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Billy Greenall.

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Pink Floyd - Brain Damage - Complete.

Uses of Technology

The media industry is steadily growing with new technologies enabling an even better visual to ensure people are fully entertained. I feel I should follow this to guarantee my music video piece will be of high quality.

Example of the type of Camera.

            Firstly, we were given a standard, household camera to film our music video with, which is only due to the budget that was given. Although, having a professional filming camera would have seen the image quality be at the highest standard, I feel the camera given to us was still at a high standard which I feel shows the high expectations for image quality in media. The camera included many other features that became useful to us which included shallow and deep in depth focus. The camera came with a standard tripod that showed its huge usefulness in parts when we were filming, when we all needed to be in the shot.  Also that came with the camera was a memory card. The memory card made it possible for us to playback everything we had filmed through the camera while we were still filming. These was useful as we could find out if any errors had occurred while filming and then film them again if there was. At times, when we filmed in distant locations, like in Glossop, having a memory card avoided situations when we had to go back and forth when filming errors happened. Also, because of the memory cards high megabyte(MB) capacity we were able to save a lot of high quality film clips with large MB sizes that it had easily , without having to delete any of them. Transferring the data in the memory card to computer was easy as well, because a card reader was used. 

An example of a Fig Rig

During the performance filming, we used a Fig Rig which entitled us to move around with the camera, keeping it as steady as possible. Many people in the music industry today use Fig Rigs as they allow the cameraman to move around freely around a performing group with interesting shot angles. The fact that, they are very small, light and portable pieces of equipment made it possible for us to travel to different places which was a huge advantage as we had other equipment to carry around like the camera, tripod etc. The computer used had the software called ‘Final Cut Pro’ which is regarded as professional editing software in big media corporations. We used a green screen in a studio. A green screen allows you to add backgrounds to an video clip, by removing everything ‘green’ and then replaces it with something else. This technology is very popular in the film industry and has been used for many years. Finally, we used an Apple Mac Computer for the editing process. The fast speed and 2 screen monitor technology were ideal for video editing. This because usually there could be a number of programs open at one time so to avoid the desktop looking ‘cluttered’ there are 2 screen monitors that merge into one another. The main fault about these Apple Macs, and was rather a constant irritation is the computer would sometimes take longer to load or even freeze altogether. This may be due to the fact that there were multiple programs opened at once.

In conclusion, because all the equipment that we use is similar to the equipment used in high budget, professional videos in media I feel I can easily create a realistic music video. The equipment is generally at a good standard and their disadvantages are heavily outweighed by its reliability, portability and usefulness.

 

Raph Jims 

           

The Creative Process

During the pre-production of the music video, there were a lot of meetings that had taken place to fully decide as a group on what song would be used. Firstly we looked out different genres that we were interested in using. The genres were Rock, Dub-step and Rap. We felt in order to create a unique creative performance and narrative music video; we would have to use a rock genred song. We then listed all the songs that would be a possibility to use.

We all had good creative ideas for a lot of these songs on the list. Deciding on the right one to choose depended on, if we had the right resources, locations was a possibility and we would have the right, perfect performers for the video. Brain Damage by Pink Floyd became the final choice for this project, for the reason that its lyrical theme of insanity and pessimism, would be ideal for us to convey in the video. The psychedelic rock theme to the video would be interesting to use in our contemporary music video. The song was released in the mid 1960s and it would be very interesting for us to modernise the song by using rock video conventions of todays music to create an appealing piece of work. For inspiration and research we all looked at music videos in the contemporary music industry. The music videos for ‘Leave before the Lights Come On’ by the Arctic Monkeys and ‘Flashing Lights’ by Kanye West had a crazed woman as their Main character, so we felt we should follow this and also take specific bits that we thought we good in those videos and use that idea for our own. We also looked at many psychedelic rock music videos from bands such as The Beatles, The 13^th Floor Elevators, Jefferson Airplane and more. The majority had a soothing, ludicrous theme, so having that would be essential to create a good fitting music video. We gained inspiration from TV shows and films as well, which featured scary, crazy women like Jennifer in ‘Jennifer’s Body’ and Rose in ‘Two and a Half Men’.

The editing software that was available for us to use, was professional equipment also used by real music video in the industry. This ensured us with the fact that during the editing process, our ideas will have no boundaries due to the lack of good software.

When we filmed the performance part of the music video in an actual recording studio, it was important to film as much as possible, in order to have enough clips for editing. We filmed the whole band ‘playing’ the song with all the instruments in our location all the way through. We also filmed each band member individually playing the whole song with a handheld fig rig. The fig rig enabled us to keep the camera as steady as possible, while handheld. It was most important that we were creative while filming, and tried using unique shots with variance shot types. Though, when it came time to filming the actual narrative side of the video, we felt as a group we should plan the basic sequence of it beforehand. Thoroughly planning in advance was very favorable because we were able to brainstorm a large amount of ideas and then were able to bring additional props to improve the video’s realism. Additional to that I feel this also helped us with the time management during filming.     

            In conclusion, we found ideas from many different areas in media and mainly ideas from our own imaginations. It was also interesting how we were able to fuse our different ideas that we had individually to gain compromise and even a better idea. The idea that we have to modernise an old rock song by fusing modern day music video conventions with the old ones would create a unique piece of work. 

Raph Jims

Analysis of our video in terms of narrative

Our music video is mainly narrative based, but there is also a lot of performance, however the two are linked. There is certainly a specific beginning, middle and end. The beginning of the narrative is with Caitlin jumping around showing her mental instability. The middle of the narrative is Matt being followed both mentally and physically by Caitlin, and the end is when Caitlin ends up with complete control of Matt as he walks out of the performance.

The fact that ending is shown in the performance suggests a clear link between the two sides, both performance and narrative. The aim of our narrative story was that there is a lunatic (as to the words of the song) in the form of Caitlin. She then wants to control Matt and goes about this by getting inside of his head, following him, and this is shown through the opacity shots and others. We then aimed to end the narrative with Caitlin either murdering Matthew, or controlling him, and we felt the way Matt left the performance, and is next seen in the warehouse with Caitlin showed this quite well.

Our narrative was experimental, we had a brief idea of what we wanted to achieve but the shots we got on the recording days would decide on the real story behind the narrative. A lot is left to the imagination of the audience but the above is a clear idea of what we were trying to achieve. There is a basic and consistent idea running all the way through our video, and we stuck with just one main idea as the video could have got confusing otherwise.



Billy Greenall.

Craig Davis’ Approach toAnalyzing Music Videos:

Pink Floyd – Brain Damage

1. Narrative categories:

Illustration – Our video is a mixture of bothnarrative and performance. The narrative side links with the performance,Caitlin and Matt are wandering around an abandoned mill, this is the narrativeside, and Matt is also in the band which is performing the song. Matt thentakes ill because of what is happening in the narrative scenes and this ismirrored in the performance side. Matt walks out of the performance and isfound back in the warehouse with Caitlin showing her control of him.

Amplification – Our music video shows a direct link to the songstraight away, showing Caitlin dressed as a lunatic, and the lyrics of the song“The lunatic is on the grass.” The cuts of our video do go well with the beatof the poem, but it is definitely the link between scenes and the lyrics whichshow a direct parallel between both. There is also lip syncing and instrumentsbeing played to show the beat of the song and the link between the music andvideo.

Disjuncture – There are a few abstract aspects to our video, suchas Matt taking ill, and the reasons why Caitlin is inside his head, but all inall our music video shows a direct link.

2. Performance Video:

1. Conventions of the band performance: There are close ups of each member of the band to reveal each person’s true nature. There are also several cases of lip syncing to show authenticity and the way the drums are played shows a conventional style to our video. This is also seen though the strumming of the guitar to the beat of the poem, but there could have been a lot more of this to make the video more conventional.

2. Conventions of solo artist performance: The main solo character in our music video is Caitlin who is represented as a female protagonist. She haunts Matt throughout the video with her nightmarish actions and horrific make up. There are a few close ups of her facial expressions, such as the one before the second chorus where she smiles scarily at Matt. There could have been more of these though, shots with her eyes rolling to show her craziness would have worked well, but we did not do this.

3. Star Image – There is little case of star image in our music video. This may be because it is a song from the 1970s where as star image artists such as Madonna and Michael Jackson are found in 1990s music industry. Our music video is eerie and mainly narrative and performance based, with a proper story as opposed to a narrative style performance where selling points can be found.

3. Audio-VisualTechnical Codes Needed for Analyzing a Music Video:

Speed isthe Essence:

Camera Shots: We used a shaky handheld cameraa lot of the time to create an unstable effect and represent the characters anduncomfortable and desperate. Along with this we used the rig which allowed usto get unusual camera angles and shots we would not otherwise have been able toachieve.

Camera Movement: We mainly used the rig for ourperformance shots as this allowed shots we would not otherwise have been ableto record. In the warehouse used the tripod mostly as this gave us a fixedimage to work with, however, on occasions we used the camera as handheld toconnote the instability of the characters and to also get some unique anglesand shots. Nevertheless, too much of this type of camera movement can result inthe piece looking sloppy so we had to be careful.

Editing: Our editing was not too fast andthis was mainly down to the beat of the song. The Pink Floyd song was fairlydreamy and eerie and so it was hard for us to make fast cuts. We slowed a lotof shots down to fit them with the beat of the poem so watching the video oncewould allow the viewer to gain the general idea behind the video. We did fade alot of shots as we felt this was the best way to move from one scene to anotherrather than jump cutting, this was again down the dreamy tune behind the song.

Post-production digital effects: Slow motion was a big factor in fitting our shots to thestyle and beat of the song. We also used the program “Motion” to add a uniquespotlight effect to most of performance shots, making them more interesting andcentering the important characters in the music video. We added filters onFinal Cut Pro which made the shots in the warehouse and in the park moredrained and dull connoting desperation and depression. This showed how abstractCaitlin was as a character and showed her evil side.

Lighting: The only lighting we used wasthe lighting we used in Motion. This lighting was the strobe lighting effectwhich allowed us to create a shadow around each performance shot, making Mattthe important character in the shot, and the light would always be closest tohim. This fitted well with the lyrics “Dark Side of the Moon” and also kept theeerie theme of the music video consistent throughout the project.

Mis-en-scene: The only real case ofMis-en-scene in our video was the makeup we used for Caitlin to make her looklike a lunatic. Basic make-up such as eyeliner and lipstick smeared all overher face gave a good effect, making her look scary and presenting her as thefemale protagonist. The way she lulled around, groaning and pulling strangefacial expressions shows her as a lunatic, and connotes the fact she is tryingto possess Matt, control him and get inside of his head. She also messed withher hair, made it look as if it had never been touched, just to add that extraeffect; she looked like a ghoul, or something out of the film “The Grudge”.

Billy Greenall.