Production Diary 4 - music video conventions and history, work I admire and music labels research

Over the summer holidays I managed to get some more of the research tasks done.

Firstly, as an extra research task I finished off the reverse storyboard of an existing music video which we started in the lesson. We used a program called Celtx which allowed us to make storyboards. To create the storyboard I print screened the music video and briefly wrote about what was significant in it. Through this task I managed to find what types of transitions I could use for my lyric video.

Another task which I did was the conventions of a music video. For this task I used PowerPoint to complete it. I divided the conventions into sections such as camera, sound, structure, mise-en-scene, editing and so on. Although my music video is going to be a lyric video and will be different but some of these conventions still apply I think. For example, the mise-en-scene is important to show the emotion of the song so this would not matter whether it is a lyric video or narrative video whereas the camera shots may not apply for my lyric video but would be necessary for a narrative video.

I also found examples of lyric videos which I admire. I chose Jason Mraz’s “I Won’t Give Up” and Katy Perry’s “Birthday”. These videos really caught my eye as they were done to a high standard. I really admire the mise-en-scene of these videos as it was thought out carefully which inspires me to also do the same for mine. I wrote briefly about music video and described some of the techniques used. I then explained what I liked about it.

Finally I did the history of music videos task. For this task I decided to use Prezi to present it. I gathered a lot of information from the internet to create the sort of history timeline of music videos. I found out about some of the earliest types of music videos. To accompany the factual information I found I put in some relevant images/videos.

This week I managed to complete the music label research task. For this task I used PowerPoint to present my work. I researched 4 music labels, these were Warner Music Group, EMI, Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment. For each of these music labels I mentioned the key facts such as when it was founded, the labels under the company, some of the artists under the company as well as some points about the history of the company. To accompany the text I included some images of the company logo, logos of the labels and images of the artists.

Next week I plan to get started on another research task which will be researching directors or theory.