Making a Music Video

Using the video camera and starting to edit on the computer

The first part to make my music video is to video each part. So first I need a camera. I need to book my camera at least 24 hours beforehand to make sure it is charged and ready to go. Most of the videoing should take up about two full days. Once I have the camera I need to place in the tape. To place the tape inside the video camera I need to press the eject button which opens the case, when putting the tape in, the magnetic strip must be facing downwards. I need to place the tape in lightly as not to cause damage to the video camera itself. Then I push the ‘push’ button inwards to close the case. Before filming I need to make sure the tape has rewound to the beginning. To do this I need to flick the switch on to ‘play’ mode and then I can press the rewound button.
Once everything has been prepared I can start filming. Firstly I need to switch the button to ‘camera’ mode. To start recording I press the white button. However before I start filming my actual piece it needs to have a few moments to play and then the movements start. To do this properly I need to count down from ten out loud and then when I get to three I need to mime it so it doesn’t get captured on camera. To make sure the filming is steady I need a tripod, this help for when I need to turn and get a straight shot. A main priority is that the camera MUST start before the soundtrack is played. If I had to do a lot of moving around, it would be best to leave the tripod and use my arms by tucking my elbows into my stomach and have the camera flat on the palm of my hand. This gives it an even surface and it is easier to hold the camera steady. When everything has been videoed I need to download everything on to the computer and edit it. I need to open final cut express; save my music file into my folder and then bring all the video clips and the soundtrack on to Final cut express to edit everything. I need to remember to keep saving the process as I go along as to make sure I don’t lose any footage etc.

Getting Permission

Permission to use my setting

To use the location I want for my music video I needed to get some form of permission to use it. The location is at one of my friends’ house. I wrote her a letter to ask for her permission.

Dear Alex,
For part of my media course at school, I have to research, plan and create a music video. I intend for my video to be based in a bedroom, and as I feel that your bedroom would fit the role for my music video, I am writing to ask for me and my group to use your bedroom as part of the setting for our music video and also if you would be able to play a part in our music video, playing the part of a little girl. Please get back to me
Hope to hear from you
Jade

Once I had sent the letter, I waited for the reply. The letter read;

Dear Jade,
Of course that’s fine, I’d be happy for you to use my bedroom. If you could just let me know when you would like to video, we can arrange for you and your group to spend the day videoing. Also I would love to be in your video, it would be great. So make sure you let me know when you want to come and we can get started. See you soon
Alex

Treatment

Intro
Establishing shot of the house; zooms into the little girls window we see her writing in her diary whilst sat on her bed
Peter Peter was your name
A close up of the diary; the little girl writes the lyrics in her diary, some of the lyrics are all ready written
Peter Peter whats your game
Leaves diary on the bed and walks over to the mirror; long shot and a close up shot
I'm head over heels head over heels
Walk over to the mirror
I'm head over heels head over heels
Close up of singer sat on the window sill
And I'll teach you how to fly
Camera is still on the singer; wide shot
And how to sing a lullaby
The little girl turns her head away from the mirror as she thinks she has seen something
And I'll teach you how to fly
She looks in her drawers; close up and long shot
And how to sing a lullaby
She is still looking in her drawers
And I'll teach you how to cry
She skips over to her wardrobe and opens the doors looking in; mid shot
And understand why tears don't dry.
She skip over to her bed and kneels on the floor; close up and long shot
And I'll teach you how to cry
The camera looks up on top of the bed as the little girl looks under the bed
And understand why tears don't dry.
Then the camera joins the little girl looking under the bed
And my shadow won't stay upon my bones
The girl looks up again to find a little animated peter sat on her bed.
Drifts away into the day unknown
Shot of singer walking down the stairs; side shot and close ups
And sewing kits can't help me,
Camera still on the shot of singer
No needles
There will be a close up shot of needles and thread on a set of drawers
And a thimblefull of cotton thread
The thread will twist into the words ‘Follow him’
Will surely run right through my head.
Still on shot of the words ‘follow him’
And I'll teach you how to fly
Still on shot of the words ‘follow him’
And how to sing a lullaby
Still on shot of the words ‘follow him’
And I'll teach you how to fly
The little girl heads towards the door; side shot and close up
And how to sing a lullaby
She puts on wellington boots; close up of the wellington boots
And I'll teach you how to cry
She then opens the door and walks out then closes the door behind her again.
And understand why tears don't dry.
Shot of singer on a wooden gate; close up and wide shot
And I'll teach you how to cry
Still on the shot of the singer
And understand why tears don't dry.
Still on the shot of the singer
And I'll teach you how to fly
Shot of the little girl skipping down a country lane
And how to sing a lullaby
Different shot of the little girl skipping down the road
And I'll teach you how to fly
Close up of Animated peter pan on a fence
And how to sing a lullaby
A shot of the little girl walking along the fence; side view, close ups and wide shots.
And I'll teach you how to cry
Still on the shot of the little girl walking along the fence
And understand why tears don't dry.
Still on the shot of the little girl walking along the fence
And I'll teach you how to cry
Still on the shot of the little girl walking along the fence
And understand why tears don't dry.
Still on the shot of the little girl walking along the fence
And I'll teach you how to fly
Very wide shot of the singer walking down the country lane towards the camera.
And how to sing a lullaby
Wide shot of the singer walking down the country lane towards the camera
And I'll teach you how to fly
Mid shot of the singer walking down the country lane towards the camera and then quickly turns into a close up shot
And how to sing a lullaby
A mid shot of the singer from the view of the back
And I'll teach you how to cry
A close up shot of the little girls face; and a wide shot of her and mid shot
And understand why tears don't dry.
Establishing shot of a tyre swing; and the little girl playing on it.
And I'll teach you how to cry
Mid shot of the little girl playing on the tyre swing
And understand why tears don't dry.
Close up of the little girl playing on the tyre swing
And I'll teach you how to fly
Another establishing shot of a tyre swing; and the little girl playing on it.
And how to sing a lullaby
A close up shot of Peter Pan smiling watching the little girl playing on the swing
And I'll teach you how to fly
Cut in of the little girl walking home slowly; close up shot and wide shot from the side
And how to sing a lullaby
Focus upon the singer in the little girls bedroom
And I'll teach you how to cry
A wide shot focusing upon the singer in the little girls bedroom
And understand why tears don't dry.
A long shot focusing upon the singer in the little girls bedroom
And I'll teach you how to cry
Another close up and wide shot of the singer in the little girls bedroom sat on a chair
And understand why tears don't dry.
A shot of the little girl sitting up in her bed, then a quick shot of the star outside. A close up of the little girl smiling and as the music ends we see her fall back onto her pillow and fall asleep again.

Peter Pan – Jose Vanders

Final Idea

My final idea came from taking various points from each video idea. I found that this idea fitted with the idea of peter pan, so this is why I came up with this particular idea. I added a few extra parts to make it different and hopefully more interesting. The video will start off in the bedroom of a little girl, she will be sat on her bed writing a diary entry, which will have a close up of the diary where she will write the first line of the lyrics ‘peter, peter was your name’. She will then get up from her bed and walk towards a mirror and see something in her reflection, she turns around to see that there was nothing there, she then sees an animated peter pan, then all of a sudden he vanishes. She then goes round her room looking for him, looking in drawers and out her window. Then she climbs onto her bed and then bends over to look underneath, she doesn’t find anything, so she gets back up to find peter sat on her bed. At this point Peter flies out the window. Then there will be shots of cotton, thread and scissors on top of a dressing table and then they will twist in letters to spell the words ‘follow him’. So she walks towards her bedroom door; puts on the wellington boots; walks out of the door and closes the door behind her. The next scene is her walking down a road and peter is next to her, they both jump in puddles. As they are walking down the road they do several things together. They try and walk across the fence; they run down the road together, they sit under a tree together. The last scene is of the girl looking at her watch and there will be a close up of her watch, then they go there separate ways. The next shot we see is the back of the girl walking home on her own down the road; the final shot is of her in bed; she sits up looks at the star, smiles, and then falls back to sleep again. The star is linking to the peter pan film as in ‘the second star to the right’. Throughout the film there will be performance parts to the video, where there will be the singer will be miming the lyrics whilst sat on a window sill. Throughout the performance part of the video there will be a variety of camera shots.

Peter Pan – Jose Vanders

Idea Two

My second idea was to have a girl sat in her bedroom, thinking of past events that she has been through, like flashbacks of seeing this boy at school that she fancies. She would find a picture on her mirror and sees something in the mirror, then looks back and nothing is there. She has illusions that she can see this boy in her bedroom, then he keeps disappearing and she runs and skips around her room looking for him. There would be close ups of her face for the male gaze and also wide shots to show the setting and how she has to look for this boy. There would be parts when she is tired out and has flashback to when they were in the cafeteria or in the library together. In between all of this happening there would be parts where the singer would be walking down the stairs and around the house whilst performing however from a distance we would see the girl running around her bedroom looking for this boy. In the end she would end up at school and they would kiss and then when she goes to bed at night she looks out the window to the second star on the right, linking it to the film peter pan. Throughout the video there would be discreet links to peter pan, just to match the song however not too noticeable.

Peter Pan – Jose Vanders

Idea One

For my first idea I thought about setting my video inside of a old fashioned, traditional toy shop and the idea of the toys coming alive. The video would begin focusing on the door bell in an old fashioned shop then would focus just on the child entering the shop, perhaps a close up of the child’s face which would then move to a focus of the child’s back walking through the shop. A motif would be used in order for the toys to come alive perhaps following on from one another as one toys moves another would until all the toys have changed their position. This would be done by pausing, then recording and then following on from where the video had been paused. The child would walk through the toy shop and the camera would focus on the child’s face staring up at the toys ideally for the teddy/ragdoll to wave which would be done again by pausing and carrying on the shot. The shot would then zoom in on the child perhaps grasping hands with the toy and then a flashback into previous events before with the toy and child. This would then spin off into a flashback of the child and ragdoll or teddy spending time with the child and expressing times they had shared together and the child looking after the toy. Some ideas for the flashbacks could be the child and ragdoll playing at the park or having a tea party or running through fields together and having fun. When the scene is done it would then focus back on the child in the toy shop choosing the toy and then the child handing the money over at the toyshop and purchasing the toy. In between each of these narrative shots, there would be in between shots of the sing performing in the shop but not necessarily at the same time as the child. There would be a place in the shop where she would stand and sing, but on her own and everything would be still apart from her, whereas all the toys come to life when the child is there in the narrative section.

Generating my Ideas

From the start

To think of some ideas for my music video, I first listened to the song and wrote down everything that came into my head whilst listening to the song, taking the music and the lyrics into account. Here are the ideas that I wrote down on my piece of paper;

Triangle, fairy dust, rain, puppets, night time, skipping, windows, mirrors, fancy dress, guitar, dreams, peter pan, little girl, school disco, bedroom, flying, playing In a park, riding a bike, sewing kit, thread, high school crush, paintings, raindrops, puppies, candy, sweets, picnic, dancing, ballet, fairy lights, stars, moon.

I listened to the song a couple of times to make sure I got thorough ideas.
After I had done this step, I then picked out a few words out of my list which I thought went well together and then produced two different ideas for my music video. Since listening to the song I discovered it was quite simple, so I thought both of the music videos need to be simplistic.

Lyrics

Peter Pan; Jose Vanders

Peter Peter was your name
Peter Peter what’s your game
I'm head over heels head over heels
I'm head over heels head over heels

And I'll teach you how to fly
And how to sing a lullaby
And I'll teach you how to fly
And how to sing a lullaby

And I'll teach you how to cry
And understand why tears don't dry.
And I'll teach you how to cry
And understand why tears don't dry.

And my shadow won't stay upon my bones
Drifts away into the day unknown
And sewing kits can't help me,
No needles And a thimblefull of cotton thread
Will surely run right through my head.

And I'll teach you how to fly
And how to sing a lullaby
And I'll teach you how to fly
And how to sing a lullaby

And I'll teach you how to cry
And understand why tears don't dry.
And I'll teach you how to cry
And understand why tears don't dry.

And I'll teach you how to fly
And how to sing a lullaby
And I'll teach you how to fly
And how to sing a lullaby

And I'll teach you how to cry
And understand why tears don't dry.
And I'll teach you how to cry
And understand why tears don't dry.

And I'll teach you how to fly
And how to sing a lullaby
And I'll teach you how to fly
And how to sing a lullaby

And I'll teach you how to cry
And understand why tears don't dry.
And I'll teach you how to cry
And understand why tears don't dry.

And I'll teach you how to fly
And how to sing a lullaby
And I'll teach you how to fly
And how to sing a lullaby

And I'll teach you how to cry
And understand why tears don't dry.
And I'll teach you how to cry
And understand why tears don't dry.

Video Type

Performance, Narrative or Art?

The video type I plan my music video to be is a combination of Narrative and Performance. Around 70% of the music video will be based on the narrative, the other 30% of the video based on the performance part. After analysing the three Indie music videos, I found that most of the videos have more narrative than performance in their music videos, so I decided to stick to the convention of a typical music video.

Target Audience

Style and Language

My target audience is 16 year olds to 25 year olds. The genre of my song and music video is Indie, the mass majority of the older generation wouldn’t really listen to that music genre, unlike people ages 16 to 25 would, and so that’s why I’m targeting my video based upon the people I know would listen to indie music more than other genres. My artist, Jose Vanders, is a university student, so the target audience is going to be around the same age as her, plus would have the same fashion sense as her as a lot of university students are similar, wearing similar clothes, using similar language.

Analysis of Band

Scouting for Girls; Heartbeat

Scouting for girls is an indie pop group. The video for this song is based on a typical ‘high school dance’. There are lots of girls and boys on the dance floor and then the Scouting for Girls band are on the stage performing and singing the song. I think that this is a performance, narrative and also art. I think it is a performance video as it shows the band on stage singing, it shows the piano and the drums also. I think it is a narrative video because it shows boys walking to girls being in love. I think it is an art video because it has little animations in it, for example when a boy meets a girl there’s a little red love heart that appears on the boys chest.

The editing in this is very quick paced. It moves from show to shot very quickly. At points in the video it pauses. Like when a boy meets a girl and the animated heart beats while the video is paused. The shots cut from a performance part of the video quickly to a narrative part of the video, and then quickly back to the performance part of the video.

The lighting is very different compared to the two other videos I have analysed. The first concept of the lighting I noticed was that it was quite dark, and I think this was to show the idea of being at a disco with the dark lighting and then bright ones to make a contrast. However the part where the camera focused on the stage was quite light so we could see the shots of the singer. The last concept I noticed about the lighting was there were red glimpses, which almost seemed smoky like. I think this is to show the idea of love.

The most commonly used camera shot is the mid shot, which kept constantly going back to showing the main characters face. I think this is also, like the other two video’s I have analysed, for the female gaze and attention. The camera shot include wide shots which show the whole ‘high school disco’, at a glance.

Analysis of Band

Kate Nash; Foundations

Kate Nash is a solo artist. Her videos, I feel, show off her personality and create a sense of what person she is like for an audience. I think she is quite a girly girl, with all the pretty outfits she wears in her video and the objects in the house she uses. The house in the video is quite modern however it looks very homely with all the pots, pans, clothes and games around. Some of these objects are videoed several times to create an arty theme to the video. The words she says in the song “Every time you’re upset, I just smile” are about a relationship and in the video they create the image for the audience where he draws on his food a sad face, and she draws on her food a happy face, making it really obvious. I think that this video is a Narrative Performance video.

The video uses some slow and some fast cuts. The edits are usually swapping from Kate Nash singing to part of a Narrative, for example when she says the words “and every time we fight, I know it’s not right”, it cuts to a part were Kate is in her bedroom with boxing gloves on punching the air, then quickly changes back to Kate singing again.

The lighting is quite soft and sometimes low. I get the feeling that they show the sense of the videos mood through the lighting. I think that they use soft lighting because it can show the video to be quite homely. Throughout the video they use different sources of light for example, the orange lamp which gives off a warm effect; The sunlight which gives it an ordinary effect instead of an arty effect; and also the studio lights to make it brighter so we as an audience can see more.

Within the video they use a lot of mid close up’s on Kate Nash’s face. I think this is for the male gaze so that men would watch it and they could see her. Most of the shots are wide shots, as it Is usually the narrative part which is focused upon. So these show Kate and he boyfriend from a mid point where we can see not only those two but also the things around them. For example, at the beginning when they are playing a card game we see Kate and her boyfriend sat on the table from the side view and can see a lot of things around it also.

Analysis of Band

The Kooks; She moves in her own way

The kooks are a band of four males in their early twenties. Their video contemplates on their personality and their interests, for example, throughout the video they are consistently travelling around different places, then in some parts they are sat round a water fountain singing and playing their guitars. Throughout their video there are loads of busy shots where there are so many shots, for example, a particular shot was where they are in a hotel and they are all doing different things. This is to show their different personalities.

There music video consists of many wide shots where they fit in a great amount of detail. An example would be the shot of their tour bus and you can see most of the street and the people walking about. Another example would be when all the members of the band are sat on the top of the sign of a building singing and playing their instruments. However they also use a fair amount of close up shots, for example of each of their faces. I feel that this camera work was organized for the female gaze, in hope that when a female saw their faces it would attract them to watch the video.

There is not much to analyse on the lighting except that it is just soft but quite dark at time through the whole of the video. I feel that this sort of lighting is stereotypical of the Indie music video genre. The video looks as though it was made to look old style, in comparison to pop video which consist of bold and bright lighting.

In terms of the use of camera, some times to camera would be professionally used, with ordinary shots, then in some cases it would be shooting as it they were actually filming it them selves without the professional help. The camera is unsteady, but it gives the video a different effect, then the usual high quality videos. I feel that this Indies video is a Performance and a Narrative piece. It includes them playing on their instruments, as the performance part and as for the narrative we see many shots which appears to be them travelling and doing their own thing, however they are not performing which gives me the conclusion that it is in fact a narrative performance video rather than just a performance video.

Camera Shots in Detail

Camera Shots

To be able to continue the process of making my video I needed to research different camera shots. I research all the camera shots making notes on what each one was a called and a description of them. I then took pictures for examples of the ones I would use the most in music video.
There is a convention in the video, film and television industries which assigns names to common types of camera shots, framing and composition. The list on the next few pages briefly describe the most common shot types, However the exact terminology can be different in various production environments but the basic elements are the same.
Basic List of Camera Shots
Extreme Wide Shot
Very Wide Shot
Wide Shot
Mid Shot
Medium Close Up
Close Up
Extreme Close Up
Cut-Away
Cut-In
Two-Shot
Over-The-Shoulder Shot
Noddy Shot
Point-Of-View Shot
Weather Shot

Choosing The Song

After I’d researched into the history of music videos, I had to decide on; which genre of music I was going to use, which band or artist I would use; and what song I would create the music video for.After searching many unsigned band I decided to choose an artist called Jose Vanders. She is a nineteen year old piano playing, song writing, singer and performer from South East London. Listening to a variety of her songs, I chose a song which I thought could accompany a great and interesting video, with just the few flat ideas I had in my head. The song is called ‘Peter Pan’. The song is quite slow and, in a way, fun to listen to. To get hold of the song, I had to write to Jose and explain to her what my plans were and ask my permission to use the song and create a video for it. Once she agreed I was finally ready to carry on with the progress of making my music video.


Genre: Acoustic/Indie
Artist Name: Jose Vanders
Name of Song: Peter Pan
Proof of Permission: ‘Facebook’ email

Jose Vanders September 14 at 9:27pm

Ahhh hey thanks for coming the other night!
And yes of course that would be lovely! Make sure you show me it
Xxx