza Doolittle
•This song is very upbeat about living your life and not carrying all your stresses and problems through life with you. Hence the name ‘Pack Up’, it introduces the prospect of leaving your stress behind, therefore presenting a positive and happy feel to the song and music video.
I Wanna Rock & Roll All Night by KISS
•This is a stereotypical rock song by a rock band, well known and recognised for their face paint and their leather costumes. This gave a us a fun idea to present a group of fun, lively teenagers imitating the band.
For the First Time by The Script
For this particular song, it was evident that we would have to create a romantic story line revolving around a couple and love. The song is about a couple, moved away from there home in Ireland and finding it difficult living in a new place, creating strains on their relationship.
A music genre is a categorical and typological construct that identifies musical sounds as belonging to a particular category and type of music that can be distinguished from other types of music.Music can be divided into many genres in many different ways. Due to the different purposes behind them and the different points of view from which they are made, these classifications are often arbitrary and controversial and closely related genres often overlap. Many do not believe that generic classification of musical genres is possible in any logically consistent way, and also argue that doing so sets limitations and boundaries that hinder the development of music.
I decided to pick a random song and try to analyse it early on so I could get to grips of what a music video is all about.
I chose Forever Young by Jay-z ft. Mr Hudson.
What is it about?
The song was originally written by Alphaville in 1984 but re-released by Jay-z who raps in replace of some verses and with Mr. Hudson singing some the original lyrics and the chorus. The video is black-and-white and shows various aspects of youth across America, inter-cut with scenes of Jay-Z and Mr Hudson performing the song, sometimes in concert.
Why does this video stand out?
Watching this video without listening to the music really makes you appreciate what is going on in the video. The various clips of young people and their various backgrounds and cultures throughout America makes you really appreciate the hugely different lives people can have and live. Despite living in the same nation, the video presents the good of society as the young people as sometimes shown as extremely happy but they are also clips of a near poverty within America. The soulless expression on some faces creates a strong feeling of sympathy towards them.
How does the video appeal?
The song is obviously about young people in America and never wanting to grow up but as we have seen, throughout the whole duration of the video, it is in a black and white effect. We normally associate this effect with old times or old people but here it is contrasted with the fact that these people are still living the early parts of their lives.
I think that this effect helps the viewer focus clearly on what is being shown in the video. There are no fancy colours to divert the viewer into watching something irrelevant and something that is not the main focus in the shot
This black and white effect also brings out more emotion in the people featured in the video. In a way, the black and white nature gives the video more sentiment and gives the viewer a chance to feel some emotion about the video.
As a certain snoopdog123100 says on YouTube: “Great video and great sound, the video always makes me eyes fill with tears.”
The breath-taking shots of his concert at AlexandraPalace in 2009 also bring out the best in the black and white effect as it adds to the amazing scene of support for both Jay-z and Mr. Hudson.
The video of Young Forever was directed by Anthony Mandler, an extremely well known music video director who has directed hundreds of videos from some of the biggest names in the music industry such as Rihanna, Usher, OneRepublic, Eminem, Beyonce, Enrique Inlesias and 50 cent.
Watching the video over and over again has only made me appreciate the effect of this music video even more. The black and white shots of the young people add a serious attitude to the video but also show the main majority of them being very happy at what they are doing.
Before even contemplating to start planning our own video, I see it essential to research deeply into the music video world.
By the end of my research I wanted to find these answers to these questions-
What does a music video mean to a song? What does a music video mean to an artist? What makes a good music video? What makes a bad music video? What makes a music video stand out?
I watched channel 4's 100 greatest music videos and took notes on the music videos that had something unique about them so I could get to grips why they made it into the 100.
These are the notes I made on the top 9 -
Hey ya – every single member of the band is him. Feel good. 60s rock in modern day
Dirtty – getting rid of a ‘goody’ image to become “dangerously sexy”Scream - cost millions and millions of dollars. Lots of visual imageryThe scientist – reversed filming but singing the words properly
Rock DJ - became popular and did well because it was controversial. Robbie getting naked and then ripping his skin
Like a prayer – the blasphemous controversy was the key part of the success of the song and video. Religious imagery is strongly mixed in with sexual imagery
Take on me – moving comic book features. Going into a comic book. Could jump into a picture
Sledgehammer – so many features. Had people talking. Aiming to force the viewer to watch the video again and again and tell their friends, looking on the internet again.
1. Thriller – like a movie. Nothing like that before.
I noticed throughout the 100 that some video's were very simple but surreal. Therefore it seems the more controversial or strange a video is, the more acclaim it receives. I know if I took this path then censorship would come into play.
For my OCR A2 Media Studies coursework, I was given a number of briefs which included producing a website homepage, a film teaser and a music video. In my group of 4, we decided to go ahead with the music video brief as it presented us with a challenge that is different from all elements we have already produced in GCSE and A-Level Media.
This blog with give you an insight to all planning that went towards our product from shot lists to schedules, our music video itself and an evaluation.
