Henry Smith - Music Video Evaluation

Question One:

As you can see we decided to include live performances into our video, as it can be seen numerous times throughout the folk rock genre. The video we found most influential was the original video to Holes from Passenger, as he also had live performance shots that seemed to not only fit with the genre but to also match the lyrical content. Despite not being able to gather a large crowd like Passenger we framed it well to make it look like there's an audience present, this can be seen a lot through our video. Folk Rock is a very Acoustic based genre, which is why we decided to include the guitar within our video. The guitar also benefits towards the performance shots as it makes it seem more authentic.

                                                                   

Narrative wise we decided to use the 'Rags to Riches' theme, which we thought suited well within the Folk Rock genre due to its acoustic quality, which is usually affiliated with busking. Trying to tell a story and providing performance shots meant we had to combine the two together, Hence the Rags to Riches and busking combination. To show the narrative mise-en-scen played a large part, as we had the performer dress in typical homeless clothing such as a large dull coat, fingerless gloves and a beanie. This was helped with the first shot being located in a dirty, dark alley where the character emerged from between two bins. This also creates a juxtaposition with the final sequence therefore making the overall effect of the narrative much stronger. With the final sequence you can see that we tried to make a contrast with the rest of the video, to do this we had the character dressed in a
clean white shirt that represents the idea of happiness and proudness. Going from dark to light clothing creates this feeling of improvement
and development within the narrative.

Colour correction played a large part in presenting our narrative and also linking it with other folk rock music videos. We found that in other videos within the same genre had this warm, bright colour scheme that emphasised lyrical content and fitted in with the music style. For example in Passenger's video the colour scheme is very bright and colourful which helps to create positive emotions that fit it in with the songs content. This influenced us to use a similar colour scheme where we emphasised the yellow and reds, as this helped to portray the warm joyful feelings we aimed to show.
 You can see the difference in colour when you compare the rough cut with the final video. For me it fits it in with Folk Rock music video conventions, therefore making the video more relatable for fans of the genre.

A convention that's not only found within folk rock videos but in almost every music video, is close ups on instruments. This is a key quality within music videos as it keeps the flow of the video and makes the performance shots seem more authentic. Even though our performer didn't know how to play guitar we managed to frame it in some parts to make it seem like he was playing to the music. Although we did get a lot of comments stating how some of the strumming was out of sync, it was hard to fix this without effecting the quality of the lip-syncing so we just showed less of the close up shots. When you watch a video that includes closeups you get a verity of shots that can make the video more watchable as you're not just watching the performer singing, this was key to making our video more durable and professional.
           


With our magazine advert we decided to use the same image as the digipak front cover, as this helps the audience see the similarity between the two products, therefore adding to our brand image. The text is also the same in both of our products as for the same reason it adds to our brand image and reflects the music style. The name of the star is the largest writing on the magazine advert as this gives a clear sign of who it is and to an extent the type of genre. This method is used numerous times throughout the music industry as for the same reason it provides a clear sign of who the artist is.
We also added the logos of well known music companies as this is a modern convention for magazine adverts that have only recently come into play.



The digipak was made in a way to reflect our artists brand image and relate to the music video through colour scheme and photo location. In our eyes the locations we chose reflected the music genre well and fitted in with the typical conventions usually found within CD covers. All artists use this method of making the CD cover reflect their image, as it sells the artist and creates the link between them and their product. This relates to one of Goodwin's points of selling your artist. In typical folk rock conventions you will rarely see the artist being exploited with their body as they usually represent fashion and style. Due to this convention we had pictures of the artist in clothing and representing fashion.

Question Two:

Question Three :

Question Four: