Equipment For Production!

Last Friday we managed to get a look at all the equipment the department has for us to use in our production for Music Videos.

1.Cameras

The media department manage to get a good amount of funding so we're lucky enough to have roughly 5 different cameras to choose from :)

Firstly we have your average hand-held digital camera this is very basic and produces very low quality footage as its not very proffessional. The sound and visuals are both of a low quality as the microphone is quite small and the lense doesn't really pick-up on every aspect of 'light', this means that footage produced will look very grainy and unclear.

Next we have the Cannon 550D its small and therefore easily transported but not so small that you can lose it. Its good for changing the depth of field of a shot or even trying to capture a shallow focus shot. By using this camera it is very easy for one to imagine each shot as a single photograph as it IS primarily a camera not a video camera

The Cannon XM2 is one of the more proffessional cameras as it can be used in low key lighting situations and still produce excellent quality footage and the large microphone also ensures that all sound is picked up. Not to mention that the camera shoots in HD so footage quality will be just that more better.

2.Lighting

Fill Lights are extremely bright and strong and are similar to the kinds of lights you would find at a concert,lighting up the stage. These need to be used with a bit of caution because you wouldn't want your actors/tresses going blind.You can also use these to change the background colour by covering them with coloured gel sheets.

The second type of light we have is more commonly known as the spotlight. It's main aim is to highlight the artist/model in question. It can also change the colour of a room/area using coloured gel sheets.

3.Other

Camera Support

There are two types of Tripods, the first of which is a standard Tripod, it can be adjusted to fit the level of shot needed and is portable making it easy to carry around.However it is stationary and therefore cannot be used for tracking shots.

This is a Dolly Tripod, its ideal for Dolly/Tracking shots where its difficult to carry a camera and keep it steady.The Tripod can simply be pushed along, having said that the Dolly Tripod works best on smooth surfaces as uneven surfaces may create uneccesary background noise.

The crane is very good for overhead shits where you want a downward tilt on your actors/models/artists. The hight of the crane can be easily adjusted and is easy to use.

Extras

The Autocue is useful when shooting with dialogue and is most commonly used by News Channels so that the presenter can keep looking at the audience whilst speaking, maintaining eye-contact and holding their audience's interest.

The last item in this list is used alongside Cameras, The Visual Switcher enables one to link a number of Cameras to the device so that during a production you can switch to different views of the same shot. This is mostly used in Live productions on TV however in Music videos this is useful as you can form your narrative based on the different shots you see on the screen of the Switcher.

Weekly diary 4...

I began my Reverse Storyboard on Rihanna and Eminems's Love the way You lie. In this I analysed the most interesting shots for all the characteristics and terms I have learnt about, including those on Friday the week before. Through the use of this storyboard I understood how the range of shots, their diferent depths of field and various other characteristics could effects the way a Video presents itself. I also analysed the Mis-en-scene in correlation to these various features with reference to Andrew Goodwin's theory on Music Video Genres. The Reverse storyboard will be posted shortly.

Weekly Diary 3...

So this week I finished off analysing the rest of my music videos using key theorists and I also had a look at the different types of equipment I could use in the production of my Music Video. I learnt about the different effects I could use on a camera to make shots more interesting e.g lots of extremem close-ups/shallow focus/changing the depth of field etc

Weekly Diary 2...

This week I began analysing products for the research and planning of my own product/project. I analysed 3 Digipack covers and also drew a second storyboard for ideas. The analysis of the Digipacks allowed me to understand that although Artists aim to do the same thing-boost their populaity in order to sell music, each one does it in different styles accoriding to the genre they fit into. Paramore is a Indie/Rock band therefore their album covers fixate on deep, thought provoking meanings instead of the artist. i also analysed my first Music video in accordance to the theories of Propp, Goodwin and Goffman.

Analysing a Music Video

Outkast's Hey Ya: The song opens with an intro, providing the audience with a narrative and a context by which the song follows. it is told in Linear narrative making it easieer for the audience to establish where the Todorov's Equilibrium, Disequilibrium and New Equilibrium are found respectively.

The costume worn by the actors and the old-fashioned cameras used to record the 'live show' suggests it is set in the late 50s or early 60s a period where most of the artist performed live on television and became world-class legends e.g Elvis and The Beatles. Therefore this may be a connotation as to how the artist would like to be rememberedor sees themself as - a Legend. The artist is replicated 8 times in 8 different alter-egos thus conveying to his audience the different parts to his personality-he is cool, sweet, shy and sexy all at the same time.

The crowd is made up entirely of women and strongly follows the patriarchal views of society. Women are highly sexualised objects in this video with the phrase 'shake it' making refrence to the body nd the intertextual refrence to Beyonce suggesting they shake their own 'booties'.

Dev's Booty Bounce: This music video is very much bland in its narrative: nothing seems to happen apart from the artist's change of clothes and her occasional dance-step. This makes the visual narrative quite monotonous and boring to look at also the speed at which the costume changes can start to hurt the audience's eyes after a while.


The main narrative is probably found within the lyrics and unlike Goodwin's theory there is no correlation between the visuals and the lyrics, however the change in costume does match the rhythm and beat of the song-if it speeds up so does the change in costume if it slows down so does the change.There are a few intertextual references made most of which are to other songs e.g Far East Movement's G6.


The constant change of clothing may be seen an example of the artists wide range of 'talent' or even their different personalities. Although the fades aren't cuts they are vaguely similar to the way a flashback may occur.

Analysing Music Advertisments...

You can also find this presentation on prezi.com :)