How to/ Green Screen Test

Music Video - A History

1940's and 50's - Welcome to Top of the Pops! This is when music video's started taking over the television, with the UK glued to Top of the Pops, the US stuck to American Bandstand, and Europe fixated on Beat Club.

This was the era when 'Rock Around The Clock' was massive.

The 1960's was when music video business started to get serious. No longer was it smart suits, no, it was the hippy era, hello long hair! This era was when music video finally started to get choreographed dance moves, lip synching and shots from all angles of the artists. Music producers and record companies also started paying their clients to create a 'short film' to go with their song if they were unable to perform their new single live. Have a look at The Beatles - 'Strawberry Fields Forever'.

Other iconic music videos such as Blondie's 'Eat to the Beat' in 1979, which shows that she doesn't take herself too seriously and Duran Duran's video for Rio (1984) that contains humour as they lead their own 'popstar' lives, mucking around on boats and with women, have shaped music video to the present day, making it acceptable for them to be funny and even silly at times. Artists such as Jon Bon Jovi and Steven Tyler also showed a fluffier side to 80's rock.

However in the 1990's, budgets increased, and so did the size of the music video production, for example Meatloaf's videos 'I Would Do Anything For Love' (1993) was trying to hard to be compared to something of a Hollywood film that the charm that most low budget productions had isn't seen at all in this video.

However, when the mid 90's came around, everything had a massive turn-around, music videos became very abstract and simple. Some videos being filmed and captured in less than 5 hours.

The magazine and music channel 'Smash Hits' came around in the 90's, with all the gossip about what's hot and what's not in the music business. This is what I personally think made artists think that their appearance was just as important as their music.

Nowadays however, directors normally just have their own theme, creating something which is known as an 'Auteers Medium'. Things are much more experimental nowadays, some music videos being very simple, such as Rockstar, by Nickleback, and some being extortionately overpriced.

An Auteurs Past...

Have you ever wondered who comes up with the ideas of a music video? As some music videos are extremely high budget, very well edited... maybe if we look into one of the directors we may learn something...

John Urbano was raised in Indiana, and took a position with Abercrombie & Fitch, where he was a senior art director for over twelve years, after he graduated from the Columbus College of Art.

Whilst he was working with A&F, he imagined and created 200 internet films for them.

Not only has he shot for Abercrombie & Fitch, he has also filmed and photgraphed for;

• Converse
• Hollister Co.
• One Direction 
• Sony UK
• Simon Cowell, and many more...

John has been all over the world producing his work.

John also produced a documentary called 'Beauty of the Fight' whilst he was in Barazza. Barazza is being torn down, house by house, to make room for sky-scrapers that are meant to tower up to 50 stories high. Urbano felt that he had to capture the beauty of this community before it was too late. He was awarded best documentary at the Athens International Film + Video Festival and Best Cinematography at the Docufest Atlanta.

If you look throughout his work, you can see the similarities between his cinematography - they seem to be very 'preppy' and orange county, 'calafornian-afied'. 

Below is his music video that he directed for X Factor finalists 'One Direction';

And here are some links to videos of his that have various similarities; 

Converse Advert - John Urbano

Gilly Hicks - Taylor - John Urbano

Abercrombie and Fitch - John Urbano

The Indi/Rock Genre....

The Indi/Rock Genre is somewhat more experimental, with more artistic digipaks, and more individual videos, for example, Blink 182's music video for 'All The Small Things' is a parody of the conventional stereotypes, such as the very camp pop boy band appearence. Humour seems to be greatly tied into Indi and Rock, and appearence isn't so much of a big deal compared to pop.

Most Indi and Rock digipack's also relate to how they advertise themselves.




Posters play a large part in this advertising process. It is often the same as their album art work, and may contain the date when the album is out, and ratings from magazines such as 'Kerrang'. You often see these in shop windows, people giving them out in the streets, and in certain arenas that hold people that would be interested in this genre. This simple advertising contrasts against the expensive way other genres may advertise their new album, or even their new single, by putting it on billboards, advertising it on the television, landing themselves interviews that can cover up to 6 spreads in a magazine and even the cover shot. As different genre's attract a different audience, and this is how the different genres have responded to their audiences reactions to the way they advertise.

The Pop Genre...

The Pop genre is often the most 'self selling' of genres. In my opinion it is not only about the artists talent, but also of appearence. For example, Britney Spears in her music videos often has a dance routine, as does likes of   the Pussy Cat dolls, The Saturdays and Girls Aloud. They are always done up, their hair pristine, make-up perfect, and clothing that shows off their size 6 figures. Their music is also not famous for the power ballads so much, but for the catchy-ness, which has been specially chosen mainly by their music producers as they know what grabs the audiences attention. Such as 'Womanizer' by Britney Spears and 'When I Grow Up' by The Pussy Cat Dolls.

Our Lip Sync Practice Videos

This was the first lip sync attempt I did for my media course. We came back for a couple of weeks after I completed my AS level, so we could get introduced to what our syllabus for the next year was going to be like. This was quite a fun task to do as it wasn't anything ridiculously serious. We managed to do the tracking shot down the hall way by placing the camera, which was attached to the tripod, onto a wheely chair, creating our own dolly in a way! The end shot we thought was very effective, our inspiration was Peter Kay! 

As you can see, the editing wasn't perfect, the lip sync slips every now and again, but we managed to learn a dance routine and capture footage in a relatively short space of time - which we were quite proud of for our first attempt!  The main thing that i love about this video is that you can tell we are having fun, and sometimes you just can't take each other too seriously.

Back to A levels! Different Year, Different Group, Different Hair!...

The final result of this video i thought was very good for a simple practice video as the editing was quickly cut and we managed to match the lip sync up perfectly (well, almost perfectly at least!)

  We didn't have many problems during the filming, there was of course a couple of outtakes but we managed to manage our time really well and got to the point efficiently, which enabled us to film, capture and edit, all in the space of 3 hours.

Because it was such an upbeat song and every kid from the 90's had to of known it (apart from Troy Hannam) it was easy for us to have a good time, without being too serious, and we got into it very quickly. The idea of doing it on the wheeley chairs wasn't planned but we are glad we decided to used them as it enabled us to spin and move around more interestingly than if we were standing and moving on foot, i believe it made our video look individual compared to others.
I think in our actual music video we will probably take things more seriously, but I like the idea of having an upbeat video, as if someone ends up revealing a cheeky smile, then it isn't a big deal.

Textual Analysis Of The Music Video 'Black or White' by Michael Jackson.

'Black Or White' is a single from Micahel Jackson's eight studio album 'Dangerous'. It begins with Macaulay Culkin (Home Alone), a 10 year old boy dancing and jumping on his bed with his father on the floor below. Culkin's father becomes agitated at his son's racket and goes up to tell him to turn it down, on his father's exit of the room when he slams the door, a picture of Michael Jackson (the first sign in the music video to Michael Jackson) that Macaulay had framed, falls to the floor and shatters. In rebellion to this, the 10 year old brings down his electric guitar and turns his amps up to the volume level 'Are you NUTS?!'. Thus making the house tremble and shatter, sending his father, and the chair that he was sitting on, flying through the roof and half way across the world. Where the father lands (Africa) is where the song begins, and finally begins to tie in with the title and meaning of the song's lyrics. This is where we first see Michael Jackson, who dances among various cultures, with the dance routine confirming that it is of a pop genre, and the various cultures finally tying into the title of the song (after 2 minutes). Jackson mirrors the various cultures different traditional dancing, such as West African, Thai, Red Indians, an Indian Bollywood dancer and a group of Russians. Every time these various cultures are introduced the backdrop changes to show them in various environments, however some of the cultures do not seem suited to their allocated backdrops.
Culkin is re-introduced standing amongst other children of similar age, dressed as 'gangsters'. Michael Jackson is there also. Culkin and the other kids present a rap which includes the sentence "I'm not gonna spend my life being a colour."
The rap finishes and then cuts away to Michael Jackson singing at the top of The Statue of Liberty. The camera then zooms slowly out, with Jackson remaining centered. Michael's backdrop shows landmarks from many different cultures and cities from around the world. This shot then swiftly cuts away to a close up of a 'hefty' looking Asian, who then morphs into the famous supermodel Tyra Banks who is slim and of mixed-race, these close-ups constantly morph of people of all races, shapes and sizes, promoting the songs lyrics, showing that even though everyone may look different, but we were all people and that 'it doesn't matter if you're black or white'.
The record company is obviously trying to portray that Michael Jackson is acceptable of everyone which gives him a positive appeal to the audience. There are many scenes within this music video, however there are not many cutaways within the video taking into consideration how many different locations there are, instead we see the change of scenery in front of the camera, often brought to the audience through a panning shot. For Example, when Michael Jackson moves from the West African tribe to the Thai women.

...What Do They Mean?

Each of these artists are solo pop singers. The similarities of all these digipaks is of how focused each of the covers are on the artists, which gives the impression that their record companies may believe that selling their clients isn't only based on their talent but also based on their appearance, as they are all flawless and not particularly revealing any personality in their cover art, whereas more indie of artists go for more artistic and individual looks. 'Britney Spears' for example has a lot less talent than artists such as 'Stevie Wonder', whereas because of her flawless look, controversial lifestyle and typical pop image has gained her more success and fans who praise her for not only her talent but also on the way she is presented.









Stevie Wonder is a a famous soul singer jazz artist who's vibrant digipak's reflect his colourful voice. This album's text, layout and colour is a clear representative of the time of the 1960's. Often, nowadays, you do not see many jazz artists with such a vast amount of colour, and the swirls that are surrounding Wonder in this picture also represents the crazy and wild era of the 60's!. The contrast of colours with the text is also quite dated. Overall this is quite a 'groovy' album cover, which gives the audience a clear idea of the decade that this album was aimed at. The colours and the fact that Wonder is also smiling on the digipak shows the album may be quite up beats - feel good summer tunes!

What is a Digipak?

A Digipak is what you often find artist's CD's for their single/album within. A lot of work normally goes into digipaks. For example;

The Front;

• Should be bold - so the album catches your eye as soon as you walk into a store.
• Should promote what the artist is about; are they of the pop genre, rock, indi?

The Back;

• Normally shows what os on the CD itself, almost like an index. As well as possibly more images of the artist, relating similarly to the front cover.

Inside;

•     With in the album's casing there is normally a booklet that is promoting the artist further.
• Often there are more images from the same shoot that the front cover's artwork is from, sometimes lyrics, a small autobiography, who wrote and produced each song, and even images of more of the artists other albums.