Music Video analysis

Eminem - Darkness

Eminem has released his new album called Music To Be Murdered By. Eminem has used Alfred Hitchcock album with the same name and imitated the original with the cover art. One of the songs on the record is called Darkness and the video gives it a new meaning and adds more context to the lyrics. The song is about the Las Vegas festival shooting and it creates a narrative that makes you believe that Eminem is the shooter and he is giving reasons as to why the shooter did what he did. Em uses his platform to express his opinions on the gun law in America, he gives a very valid and believable side to the argument and does it well.

In this music video, Eminem looks to be the person in the video as he is wearing the same hoodie as the figure in the video. Later on, in the video, we find out that is isn't him but he is talking about the Los Vagus festival shooting. The hook of the song is "I don't wanna be alone in the darkness" as Eminem is talking about what we think to be him he is sympathising almost with the shooter. The shooter had some mental health problems and Eminem exploits them as the shooter was allowed to hire weapons. The entire song is about exposing how broken America's gun laws are and how Eminem wants it to be fixed. 

"Fuck the colt 45 I'm a need somethin' stronger" This line along with another one, later on, is a double entendre and he uses this to portray a double meaning with the visuals. A colt 45 is both a pistol and a drink at around 5.6% in alcohol. Another line, later on, has a similar meaning.

"If I pop any caps it better be off of vodka" popping caps can be referred to ass taking a lid off of a drink. Vodka is also stronger between the two drinks. The other meaning is also to shoot a gun. As this line is said both a bottle of vodka and an empty bullet casing is shown. This reinforces the double meaning off of these lines. 



The majority of the song has lots of double entendre's that are used to create a double meaning. This is something that Eminem is notorious for, he uses this to create a very visceral image of the theme of the song. While using double entendre he uses it to lighten the mood with opposite meanings. 


People start to show up, time to start the show upIt's 10:05 PM and the curtain starts to go upAnd I'm already sweatin', but I'm locked and loadedFor rapid fire spittin' for all the concert-goersScopes for sniper vision, the surprise from out of nowhereAs I slide the clip in from inside the hotelLeanin' out the window, going Keyser SözeFinger on the trigger, but I'm a licensed ownerWith no prior convictions, so the law says the sky's the limitSo my supply's infinite, strapped like I'm a soldierGot 'em hopping over walls and climbing fencesSome of them John Travolta, staying alive by inches(Hello, darkness, my old friend)Cops are knockin', oh fuck, thought I blocked the entranceGuess show time is overNo suicide note, just a note for target distanceBut if you'd like to know the reason why I did thisYou'll never find a motive, truth is I have no ideaI am just as stumped, no signs of mental illnessJust tryin' to show ya the reason why we're so fucked'Cause by the time it's over, won't make the slightest difference

This entire verse towards the end of the song accompanied by the visuals from the music video has a massive impact. The beginning of the song may sound like any other Eminem song but towards the end, it all comes together and makes sense as he is rapping from the perspective of the gunman at the LasVegas shooting. The meaning of the song becomes more clear as the video shows a deeper side to the song relaying visuals for the viewer to read deeper into the lyrics.   

A review that I have watched really matched my opinions on the track itself. The song really matches the video perfectly and matched gun control. The reason why Eminem would use his platform to express his feelings about gun violence is that he wants a change. The video portrays that the gun law is deeper than just banning guns but banning them fro certain people. In the video, it is shown that the person doing the shooting has mental health issues and a drinking habit. These wouldn't have been accounted for when he was to get the guns. Eminem makes a big point of this and dedicates an entire verse to it along with footage in the music video to back his point. 

"Finger on the trigger, but I'm a licensed owner
With no prior convictions, so the law says the sky's the limit
So my supply's infinite, strapped like I'm a soldier
Got 'em hopping over walls and climbing fences
Some of them John Travolta, staying alive by inches"

Especially the first line of the bar he is directly addressing the issue at hand along with footage to back it up. 

Little Simz - 101 FM

     

101 FM is a song about Little Simz growing up and her story of making songs when she was younger. The video is shot mostly with a 4:3 aspect ratio with lots of grain and noise to make it seem like the footage is old and vintage. This style fits the themes of the song because Simz is reminiscing on her past and how she became who she is now. The video cuts between diegetic sound and non-diegetic sound. This makes the video more grounded in reality. Simz describes the upbringing of her life and how it has affected her music and the video helps portray this message. 

Little Simz's music video for 101 FM has a very distinct tone, very nostalgic and rustic. This tone fits very well with the song as its all about reminiscing and looking back at what made you. The opening shot is of a film reel of some of her past, the lyrics match this same tone as she repeats what happened in her early life.  

In the video, lots of non-diegetic sounds are used. In the video, cars will drive past the camera and they will be included in the video. Along with the onset sound that was caught of her rapping her lyrics. This makes the overall song feel more personal and low budget. If it had had a very big budget and a cinematic feel to it then it wouldn't of fit the tone, this links in well with the Andre Goodwin theory as the themes of the song fit very well with how the video was shot. 


 Along with having a very nostalgic and reminiscing feel to it, there are also some moments where SImz is directly telling us about her life and even her mum adding more to the context of the song.

(Spinning em, spinning em, ay)
Times I would get home late to my mumzie's crib
"Simbi, who are you with?
What have you done?

Where have you been?"

Shit (Damn)  

Gorillaz - Feel Good Inc.

The first single to release off of their critically acclaimed Demon Days was Feel Good Inc. Gorillaz is the creation of Blur frontman Damon Albarn and artist Jamie Hewlett. They both have created a combination of genres and themes to create the Gorillaz. For Demon Days the main theme was a post-apocalyptic setting with some political influence, mainly focusing on the politics of war as this is something that Damon and Jamie wanted to explore with this album. The entire album itself is very low and has a mature tone to compliment the themes that it talks about. Damon and Jaime have evolved what was seen as a side project to be its own thing that needed to be respected and it did. Feel Good Inc's video has a very dark and dreary tone and the song compliments it. Although the song can be seen from an outsider as a happy song with all of the laughs and sound of the song the video contradicts someones first listen.    

The opening shot is of a broken down and abandoned city, the location of the music video definitely fits the tone of both the song and the album. It's very gritty tone really makes the video stand out. The setting of the video is very important as the entire album is about war and the destruction of it upon society. This video is showing what it could be like without any clear motivation

.

As the video goes on it consistently keeps this very dark tone as we make our way into the feel-good inc tower. The video style being Gorillaz is very unique as the entire video is animated and the fictional band members are performing the song live. While it has elements of live performance it definitely has some narrative as there is an ongoing story throughout the Gorillaz universe that is told through the videos. This is for a more active viewer that will watch the videos in-depth and listen to the song lots. You will find a story underlying and get more out of the video than a passive watcher.

At the same time as the video is very dark and frightening, the song breaks down into a calmer guitar riff that is played. This shows the progression of the song as well as the video. The visual look has changed to match the sound of the song. The colour pallet changes with the song tone. This makes the viewer a lot more emersed into the video and makes the song make more sense contextually. While the entire song has lots of contrast the video definitely keeps up with this contrasting formula. With this screenshot, you can clearly see the two different sections of the song portrayed with the colour pallet. One is very bright, calm and relaxed and the other being very dark and foreboding. 

Towards the end of the track the 

   

Film plan, Final film and evaluation

Jaques Lacan theory:

I want the film to be about the obsession of one item, I want a character to be fixated on one thing and then eventually when they get it it wasn't worth the effort they went through to get it. Maybe, in the end, I will have the character see something else that grabs their attention and the cycle continues. I want the object to be something to be relatable, something that everyone has had a want for. 

Synopsis of Short film:

The main character will be minding his own business until he sees something that will change his life forever. Once he sees someone eating a green lollipop he has been consumed by the want for this particular sweet. he searches high and low for the green sweet but struggles to find the money and where to find them. Once he gets enough money to get the sweet he knows that he needs more. He works more, harder and uncontrollably to find a way to get more money to buy more of this specific candy. After eating all of the green lollipops he regrets the decision and becomes ill from the green lollipop consuming his life. Once experiencing the worst of the sweet he falls out of love with this object and returns back to the bench where we first see him. Once he sits back down we have the same shots as the beginning of the film and then replace the green lollipop with a chocolate bar and then the cycle continues.

Maybe have some found footage of an LSD type trip when he tries the lollipop to further reinforce the addiction he has to the lollipop. Maybe when he gets closer to the Lolipop he could have some more trips which represent that he is getting closer.  

I found this online and it looks to be a good representation of what I want to have for the trippy sequence. 

Some visual representations that have inspired me:



Black Mirror - Bandersnatch (2018)

Doctor Stange (2016)

Both of these scenes especially the Doctor Stange clip relays heavily on visual effects I will not be mimicking the visual effects used in this scene but the colours used. I really like the amount time is spent in these sequences, it really emphasises all of the colours used.  


Some things I want to achieve when shooting: 

- the opening shot should be the main character minding their own business and then seeing the desired object and it consuming their thoughts and livelihood. Making it clear that its and over-exaggerated reality that the character is living in. 
- wanting something but ultimately when getting it doesn't end up being what expected
- using something that is relatable to everyone 
- make it relatable to the younger audience so that its seen as more humorous than serious

- making sure that the main focus of the film is fixated on the wanted object
- maybe use the rig? utilise the equipment at my disposal.
- or keep it handheld so that it seems more grounded in reality
- I want to challenge the technical side of the video and use some track wipes with people walking past the frame
- for the psychedelic scene, I want to challenge my knowledge of colour correcting and change the visuals so that it's unique to the rest of the footage. Maybe having some stock footage mashed up together with my footage and blend them together.

- Maybe turn the opacity down on the stock footage and make it blend with my footage






- I want there to be a variety of different shot types and angles
- When shooting I want there to be multiple angles for the same shot, I will bring another camera to the shoot and get multiple shots of the same scene so I can but between them

For the music I want it to be really low key when it's just focused on the main character. I have chosen Mr Sandman as the song I use because it will fit the tone of the shot as it's very minimal and calm.  I want the clothing for the main character to match the song and tone of the shot. I want neutral and muted colours for the main character. 

When it's on the girl walking past to be more upbeat and maybe have cinematic bars and colour correction to represent the difference in feeling and emotion that these two characters have. I want her to be dressed in really bright colours and have a very bold colour, maybe green to represent lust and want.    

Final film:

Evaluation: 

Overall I feel like the shots I got the film to look really nice and have a really good depth of field, it makes you focus on the characters and objects in the shot instead of the surroundings as they aren't important. I used a 70mm lens so that I had a natural shallow depth of field instead of using a regular lens and changing the f stop. Using this lens definitely helped with getting this effect. I got some really nice shots for the film with varying angles and I feel like it made the film better by having lots of alternative shot angles. I varied from establishing shots to a dutch angle. I also used them sparingly instead of putting them in there just for the sake of it. For example, I used the dutch angle in the film when the main character is looking at something squinting his eyes. 

I wanted to portray confusion in the shot and I feel like I had. Another thing that helped was having an extra person there to help to film. I got another camera to get some more angles for the same shot. I wanted to do this so that I could eliminate continuity while editing. Editing the film was fun but stressful at the same time because I didn't have enough film so I had to add stock footage to make the trippy sequence look good. I also feel like the trippy sequences could have been shorter and made more straight to the point instead of dragged on.     
     

Film Studies theories and examples

Sigmund Freud:


Sigmund Freud's theory is that there are three constant character traits in film and they are the id, ego and superego. They all have specific characters that learn off each other in the narrative. These three characters consist in any form of media with a narrative structure according to this theory. 

Sigismund Schlomo Freud was born on 6th May 1856 to Jewish parents, Amalia and Jakob Freud, in a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire now in the Czech Republic. When Sigmund was three, the Freuds moved to Vienna. He excelled academically, developing a passion for literature, languages and the arts that would profoundly influence his thinking about the human mind. Freud became very interested in medical and scientific research and went on to study medicine at the University of Vienna. While studying, Freud developed a particular fascination with neurology, and later trained in neuropathology at the Vienna General Hospital. In 1885, Freud travelled to Paris to study at the Salpêtrière Hospital with Jean-Martin Charcot, a famous neurologist studying hypnosis and hysteria. Freud was deeply affected by Charcot’s work, and upon returning to Vienna he started using hypnosis in his own clinical work with patients.

The id is the impulsive part of our psyche which responds directly and immediately to basic urges, needs, and desires. The personality of the newborn child is all id and only later does it develop an ego and super-ego. The id remains infantile in its function throughout a person's life and does not change with time or experience, as it is not in touch with the external world. The id is not affected by reality, logic or the everyday world, as it operates within the unconscious part of the mind.

The ego develops to mediate between the unrealistic id and the external real world. It is the decision-making component of personality. Ideally, the ego works by reason, whereas the id is chaotic and unreasonable. The ego operates according to the reality principle, working out realistic ways of satisfying the id’s demands, often compromising or postponing satisfaction to avoid negative consequences of society. The ego considers social realities and norms, etiquette and rules in deciding how to behave.

The superego consists of two systems: The conscience and the ideal self. The conscience can punish the ego by causing feelings of guilt. For example, if the ego gives in to the id's demands, the superego may make the person feel bad through guilt. The ideal self (or ego-ideal) is an imaginary picture of how you ought to be and represents career aspirations, how to treat other people, and how to behave as a member of society.

In 1923 Freud published his important paper, 'The Ego and the Id'. Here he further developed and elucidated his model of the human mind, introducing his ‘Superego-Ego-Id’ formulation to supersede the 'conscious-preconscious-unconscious' structure described in The Interpretation of Dreams. In this year Freud also discovered a pre-cancerous growth in his jaw, certainly caused by his regular and liberal consumption of cigars. He nonetheless found himself unable to give them up, and likened his addiction to them to his obsessional collecting of antiquities. The growth later turned into cancer and would ultimately cause his death sixteen years later.

Fight Club: 

The Id in this scene immediate gratification strives for pleasure. This is something that you can visually see in both these characters as once Pitt shows the pleasure to Norton's character. Both seek for personal desire in this scene and give it to one and other as what they want is the same. They influence off each other, later on in the film we discover that these two are the same person and if you go back and look at them you can notice there similarities and piece together the puzzle. 

The ego being Nortons character at the beginning of the scene refers to Pitts character going against his desire of being hit by Norton. Eventually, the Ego gives in and the Id takes over both of them, they both have a want and they both give into these wants. Later in this scene, Norton says to Pitt "We should do this again" This reinforces that the Ego is now gone and the Id has essentially taken over them both. The superego is at the beginning of the scene where Norton's character is in denial after being hit by Pitt. 

As the scene progresses it is clear that this emotion leaves and the Id takes over as they both want to fight and that's what they pursue, not caring about anything that gets in their way. This shows the character to be mentally unstable as he can't control these three important feelings. They should be a balance with each other instead of predominantly being the Id.   

Laura Mulvey: 



Laura Mulvey had the main theory called the male gaze, the male gaze is when the camera is seen through the male eyes. Typically directors during the time of the theory's creation were male and this would make women in some instances seem over-sexualised by the camera. Her theory had been influenced by Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan which helped boost her essays into the public eye and elevate her theory. Mulvey states that she intends to use Freud and Lacan's concepts of 'the 'political weapon'. She argues that the classical Hollywood cinema has the majority male audience and this, in turn, inspired the male gaze. She states that the motivated camera movements and angles in movies suggest that the shot could over sexualise in certain situations.   

Laura Mulvey interview: 

Another Gaze – Could you start by telling me a little about what was latterly termed your ‘cinephile period’, before your involvement in the theorising of and making of films?

Laura Mulvey – I was born in 1941 and lived in the countryside for the whole of the war so I didn’t see any films until I came back to London at the age of six. Because of this, I remember the first films I ever saw quite clearly. I think the first was Nanook of the North [Robert J. Flaherty, 1922], because my father was from the far North of Canada and was interested in Inuit culture. The other films that stand out very vividly for me, from the early fifties, are Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s The Red Shoes [1948] and Jean Renoir’s The River [1951]. I sometimes think that it’s because I didn’t see many films in my childhood that these two films are indelibly marked on my cinematic unconscious. My genuinely cinephile days started when I left university and started going to the cinema with a group of friends, including Peter Wollen. These friends were all influenced by the Cahiers du Cinéma, so that marked a shift into an adoration of Hollywood, and of those directors that the Cahiers had sanctified as part of the ‘politique des auteurs’. That took up a great deal of my time in the sixties… Going to see films that weren’t so current but hadn’t fallen out of currency, and the National Film Theatre was beginning to show retrospectives, and we were going to Paris, the Cinémathèque and any of the cinemas on the Left Bank, and building up as much of a knowledge of Hollywood cinema as we could. 
Along with her consistent push of the male gaze and how prominent it is she also pushes feminism, here is an interview on both of these theories:

'Woman as image, man as bearer of the look' - Laura Mulvey

You deconstruct the male gaze out of the text instead of the intent being there when filming it. 


Example of the Laura Mulvey theory:

Transformers (2007):

In the film, transformers, there are plenty of shots that could be considered over sexualising Megan Foxes character. The male gaze is something that can be seen as a very prominent feature in the film. As well as having over-sexualised characters in one of the films there are two characters that are overly racist towards each other. The male gaze is probably the most prominent problem especially the first film. The average shot length for a film like transformers would be not very long as its an action film with lots happening, with these scenes the shot length is very long and lingers on the character. 

The beginning of the scene you get a mid-shot of Mikaela as she walks away from view, she is wearing a very short skirt and a tight top. The choice in clothing can indicate a sense of lust and desire by Sam. We then get a close-up reaction shot of Sam as he gets in his car and gets his friend out to pick up Mikaela. The desire that Sam has for her shows as he tells his friend to leave so that she can get in the car. Once Sams friend is out of the car he drives towards her and talks to her. During this, the song that is playing is a very slow and romantic song that pushes the ideology of Sam liking her.

We then get a shot of Sam looking at Mikaela through his window and she is angled in a very over the sexual way. The male gaze is in full effect that this point as both the camera and the character are objectifying Mikaela through the window, along with the romantic music it helps reinforce this ideology. When she gets into the car she describes her ex and he is a big football player and Sam wants the become this so that he can win over Mikaela. he then flexes on her with his bicep to win her over. As a big muscular person would be the stereotype that a girl like Mikaela would go for this reinforces this ideology. We get more of these shots where they linger on Mikaela later on in this scene. These shots reinforce the idea that we see films through the male eye and the camera is just a males viewpoint. Especially, in this case, Transformers has plenty of these shots that are objectifying Mikaela  

Jacques Lacan:






The mirror stage: when a baby sees themselves in a mirror for the first time they see that as the ideal person and try and live up to. essentially you try and live up to someone that your not. It's an imaginary order that you try and live up to even if you will never achieve it. 

Here is a good video that explains the theory well:

Medically trained as a psychiatrist, Lacan’s first texts started appearing in the late 1920s (during the course of his psychiatric studies), with his publishing activity really taking off in the subsequent decade. The 1930s see several early Lacanian milestones: the publication, in 1932, of his doctoral thesis in psychiatry, De la psychose paranoïaque dans ses rapports avec la personnalité (On Paranoid Psychosis in its Relations with the Personality); collaborations with the Surrealist and Dadaist artistic movements in whose midsts he circulated as a familiar fellow traveler; entry into analytic training, including a didactic analysis with Rudolph Lowenstein; attendance at Alexandre Kojève’s renowned seminars on G.W.F. Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit; the first presentation of the now-famous theory of the “mirror stage” at the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA) conference at Marienbad in 1936 (a presentation truncated by Freud’s friend and biographer, then-IPA President Ernest Jones); and, the appearance, in the Encyclopédie française in 1938, of a substantial essay on a sizable swathe of analytic topics entitled Les complexes familiaux dans la formation de l’individu: Essai d’analyse d’une fonction en psychologie (“The Family Complexes in the Formation of the Individual: Attempt at an Analysis of a Function in Psychology”). This crucial period of Lacan’s development, as the immediately preceding already indicates, was marked by the collision of interests and influences related to psychoanalysis, psychiatry, philosophy, art, and literature, among other areas. More specifically, the robustly interdisciplinary combination that came together for Lacan at this time of Freudian analysis, Hegelian dialectics, Kojèvian pedagogy, and different experiences of “madness” from numerous perspectives indelibly colours and permanently inflects the entire rest of Lacan’s intellectual itinerary.

The account of the mirror stage is perhaps Lacan’s most famous theoretical contribution (maybe even more famous than the well-known thesis apropos the unconscious as “structured like a language”). Initially developed in the 1930s, this account involves a number of interrelated ingredients. Lacan offers the narrative of this stage as an explanation specifically for the genesis and functions of the Freudian psychical agency of the ego (Ich, moi). One of the psychoanalytic and philosophical upshots of the mirror stage, a crucial one in Lacan’s eyes, is that the ego is an object rather than a subject. In other words, the ego, despite conscious senses to the contrary, is not a locus of autonomous agency, the seat of a free, true “I” determining its own fate. This portrait of the ego-as-object is at the heart of Lacan’s lifelong critical polemics against Anglo-American ego psychology, with the ego psychologists seeking to strengthen their patients’ egos by appealing to supposed autonomous and “conflict-free” sides of these psychical agencies. Against this, Lacan views the ego as thoroughly compromised and inherently neurotic to its very core, as a passionate defence of a constitutive ignorance of the unconscious.


Example of Jaques Lacan theory: 

The Wolf Of Wall Street (2013):

1:15 - 2:33 

Jacques Lacan's theory also states that you are born with a lack of something and it gives you a want to fulfil it. You will never be satisfied and there will forever be a lack in your life and never be fulfilled. You are driven by desire and will never achieve that desire. Everyone is born with a lack and a desire to fill that empty space. Jordan Belford is never satisfied with himself. He forever wants more and more, this inevitably ends with him in prison by him stopping at nothing to get what he wants.  

At the beginning of this scene, Jordan is listing all drugs he does and that the amount he does a day would seduce the whole of Manhatten and Queens for a month. This shows the character of Jordan Belford is very sedated all the time and is the kingpin of his business. Jordan wants more drugs, money and or sex throughout the film. Jordan describes money as his favourite drug and this apparent. Later on, in the scene, he is describing that money is the only thing he wants more of. You can tell from his reckless behaviour that he has money to spare and he doesn't care about anything except making more money.       

Jordan's ideology of life is that money can buy everything you want. He is more about the 
materialistic things money can buy he's all about showing off his money in every way possible. Towards the end of the film, his addiction gets to the point where he risks his wife's, friend and his life for the security of his money. He keeps on taking risks throughout the film and this mistake changes him as he nearly dies. He decided to take a yacht through the very rough sea and his yacht gets wrecked and people got killed. Inevitably he was putting other people at risk for his benefit yet he has enough money to sustain himself for his life and more. The want for more money is constant throughout the film but during this part, in particular, he doesn't see it as the worth is. At this point, it's too late and he is arrested not long after.        

All References:

Suddenly, a Woman Spectator: An Interview with Laura Mulvey, Another Gaze: A Feminist Film Journal https://psychoanalysis.org.uk/our-authors-and-theorists/sigmund-freud Sigmund Freud | Institute of Psychoanalysis https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/lacan/ Plato.stanford.edu  Notes from youtube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXqxSAfJHaI Notes from youtube video

British New Wave video essay

Video essay script:

Introduction:

During the 1970s, young and inspired directors all across France started a movement in film making. It was named The New Wave and it changed the way filmmakers create a film. The French New wave changed the way people film especially inexperienced at directing. This offered a fresh view of storytelling in the industry. With this, it also offered lots of different techniques that mainstream didn't use but the new wave capitalised off of these. It gave the new films a style that stuck throughout all of the films coming from these new eager directors. Labelled in the late 50’s early 60’s as films kept the same as everything else in culture was changing 

The British New Wave came from the success of the French New Wave. The French New Wave acted as a benchmark for the film at the time and did a complete 180 on the mainstream film industry. New Wave had lots of stand out characteristics, for example, having unknown actors. They were very different from mainstream films at the time. They were not looking for mainstream success. The new wave saturated the market of filming, through these techniques the press recognised the filmmaking skills at the time and didn't go unnoticed. 

"I was working backstage in Liverpool playing for small projects..." - play interview clip

Breaking the fourth wall.

Alfie clip when he talks to the viewer

Facing taboo subjects

Play a synopsis for a taste of honey 

Unmotivated camera movements 

Play clip from a taste of honey with an unmotivated camera movement 

British New Wave directors have similarities with each other as they all wanted to do the same thing, to stand out. Visually they all looked similar but had their own personalities. Through their stand out personalities, they had similarities, a taboo narrative was the main similarity. Because all of the new wave directors wanted to all standout they implemented real-life taboo subjects so that audiences can relate and have a deeper understanding

The British New Wave video essay:

To conclude the new wave video essay I felt like I set the scene well with the context of the time with lots of footage and news reports of the time. The song I used was very popular at the time and links well with the time. The clips I used for the examples of the film I studied were good for me expressing points as they showed the viewer what I was talking about. Overall the video is a good representation of the time but the commentary that I used could have been improved on. The script that I used didn't get used to its full potential. When recording the audio I didn't follow it completely and some sentences were unusable as I would say them wrong. As this was my first voice over for an essay the nerve got to me and ruined some good points I had purely by not saying them right. When reviewing the audio back I should have gone back and re-recorded the parts that I did wrong.

Overall I felt like the video essay expresses how the New wave impacted the rest of the world and the ripple effect it had on the modern era of film.     

New Wave Film + Plan

New Wave film Brainstorm:

• Montage
• Black and white with distortion layer
• Possibly edit to mimic a super 8 camera
• On-location shoots 
• Natural lighting 
• Make video footage slightly saturated 
• Make the film personal (Narrative ideas)

I will use my train journey to the college to my advantage and film the journey. I will combine the video with my footage and stock footage. Some of the ideas I have will be very hard to get myself so I will have to use stock footage. When it comes to editing I will merge the stock footage and my footage together so that it all looks authentic. 

The song that I am putting over the top of the film will be from a band called brockhampton, this band has done music videos for other songs of theirs and their style is very unique and eye-catching. Typically in their videos, the film is very abstract and experimental. Most of the music videos don't follow a narrative but have some sort of visual structure. I will be implementing their style into a new wave format. The music video that I have been inspired the most from is this one as the video has this grain and noise all in the video. The video is very dark and drab. I will be using the grainy effect used in this video. For the brockhampton video, the reason it was grainy is because of the lighting or lack of. The ISO was too high and this is how they achieved this effect, it works stylistically with the song and pace of the vocals.   

Although my video will not be focused on the vocals as much I still want there to be a connection to the vocals and visuals even if it's in a small way. The stock footage will consist of security footage of a robbery, a time-lapse of a car going down a highway and a night club.

I would like to apply a black and white filter over all of the footage to make the extra noise a better look. I will also experiment with the effects of black and white by lowering different channels of colour and intensity of certain channels and see what the outcome looks like. Along with the black and white effect, I wanted to make the aspect ration different than normal so that it conveys a more experimental and new wave style. Breaking the rules is exactly why new wave was so important for that time.  

I will be adding an extra effect on the black and white footage and that is both noise and dust/scratches. I will alternate between coloured noise and no colour noise. Switching between the two will have a good effect and make the video look even more experimental. Both of these effects will give a very authentic look to the footage, especially with the black and white it will add to the aesthetic I am trying to portray.  

The editing process took longer than I thought because I had to add all of the effects individually. 

New Wave film:

 

To conclude I feel like the final product came out well as I combined stock footage and footage that I shot on the train. I wanted to have a psychedelic and trippy video that has a very small narrative. I didn't want people to focus too much on the narrative but to focus more on the visuals and the stylistic choices that I had made. Along with the small narrative that I had towards the end of the video I wanted some of the video to be personal to me. the beginning of the clip has some key motivations that I have and want to achieve in the future. Along with the film being personal and some of the shots and zooms being unmotivated, it follows specific traits for New Wave cinema.      

4 Hour Film Challenges

Film challenges:

Editing challenge: 

Positives:

• Brief met 
• Entertaining concept
• Very creative
• Focusing on the technical aspects rather than the narrative
• Good choice in song
• The beat of the song goes well with the jarring jump cuts 

Constrictive criticism:

• Could have been longer 
• Slightly out of focus 
• Should have exported it in better quality
• Aspect ratio could have been adjusted 
• Maybe a change of location and or movement 

Unusual perspective challenge:

Positives: 

• Very unusual concept 
• Colours were a good idea
• Good camera angles 

Constructive criticism:

• Checking the focusing and the ISO
• Executing the filter idea could have been done better
• Unmotivated sounds that could have been more effective if had more thought

1920's style challenge:

Positives:

• Playful narrative 
• Good starting with a close up on what the story narrative is about
• Fits the aesthetic well with the grain
• Font fits well with the period

Constructive criticism:

• Could have had more varied shots
• Text boxes were too long and could have been shortened 
• Some more stylistic composition with the shot types could have been used
• More dialogue would have made the narrative more interesting
• Could have been more scenes to further the narrative 

Found footage music video challenge:

Positives:

• Good choice in music (fits the tone of the video)
• Nice choice of theme 
• Good shots used that portray meaning through the lyrics
• Good length 
• Good fading of audio and video

Constructive criticism:

• Could have been exported in a better quality 
• Could have examined it and focused on more than one character
• Could have used more of a variety of shots instead of reusing some of them