Storyboards for our film

Here are some of the storyboards Sam made for our film "4h30"

Print Product draft

This is our first draft print product we produced but unfortunately we were unable to use it due to the image we had used. We wanted to use this image because we felt that it was necessary considering it features our chosen artist but as it was a copyrighted image, we were unable to use this draft product.

Technology Taking Hold

Source: Pop Music - The text book (Julia Winterson, Peter Nickol, Toby Bricheno) 2003
aking Hold

synthesizer bands
Encouraged by the falling price of technology and new instruments such as; programmable drum machines a new genre emerged which was fascinated with the emerging technology of the time such as the car.
Probably the biggest influence on futurism, was the german band kraftwerk (power station) they favoured synthesizers instead of guitars, they used technology infused lyrics and covered such non-traditional areas such as radioactivity, robots and the pocket calculator their sound combined their voice and a highly robotic synthesizer sound.
This genre was influenced by dada, Dada was an anti-art movement, bordering on the surreal and challenging traditional notions of what art should be. it emerged early in the twentieth century, born out of the horror of world war 1, and of disdain for the bourgeoise.

How can I apply this to my own work?
Our artist 'Danger' would conform to the above arguments, he uses synths and his mode of working could be tied to the anti-bourgeoise. This means he doesnt require a big name or label to get popularity, he made his own name and fame on his own without the requirement of a bourgeoise. Wealth and status aren't as important to him like other artist that hunger for fame and money.

Analysis of conventions and genre in comparison to our film

Our music video is found within the Electric genre, and is a Narrative concept, rather than a Performance piece as we thought this would fit better for our genre.

As the Electric genre tends to not have many famous, recognizable acts, (the only “superstars” being Deadmau5 and Daft Punk,), we decided to use an Abstract concept which is common for videos within the Electric genre, used by artists such as Deadmau5 and Daft Punk.

Their videos tend to consist of ideas or concepts, like a short story with their music being the soundtrack.

We decided that as we were doing a Narrative piece we could relate to our chosen music much more convincingly, as a performance piece would seem out of place for our artist. This is against some aspects of Goodwin’s theory, as there are no lyrics in the track we have chosen,, there can be no relation to the visuals other than to the beat.

As it is not a performance video, there are no close-ups of singers or artists, and there are no references to other media texts present. The only aspect of Goodwin’s theory that our music video abides by is the relationship between the music and the visuals, as the only time the beat is stopped or not heard is when the action slows down or stops completely.

We decided that for our costumes we would go against the colour conventions, using a black shirt to represent the main character, a colour usually associated with villains, and white to represent the antagonist, a complete opposite of the convention portrayed in similar music videos.

The location was a contrast to the location and instruments of the Electric genre, using more natural and basic locations, I thought our film would seem more creditable and believable to the audience, as it uses locations generally familiar to the audience.

Our music video opens with a low angle pointed towards the sunlight, I chose this to open with as it seemed to establish not only the location, but the character, using the low angle portrayed our protagonist with a sense of power, which immediately was taken away with the following shot, showing not only his physical tumble, but his fall of power, showing that as he was “on the lamb” so to speak, his power was diminished, and he had become the prey for the nearby powerful predators.

Another significant shot is where Sam runs away from the car from a low angle. I chose to shoot it this way to signify Sam’s desperation to keep hold of the bag had finally been freed, the angle representing his self-worth being inflated, his back towards the bag as it doesn’t hold any ‘mental reins’ so to speak.

I decided to have a fast paced editing technique, using cuts rather than wipes, for continuity and for a fast-paced feel to the film. This was achieved with a variety of takes, edited together to give a the feel of a frantic, mad dash using hard cuts and splitscreen. The use of splitscreen was to show the audience multiple angles of the same event, and by slowing the speed of the video it allowed the audience to examine and achieve a preferred reading of our music video.

We decided against diegetic sound from the outset, but decided to include two pieces to add an extra feel to the film; realism. This was achieved by using the sound clips of Sam colliding with the camera and the car braking, I believed these helped the audience have a sense of realism, as these sounds were distinct enough from the music. We also decided that as the song had a strong rhythm, we could not stop the music and ruin the audiences reading of the film, and thus, edited a continuous chase, rather than have a period of silence interrupting the music video.

Print Product

Here is my print product for my film "4h30"