LO4: Evaluation

I have created a music video for an indie band from Sheffield named The Stoops, in creating the video I have included many conventions of the genre and music video codes.
'A Million Reasons' is an indie pop song and therefore we wanted to reflect the genre of the band and song in the video, we quickly decided that a performance video was the best approach to portray The Stoops' performance style and their song with the maximum attention on the music and talent of the band, this being a big indie ethos unlike very commercialised genres like pop.
The video was shot in a studio, and taking inspiration from one-take music video 'Dont you look good on the dance floor'  by Sheffield indie giants The Artic Monkeys we wanted the video to have similar themes and conventions.

The purpose of the video was to entertain the target audience of 16-25 year olds as well as exposure for the band, the video will be uploaded onto the bands official youtube, because of these factors we decided that key editing techniques that would need to be regularly included would be upbeat jump cutting and varied angles to keep the audience very engaged and focused throughout the gig-style video.

The shoot of The Stoops' performance took place in a studio and was filmed on Cannon 550 cameras; by using industry style equipment and editing software this would ensure the best outcome, we wanted to create a lot of band identity in this video due to it being the bands first shot video, this meant that in the editing process we have ensured the band have a big image.
We have created the introduction of the video to have a lot of intrigue on the band, as the song begins with a couple of seconds before the introduction bar plays this inspired me to add a short introduction of the band setting up. These varied close up shots of the lighting and sound being checked before the band started playing reinforced the idea of a gig-like video and made the point of view of the audience like a member of the audience behind the scenes.
This once again being very stereotypical of the indie genre due to bands known to be playing concerts very often but to smaller crowds due to the niche genre.

Because our video consisted of just performance clips this meant that the impact of the music video would come from the editing and the style of shots taken, in the editing portion of the video I have also included SFX into the video, I wanted to keep the video very minimalistic and raw to reinforce the main focus being on the music and the talent of the band however I wanted to add some very minimal effects such as splits screens and overlays to keep the audience engaged and entertained throughout.

To ensure that I have conformed to the indie genre and have created clear and recognisable music video conventions i have edited the video with common music video visuals such as split screens and have also added indie elements these being edits such as overlays this to entice the audience and to keep them engaged throughout with not just quick jump cuts but with refreshing visuals throughout.

In the video 'A Million Things' I wanted to add minimal edits that would entertain and engage the audience throughout the performance video. In this screenshot you can see an overlay effect added to the shots, the low opacity of the clips creates a ghost like effect also known as an onion skin effect. This effect is added to the build up of the chorus in the song, i wanted to add the effect at this particular point as it allows the build up to seem more impactful along with the connotations of the band constantly playing the song as this allows the audience to view the band as very dedicated to delivering their song the best they can.

I added the effect by layering two clips on top of each other and then lowering the opacity of the top layer this revealing the clip underneath.
I wanted to choose two clips that created symmetry when overlaid on each other to create positive connotations like balance and harmony but were both clear and not clashing each other at any point.



Another effect that I have added to the video is a split screen, this effect features twice in the video at really strong musical points, in this screenshot the split screen is placed at the intro of the song where both the bass guitar and drums are really clear instruments, by showcasing the instruments that are most definable it allows to link the audiences visual and hearing making the video making logical sense, showing instruments visually when they are very prominent in the song is a convention in all genres of music videos.

To create this effect I layered two clips and then continued to change the position of the clips to place them side-by-side, after positioning the clips to be split I then had to add the crop effect to both clips to make sure that in the split screen was the desired visuals and that they were centred to achieve the best aesthetic visual.

The screenshot to the left demonstrates my opening title of my music video, this visual demonstrates the editing tool inverted alpha adjust. It was really important to me to have a really bold and eye-catching title to demonstrate the importance of the band, this creating band image from the opening scene. the representation of the band appears more professional and influential. The clip playing underneath the title allows movement to be present in the title, this engages the audience and this SFX in particular acts as a pull to the audience to carry on watching and intrigue to the band, by not immediately showing the band members as the opening shot it creates intrigue for the audience on who are The Stoops.

This SFX was created with the effect alpha adjust, i dragged alpha adjust onto the opening clip and this created the border around the shot however the border at this point was in black, this black border did look effective however I then continued to invert the effect to make it white, this ensured that the writing was as impactful as possible and the most eye-catching visuals possible.

The shot showing through the overlaid text border is very varying in colours and lighting, this being done purposely to feed into the intrigue that the opening creates for the audience. 

The audio of the track was also accompanied by a sound effect of low level talking, by including this low level talking when shots of the band set up are played it emphasises the gig-like scenario that you would find The Stoops doing due to them being a niche indie band.
The track 'A Million Things' is a professionally produced song, this meaning that the track is lossless and already a very high audio quality due to the professional production and recording, because of the track being an official song for the band its professional quality is really important to demonstrate a overall clean and together connotation for the band. One of the key elements whilst creating the video was to match the audio to the visuals due to this being one of the biggest conventions for a music video for any genre.

Overall I am really happy with the outcome if I would have repeated the process again I would have included a 15 second narrative section in the instrumental section towards the end and I would spend more time really perfecting the jump cuts however I do really like the end product and think it has many conventions of the indie genre and creates a really positive brand image for The Stoops.