The genre featured in my music video/storyboard was pop/soul. In order to construct my storyboard and music video, I had to analyze cd covers, music videos and generic conventions within the genre. First of all I studied music videos by John Newman and Sam Smith as they use similar narratives and generic conventions. I looked at John Newman’s Love Me Again video which is a story of a man and a woman at a nightclub whose love builds throughout the song, the narrative is loosely based on Romeo and Juliet the star cross’d lovers.
As this is the key theme we see the couple being in love as a struggle and a challenge to overcome. Throughout the video the love theme continues but just as we see the struggle disappearing, the couple run out the club (holding hands) and both get hit by a truck this is presenting the surprise twist element, again this relates to the whole Romeo and Juliet convention. I also analyzed and studied Sam Smith’s I’m not the only one video where again we see a couple but this time a married couple, the relationship shown in this video is based on heartache , cheating and lies.
The first character we meet is a traditional 1950’s devoted housewife who does all the work, makes her husband breakfast, and cleans the house. The second character we meet is her husband who is very unappreciative and ignorant to everything his wife does for him. As a traditional 1950’s male he goes off “supposedly” to work this could suggest a patriarchal society. Throughout the video we are shown two sides of a relationship, the woman who does everything and the male who goes off and cheats. As well as narrative codes I also looked at the visual and technical codes.
In both of the music videos both artists used similar technical codes, when watching the videos I noticed that many different camera shots were used: extreme close ups, medium shots, close ups and long shots which I interpreted into when filming my own video. I also noticed that some shots matched the narrative which matched the lyrics of the song, again I have tried to use this convention in my own music video. Although slow motion only slightly featured in the music videos I studied, I did use this effect to slow down pivotal scenes.
To further my research I also analyzed Sam Smiths In the lonely hour CD cover, which shows similar conventions to his music videos. On the front cover we see Sam Smith being thoughtful and reflective connoting possibly heartache, the colors used are quite dark which also connotes loneliness and heartache which is represented in his music and music videos. The cover of the album is quite stripped down, with no distractions of fancy artwork, which makes us focus on the portrait photograph of the solo artist. This suggest that the material on the album is straight from the heart of this male singer.
In direct contrast to the album cover, the single artwork is brightly coloured abstract brushstrokes which gives no hint to who the artist is and what the song is actually about, which runs through in a similar vein on all of the single covers from the album. I also decide to look at John Newman’s Tribute album which partly helped with constructing the story board. From all of my research I can see that these two artists have similar narrative, technical and visual codes that I have chosen to include in my own music video.
The two songs I looked at are based on love stories which was the subject matter I chose for my storyboard. The song I chose for my video features the lyrics “Why are you looking down all the wrong roads? When mine is the heart and the salt of the soul, There may be lovers who hold out their hands But they’ll never love you like I can. ” I have interpreted these lyrics through the girl in the video’s perspective, which is aimed at her wayward partner. This is a typical example of the lyrics that create the narrative of the song I have chosen for my video.
My target audience for my music video was women and possibly men aged from 15-35 , my first audience I thought about whilst creating my video was women as we see in the video a relationship through the eyes of a woman. I chose this audience because I had researched Sam Smith and John Newman’s typical target audience. My music video would appeal to this audience as it is based on romance which is usually experienced profoundly in this age bracket. Before I had even started filming my music video I had to produce a storyboard to plan the characters and locations of the video.
I used the music videos I had analyzed to help me with constructing my storyboard. My storyboard when finished was based on two characters a male and a female , the female character I constructed was innocent and uncool whilst the male character was a bit of a player, a lad and highly thought of. I also added an extra character to appear who was uncool like the girl, who is not noticed by anybody but I edited this character out as he was no loner relevant to the narrative.
The music video I had created revolved around the two main character on a date whilst the unnoticed guy was there trying to grab the girls attention to show her that she is dating the wrong guy. As I had created the main male character as a player I added the cheating conventions of music videos I had researched to pair with his character. To portray this in his character I had planned for him to throughout the music video to keep glancing at his phone and at the end of the video to show that he had really been texting another girl whilst on a date with his girlfriend.
To represent the relationship convention in my storyboard I made the two main characters boyfriend and girlfriend to further this idea I chose for characters to hold hands, laugh and overall have a good time together. The original setting I had chosen was in Costa or a cafe but due to permission and time purposes, I had to change the location to outside in fields and parks. When I had finished producing my storyboard and changed location ideas, I was pretty confident on the setting and location.
After look through Sam Smith’s singles I chose “Like I Can” to be the music for my video. When I started filming I had the narrative change as I had to edit out the extra character I put in my storyboard as he was no longer relevant to the narrative. The locations I had chosen for my music video was Thomas Hardye School, The Park and South West Train Station. I chose these locations as no permission to film was needed and it made the narrative between the couple look more relaxed and natural. Choosing this location was also an advantage as there was more space and scenery.
My video is purely narrative based as I feel this worked for me and matched conventions and codes of the op genre I had studied. As the video starts there is a shot of the boy drawing his name and the girls name in a heart, I used this as it relates back to when people used to carve hearts into a tree. The shot I used here was zooming in so you could see the initials clearly. The song I chose to use the cover is of a black and white abstract painting, which I have portrayed through black and white in this shot.
In my video Kieran the male character can be seen to be wearing the same clothing throughout the music video this shows and creates and idea for the audience that the narrative happens in one day. The female character Amy is also wearing the same clothing to show the same idea. I had chosen to film the narrative in one day to show the idea of them being on a date. Throughout the pop genre there are many different camera shots which I have tried to incorporate into my music video. The song I chose to use the cover is of a black and white abstract painting, which I have portrayed through black and white effect in my music video.
