“City Life”

By Chris Green

The conventions of a music video vary depending on genre of music. The artist is shown performing The lyrics of the song influence what is shown in the video The pace of editing fits the pace of the music Codes of dress reflect the mood of the song.

A simplistic colour scheme Simplistic Design Few or No Characters Use of a different colour for the band name compared to the rest of the CD Metaphorical Messages A title explaining what the album will be about Bold Simple fonts for the band name Similar or Entirely different font for the album title. Reflects the theme of the album

An Image which connects the advert to the CD cover and/or the music video

Information about the release of the CD often written in bold A continual font with exception of the Band Name

Acoustic Instruments played by the artist are often used to show the genre.

Examples of these are: Jason Mraz – “Im Yours” and James Morrison – “You Give Me Something.”

Artist is main focus with other characters as part of the artist journey/lyrics - usually set throughout a city – natural lighting

Editing is usually slow and soft cuts between each shots are used depending on the pace of the song also

Cinematography is usually steady cam with close ups, long shots, high/low angles and panning shots.

Soft Lighting Main Focus is artist Often use anime Title represents the theme throughout the album Artist name is close to their photo/metaphorical image Set in city settings

Soft Lighting Artist is main focus Metaphors often used to show the artist(s) City settings Include artists websites Release date The single(s) they included

Broken the conventions as the Acoustic Indie genre is crossed with the sport of Parkour which has typically been used in fast pace dance music videos

Also broken as the artist in the video isn’t playing an acoustic instrument at any point

Transitions between each scene is soft by using a cross fade which links each scene into each other and takes away the harshness of straight cuts

All the Parkour scenes are slowed down to between 30-60% to create more of an arty appearance throughout their movements

The costume of the artist is modern and fashionable link in with the genre of the song.

Costume of the Parkour artists is relaxed casual which keep the continuity of the genre of acoustic indie.

Lighting is natural to tie in with the lyrics of the song and also to show the journey throughout the video.

The setting is through the city centre of Birmingham where the Parkour artists perform

The Locations used are NIA, The Alpha Tower Brindley Place, Fletchers walk, St Paul’s Cathedral, Canals and Victoria Square with locations to connect them (where the Parkour artists run)

Breaks conventions as the artists’ setting is just a plain black ground with the artist standing underneath an artificial light and not part of where the Parkour Artists perform.

The camera work is a mix of all types of angles, movements and is all done by a camera on a tripod to keep the camera steady throughout to keep the camera movements more steady

Handheld cameras where used to do some low angle shots to be able to capture a more effective realistic movement of the Parkour artist.

The video follows a journey of the Parkour Artists through the city centre of Birmingham

Also a subliminal relationship between the artist and one of the Parkour artists is shown.

Break conventions as the artists themselves don’t take the journey through the city.

The magazine advert consists of one image of the artist Contains information on when the album is being released/song

information/who the artist is The lighting is soft and natural Colours on the artist have been enhanced whilst the background has been

reduced drawing attention to the artist more. Break conventions as all the text is the same font making the font a

signature style for the artist

The theme of the album is shown by the advert as the setting is in the city. The genre of the music is also shown as the costume is modern and

fashionable Breaks conventions as no website is included about the artist and also

because its only a single which it is promoting the only single being advertised on there is “City Life”

Similar colour enhancement have been used as on the magazine advert Artist is the main central focus of the album because of the effects added

onto it Similar but different mise en scene has been used to keep in with the

theme of the album The font is the same but the artists name is more attention grabbing than

the album name Layout emulates similar to James Morrison with the artist slightly over to

the right which draws more attention to them

All products contain and maintain the theme of “City Life” through the Parkour Artists performance.

All products contain and maintain the genre of acoustic indie through the mise en scene and editing techniques.

All products effectively show the target audience in a different view e.g. Parkour is not just “jumping off of buildings”

All products make the artist the main focus throughout because of the reoccurring and also the final effects added to the album cover and magazine advert

The target audience intended has been achieved and the signifiers which lead the audience to believe this are what was intended

The genre of the products are identified easily by the mise en scene The theme of “City Life” is in the narrative of the products – This is shown

by the Parkour artists and also the subliminal story/relationship between the artist and one of the Parkour artists

The way in which the products present the target audience is positive

In research we watched a variety of music videos to see how all the micro elements were used and how they linked together the lyrics with the story embedded into the video which was done by creating a journey for the artist/characters in the video that were symbolic of the lyrics.

Secondly we looked at all different types of music magazines and saw what genre of music was found in it and how the adverts of albums were presented

Finally we looked into all different types of album covers and how specific a specific genre’s album cover looks and draws in attention to the audience.

In planning we created a photographic storyboard in order to figure out where we wanted the locations of the shots to be.

This also enabled us to figure out the cinematography before we filmed our raw video footage which would saved time as we knew exactly what shots/angles were going to be filmed

For our final plan we created a video storyboard in order to see how the shots looked before refilming for our actual footage, similarly it meant that any locations/shots/action that didn’t look effective could be taken out and changed.

In construction the technologies used were Adobe Premier Elements and Photoshop

Adobe Premier Elements was used to edit together the entire music video as it enabled us to create the effects wanted and also it has a simple layout and editing tools/effects are easily accessible and simple to use. I found this because I had, had practise with the editing equipment before with my previous coursework which meant I was mainly the editor throughout the construction stage of the product.

The effects where created by slowing all the Parkour artists performance down to around 30-60% of their original speed this give the moves more artistic appearance which ties in with out aim of the trying to show their performance in a different view.

To add the official music track the sound which was captured on the raw footage had to be removed which was easily done by unlinking them and then deleting the sound. The official music track was done by importing it from the CD then put it in the position of where the raw footages sound was deleted from.

Photoshop was used to edit the music magazine and Album cover. In which to create different effects and how to change the brightness and contrast to create the effects wanted. This was done by using a different effect on the camera when the original image was taken and then using the magnetic lasso tool to cut around the outline of the artist which enabled her to become most focused and the main attention point on both the magazine and CD cover