Personality task

Personality's and Group update

In lesson today we looked at different types of personalities and what kind of personality we individually have. In the picture below we each discussed with each other what box we thought we fitted into. I personally thought I fitted into the Red category since most of the characteristics fit me. My group disagreed with me and thought I fitted into the Green category more. Following on from this we decided to assign roles to each of our group members, I was assigned the role of editing, finding locations, creating the logo/website and finding the right camera shots and movements. These were assigned to me as I am known to be the most creative member of our group and I have a lot of experience in editing and creating websites. 

We decided to go with Graeme as our team leader because overall he had the best leadership qualities and he has good time management skills. The ideas we have had for our music video has changed a lot already and we are still in discussion about certain things, this is because when we come up with ideas individually and then have a group discussion we tend to develop and change many of the ideas that we have come up with.

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The Carol Vernallis Theory - Editing (Part 4/4)

The Carol Vernallis Theory 

4)Editing 

• Editing will sometimes match the musical instruments or the beat of the song, linking the visual images together this way, the audience realises that the beat/rhythm links in with the visual images and will relate these visual images to other things after watching the video.

• Music videos constantly break or disrupt the "rules" of continuity editing. This is the main convention of music video editing.

• When we see edits they will tend to be quite obvious, in divergence to the "invisible" continuity editing This needs to be really obvious, the edits actually have to draw attention to themselves and a successful music video will do this to assist in breaking the narrative. The most common edits you may see in music videos are:

Jump Cuts

Lack of 30 degree rule

Lack of 180 degree rule

Fancy editing or cuts

Extreme jumps in time or space

Extreme changes in pace

Graphic matches

Style of editing exclusive to the video. 

Cutting Within the Lyrics

Cutting against the Movement

I now have a idea and list of things to avoid and potentially use when editing my video together. I will certainly be using Cutting within the lyrics since it would suit my video rather nicely. 

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The Carol Vernallis Theory - Camera Movement and Framing (Part 3/4)

The Carol Vernallis Theory

3) Camera Movement and Shots

 I will now look at Vernallis's Theory of camera movement and framing.

• When it comes to camera shots, Extremes are VERY common along with Establishing shots, even if they are Extreme close-ups, or at a extreme distance, music videos try to avoid shots such as mid-shots, or a middle-ranged shot. They tend to sit on the the extreme ends of the scale.

• Styles of framing and movement tend to run all the way through the video.

• The camera may move in time with the music, just like the edits as in my previous post this is just for  drawing focus onto the artist.

• Repetition in the music video is really common to portray a message or meaning the style of framing and movement are usually a continuing theme that is distinctive to that video/genre.

A example of over us of extreme shots is this music video -

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The Carol Vernallis Theory - Diegesis (Part 2/4)

The Carol Vernallis Theory

2) Diegesis

Diegesis in music videos is known as the "world" inside the video. It is always revealed slowly allowing interventions, and a story to develop over time. Repetition is key in a music video because it allows the artist to get a message across through the concept of quantity, it means that they can create a world for their song through the video An example of this:

While we are exploring the "world" of the video, we see how are protagonist (Jared Leto) feels, reacts, and does. The theme of war is the point of the video and the message is to stop war, Jared Leto acts as a solider in this video. 

• Movements may move to the music, this can be character movement or object movement, i have used this in my own music video and it  can be seen in the video above too.

• There may be times when the audience does not understand the Diegesis - Gaps in time and space, music, performance, and narrative.

Using this theory, I understand the need to focus on music, and time progression and movement along with the music. I have learned that i need to openly and slowly show the story of my video to the audience.

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The Carol Vernallis Theory - Narrative (Part 1/4)

In the last few days we have been analysing theories of Music Videos. One of the theories I am going to cover is the Carol Vernallis Theory.

I read part of Carol's research which was titled -
The Kindest Cut - Functions and meanings of Music Video Editing.

Carol Vernallis's theory revolve's around four different and important concepts.I am going to break them down. They are:

1. Narrative
2. Diegsis
3. Camera Movement and Framing
4. Editing (I will be submitting a detailed post about this)

I am going to analyse each of these concepts and I will establish what they mean, and how they can benefit my music video since this is research for it.

1) Narrative

• A music video is a visual response to the song and lyrics, not the other way around. The video should be support the lyrics meanings and song, but the artist/star will remain dominant, this is to appeal to an audience.
• There does not need to be a  balance between narrative and performance. A song can have a full video of narrative, or full of performance or a mixture. Most of the time performance takes prominence in order to to show of the star and song more

• A example of a music video that is purely performance is Martin Garrix - Wizard

The video is 95% percent performance, its only real focus throughout the whole video is Martin Garrix and him entertaining his crowd. This is just one example of how a video can be focused on performance rather than narrative, I may use this theme in my own music video. This video is the same it focuses on performance but it has a narrative with it and this gives me more ideas for my own music video.

This video is Fall out boy - Dance Dance

• Carol Vernallis says that there at the end of the music video it may not give a real ending or clear closure for the audience. The narrative is not always finished, It can be a fragment, the story does not have to be finished

• The narrative may appear disjointed - There is no need for continuity in a music video, this would make the audience focus on the video, not the song, trying to follow the story. If the video is jumping from performance to scene repeatedly, the focus remains on the stars and song since it makes the audience aware of the artists.

• Something still needs to drive the video forward, however, it's usually not the narrative, this may cause the video to ask questions it doesn't actually answer, it leaves the audience guessing, and wanting more from the artist.

• There many indeed by a narrative theme running through the video, but usually in a montage theme, throwing it together since continuity is not needed for a music video.

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