Cinematography

Cinematography - Cinematography is the art of capturing images during the creation of films. A cinematographer would be in charge of all lighting and camera aspects, organising settings of the lighting and the angles of the shots. A cinematographer needs a keen eye for shots that are visually appealing and hold further meaning rather than just for looks, although appearance is slightly more important. The different shot types that they would use would often tell its own story, for instance, a dolly shot is usually to set the scene or follow an actor, as seen in almost any film imaginable, a
specific example:


Within this scene it is clear that the dolly shot is used to show some sort of transition, or it could be the marking of someone else walking through the door. Another shot type is a tilt shot, this is where the cameraman experiments with panning vertically rather than horizontally, as seen in the image below.

Rule of Thirds -

Rule of Thirds is where there is a 3 x 3 grid over an image. This has 9 equal squares which help to place the certain aspects of the image. For example, in a scene where two characters are speaking, they don't necessarily have to be in the same take as each other. What the film maker would do is film the characters at different times, but have on on the far side of the left grid, and the other on the far side of the right grid. On the right is a landscape shot of a tree. The grid shows how the camera has taken the image and made the tree and the other main parts of the image fit into the 9 squares. The significance of using the Rule of Thirds is really shown when it comes to close ups of someones face. When taking a close up shot of a face, people use the rule of thirds to make sure that the face is proportionate to the shot, and that certain facial features are in the right part of the grid. For example, someones nose would normally be within the centre of the grid, and if that is the case then the shot is most likely centre.

180 degree rule -

The 180 Degree Rule is a basic filmmaker guideline on the on-screen positioning of the characters in the scene. There is an imaginary line, called the axis, this is where the actors would stand. By doing this, no matter where the camera is on that arc, the first character will always be frame right of the second character. This is important for the film maker because they can then portray different sides of a story in the same scene. An example of this is Peter Jacksons Lord of the Rings films, where Gollum has a conversation with himself. The use of the 180 degree rule in this scene helps the director show Gollums different characteristics, so when he is playing the good Gollum he faces left, and when he is the bad gollum he faces right.

Top 3 NME Music Videos

Muse - Knights of Cydonia

Knights of Cydonia was filmed over a period of 5 days. 3 spent in Romania, 1 day in London and 1 in Red Rock California. It was edited to be a spaghetti western with post apocalyptic influences. This particular song is a rock genre, so when looking at conventions normally affiliated with rock music it is unusual to see that the Knights of Cydonia music video is very unconventional. Within a rock video you would usually expect to see the band on a darkened stage playing their song and 'rocking out' but in this song, it is set more like a film and after doing some research on the song it actually required a huge budget. The setting of this varies from the wild west to a futuristic bar. Having very strange themes going on throughout, the meaning that Muse tried to convey through the music video is, "To teach people to stand up for themselves and make their own destiny"

A particular thing that is interesting with this music video is how the song actually resembles the music video. For example, Matt Bellamy wanted to create a vision with the song, the baseline has a galloping rhythm, resembling somebody riding a horse, and when the song is paired with the video there is a person riding a horse when the baseline is playing.


























Outkast - Hey Ya

Hey Ya was released in 2003, placing it firmly in
the golden ages of music video production. This fit the conventions of bright colours and flamboyant costume, and also story telling themes. The music video begins with a narrative, setting the scene, this shows how the music video fits the conventions of the time period it was made in. The music video was directed by Bryan Barber and he said it was heavily influenced and to an extent based on The Beatles' landmark appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. This meant that the Mise en Scene used within the music video was heavily influenced by the sixties, the props within the music video are designed like they would be in that period, for example the microphone Andre 3000 sings into is an 'old fashioned' design, also the guitar is a typical sixties shape and model. The reason this music video qualifies as one of my top 3 music videos is probably because of the entertainment value of it. As a whole, it is a very simple music video, just having the band on stage singing with a bit of extra performance on top, but what makes it one of the best is the way each member of the band is the same person and is on the screen at the same time. It is a very clever twist to add onto a simple idea and it really makes it better. There is no specific meaning conveyed through the video, which backs up the fact that it was made purely to entertain.







Pendulum - Salt in the Wounds

Salt in the Wounds was released in 2010, being one of the more recent successful music videos. The genre of music is dub step, therefore the conventions of the music video are to be very abstract and visual, in this case, the video follows that convention. Almost all of the music video is based on insects such as centipedes, cockroaches and spiders. There is no storyline as such, it only appears as though there are these robotic arms growing off of the insects. In terms of technicality there is a theme of red throughout, the background is red and even the insects seem to have a red filter over the top to make them look slightly red. Another theme the music video portrays is electricity, on multiple occasions the background turns into something that resembles a huge circuit board. This is significant because it actually matches the genre of music of dub step, which is a heavily electronic orientated genre. The
music video itself is actually more disturbing rather than entertaining, watching it makes the audience cringe, which was the intention of it which is surprising and very original.

In Depth Artist Case Study

MUSE

Muse are an English rock based band originating from Devon. There styles consist of a mix of genres such as, space rock, alternative rock, progressive rock, alternative rock, hard rock, symphonic rock and electronica.

Muse's music videos are generally a mixture of conceptual  and the three band members singing and playing the song. It shows them in differing locations, not having any link to the song being played. Also the concepts they use do not generally match the music that is being played, but just act to look cool and make the music video more enjoyable and interesting. An example of this is the song 'Supremacy' during this video the group are seen performing a garage setting and amphitheatre. Along side this there are surfers with their faces painted like skulls which gives a surreal theme, which seems to be a recurring theme throughout their music videos.

Despite this, Muse do have a number of music videos where there is more of a concept rather than just them performing, but the video still doesn't really match with the song. For example, 'Knights of Cydonia' is set in the Wild West, but the song itself doesn't actually match a western theme. The video was actually published by Warner Brothers Records, which instantly makes people think of the film studio, therefore it reinforces the contextual theme behind the video.

Muse often do music for film productions, taking advantage of synergy to increase advertisement and therefore revenue. For example, Muse's newer album, 'The 2nd Law' features a song ("Isolated System") which is shown in the film World War Z. The song itself is much different from their previous genres of music. This shows that Muse are flexible with what they produce, and can be used when making a soundtrack for films and have been many times. Another example of a film they have produced a soundtrack for is Twilight, seen in the scene where they play baseball. The song fits the fast paced setting and compliments that particular bit of the film.

The word Muse actually derives from ancient mythology and has different meanings depending on the word class it is used as. As a verb 'to muse' is to consider something thoughtfully and as a noun it means a person who is a source of artistic inspiration. It is clear that Muse the band had looked at the original meaning deeply and felt that they want the image of that word to be conveyed through their music. When looking at their music videos as a whole it seems like the band took into consideration the definition of their name, almost all of their music videos are very artistic and abstract, being very professionally created and often very original. As a result of this, their music videos always almost come across as if they have been 'considered thoughtfully' and they also give of a huge level of 'artistic inspiration' both of these being the definition of their band name. This means that the choice of their band name has actually impacted on the context of their videos and music. A specific example of this is Supremacy, this music video is very artistic in terms of shot types, locations and character design.

Single-Shot Camera Analysis Ben Davis

The Midnight Beast in general use single camera techniques in all of their videos, they use their videos to portray their lyrics in a comedic way. They are a popular boy band that specializes in comedy music that is used for entertainment for those who enjoy parodies and funny lyrics. The Midnight Beast also have their own television channel which is a comedy and it incorporates their music videos while telling a story.

The Midnight Beast - Die Young (Ke$ha Parody)

The Midnight Beast - Wands

This is The Flight Of The Concords, they had a popular sit-com television show from New Zealand that uses only single camera techniques to tell complex narratives. The use of single camera techniques is to make it feel as though it is from the viewers point of view, which offers a much more immersive approach to the show. When the two lead roles are walking around the camera often follows close behind or looks at them from in front of them. The Flight of The Concords also use music videos in their sit-com show, in these videos they camera techniques are predominantly single-shot. Meaning everything flows from set to another. It means there are lots of pans, zooms and movements around the setting of their music video.

Techniques/Draft Video

Techniques - Camera:

We used several different shot types to convey different emotions, the primary one being love. In order to portray these we used close ups of the actors faces, this highlighted the emotions of love they are feeling. A particular bit where the close up worked well is where the actors are close together almost kissing, this really shows the love captured between the two. We didn't use close ups only for the love emotions, we also managed to use it to display one of the actors sadness of his loss, this worked particularly well when he was hugging the tree, singing.

We also used mid shots to give a wider range to the video and also emphasise some of the upper body movements. We also found it appropriate to portray some of the scenes with the female character using a mid shot, this way we got the whole upper body of her and you could really see the emotion that was being conveyed.

We used long shots to portray a better view of the environment, as well as the two characters and their position on screen. We used long shots to set the scene and provide a good clear representation of where this video was set. We used a long shot in the scene where the two characters hugged, we felt that getting their entire bodies in the shot really extended the emotion that was given off from watching the music video, the fact that the duration of this shot was quite long really added to the intensity of the emotion and this was reinforced well with the long shot.


In terms of editing we focused on giving it a slow paced feeling, to do this we didn't cut the shots too short, so they generally went on for a long time, this really emphasised some of the shots and their emotional levels we were planning on portraying. The sound wasn't edited at all, only cut down at the end to the correct finish, this was due to the fact that we only did a brief snippet of the music video. When exporting the video we gave it a sepia filter, which makes the entire video a reddish-brown tone. We did this because we wanted to keep the music video as similar as possible to the original, and the colour scheme in the original was yellows and browns, this is due to the fact that it was set in the desert.

180 Degree Rule and Rule of Thirds Analysis

The 180 Degree Rule is a basic filmmaker guideline on the on-screen positioning of the characters in the scene. There is an imaginary line, called the axis, this is where the actors would stand. By doing this, no matter where the camera is on that arc, the first character will always be frame right of the second character. This is important for the film maker because they can then portray different sides of a story in the same scene. An example of this is Peter Jacksons Lord of the Rings films, where Gollum has a conversation with himself. The use of the 180 degree rule in this scene helps the director show Gollums different characteristics, so when he is playing the good Gollum he faces left, and when he is the bad gollum he faces right.

Rule of Thirds is where there is a 3 x 3 grid over an image. This has 9 equal squares which help to place the certain aspects of the image. For example, in a scene where two characters are speaking, they don't necessarily have to be in the same take as each other. What the film maker would do is film the characters at different times, but have on on the far side of the left grid, and the other on the far side of the right grid. On the right is a landscape shot of a tree. The grid shows how the camera has taken the image and made the tree and the other main parts of the image fit into the 9 squares. The significance of using the Rule of Thirds is really shown when it comes to close ups of someones face. When taking a close up shot of a face, people use the rule of thirds to make sure that the face is proportionate to the shot, and that certain facial features are in the right part of the grid. For example, someones nose would normally be within the centre of the grid, and if that is the case then the shot is most likely centre.