Preliminary music video
My team and I were assigned to make an initial (Preliminary) Music Video since we have never done it before. We all wanted to go for the Indie Pop genre for our preliminary task. It made be a bit excited as well as we will get to learn new things such as Adobe soft wares and editing skills. This task will help us think more professionally for the idea of our final video and build up our understanding for the whole process. We will try to follow all the codes and conventions, and the techniques of how a music video is made by the professionals. So lets begin the fun!
What is a music video?
Let’s start with what actually is a music video. A music video is a short film that integrates a song with imagery, and is produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings. There are also cases where songs are used in tie-in marketing campaigns that allow them to become more than just a song. Tie-ins and merchandising can be used for toys or for food or other products. Although the origins of the music video date back to musical short films that first appeared in the 1920s, they again came into prominence in the 1980s when the channel MTV (originally "Music Television") based their format around the medium. Prior to the 1980s, these kinds of videos were described by various terms including "illustrated song", "filmed insert", "promotional (promo) film", "promotional clip", "promotional video", "song video", "song clip" or "film clip".
Music videos use a wide range of styles and contemporary video-making techniques, including animation, live action, documentary, and non-narrative approaches such as abstract film. Some music videos combine different styles with the music, such as animation and live action. Combining these styles and techniques has become more popular because of the variety for the audience. Many music videos interpret images and scenes from the song's lyrics, while others take a more thematic approach. Other music videos may not have any concept, being merely a filmed version of the song's live concert performance.
Music video, promotional film for popular music, especially a rock song. Music videos began to be widely broadcast on television in the early 1980s. Like the commercials they essentially are, music videos may qualify as the quintessential postmodern art form: hybrid, parasitic, appropriative, often compromised by commerce or undermined by aesthetic pretension, ideally compact, and assimilable.
Music video, promotional film for popular music, especially a rock song. Music videos began to be widely broadcast on television in the early 1980s. Like the commercials they essentially are, music videos may qualify as the quintessential postmodern art form: hybrid, parasitic, appropriative, often compromised by commerce or undermined by aesthetic pretension, ideally compact, and assimilable.
Types of Music videos
Performance Music Videos
This is the staple, it is the oldest type of music video and most videos consist of this. Performance music videos are exactly that, the artist(s) performing the song – but it doesn’t have to be that simple. It could be in front of an audience which would make it a live stage performance, it could be at a location that matches the feel of a song like the grounds of a country house or how about in a recording studio with acoustic instruments making it a live lounge video.
Narrative Music Videos
In case you can’t tell from the incredibly accurate name; narrative music videos are music videos with a story; they have a beginning, middle and end. This allows directors to tell the stories they want, how they want and even in the genres they want.
Concept Videos
The best description I can give is that it is an artistic expression. There’s an idea behind it or theme that drives the visuals like Childish Gambino’s Sweatpants. Now these can be quite fun because where narrative videos can have less rules; concept videos have none. It’s a limitless playground where anything is possible.
Lyric Videos
a lyric video is a music video where the lyrics appear on screen. The first level of innovation came by making the font and visuals match the song – sweet font and vibrant colours for a bubble gum pop song, edgy font and more hard-core imagery for heavy metal.
Animated Music Videos
First things first; the term “animation” is an umbrella term. We sometimes get artists saying they’d like an animated music video, here’s the thing; that could mean anything between cell animation like old fashioned cartoons, CG like Monsters Inc, stop motion like Wallace and Gromit, filming against Green Screen then placing them into another environment and many other variations.
Questionnaire
After absorbing information of what a music video is, i decided to make an online questionnaire for the preliminary task. My team and i distributed it online to our family and friends.
Questions
Responses
Questionnaire Analysis
Question 1
As it is seen, most people who answered this question belong to the group "16-22". A very less people belong to groups like "under 16" and "22-33" and there 0% of the people in group "Above 30".
This shows our music video target audience will be the late teens and young adults.
Question 2
When asking people what there gender is, female, male or other, this helped me determine who was taking part in the questionnaire. The result showed that males took part more than females with the % of 55.
There is no audience in the other category.
Question 3
I asked this question in my survey to find out how often people watch music videos. The answers i got were quite obvious as 40% of the people watch a lot and 40% of the people watch twice a week, that means many people watch music videos and very often.
Question 4
In this survey, i also asked about the kind of theme people would mostly like. The answers showed that most of the people want to see romance in music videos. This also showed that our video should also include romance in order to target more audience.
Question 5
This question in the survey helped me to know what type of music videos people like the best. The answers say that about 42% of the people watch fantasy music video and about 32% of the people watch performance based music videos. Modern music videos got about 26%, which shows that audience likes videos with performance and adventure.
Finalizing Preliminary Music Video
My team and me decided to make a Narrative Music video on the song ‘July’ sung by “Noah Cyrus”. Basically, we will be trying to convey a story on heartbreak of a girl. It will have a beginning, the main body and an end as well. We will try our best that our narrative would match up with the song lyrics and its meaning. I think that telling a story on a music video will make it more meaningful and full of feels, also the viewers will understand the message of the song as well. Our narrative will be an alternative interpretation.
Selected song: July
Noah Cyrus has released a brand-new single along with a music video. "July" is powerful and vulnerable and everything I could have wished for from the 19-year-old artist that first had me in tears with her 2016 single "Make Me (Cry)."
The heavy pop beats of Cyrus' old singles have been swapped out for raw acoustic goodness, making space for her haunting lyrics. "I've been holding my breath/ I've been counting to 10/ over something said," Cyrus sings over the somber-sweet chord progression of the guitar, reflecting on the back-and-forth cycle of a toxic relationship. By the time Cyrus gets to the chorus, you'll be equally emotional. Ultimately, though, she ends on a high note: "Even though it's hard and it hurts, there is something beautiful on the other side." I'm so here for Cyrus taking a page from her big sister Miley's book and getting back to her country roots.
In the video that perfectly captures Cyrus' L.A. edginess while nodding to her Nashville roots, she wears a cowboy hat and Canadian Tuxedo with silver chain necklaces as she saunters around golden wheat fields.
Lyrics
[Verse 1]
I've been holding my breath
I've been counting to 10
Over something you said
I've been holding back tears
While you're throwing back beers
I'm alone in my bed
[Pre-Chorus]
You know I, I'm afraid of change
Guess that's why we stay the same
[Chorus]
So tell me to leave
I'll pack my bags, get on the road
Find someone that loves you
Better than I do, darling, I know
'Cause you remind me every day
I'm not enough, but I still stay
[Verse 2]
Feels like a lifetime
Just tryna get by
While we're dying inside
I've done a lot of things wrong
Loving you being one
But I can't move on
[Pre-Chorus]
You know I, I'm afraid of change
Guess that's why we stay the same
[Chorus]
So tell me to leave
I'll pack my bags, get on the road
Find someone that loves you
Better than I do, darling, I know
'Cause you remind me every day
I'm not enough, but I still stay
[Bridge]
If you want me to leave
Then tell me to leave and, baby, I'll go
[Outro]
You remind me every day
I'm not enough, but I still stay
What Inspired this song?
Noah Cyrus: I was in Bali for a writing camp and it was my second year. But this year I’d been overwhelmed with anxiety and so I was really scared of the trip. And it was the first day on the trip and when we got in, I was just, to be honest, I’m really far away from home. We’ve been here a few days. I’ve had some time to sit in my room and think. I’ve just been getting depressed and I’m thinking about some shit that went down with me this year, or well last year, this time whenever I wrote it, I wrote it right around July. I went through a bad breakup on July 4th last year and that was after a two and a half year long relationship. And we got into the room and we just started talking. I have to know you to be able to write with you so I was like telling them my story and vice versa. In the room, we just all realized that we’ve been through a lot of the same shit. Whether it was in someone’s current marriage or in my past relationship, everybody is going through the same shit, really. And it’s hard co-existing with another person which was my issue with my relationship and you know, you don’t agree on everything. But definitely, my past relationship was the reason I wrote this song and this is a very straight to the point, like this is about X-Y and Z and that’s it.
Noah Cyrus’ song “July” does not appear to have anything in particular to do with the titular month. In fact it is never even mentioned in the song’s lyrics.
What this track is actually about is Cyrus being emotionally ensnared in a toxic relationship. That is to say that despite realizing that she made the “wrong” decision by falling in love with this person, she still lacks the wherewithal to “move on”. She just can’t seem to quit the romance and move forward with her life. This is primarily due to her being “afraid of change”.
So she is putting the onus on her partner to initiate the breakup instead. In other words, she states that if he ‘wants her to leave’, she is more than willing to do so. But conclusively there is no stated guarantee that he will ever do so. So the song pretty much ends where it begins, with Noah alluding to the emotional abuse she suffers “every day” at the hands of her significant other while simultaneously acknowledging that she will “still stay”.
So despite obviously being with someone whose words and actions are negatively affecting her self-esteem, Noah endures the relationship. And the insinuation isn’t so much that she is doing so for love. In fact while trying to convince her partner that they should part ways, she tempts him with the idea of his being able to ‘find someone that loves him better than she does’.
Rather, as mentioned earlier, her true issue is a fear of the unknown. She’s scared of what her life would be like devoid of this relationship that she has grown accustomed to, despite its destructive qualities. So all things considered, it is pretty safe bet to assume that the singer will be caught up in this situation into the foreseeable future.
Meaning
What has the title (“July”) got to do with the song?
Like we said above, the title doesn’t exist anywhere in the song’s lyrics. It is not exactly clear the exact connection between the title and the words of the song. However, it should be noted that Cyrus released the song in the month of July (which is a connection to the title). It is also possible that the song is partly based on summertime sadness/depression. And as we all know, July is one of the months of summer.
What Noah Cyrus has said about “July”
But ultimately, based on Noah Cyrus’s own words, this song is meant to have a positive message. Its lyrics reflect an actual period in her life when she “felt like (she) amounted to nothing to someone and never felt good enough for them”.
Noah Cyrus on the meaning of "July"
But that is the premise of “July”, not its conclusion. Rather the track is meant to espouse a message of individuals “walking away from the baggage”. Put differently, it encourages us to walk away from emotionally-depressing experiences which continue to weigh us down, even though Noah acknowledges that doing so “is hard, and it hurts”.
Permission Letter
As we were using the original track, it was compulsory to ask for the copyrights to use it. i added a screenshot on the right side of the message we sent to the artist of the song for the permission as well as the her official Intagram Account.
Mind Mapping
Story Board
Mood Board
Props
CIGARETTES
WINE GLASS
CANDLES
A RING
A CAR
A LIGHTER
SUITCASE
COFFEE
Auditions
Cast
Fatima Khan
Main Actor
Budget
TRANSPORT
Rs 500
PROPS
Rs 1450
COSTUME AND MAKEUP
Rs 1300
FOOD AND DRINKS
Rs 870
TOTAL BUDGET: Rs 4120
Ali Ahmad
Actor in a supporting Role
Technical Equipment
Dell Xps Laptop
Nikon DSLR D3100
Nikon DSLR D5300
Tripod Stand
Behind the scenes
Editing Software
Editing Process
Experience
Our experience of shooting for the very first time was a bit tiring but exciting at the same time. It did had a lot of ups and downs that made us mad, but learned to handle situations. We gained a lot of knowledge as well of how a professional video is made. From the settings to the editing part. I must say, it takes a lot of hardwork and passion. At first, quite a few actors backed out but we some how managed to get the actors as understanging and hardworking as we were. We had to do so many experiments for the bathroom shots as well as for the crying scenes. At the end, our video got stuck on the lipsync scenes, as our actor fatima got a bit nervous doing it. Overall, it went really well and manageable.
Preliminary Music Video
Feedback
Preliminary video Analysis
Our music video concept is based on the story of a heartbroken girl, who recently had a breakup with his boy, the video shows her after effects of breakup, such as remembering of her first date and proposal, as well as her tub scenes with his boy. It adds up with some bad memories of her such as, her fights with her boy. As the lyrics of the song itself says the girl is afraid of change and that his boy reminds her everyday that she is not enough for him.
We showed all this through technical codes and conventions, like the camera angles,editing, sound and mise en scene. We took shots with different angles and tried using locations like bedroom, coffee shop etc. For the sound of our video, we used the sound track of artist Noah Cyrus "July". We thought that there was not any need to add any extra sound to the scenes of our video as it was a music video so their were no particular dialogues, so we added a non diegetic sound which is the soundtrack July. Our video starts with a closeup shot of candles on the side table of the room, with our main protagonist lying on the bed with her boy. That scene basically represents that the girl is upset over something, her boy said. The shot followed with a wide shot of the whole scene with dark colors to represent the depressed atmosphere.
Next scene shows the girl walking and the camera followed the tracking shot from the girl's lower body showing that girl is leaving. After a small transitions, there comes the close up shot of girl crying, while smoking in low-key lighting, showing the mood of the video. the next scene starts with an over the shoulder shot of the girl smoking and looking herself into the mirror, the scene the follows with a closeup shot of girl's hand, throwing her ring, that kind of shows that it was given by her boy. Accordingly,the next scene occurs as a flashback of the girl sitting in front of her boy. This whole scene was shot 360 degrees, that starts with the boy putting a ring on girl's finger in high key lighting to give the happy mood, after 180 degree shot, that followed the same girl smoking at the same place with low key lighting to give the sad mood. Then comes the close up shot of the girl removing his shirt in the bathroom, with dark sad eyes, showing that she is not happy. This scene was shown with three different shots, from the front, back and then from a low angle of her feet. The next scene shows an extreme close up of bubbles in a bath tub, gradually showing the girl lying in it with a wine glass. it basically was to show that how broke the girl is from inside, that she throws away her wine glass. This scene gain continues with a flashback shot of herself with her boy sitting in the same tub, enjoying the wine. The lyrics again says, "you remind me everyday, i am not enough but i still stayed" showing that she was not enough for his boy.
After the close up of her throwing the wine glass, the flashback continues with a wide shot of her fight with her boy. The last scene says it all with a close up shot of the girl smashing her cigarette with her hand, that she don't want to remind her past and move on. It continues with a mid shot of her smiling and putting up a flower to give the happy vibe and finally it ends with a lip sync shot of her saying the same words "you remind me everyday, i am not enough but i still stayed" with a mid shot in high key lighting, that she will not regret and move on.