Other Student Music Videos

For this task I will be analysing the student music video to the song Faded by Alan walker. I have selected this video to analyse as it has been produced to near professional level quality and it has a very creative and enjoyable story line to it. I want to analyse a student music video to gain understanding of what can be made without high production values and a big budget with a crew.

Mise en scene

The Mise en scene in this music video has been very well thought out and this is visible in many ways. In terms of lighting it stands out to me the most as part of the mise considered as it has clearly been used for effect. It is consistently quite dark connoting this sad story to the piece. As the music video shows this sense of emotion, this lighting makes it seem to the audience that the character is sad and missing the person that he used to make these memories with who we see in the flashbacks. The effect shows that the Mise en scene was well thought out. The only part of that I believe hasn’t been well thought out is the use of props. You don't see a lot involved which I think makes the music video look slightly less professional. The only props we really see in this music video is the rock that he skims into the lake near the middle of the piece and the lined paper with the words 'I'm faded' written on at the beginning. If more props had been used, for example old photographs and other things that remind him of his memories, I think that it would have left the audience wondering more about the final outcome of the storyline and would have kept them on edge more about the ending. I also think it would have made the storyline more clear because at first it was hard to tell what was happening. If I were to shoot a music video of this style I think that more props would be helpful to tell the story to make it more clear and make the narrative more emotional for the viewer. If a bigger build-up is made, the climax of the video will seem greater to the audience making them more intrigued.

 

Camera

Within this music video a wide range of shots have been used to give different perspectives which make the music video more interesting. The most common shot in this music video is long/establishing shots, as they reveal lots of scenery and the open space around him, connoting how alone he feels in such a big world. The students who made this music video have clearly taken into consideration that presenting loneliness is key towards the narrative and it needs to be shown strongly inorder for the audience to understand whats happening. These sort of shots have been chosen to show the location the character is in and emphasise how isolated he feels. They would also leave the audience feeling down for the character impacting their feelings and drawing them into the music video. Yet this overall leads the viewer to enjoy the video more as they are interested in whats happeneing. Although lots of wide shots were used for effect, there were few close-up shots used. I think that if more were used it would have been a lot more effective towards showing the emotion from the character. This is because the close-up shots show the facial expressions and therefor the feelings of the character. These could include shots of crying or shots of other emotions in order to convince the audience of the upset and distress of the character. Also in terms of close ups, adding more may have made the music video more intreguing because the audience will get to view the story from seeing perspectives that aren't normally visible from the human eye. If I were to do a music video similar to this, I would make sure that I used a wide variety of shots and carefully think through which shots I would use and where I would use them to draw in the audience and make the music video more interesting.

Editing

Many different editing techniques have been used throughout this music video in order to create an effect on the viewer and I think the editing involved plays an important role in telling the story. An editing technique that stood out to me the most was the colour grading. This is shown during flashbacks of the main character with a girl representing the memories he has with her and time when she was still alive . By changing the colour of the shot this helps to make the flashbacks clear to the audience helping them to understand the narrative by seeing what shots are representing the present and what shots are representing the past. The scenes from the past have been graded as much brighter than the ones of the present day. This would have been done to connote that times were happier and brighter when the female character was alive and now that she’s gone, due to the darker colour grading, it makes the music video seem like life is really dull and it emphasises how upsetting and sad the situation is. Another editing technique that has been used is the use of editing to the beat of the music. One reason this may have been used is in order to engage with the audience more and to make the narrative as clear as possible. I noticed that the shots were cut to the beat of the song making the music video more enjoyable for the audience and also more professional. Leading to a more professional looking video makes it look of high quality and realistic, intriguing the audience. One thing that I believe would have made the editing look slightly more professional was if the shots had been stabilised a bit more using a program such as after effects. The shaky footage can be quite distracting at times and makes it look unperfected. When I do my music video I will consider using equipment in pre-production like a tripod to reduce the chances of filming shaky footage. However if I do end up with this problem,  I will make sure that I use post production to stabilise my footage, leading to more professional music video. One other point is at the beginning lyrics came up on the screen which I quite liked even though it made the music video look a bit like a lyric video. However I thought it was strange that they didn't carry this on at all throughout the rest of the music video which makes it look like they forgot this idea and left it unfinished.

 

Narrative/performance

Narrative and performance are large parts of the production of a music video. They can change the way the audience sees the video and also decide how good a music video becomes. In this music video, the director has very carefully considered what to do for a story line and has done it in a way that leads to the most viewer enjoyment. One thing that this music video does that I believe works really well is the way they have built up the narrative creating suspense up to the end where the reasoning is finally revealed. In other words, you don’t find out the reason why the main character is sad until the end, in which this is because we find out his girlfriend died. This technique builds suspense with the audience and keeps their focus on the screen until the end because they really want to find out what happened to make him feel this way. I really like how this reveal of the narrative was shown as they used their flashback idea by slightly recreating the memory they had of him tying up her shoes to him kneeling at her grave. One thing that I felt could be improved was the fact that even in the parts where she was still alive, it didn’t show off the fact that they were really in love with each other. If they had shown more of a connection and better memories between them to show how happy he was before, I feel that it would have left a bigger effect on the audience as the contrast between the two would have been emphasised more. If I did a similar video I think that I would increase the contrast between happy and sad, and emphasise the connection between the characters in order to reveal more to the audience why the pain of her death is so tragic and upsetting for the male character.

Overall I think that this music video has been produced to a very high standard and that there are a lot of aspects to this music video that are at a professional level. Within their music video I really liked their use of editing and Mise en scene to create an effect with the audience. I felt that the storyline was portrayed so well with the way the colour grading and other editing techniques were used to show the difference between happiness and sadness and therefore make the narrative clear to the audience. However I felt that the contrast between happiness and sadness in the storyline let the production down slightly because of the weak connection and this made the editing and Mise en scene ideas used less effective. I feel that when I do my music video, I would like to have a storyline that is up to standard in order to produce an even more high-quality music video that will intrigue my audience. This research has helped me as it has allowed me to gain understanding towards the skills and techniques involved to create a high-quality music video and has given me an insight of what an average student can do without high production values and a production company.