In our music video, polaroid pictures are a significant element of our music video. We decided to use these as we believe they will be very effective and original. The opening of Grammy consists of the use of polaroid pictures to establish a relationship between Luna and her boyfriend. Throughout the music video the motif of polaroid pictures will repeat. However, as the song develops and progresses the polaroid pictures will show different emotions in Luna and her boyfriends relationship.
At the beginning the polaroid pictures will show a happy relationship between Luna and her boyfriend. However, when the chorus repeats half way through the song the images will show a relationship breaking down as the narrative section which will be shown before this shows Luna’s boyfriend partying – something that happens regularly and is a reason why they are breaking up. At the end of the song, after the narrative has even further developed, the polaroid pictures will show Luna and her boyfriend breaking up.
STOP MOTION
Through our polaroid pictures we do not intend to make the whole music video through stop motion, however the polaroid picture motifs will be slightly stop motion. Therefore we have researched stop motion music videos and have realised this is a very effective element.
In this music video, the whole song consists of the use of stop motion. We do not intend to do this but the speed of the shots is an element we wish to also do. As Grammy is an upbeat song and has sections of extremely fast editing – we need to use stop motion of the polaroid pictures as fast as this.
This plan for MBD over half term will ensure we use the week effectively in terms of Luna and Grammy. Therefore we have chosen three vital elements we need to work on before we start to film our music video. These consist of:
1) Locations
2) Actors
3) And plan our filming and editing time over the next couple of months
We hope this keeps us on task and make sure we reach all deadlines and leave plenty of time to film and edit.
We made this vlog in response to our animatic feedback we were given by our teachers and peers. We found this very helpful and useful for the next stage in our coursework, as we are going to use this constructive criticism to our advantage to improve our coursework.
As we are in the process of creating an animatic for our music video ‘Grammy’, this will need great preparation in order to successfully convey how we wish our music video to look like. Therefore we have thought rigorously about locations, shot types, shot lengths and editing. So as part of our preparation we have annotated the lyrics to ‘Grammy’ and deconstructed the meaning and also what we would like to show during that part of the music video. This will help us tremendously when trying to draw, film and edit the shots of our animatic.
When we annotated the lyrics we delved further into the meaning behind the lyrics and established how we want our music video to turn out like. Also, we have developed a far greater understanding of the style we wish to convey. As we believe this music video sounds quirky and original we wanted to add an element of creativity that is not always found within music videos of the pop genre. Therefore we developed an idea to use polaroid images to create a stop motion effect in certain parts of the music video. This will be repeated in various parts of the song in order to create a running theme throughout.
Below there are some images of our deconstruction and annotation of the lyrics to Grammy. There are different colours that have been used representing the shots.
Yellow: Luna singing (including all different locations), conveying emotion
Pink: Luna’s boyfriend being shown and what he is up to, whilst demonstrating why they have fallen out
Blue: Use of polaroid images
Above the pictures display the immense preparation and planning for our storyboard animatic for our music video ‘Grammy’. We first had to fully decide on our music video idea and plot and visualise how we want it to look like. This involved tremendous mind maps to fully develop our plot and establish how we wish to successfully execute it. We then had to finalise our locations and settings. After we completed these initial steps we then felt confident to begin to draw our shots and begin to prepare to film our animatic.
We split the song into 3 section:
1) The first being the opening, consisting of the first chorus and the music introduction and break. We decided this will consist mainly of polaroid images of Luna and her boyfriend and we will use a layering effect on these, these images will establish the relationship between the two and set the tone for the rest of the music video to develop. This will then be followed by narrative shots of Luna and her boyfriend arguing, leading onto him leaving the house and driving away from Luna. The images and shots will reflect the emotion behind the lyrics. We will introduce the performance aspect of the music video in this section as we wish to integrate the 3 elements of the music video later on: polaroid images, narrative and performance.
2) This section is the major bulk of the music video as this consists of Luna’s verse within the song. Therefore there is a tremendous amount of lyrics to this section. There will be many split screens of Luna singing/performing and her boyfriend arriving at a poker party with his friends and girls. Throughout this section her boyfriend will be at the poker party gambling, drinking and having fun – living life on the wild side. Whereas Luna will be performing and conveying her emotion of being angry/upset with her boyfriend due to his crazy lifestyle. Polaroid images will be shown in this section, particularly those that reflect the lyrics.
There will be a repeat of the polaroid images of Luna and her boyfriend, except the images will show Luna and him being upset and arguing. As the music video acts as a timeline of their relationship.
3) The final section is the repeat of the chorus two times. In this section, the majority of the visuals will be of Luna performing and lip-syncing to the camera to fully convey her emotion of despair and sadness. Luna will also rip the polaroid images of her and her boyfriend in order to show that the couples relationship is over.
Therefore, the images above show the shots we drew to complete our animatic. It also displays the process of the animatic. The drawing stage, the placing the shots in order, adding detail to editing and shot transitions, and finally filming the drawn shots.
This timeline shows the duration of the song ‘Grammy’. We thought this would be extremely helpful when coming to film and draw our storyboard animatic and also we would have a clear idea in our minds of the concept and the layout/formation of our music video. Therefore, we broke the song down into separate stages. Including: The beginning (slow -> fast and setting the theme and storyline of the music video), the middle (the first verse, mainly when we combine the narrative and performance aspects of the music video) and the end (the choruses repeated) we felt this would be a good time to repeat the polaroid images of Luna and her boyfriend except for this time she rips the images up symbolising their relationship.
Throughout the music video we want to convey a change in Luna’s character, from upset at the beginning of the music video due to her emotions about their initial break up -> to showing the audience why she is upset (party’s with other girls etc) -> to Luna getting over her boyfriend and feeling strong.
Here is the music video we made to Pretty Woman
Connection to our coursework
The task to create our own music video to ‘Pretty Woman’ allowed us as a group to learn how to successfully carry out all of the camerawork and editing rules we will need to use when filming our A2 music video soon. The filming and editing processes have been very valuable to us as we have learnt how to successfully carry out these rules and also come across some difficulties we may find when filming our coursework. For example, we have found combining the narrative of a music video to the performance aspect of the music video challenging to incorporate with all of the rules we have to use. Therefore, we found ways to help us do this such as: the split screen (split into 3 separate screens to convey the narrative and performance). As this worked successfully we will probably use this feature in our own music video when we come to edit our A2 coursework.
Another aspect of this task that has been very valuable is learning how to successfully and realistically lip-sync. As there will be a great deal of lip-syncing in our own music video this was good practice for us when it comes to our real music video. We found that by watching many other music videos to see how they put expression and performance in their face this looks good. Also, by playing the song out loud this helped a great deal when it came to timing and speed of the lip and facial movements.
Due to our AS coursework being an opening titles sequence of a film, movement of the camera was not a major feature of this sequence. Thus we was not very experienced in camera movement and how to carry it out successfully. Therefore, we found by practicing camera movement in this music video, it will be a lot easier when coming to film our own music video as we have already started developing our skills and how to improve them. For example, we need to work on keeping the camera still as we move the camera. This led to using innovative ideas such as sitting on a wheelchair and being pushed whilst we filmed the music video.
 | MrJDU on Links between our: Music Video… |
| MrJDU on Feedback for initial advert… |
| MrJDU on Grammy – Animatic |
| MrJDU on Pretty Woman – Music Vid… |
| MrJDU on Genre Research |
mbdwork
LUNA 