A.M: Response To Our Track

What is the genre of the track?

The genre is electronic dance. Electronic dance music is typically composed using computers and synthesizers, and rarely has any physical instruments. Instead, this is replaced by digital or electronic sounds, with a 4/4 beat. Dance music is music composed specifically to accompany some type of dancing.  In 1981, a new form of dance music was starting to develop.  This was electronic dance music, it is currently a very popular style of music which is commonly played in nightclubs, radio stations, shows and raves. Now there are many sub-genres of electronic dance music which have evolved. Such as : Ambient, electronic rock, house music and techno.

 Do you think this track represents a high or lo fi video?

Snakehips is a London duo , comprised of Oliver Lee and James Carter, who are both only 24-years-old. They release their music on their own independent record label, Hoffman West.  When they formed in 2012 they were topping the Hype Machine chart with their remixes for Banks, weeknd, Bondax and Wild Belle, notching up millioins of plays on Soundcloud(https://soundcloud.com/snakehips-1)  
and You Tube (https://www.youtube.com/user/SNAKEHIPSUK)

However due to the low status of record label and the fact the artist Snakehips has only been around since 2012 suggests that in terms of institutional context the music video would be a Lo-Fi and independent production. Lo-fi is an aesthetic in music production which uses low fidelity recording practices. Its use is usually due to the artist’s financial limitations. This suggests that a low budget would be used for the music video production.This means that instead of having a huge production team with multiple high quality cameras, their would be a smaller team of individuals with a HD camera. Also instead of using sets they would use real life locations and instead of using special effects in post production they would use pre filmic effects.

Also independent companies when marketing music videos they would distribute and exhibit their tracks and videos through the evolution of technology and the internet. As this way they can easily reach their target audience by launching a viral marketing campaign. 

What videos would be comparable?

I have chosen two other videos which i believe have Lo-fi videos, and also come under the genre electronic dance music. I would predict that these music videos also had low budgets and this means that we can easily imitate some of the techniques they have used. 

Wekeed- Wild Child:

At the start of Wild Child the shots cut on the exact beat of the music this looks very effective and we could easily imitate this when editing our video.

A lot of CU shots are used in the video of each of the characters cutting between them, this looks very effective. For majority of CU shots they have adhered to the rule of thirds.

In this video a wide range of camera angles were used which made it visually very interesting and exciting. I particularly liked this high angle shot of a girls foot and I thought this would be an interesting angle to film dance movements at for our music video.

Through out the video high key lighting is used. This makes the video feel more lively and interesting. Also the props and costumes have quite vibrant colours making the visuals pop even more.

At this particular part of the video i think the angle looks very effective but also they used jump cuts and sped up some of the footage. It was also cut to the beat of the music. It looked very professional and the relationship between the music and the visuals becomes very apparent.

At one part in the video there would be flashes of a black screen on the beat of the music. This looked very effective and highlighted the strong beat in the song which is very essential in dance music.

When the children began to dance the movement of the camera increased significantly. Also the camera would tilt and turn which made the video very unique and artistic.

I love the use of shallow depth of field when shooting this. I also think that the vignette effect looks very good.

I love the obscurity of the angles used when this boy is dancing. It makes his movements more interesting and enjoyable to watch.

I like how the angle of the camera is underneath the characters its a very interesting shot and one i think we could emulate in our video.

Clean Bandit- Extraordinary:

What really stood out for me in Clean Bandits video was the initial establishing shots. They were beautifully shot utilising the natural location they had chosen. This has made me realise the importance of the establishing shots.

When filming the singer miming they adhered to the rule of thirds.

I thought it was clever how the band members were clapping in time with the drum beat of the music. This made the relationship between the music and the visuals very clear.

I liked the use of dancers in there video. I think using multiple dancers in unison together makes the shot more interesting. I also particularly like the low angle shot of there legs dancing in time.

Finally I liked how the video used multiple locations, this gave the audience more insight into the characters and also the culture of where they were shooting.  

Give an outline of a treatment

We would like the relationship between the lyrics and the visuals to be amplified. Also we want the relationship between the music and visuals to be amplified.

Characters:
There would be a main male character, the lyrics of the song will relate to him . 
Also we would have some female dancers. These characters would contrast in attitude and mood to the main male character. Showing that he isn't good enough.

Performance?Narrative?Concept?
At the moment we want to use some performance aspects such as the main male character miming and the females dancing to the beat of the music. Also we would like to have a concept to do with the lyric 'Gold is not enough' We may relate this to the main character and his frustration with himself.

Props:
We want to incorporate props such as smoke bombs, flares, confetti and sparklers. 

Editing:
We would like to do a lot of post production editing such as animations on After Affects.

Costume:
We want the characters to be in quite casual clothing with an urban theme.

 

Identify suitable locations for filming particular sequences of the music

Warehouse - We could use this location to film the female dancers. This way there would be a lot of space to maneuver the camera and get some interesting angles.

Bedroom-The main male character could be in his bedroom at the start of the sequence, this would be a good way to establish the character and learn more about him to create his character exposition.

Rooftop-We thought the rooftop would be appropriate to show how the main male character feels lost and empty. Also the rooftop would provide some very nice camera shots.

Town- This would be an interesting location as we could many shots of the public walking. This could highlight the contrast between the main character and everyone else. It could show how he feels isolated even in a public place.

Alley- This could make our video have an urban edge if we found an alley with graffiti.

Consider grain of voice.  What characters would you use?

We would use a main male character who would suit the grain of voice of the singer. They would need to be a male aged from 17-25. This means that when they lip sync in the video it will look realistic and believable. We would use female dancers. This could highlight how youths can become obsessed with the opposite gender and feel that they are not good enough for them. 

What pro-filmic and post-production special affects would be suitable?

After looking into dance music videos it has become apparent that usually they are heavily edited and include special affects. So, we would like to do quite a lot of post production and special affects to conform to the genre characteristics. 

-We are considering using a green screen and then edit lyrics to appear onto the background. We want the main character to mime or dance in front of the green screen so we can change the background colour.

We want to use slo-motion on the shots of the girl dancing. Also we want to use time stretch to make the main character walk down the street at a slower pace than everyone else.

We may also include some reverse shots of the females dancing. 

We want to include some animations. These will be drawings of stop animations that will appear over the top of some clips. Disclosure have used some animations which we could imitate:

We want to edit some clips together so that it appears as if the location behind the main singer changes as he stays in the same place on screen.

We may also edit the video so there are multiple screens. As well we want to create split screens.

We want to use a different colour grading in different parts of the video. We will want some clips to be intense and saturated to create bold colours and contrast them with black and white clips.

We may also include some clips with overlayed coloured lighting.

Who else would you need to 'employ' to help you with this production?

We would film, edit and direct the video ourselves. We would provide any props, costume and make up needed. Also we would arrange the locations we would film at. We would only ned to employ some dancers and an actor to play the characters in our videos .