Music Videos

You may be wondering why I'm looking at music videos but I chose it because many of them tell a story using a variety of camera angles, shots and movements, editing and Mise en Scene.

Even though there is dialogue in music videos, the song can be used as a soundtrack or theme which will be used in my 5 minute film.

I will be focusing on long music videos as they are normally around 5minutes.

Below is the opening of one of Michael Jackson's most famous music videos

It starts of with an establishing shot of a black and white big and very old building leading to a variety of shots in black and white. In the video they use close ups of Michael, continuity by dissolving, pans, etc.

Even though the video is 7 minutes it will be great as a short film or film in general because of the storyline and Mise en Scene like the props (gun) and costume (jeans and hoodie) which follows their personalities as gangsters.

What I really liked about the storyline was that it is different from other crime drama stories. Bad by Michael had a twist to it which was he went against his friends and became their enemy. In my opinion this is good because it isn't predictable and makes the me want to keep watching.

The Mise en Scene was good because it followed the codes and conventions of crime drama films. The video was shot in the middle 80's and so some of the costume the gangsters were wearing may be different to what gangsters where today for example leather jackets. This could include hair styles like the Afro and Jheri Curls
The song 'Bad' could be used as the soundtrack and they used sound effects like when they were looking at the character with the gun and digetic sound of the student speaking to each other as background.

Below is another video but by Eminem - Stan

It starts with a zoom in through a window of the character called Stan. They use a variety of shots like high angle of Stan and his wife in the bathroom and use Pan of Stan in his Eminem world bedroom and spotlight on him in a low key lighting room.

The video will be a great film due to the flashbacks like of Stan in the concert representing life.

Time and location was also a smart idea because they chose it at night time and mainly shooting in the attic. These two tell the audience what of song and video it will be. Most videos shot at night and in the attic are mostly horror or films with an unhappy narrative.

 If a film it would be a drama. The song will be used as a soundtrack.