Research + Helpful Resources

Apple Mac help forums and YouTube as well as guidance from my teacher provided the essential information to transform Eugene, Elise and I from Mac beginners to intermediates using Apple software.

On a very basic note, i watched YouTube videos on how to edit videos using iMovie learning the basic tools and techniques. I then furthered the tutorials on to more advanced techniques to try and help me music video to look more professional.

This is just a basic example of what help there is on YouTube.

Note: i didn't solely get my knowledge from these YouTube videos, they are helpful but they also are limited. My teacher provided a lot of help also as well as asking my piers for guidance.

Editing (During)

Uploading footage and beginning to link videos with the music and adding transitions. Learning the basic tools needed to create a professional music video.

Removing and cutting useless

footage and creating a storyline accor

ding to our storyboards. Following our storyboards very closely so it gives us a professional structure. Here i am adding a dissolve transition to the music video, throughout i also learnt

how to edit lighting and change it to black and white to follow the conventions and imagery we wish to create.

On location when filming, playing with natural lighting creating chiaroscuro effects to meet the conventions of our music video/artist.

This low angle shot represents the character to be very powerful with him looking down on the camera. It also creates an enigmatic effect as you can't see his face only a silhouette of his body, but you can still easily see his clothing. The bright lampost lighting almost creates the effect of the sun also with "organge" lighting.

In this picture we used the natural lighting from the lampost and positioned our actor directly under so it gave a spotlight effect. Once again we didn't show his face to create a mysterious effect linking to the typical conventions of the Weeknd. We also included in the backdrop a metal railing and the dotted lights from the town, this then insists the urban setting.

Possible Locations

Media A2

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We decided not to use the graveyard location as it was too hard to get bright lighting and our actor wasn't visible on camera, also the contrast and exposure of the shot didn't look very professional.

 

Outdoor Locations

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We decided to use the alleys and the outdoor locations as we thought they linked very well with the song and had natural lighting (lamposts) so the quality of the shot was of a good standard.
Signifiers such as the bridge and lampost had connotations of an urbans setting which then links to the conventions of the R&B genre. The natural lighting from the lampost gave an effect of almost a "down light" or a spot light on our main character making him the emphasis of the shot. The metallic railings and the leafless trees also convey the harshness of an urban lifestyle. The lampost and the bridge created a large shadow underneath the bridge creating a sense of light/dark, good/evil if you will in terms of connotations of colours.

Locations

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The domestic location we tried to make as ordinary and simplistic as possible so that it would be applicable to the target audience. So that they could emophasise with the main character and his way of living. Props on screen are very basic such as a bed, mirror, laptop, products on the window and a bag on the floor. This is what you'd expect in a teenagers room. All of these things insist an ordinary but comfortable environment.

The Weeknd Music Video

This is the first video that the Weeknd has constructed for one of his newest songs. Here you can see the artists idiosyncrasy compared to other R&B artists as well as the enigmatic video approach. This is not a conventional music video, its got a mysterious reading to the audience and creates a sense of "being on drugs".

In terms of how it relates to videos today, it still includes a girl and an intimate moment occurring, the rest is trying to portray that he is on drugs hence the "weird" images.

The story to the video links with how Haile Selassie was overthrown by his own people during his reign of Ethiopia. It's symbolism for how The Weeknd was betrayed by his girl.

This is just an example of the type of music and representations the Weeknd portrays, we aren't going to be following his footsteps in terms of this video, but we will be using very dark lighting and some unusual images in our own music video to try and meet the conventions of the Weeknds music.

Story board of music video.

These are pictures of ideas in a storyboard form we managed to elicit from our ideas, we had regular meetings as a group so that everyone could "have a say" and try and merge their thoughts and ideas into our work essentially to construct our music video the best of our abilities, along with an idiosyncratic style. The continuous meetings aided creativity as each member of the group constantly had an idea to put forward from camera shots and movement to mise en scene and location. Each member had a big part to play in the creativity and production of our music video, and ancillary products.

Photoshoot- Main character & featured women in our music video

Presentation of photoshoot

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Here is a quick montage of images we took of our main character. We are using this character clothing throughout our project so that it doesn'tconfuse the audience and puts main emphasis on this character. The clothing is also contemporary and stereotypical to the R&B genre with the denim jacket and baseball cap (snapback) for example. We also chose a young black arractive male to play the lead real which also follows conventions of typical R&B videos.

We photographed images of him smoking to anchor the artist to the Weeknd's lyrics containing ideologies of drug and alcohol abuse, love, and a party lifestyle.

Lastly, we subverted tyical conventions with the use of our female. Stereotypical females in R&B videos are dressed provacitvely and have blonde hair and tanned skinned with blue eyes for example. Our character has a pale complexion with ginger hair, so here we have purposely subverted conventions and stereotypes of R&B videos to make this idiosyncratic to our own project. In terms of costume, we used red lipstick, as you can see on the extreme closeup image. The red lipstick conveys promiscuity and elegance aswell as the fur jacket.

The Weeknd- Character Profile

Abel Tesfaye (born February 16, 1990), better known by his stage name The Weeknd, is a Canadian recording artist and record producer of Ethi

opian descent. Though the identity of the individual behind the project was initially unknown as intended as it brought a mysterious vibe to who was actually producing this music. The Weeknd released a nine-song free album, House Of Balloons, on 21 March 2011. This album is a part of a trilogy which includes Thursday and Echoes Of Silence.

The Weeknd is signed to a record label of a contemporary, and very popular Hip Hop & R&B artist "Drake", This is also what fuelled the phenomenon. Due to Drakes popularity, they wanted to know who the artist was who was signed to his record label "OVO XO". By the third mixtape The Weeknd's popularity was visible due to The Weeknd's official site crashing due to a high demand of downloads.

, and Echoes Of Silence, released on 21 December 2011. On July 6. Tesfaye recently released his highly anticipate

Since hitting the scene, The Weeknd has recei

ved praise from a number of musical publications, including those of MTV, BET, Rolling Stone, XXL, The Source and 2DopeBoyz, who have all dubbed him the "Songbird of his Generation", as well as the "best musical talent since Michael Jackson" (John Norris, MTV).

The Weeknd's lyrical content is very dark and shows a juxtaposed side to life that other R&B artists percieve. He talks about many taboo subjects, predominately drugs, sex and alcohol. He creates a serial world that many can't empathise with, talking about mind sets and situations caused by drugs and linking it in with his r

ise in fame and beginning to live the "High Life".

This is an example of the images he released to hide his identity. This is cocaine shaped in the lettering of his record label.