Research Methods - Key Terms

Key Terms

Production Research (Textual Analysis): The research conducted to inform the production process of a media product, eg, techniques, locations, genre ect.

Market Research (Qualitative): more thorough investigation into the reasons why products are produced and how they appeal to the consumer
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Audience Research (Quantative): the analysis of who consumes what the media produces and why.

 Types of Research

Primary:
Involves material and information which has been found ‘for the first time’ by the researcher.
This would include material found using techniques such as:

• Observations made when viewing a show, performance or on visiting a location
• Interviews with people
• Reports of meetings/discussions with people
• The collection of information from quenstionnaired or surveys
• Focus group activities

Secondary:
Information or material which is collected by looking at the findings of others.
Secondary research techniques would include:

• Referring to books, journals, magazines and newspapers
• Gathering information from the internet
• Making notes on information presented on audio visual formats like DVDs, videos or CDs

Reliability and Validity
There are many techniques that can be employed when researching. However it is vital that you choose the right one to ensure that your information is:
Reliable: whether this can be trusted as a source of information. Could it be biased by peoples opinions or effected by flaws in their research methods? If this activity was done again, would it get the same results?
Validity: the relevance of information to your investigation. Can you determine that it proves what you think it does (Ie. If an interviewee reveals something can you give a direct quote that backs this up?)

Music Video Survey Results and Comments

This shows us that the survey reached mostly the age group that will also be my target audience, therefore the results will help me more with how I will change and develop my music video.



My music video will not be targeted at any specific gender and will not include anything such as the male gaze theory or content that could only target one gender These results will not waver the development of my music video but have helped me distinguish the differences in feedback from men/women.

  
The two most popular choices for this question were Indie music and Chart Music (mainstream), bothreaching 60%. Second were Hip-Hop, R'n'B and Pop at 40% andClassical, Rap and Reggae drew at 20%. I am happy with these results as it confirms that there is a large variety of music preference between the people who took my survey making the results less biased. Also, the results worked in my favour as I was hoping to use either an Indie, R'n'B/Hip-hop track to do my music video to.



This data shows that my survey has reached the right people and will be helpful results.



This result shows that moslty people prefer an abstract style music video (conceptual/experimental) with no clear storyline. I have been planning to show a very basic narrative to my music video just showing progression of the characters through the woods but these results have made me reconsider.

My Music Video Evaluation - Rejjie Snow - Purple Tuesday

I decided to shoot my video in a wooded area near Binley in Coventry. I made sure I planned it for a sunny day so I could get bright, clear footage. Downsides to choosing this location was that it was quite out of the way and my GoPro battery life would have to be used sparingly as there were no other sunny days to shoot. Limiting myself to one day to shoot all the main footage resulted in the outcome to be a little bit messy. I chose to film my video hand held as I hoped for it to turn out to be more personal to the audience and to be more upbeat and "playful". I tried to capture the essence of adventure by running with the camera and trying to shoot everything I love about the outdoors. This included various shots and pans, closeups of flowers and wind blowing through leaves. I hoped to lift the spirit of the audience and encapsulate them in the footage giving them the allusion of being there, running round with us like kids in the forest.
An issue I had with the GoPro, was that I was not able to zoom and it auto-focuses. I had to connect it to my phone to view what I was capturing (while I was capturing it ) and overall it just turned out to be a bit of a nuisance. Positives of the GoPro is thaat I had created a mount that wrapped nicely around my hand making it easy to run around and climb trees with.

A problem I encountered was that I did not have a tripod. I tackled this issue by resting the camera on trees or on the floor. This ended up working in my favour in the cartwheel shot as the grass peeks through in the foreground creating a more earthy feel to the video. It conformed to the forest and nature theme.

EDITING 

Overall, I found the editingprocess for this specific piece the most difficult. This is so because I edited last minute and didn't allow myself any time to fix any set backs. One of my set-backs was that my laptop was not good enough to fully support the high quality footage. This resulted in freezing during editing and it tripled my editing time overall. It resulted in me making changes such as cutting, making shots slo-mo etc and not actually being able to watch my changes back. This caused messiness and I felt like I was editing blind and guessing what I was doing to things. Shots becameoff-beat and I just ended up completely disappointed with the outcome of the video.
I now intend to use a different, faster, laptop to brush up and fix the piece, hopefully resulting in a better product. I will discuss changes I can make with my tutor and will post the results on my blog.

An aspect I was happy with was that I decided to use footage to illustrate the lyrics "blowing bubbles". I found some uncopyrighted footage of underwater bubbles and overlapped it over a tree shot. This worked really nicely. Also, using over lapping, I combined two shots, one of a spinning buttercup, and the other of Ray putting a flower in my hair. I did this by adjusting the opacity of the overlapping flower shot, and using a transition effect of a fade in and out.



Overall I feel the music video itself was filmed and edited well, , but I believe that, with more time, it could have been perfected and hopefully will be. For the space of time I created this in, I am impressed with the outcome, and am mostly impressed with the camera and lighting techniques I used; I made sure it was filmed on an extremely sunny day so it would conform to the natural vibe I was going for. I have become more and more competent using the editing software and the filming settings on the camera. This experience has allowed me to make more executive decisions about lighting and camera angles. The hardest part of this unit was editing, as I wanted to experiment with live editing, but as my laptop couldnt handle the quality of the footage, I didn't get round to experimenting with this. Next time, I aim to experiment with and become confident with live editing.

My Music Video: Rejjie Snow - Purple Tuesday

Music Video Survey - Quantitative Data

I have created a survey on survey monkey to collect quantitative data. This will help me to see what kind of music videos different people prefer ans the collective results will help medecide what I shall do for mine. 

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/RV82RJL

Andrew Goodwin and Music Video Theory

Andrew Goodwin was a director of music and a media theorist. Upon spending his years analysing and developing upon music videos and their production, he published a book entitled Dancing In The Distraction Factory. This book told the audience all of the theories he believes reside inside music videos. He came up with some codes and conventions that he states are most typically found in every music video that has been uploaded.

Record Label Demands

Record labels often have certain high demands, that can include things such as close ups of the artist or require a certain theme or style that recurs across their work. (For example The 1975 with their black and white era that portrayed them as sad indie musicians in order to bring in the teenage crowd that have a disposable income)

Genre Characteristics

Music videos more often than not, include a demonstration of typical genre characteristics. And certain genres will have specific codes and conventions. For example if you were to watch a music video of a live performance, nine times out of ten its a rock or metal video, this is so the audience get an idea of the amount of energy they put into their music and just by watching the music video they see a demonstration (e.g All My Life by Foo Fighters)

Also film genres can link into this as they can have a huge impact on producing music videos, for example a lot of rock videos get inspiration from horror movies and the horror genre. 

He stated five key setups for a music video that help to analyse it

-Stadium/studio Performance

-Location

-Narrative

-Conceptual/ Experimental

The stadium performances, as mentioned, are mainly used for rock music to highlight the enthusiasm and (with the use of close ups) the physical endurance. But studio sessions are more stripped back, usually used for sad and meaningful songs that will show the artist in a more vulnerable state. 

Voyeurism

There are frequent references to the notion of looking and the voyeuristic treatment of both genders in a sexual manual in order to sell records. This can also include the use of props, for example items such as TV screens, telescopes, binoculars or mirrors.

Intertextual References

This point is the use of other texts (such as films, TV shows, other music videos) within a music video. (e.g The Kill by 30 Seconds To Mars and their video inspired by The Shining) This can bring in an audience that are fans of the interxtual reference but also gives more depth to the production and shows there has been more thought behind it

Music Video Planning

Equipment Needed - GoPro, Tripod, Gorilla Pod, Stand Fixtures, Spare Camera Battery, Phone (to use as camera monitor), SD Card

Shot planning - Tree pans, Direct sunlight on lens, Pull focus with flowers, laughing smiling and playing around, blue sky, MAKE SURE ITS A SUNNY DAY

Editing - Slow mo on laughter and interaction with eachother,overlapping with opacity (I want an overlay of flowers over action)

Location Scouting

I am hopng to use wooded areas to shoot in for my music video. There are wooded areas near where I live and open green spaces such as War Memorial Park and Gosford Green. After going to have a  look at these places to see if the setting would fit, I realised they were too populated and busy when I wanted to have no public in my video. Also the grass was littered and wasn't the "pretty" vision I was hoping for. After asking around and visiting various parks, feilds and woods,  eventually came across Arley Woods. Although it is quite a far drive it seemed to tick all the boxes; very little to no public around, clean, "pretty", large, contains open spaces and densley spread trees and flowers.

Here are some screenshots from google street view of Arley Woods location:

Carol Vernallis and Music Video Theory

Vernallis is a music video theorist who produced ‘The Kindest Cuts’ which explores the difference in editing between film and music videos. She talks about the role of editing when it comes to narrative, meaning, star image and the way sound and images are synchronised, as well as possible close ups of the artist and how the editing imitates the music.
Vernallis theory is based around four key concepts that all relate to the way a music video is produced: Narrative, Editing, Framing and camera movement, Diegsis.

Narrative: When she describes her theory, Vernallis suggests that music videos are a visual response to the narrative suggested in the song, which means that what is happening onscreen reflects the lyrics. She then says how narrative might not be complete and makes the video seem disjointed and appears in fragments.

Editing: One of the main conventions of editing music videos is to disrupt or break the rules of continuity editing. Also, the editing in music videos can be used as a focal point, such as editing to the beat of the music or the strum of a guitar, rather than a narrative. Music videos have a distinctive style of editing with easily noticeable conventions: Jump cuts, Breaking the 30 degree rule, Cutting to lyrics or to the beat of the music, Juxtaposed frames.

Framing and Camera Movement: Vernallis suggests that having establishing shots is a key element to music videos, as well as close ups of the artist or main subject. The camera movement is also key, as it moving in time with the beat or the lyrics is often seen in music videos. The framing is more dependent on the genre of the music, as slower love songs focus more on close ups and use out of focus shots whereas upbeat pop tunes have more full on dance style scenes which include everyone in the frame. 

Diegsis: In terms of media, diegesis is the setting of the music video. Vernallis says that actions in the video are not always completed and can be disrupted, as this can lead to repetition of shots and frames which will come across as more important than other frames. 

MUSIC VIDEO ANALYSIS 5

 Kendrick Lamar - HUMBLE.

Contradicting:

The main contradiction in this video relates to the subject of the visuals and the subject of the song. Throughout the hook on the song, Kendrick repeats the phrase:

"Sit down, be humble"

This goes against the visuals which show Kendrick being braggadocios and indulging in vices such as money, women and fine food+ wine (The Last Supper Reference). This may have been done to imply that Kendrick is exempt from his 'Be Humble' refrain and that he is above other artists.


Amplifying:

During the majority of this video, Kendrick is lip syncing to the lyrics, which is pretty much a staple in hip hop nowadays. Whereas other genres feature a lot of abstract videos that do not include any lip syncing, hip hop tends to favour this type of video, which allows the artist to amplify the mood that they want the song to convey.

"If I kill a n*gga it won't be the alcohol" is paired with a shot of Kendrick behind a window with multiple red dots on him, grabbing his crotch and maintaining a cocky stance. This amplifies the lyric but also contradicts it at the same time, as he goes against what he is saying by looking drunk and aggressive.

After the lyric:

"My left stroke just went viral"

Kendrick hits the gold ball which is timed to be right on the beat, further elevating the instrumental. This works well because when people hear the song without the video, they will hear the lyric and instantly visualise the video.

Cutting To Music:

Right at the start of the video after two lines, the beat kicks in and the camera cuts from the establishing shot to low angle medium shot. Also throughout the song the video has a fast cutting pace which is often cut on the beat.

Illustrating:

There are multiple points throughout this music video where the lyrics match the visuals, the first one being:

"Ayy, I remember syrup sandwiches and crime allowances
Finesse a n*gga with some counterfeits
But now I’m countin' this"

During these lyrics, Kendrick is lying down on a table surrounded by dollar bills and holding a machine that is spitting out money. This reflects the theme of being rich and overcoming a struggle to have a lot of money is he is basically bathing in dollars.

Another example is the lyric:

"My left stroke just went viral"

And during this lyric there is a shot of Kendrick on a car playing golf, to reflect the 'left stroke' lyric.

Genre:

The video is both a location and an experimental video. The video is shot in a variety of locations, presumably throughout L.A., including a church, the Los Angeles river and various back alleys.

MUSIC VIDEO ANALYSIS 4

Tame Impala - The Less I Know The Better

As a narrative music video it tells a visual story to match the lyrics of the song. The video begins with a minute long introduction, perhaps giving context to the two characters the song is about. The video contradicts the lyrics in a way, as the narrator describes seeing a woman he loves leave a gathering with someone else, in the first verse. However, the music video takes place in a high school gym.



In the first verse, the lyric 'Then I heard they slept together' is sung, illustrating this lyric is an image of the girl character having sex with a man dressed as a gorilla, referred to in the song as 'Trevor'. The reason for the Trevor character being represented as a gorilla may be because the main character, perhaps the narrator himself singing the song, sees Trevor as a idiot and a fool much like monkeys typical behaviour. The next lyric is 'Oh, the less I know the better'. Again the video illustrates this lyric by showing a close-up of the male character with ribbons over his eyes.



The characters in this video lip sync the words throughout the song as if they are thinking and saying them to themselves and each other, an example of this is when the girl lip syncs the lyric 'You should try your luck with Heather'. Its as if she is saying it to the ale character as she is with Trevor instead.

MUSIC VIDEO ANALYSIS 3

J.Cole - She Knows

 

Contradicting 

This video builds a narrative that leads up to a scene that reveals a contradiction. The video details an adolescent skipping school with his friend, doing illegal activities such as breaking in to property and smoking and when he goes home he finds his mother cheating on his father with J.Cole. Throughout the song Cole is talking about him having to turn down a woman at the club or party because he is loyal to his woman at home, and that he 'can't be what the woman' wants.

 Amplifying
The video is entirely narrative based and contains no lip syncing of the lyrics.   

Illustrating:   

There is only one point in this video that illustrates the lyrics, and it doesn't illustrate them in a clear way. During the hook of the song, Cole repeats the line "She knows, she knows" which on first listen you would assume that he means his woman knows he is being unfaithful to her. However it is the opposite, with Cole talking about a woman knowing that he has a girl at home that he has to be loyal to. Linking to the video, there is a mid shot of the boy's mother and Cole getting undressed implying that she is being unfaithful to her husband, which goes against these lyrics.

Cutting To Music:

The video is mostly cut to music, which is aided by the fact that the song has a strong constant beat. An effective moment that cutting is use in the video is when Kyle catches his mum cheating. When he realises, the music cuts out and you get diegetic sound of his mother saying his name. There is a moment of suspense with no music, and then the music comes back in cut to a shot of him running out of his house, followed by a tracking shot of him and his friend running down the street. I think it's a very effective moment as the energy of the music matches the mood of the moment very well.  

Genre:

The genre of this video is purely narrative. It tells a story of a young man skipping school with his friend and finding out that his mother is cheating on his father. The video has a high production value, being shot well, edited well and is colour graded to make it look more like an excerpt from a movie than a music video.  

MUSIC VIDEO ANALYSIS 2

Drake - Energy

This is more a narrative and performance music video as Drake transforms into several notable celebrities including Oprah Winfrey, Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus, Rob Ford, Kanye West, and Barack Obama. In each of these iterations of different celebrities, Drake mimes along with the song. Between these clips is monochromatic footage of Drake and his entourage. At the end of the video a child version of Drake is seen in a field with other children, who act like bullies towards him. At the end of the video, the young Drake stands still in the field, while another child but with Drakes face points a toy gun at him.



Drake is acting as both the narrator and participant in the video as this helps improve the authenticity in a way that seems as if he is looking back and rapping about past experiences from his life. This is the soul and heart of the video as the editing keeps cutting back to him rapping and reminding us that this may be real. In terms of star image Drake is dancing, which is common in many of his music videos like Hotline Bling, as well as other artists videos such as Rihanna's Work and A$AP ROCKY's F**kin' Problems.



There are times in the video that illustrate Drake's lyrics. He raps the line 'I bought this one a purse, I bought this one a truck, I bought this one a house', and on each lyric the video cuts to different shots of a woman with a purse, then a shot of a car, and then to a shot of a man outside a house.



A contradiction in the video is how Drake seems to be rapping about himself and how he's 'got a lot of enemies' yet in the video he is acting as different celebrities and not his actual self. It is as if he is making fun of these other celebrities in an attempt to start a spat and therefore gain enemies.

MUSIC VIDEO ANALYSIS 1

Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds - If I Had A Gun…

Thought Beats - 'Seeing' the sound

This music video goes against the grain of voice theory created by Roland Barthes. The theory states that the singing voice is the most important thing within music itself. Therefore, within a music video the lead singer or vocalist will tend to get the most screen time in terms of editing and be the central focus of the music video itself. However, Noel features in the video only briefly in some shots. In terms of mode of address, the song can be seen as a story, and the artist (Noel Gallagher) the storyteller. The song tells the story of what these characters in the video are feeling making it a two communication device as Noel tells the story and we 'the audience' listen.

Narrative & Performance



The genre of the video is narrative. It is centred on a wedding ceremony with Noel acting as the priest. During the ceremony a cowboy on a horse arrives and dives into a swimming pool and the bride (Peyton List) follows him and they ride off into the sunset on the horse. The Video allows us to interpret our own ideas of what is being told and who is saying and thinking the lyrics of the song. Noel Gallagher is acting as both narrator & participant in the video, this helps to increase the authenticity. It allows the audience to believe that it is real. The video is entirely narrative as it has no lip syncing of the lyrics and amplifies the story of the video.

Relation of visuals to the song



In this music video there is an amplifying relationship between the lyrics and the visuals on screen. The visuals really tell the story of the the song as they complement the lyrics in terms of narrative. The video illustrates the lyrics 'Give you back a dream, and show you now what might have been' through the use of mid-shots of wedding gifts and a cake with a newly wed topper showing 'what might have been' if she goes through with the wedding. Another illustration of the lyrics is 'My eyes have always followed you around the room' as the editing cuts back and forth between the bride and cowboy as they look at each other as they begin to walk closer to one another.
The video also contradicts the same lyric as the camera pans across as the groom looks away from the bride to a bridesmaid indicating that he has been unfaithful to her and creating a contrast between the bride and groom. When the video cuts to the medium close-ups of the bridesmaids and groomsmen it illustrates the lyric 'You're the only God i'll ever need' as it suggests that all the people at the wedding are irrelevant in their life.

Technical Aspects



The relationship between the bride and groom is shown through the use over the shoulder shots conveying this sense of detachment from one another. The bride and cowboy dive into the pool to embrace one another in a two-shot. colour of the shot is blue, this colour represents trust, loyalty, and truth as this conveys the relationship between these two characters.
In terms of mise-en-scene, the setting of the video is California giving the video a western feel with the character of the cowboy and the child at the start also dressed as a cowboy. At the end of the video Noels character pulls up in a pickup truck outside a diner in the American desert these are conventions of a road movie.
At 3:27 are the two women and the "Soulsucker" video camera from the "AKA... What a Life!" music video that will be recurring motif's throughout as this video appears to be part of a three video story start with "If I Had a Gun" then "The Death of You and Me" and ending with "AKA... What a Life!" as all the videos begin where the other one finished.

Music Video Planning

I have decided to create a music video to Purple Tuesday by Rejjie Snow. Is I hope to shoot in forests and out on adventures, I think the chilled vibe will contast well against upbeat visuals but in a peaceful setting.

Example of a Music Video I Have Already Made

For AS Media, I was given the task of creating a music video. I am posting this on my HNC Blog to show my skills in editing, camera and lighting, and syncing footage to music. I will use this as inspiration for my upcoming music video task and will apply some of the same skills I used.