Production Diary 1 - Research

In order to find out about music videos I completed some research. I watched and analysed 10 music videos, focusing on mise-en-scene, cinematography, editing, sound, themes and stereotypes. Examples of videos I have textually analysed include:

• ·         Ashanti- Foolish
• ·         1975- Robbers
• ·         50 Cent - Candy Shop
• ·         Arctic Monkeys- Why’d You Only Call Me?
• ·         Beyonce- Me, Myself and I

I looked at a range of videos from various genres including R&B, Hip-Hop, and Indie, which is the chosen genre for my music video.

From textually analysing these music videos I now have a deeper understanding of aspects of a music video, in particular Indie music videos. I can identify stereotypical conventions of particular genres.

Before carrying out this research I was unsure of what an Indie music video consists of in terms of the conventions. I now understand that you typically find narratives based on love, plain costumes, basic locations that easily accessible and a common theme of drugs, alcohol and rebellion.

We are conforming to the stereotype of indie, including stereotypical aspects such as the love based narrative, plain costume and basic locations within our music video in order to allow the audience to be able to identify our video as Indie.