Account Of Preliminary Music Video

We started our A2 year by researching within the music industies, leading up to out final music video.

In order to be prepared for our final music video we were given a preliminary task. This included reseaching similar artists, such as rock/punk bands to gain ideas of the appropriate shots we should use. The band we were given are called 'Aches of Life'. They are a small unsigned band, including 4 male teenagers.

In terms of shots, we reserched similar bands and compared the similar aspects, such as positioning of band members and who to focus on.

Acres of life:

We compared them with different artists such as Green Day, Guns 'N' Roses, You Me At 6 and Funeral Party's music video 'Finale', which we analysed in terms of Mise-En-Scene, camerawork and editing.

We thought this was simple to do yet effective. The background/location went well with the style of the song and the artists.

The four band members were the drummer, the lead singer, the base guitarist and the main guitarist who were both BV's as well.

You me at six:

Advanced Portfolio Brief-Music Video Analysis (star Image)

1. A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with two of the following three options:

-a website homepage for the band;

-a cover for its release as part of a digipak (CD/DVD package);

-a magazine advertisement for the digipak (CD/DVD package).

From the three individual options I have chosen to design and create a cover for their release of an album or single. I am going to be researching into their star image focusing on their genre and target audience. I will analyse the different elements of their music video and marketing materials.

In this essay I will be discussing how Rihanna sells herself as an artist in her music video ‘Only Girl in the World’.

The first thing I noticed about Rihanna’s video was the colour scheme. Throughout both the background and the props are either red or pink. This attracts her targeted audience of females ages from between 10-25 years. Red and pink also symbolise feminism, love and lust, therefore Rihanna is sexualised.

  Another thing I noticed was that, throughout the whole music video Rihanna is wearing and/or surrounded by flowers such as roses which are also pink and red which symbolises love, sex, virginity and desire, which links back to her target audience as this appeals to them and interests them.

Her image is shown as girly, however very sexy. She wears many different outfits which is what her target audience want to see and are fascinated by what she wears and fans feel inspired by her appearance and her music.

Her locations are very nature based , such as felids, flowers, desserts and a lake, which may symbolise purity and vulnerability.

At one stage she is shown on a ladder in a peaceful lake, with balloons around her, once again reinforcing virginity as a sexual innuendo.

She is shown on a giant swing in the middle of a field, with nobody in sight, implying she is independent or vulnerable.

Towards the end of the video she is shown with fireworks in the background in slow motion followed by Rihanna in front of a tree with candles on suggesting her loss of virginity, which swallows any innocence or purity.

The video starts with a medium wide shot to show Rihanna and her location, which starts off as a field. There is then a close up of her face to draw attention to her as an artist and her passion and beauty. There is then a medium close up which focuses on her feminism and the sexual side in her, which develops stronger in each of her videos.

Editing plays a large role on the music video. Its starts with several long shots of Rihanna in a field, although there are fast cuts within the long shots. There are several unusual edits, such as, reverse shots, repeated shots and a lot of slow motion to draw the audience’s attention but also to create something different and unusual to it to encourage the viewers to watch it again. The unusual aspect, such as Lady Gaga’s videos encouraging word-and-mouth, influencing more and more people to watch it, which is ultimately what artists want. The editing is well composed and it goes well  with the theme and the beat of the music. Throughout the video there are many flash cuts to previous scenes and different locations to give her video variety and to interest and fascinate her target audience, which I think she succeeds. The video is shown from her perspective, as supprisingly she is the only person throughout the entire video which allows any focus only on her, which is what she wants. Her backgrounds are very simple, therefore does not take any possible attention away from herself. To not have any other people in a music video is very rare although it seems to work in this case. It also makes it seem like she is lonely but may be strong enough to live on her own.

Rihanna is a huge idol and role model to thousands of people. Her music and her videos have high influences on people. I find it very fascinating how the song is call ‘Only Girl’ in the world and she has chosen to be the only person in her video. This also shows her dominance in the video and how she is in control. Unlike a lot of music videos nowadays, she had relevance from her lyrics to the music video. I think Rihanna managed to sell her video to her audience in a different but clever way, using modern interests to attract her audience.

Audience Feedback

Audience Feedback of our Thriller:

We posted our thriller on youtube and recieved some useful feedback which not only boosted our reasurance it also let us know what people enjoyed or didnt enjoy within our thriller. These are some of the comments:

• "The opening of this sequence it particularly successful in creating suspense. The combination of the overlapping voices and the still shots of the murder scene were simple but effective. Perhaps greater emphasis on her final sentence would have created a more dramatic impact on the audience. But overall, a very good video"

• "The lighting is really good as it to creates spooky atmosphere. It also reminds me of CSI. And it makes the me curious about who the killer is because both of the actors look suspicious."

• "I love the story of this thriller and the lighting really creates a mysterious effect and the sound is really interesting, good work you gys!"

• "I liked the opening - seeing the victims while credits are coming up and not using any soundtrack music.
  The whole sequence reminds me of thrillers such as saw and se7en. But the last sentence of her revealing it was murder should be a bit more in the foreground and emphasized."

These comments were very positve and although there was not much critisism, the few negative comments there were, were constuctive critisism. It also helps us to find out what other people's opinions are on our thriller. I will take these comments into consideration next time and hopefully will improve the quality of my work.

Task 1 - In what ways does your media Product use, Develop or Challenge forms and Conventions of real media Products?

Here are 9 screen  shots of our media video.

With these 9 screen shots of our thriller clip you can tell it is going to be quite a dark and mysterious film. If we wanted to portray a happy and bright atmosphere, we would have used brighter light and bolder colours. With these 9 pictures you can almost instantly see that it is a thriller/horror.

The first image shows 'A LIONSGATE Production' as we thought this was the appropriate production company for our thriller as it is a well known and successful company.

The second,third and forth images show the credits with movie stills of our thriller. This automatically draws the viewers attention and shows that there are dangerous aspects to our film. The other images show our location, set, props and actors. Our media ends with our female detective announcing "Think we've got a murder" creating suspense and tension leaving you wanting to watch more which is the ending we wanted. The sound also adds to the suspense and conforms the typical thriller convention.

Task 2 - How does your product represent particular social groups?

All media products represent social groups, whether or not they necessarily apply. Very commonly they are stereo types of social groups, E.G. In skins, they show that all teenagers get drunk and take drugs which isnt true.
Another common stereo type also commonly used is that teachers are strict. People are normally mor interested in something which has an element of their age group E.G. 'Skins' is focused around a group of teenagers and so this mainly draws in that age group and rarely interests many above the age of around 30 with exceptions.
As our media product features a different range of ages it will hopefully attract a range of different ages. As our film is a thriller it is likely to draw in people who like drama, action and thrillers.
In our opening scene it shows there has been two deaths of young adults, behind which is a love story, this is more likely to attract the female audience although it is just the opening of the film, there is more to interest other ages through out the rest of the film.
I would think our media product would interest the same audience as 'CSI' which I would say was ages from 16-40+.

Task 3 - What kind of media Institution might Distribute your media Product and why?

What Institution Would Make Our Film?

Our thriller would use a low budget American film company like Fox Searchlight. They are low budget films but come out very successful and make a much greater profit than budget.



Fox Searchlight would want to budget our film as there is a big market for crime thrillers.The main role is played by a woman which attracts people to watch. Our thriller contains suspense, tension and drama which are all strong qualities in a thriller. 'The girl with the dragon tatoo' is proved to be a successful film which proves that there is a market for a low budget film like ours, therefore For Searchlight is the ideal company for us as they prove they can successfuly market and distribute low budget films to a larger audience.
Foxsearch light also made 'Black Swan' which is a drama/thriller which also features a woman as the main role and was very successful and made it to the cinema. 'Black Swan' was a very low budget film which proves that low budget films can be successful and make it to the cinema.




Fox Searchlight distributed the film 'Sexy beast', which is a crime thriller, which is very similar to our film.

   They also did 'Juno', a drama which made a huge profit, supprisingly from a very low budget. The Director of 'Juno' had not previously made big films so there could be a chance of  Fox Searchlight making our film.
Our film would probably not make it to the cinema, because there is too much competition with big budget Hollywood productions, but there would be a market for DVDs and on BluRay.
Fox Searchlight does not have a particular genre but consists of horrors, thrillers, comedys, dramas etc so our film would fit in as there is a large variety of films which means the audience is much larger.

Task 4 - Who would be the Audience for your Media Product?

Audience Of our Thriller

Our film is aimed for the ages of 15-24+ but im sure there will be younger people who would be interested as well. Our genre is not aimed for young people as it does not attract them neither would they like our film.Thrillers and dramas normally attract the older age group as it suits them more and they are much more likely to understand it then a young audience. Our film contains drama, tension and suspence which attracts a lot of the older generation as they can relate to drama and they find the excitement much more interesting.
Also younger people generally have more free time and so would be able to find out about our film and have time to watch it and they are much more likely to watch it with friends.
Our thriller is aimed at both genders but possible more for males and I think that our film is more likely to attract males there is a suductive, smart, sifisticated young woman as the main role, which attracts the male audience more than it would attract women. Our film will most probably be a 12a or 15 rating as it is not too scary but may contain content that is not suitable for children any younger.