How important is the sound of a song to a music video?

Music Videos are, in essence, a supporting feature to a song from a certain band or artist. This means that the visuals have to represent the song or the feeling it presents in an effective way with the limited amount that they can do in the songs timeframe.

The sound of a song is a culmination of many aspects of music. Instrumentation, key and timbre all play a role in how we as an audience perceive a song. The composer often makes these creative decisions in order to convey a particular mood to the listener; everything is intentional. This is simultaneously reflected in the visuals chosen by the creator of the video.
One of the key things we have to think about is fitting to the conventions of the genre so that what we produce is authentic as possible, yet despite this, there is also the option of going against some less prominent conventions to make our creation unique.

The Importance of Sound to Music Video
Sound in a song often dicatates an audiences perception of it. It creates mood, emphasises emotion and reinforces any lyrics in the piece. The mood of the song firstly helps to define the visuals. It gives them a direction and a feeling in what they are doing, no matter what type of video it is for. The visuals usually match the the sound or the genre, in instrumentation and lyrics, unless you are juxtaposing the two against each other an creating the opposite of what people expect to see for a valid reason. Idividual interpretations of these sounds working with visuals create the songs meaning to a person and therefore heavily influence their opinion of it, still taking into account their past experiences and conventions of the genre.

The Importance of Lyrics to Music Video
In my opinion, lyrical content plays a huge role of defining what a music video is. Without lyrics and meaning, the song would have no real definition to base its sound upon and in turn, nothing to develop a music video from. Lyrics make a song what it is. In modern commercial pop music, the lyrics tend to be nothing more than fillers, something to pronounce when singign the melody line and I think that songs develop fat more meaning and cnnection with the audience when they contain lyrics that mean something. Crucially, direct links can be made between lyrics and visuals, such as props as seen in the Life is a Gun video, or even narrative.

Both sound and lyrics combine to help influence the visuals in a music video. Without both, a song seems to lose its identity and for me, that means it no longer appealsto a wider udience. 

Recreating a Music Video Shot - Analysis

Choosing the music video for pop songstress Adele's Chasing Pavements, we sought to recreate a close up scene like the ones we had been looking at. To do this, we studied the way in which the shot we chose (2:25 - 2:29) was composed, so that we could best replicate it's set up.

We realised that we were going to need to stick to a low lit, natural style of lighting to try and define the mood of the song that is shown in the video. We also want to replicate the location and costume seen in the video and to do this, we'll need to look at the less focused on sections of the frame. Testing out how best to recreate the close up, panning shot will hopefully help us when it comes to storyboarding and filming our own music video, letting us learn how to achieve a common shot type of music videos and make sure we achieve it to the best of our ability.

 

After looking at the original vidoe we decided to try and practise a few still shots to look at camera angles, lighting, mise en scene and costume. Doing this allows us to have a reference when setting up and capturing the four second shot. The stills we ended with are below.

 

The first shot we felt was a little too close, whilst also showing more of the tree than we wanted. Because we spotted this, we then knew how to change the shot in order to make it more accurate to the original. We also felt that the camera angle need to be a little higher and it was also obvious to us that we need to perform some colour grading on the final shot to make it match. Thinking about location, we chose an area that held a similar, gnarled tree to the one seen in the video with grass behind it. Before shooting we listed what kind of things we would need.

Low lighting, sourced from right side of frame.

Warm filter which we will add in post production - colour grading.

A coat for the costume, simliar to that of the one in the music video.

A high angle shot slowly panning from left to right.

A ratio of 7:2

Similar texture of tree

Grassy background

Our second shot was greatly improved upon the first, though still not as acurate as we wanted. We also attempted to perfect the panning motion so that when we film we'll be able to get it right.

 

Reflecting on AS

Over the duration of our AS Media Studies course, we developed many new and interesting skills and a general understanding of the subject. Through the creation of our very own media product - a feature film opening - we began to develop our own sense of style whilst also working on our own understanding.
Looking back over the whole year and particularly our own project, I think there was a lot we could have improved upon. But saying that now means that we have drastically improved and learnt a lot since the beginning of the course. I've also found that I have a greater apreciation for the film industry as a whole from the experience of trying to accurately replicate the processes of the indutry.

Firstly, we learnt to develop key skills that are going to be crucial to the A2 section of the course.
Some of these things included:

• Editing - The use of Final Cut Pro and also the conventions of editing. Using the best software allowed us to produce a high quality video. We got more adept to using the software the more we explored its functions.
• Thinking in relation to the outcome of the final product.
• Planning and developing - This involved working through problems before they occurred (to minimise the problems that occurred later). This was essential for our location shoot.
• Film knowledge - Probably the most important learning curve of all. We've expanded upon our knowledge of technical terms, film conventions, shot types, equipment, and metaphorical resonance.
• Professionalism - In dealing with others, team building and dealing with the public, particularly on the occasions of  our location shoot.
• Working with new technology.
• Patience.

Over the course of the production of our film, many of these key areas were put to the test. I think we were very in depth in our planning which allowed us to make a more refined finished product. Also, using our individual unique skills, such as my comfort in writing the screenplay, to add to what we created helped a great deal.

The influence from previously existing media was obvious from the beginning of our project. We realised as we were collectively developing a narrative that it was highly similar to films we had previous seen within the genre we were trying to recreate. Along with this, as a group, we held a preconceived idea of what our film should be or what conventions we should fit to. We looked to various different films for inspiration. These included The Bourne Trilogy for our narrative and location ideas, Good Will Hunting for a specific shot and other iconic action films for the way in which we set up our shots and style. We looked to other films to also provide inspiration for each of the aspects of our film - shot types, narrative, script, mise en scene etc. Thinking of things in this way meant that we could make our video as authentic to the real thing as possible, whilst also