Evaluation Question 1

Andrew Goodwin touches on different areas of what he believes happens in and around music videos.

1. Pop videos represent the song which normally centres around modern day, hence the strange videos
2. The artist is usually the singer & character
3. To bring in the audience the singer/s look into the camera

Some videos are weird and go beyond what the song says. There are three types of relations between songs & videos (according to Goodwin);

• Illustration - Where the video tells the story
• Amplification - Where the video tells a story the song didn't, but adds to the meaning
• Disjuncture - Where the video and the song have no connections between them, both hold separate meanings

                                                                                   

What Ideas Did We Follow?

Andrew Goodwin says that there are three types of relations between a song and a video. You could argue that we followed Illustration as our video definitely told a story, but you could also say we followed Amplification as we made a story through the video that had nothing to do with the original story of the song which I think fits better.

Amplification [Tells a separate story]

The introduction of the characters we created for the story.

The meaning of the original song appears to be a woman saying that her love of diamonds is stronger than the love she receives from a man; and unlike men, her diamonds stay:

"Diamonds are forever, sparkling round my little finger
Unlike men, the diamonds linger"

We took a different approach. As we were a band, we created a narrative that would require a fair amount of characters, resulting in 3 of us playing instruments and featuring in the video, and one of us filming.

                                                                                   

The key shots of the video in chronological order.

For the narrative, we added an additional meaning to the song, instead of romanticising the diamonds, we stole them. 

We shot the video in chronological order; starting with the introduction to the masked band members, then planning the heist (which we portrayed by using the props, in this case the map), stealing the diamonds from a safe and finally leaving our mark by literally leaving a figurine of the Queen holding the queen of diamonds card.

                                                                                   

Carol Vernallis believes there are four main concepts in a music video

• Narrative - Makes the video is a visual response to the music. 
• Editing - Tends to match the beat of the song 
• Camera //Framing & Movement: Typically extreme to break away from the commonly used mid-shots and close-ups. Style of framing and camera type is usually a continuing theme in the video

These specific shots reflect both sides of our video; the standard indie rock band video that features the band playing instruments, and the narrative. We followed what Vernallis said by making a visual response to the music, although the narrative is slightly more imaginative than what most people would choose to go to when hearing the song, however, it is art and art goes as far as the eye can see.

All four screens show four key things in the video and
enter with each individual drum beat

We made sure that the shots matched the beat of the song, but this specific sequence in the video was the most significant, and I feel, made the most effect on the audience.
We split the screen in to four separate screens as the drums kick in (literally) and by doing that, the energy from the video matches the energy from the song. It was this part in particular that the audience in the cinema began whooping so that emphasises my point.



                                                                                   

What Videos Were We Influenced By?

Rihanna - Diamonds




Rihanna's music video for her song Diamonds is similar to ours as the video has very little to do with diamonds at all. At the beginning there is some diamond imagery which definitely inspired us to do some ourselves, but the rest of the narrative is quite random and features a lot of Rihanna herself.
This isn't surprising as she is a pop singer and pop singer's videos usually show the singer themselves doing things.

Here are the two examples of diamond imagery
Rihanna's (Above) and ours (Below)

Arcade Fire - Reflektor



Arcade Fire's music video for Reflektor featured the band wearing strange looking paper mache mask's/helmets. We were inspired by this and although we didn't find masks that large, we did manage to find some that kept with the humour Arcade Fire had.

Here you can see both videos and
their respective masks.
AF (above) & G10 (below)

Hoobastank - The Reason


Hoobastank had a very similar video to ours, out of all the videos that inspired us, this one made the biggest impression as both videos feature a modern day heist. Of course theirs is more dramatic as they had a budget, and the plot more romanticised, nevertheless, the feature of the physical diamond in this video inspired us to follow suit and get one of our own.

Here you can see both videos
diamonds. HS bright coloured
diamond (above) and our
transparent diamond (below)

Liberty X - Just a Little



Liberty X's music video is probably the most dramatic video out of the three previous music videos. Although this video does feature a heist, a lot of the video is spent watching the singers, which obviously isn't surprising as it's a pop group. That being said, the safe that they use in this video strongly influenced our ideas and although we couldn't film in a bank, we made sure we featured some kind of safe looking object in our video.

Quite the contrast, but
Liberty X's CGI safe (above)
and our locker safe (below)

                                                                                   

How Conventional is my Digipak?

My advert is to the furthest left. If you look straight ahead but upwards
you will see the front and back of my digipak, the front being the one with the image
and the back the black diamond with the tracks. Looking down you will see the inside!

I think my ancillary print is conventional. I followed the colour structure that the Arctic Monkeys did of limiting the colour scheme to a minimal. I didn't show the faces of anyone in the group, and the track list doesn't look out of place for an indie rock band. 

In terms of what I challenged, I think I challenged the face scandal on the album most. I was recommended by my teacher that it would be a good idea to show the faces, but I didn't feel the need to, then the fiasco with no copyright of the masks almost made me have to use the photos, but I ended up using the fingerprint images instead. Am I 100% pleased with that? no no no, do I think it works, yes yes yes.