Music Video Recording Techniques

Music Video Project


For a personal project i have decided to try and create a music video and explore different ways of filming.


Below is a list of filming techniques


Camera Angles

The Zolly

Zooming in whilst moving the camera away

Dolly speed needs to be the same as the zoom

For action be creative with camera placements, more movements makes it more dramatic, but don’t over do it

1.       High camera useful perspective over the heads of crowds, But for a compassion stand point great for making patterns in the image

2.       Low camera angles the opposite imparting dynamic engagement  with the action

3.       Establishing shot sets up the setting of a scene, it is usually at the start of a scene

4.       Close up shot either focus on a person or an object, in order to show detail or emotion

5.       Extreme close up shot, focusing on the eyes

6.       Medium shot show from the head to waist down, used more to show body movement and less specific detail

7.       Long shot is a shot that shows the whole person in relation to their surroundings typical filmed from a long distance a way

8.       Tracking shot follows the action at a constant distance away, keeping the subject on screen

9.       Aerial shot shows the entire image from a high position, sometimes referred to as a birds eye view shot

10.   Dolly shot a camera is placed on a dolly and is moved away at a constant speed, it does not necessarily follow the action

11.   Hand held shot the camera man holds the camera, so usually is a bit shaky, so therefore is used to show the subjects perceptive or feelings

12.   Zoom shot either zooms in to show detail of subject, or zooms out to show entire subject

13.   Swish shot camera moves quickly from one subject to another

14.   High angle shot subject is filmed from above their head, so it looks like there being looked down on. Used to show who is more powerful character

15.   Low angle shot is shot from the knees up, usually done to show the power of the subject

16.   Reverse angle used to show conversation between two or more people, camera switch from other side of each subject, usually when each character is speaking

17.   Arch shot camera moves around subject in circular shapes in order to show object in more positions.

18.   Match cut joins two scenes that have some relationship together in a seamless way, through a fast transition as if they were in the same scene

19.   Point of view shot that shows the camera angle through the subjects eye

20.   Head on shot is when the action comes straight towards the camera

21.   Eye level shoot

22.   Overhead shot

23.   Undershot

24.   Pan shot example spinning view of sky

25.   Tilt shot raise from ground to eye level

26.   Over the shoulder shot

27.   Two shot, close up of two peoples faces in a shot

Composition shots

28.   Pyramid, three people in shot one at top two at the bottom

29.   Rule of thirds

30.   Golden section

32.   Symmetry

33.   Leadlines

Film Project

For a group project, we each got put into groups of five and got given a movie title, which we had to use to creat a 'Sueded Film', which is a short recreation of a film. We had to recreate a three minute verison, that highlights the key moments throughout the film. Which we then had to present two days later.

The Film My Group was given was "Avatar"

To start off, we decided to watch the film then pick out key factors of the film, which we would then later condense down into three minutes. For this we came up with:

• The starting scene of the film where the main character 'Jake', describes how he became paralyised whilst in the army
• Jake Meets the army guy,who discusses the mission to go to Pandora (where the avatars live) in order to get the rare rock that inhabits the island that is worth 50 million a kilogram
• Jake meets head army guy, who bribes Jake to go to Pandora, in exchange for spinal surgery, to give back the use of his legs
• Eye sequence where Jake turns into an Avatar
• Flying spaceships scenes
• Jake meets girl Avatar
• Jake falls in love with girl Avatar
• Tree gets knocked down
• Girl Avatar finds out about Jakes deal with the army and feels betrayed
• Jake defends and fights for Avatar
• The End

After this we decided to allocate the roles of the key characters to each other

Jake : David (aka me)

Army Guy : Karol

Jakes Avatar : David (aka me)

Female Avatar : Beth

Female Doctor/ Scientists : Philippa

Male Scientists : Jack

We Then looked into what props we would need, what characters and what set.

For this we split our team up, we came up with:

The idea of filming most of our scenes either in office blocks at the uni, that would be used for the army head quarters scene, and the local park for the outdoor scenes.

For the props, we decided to use cut outs of some of the characters from the film, toy animals to be used for the outdoor scenes and a space ship to represent the helicopters.

For the costumes, we each tried to pick clothes that were similar to our characters, then for the avatar clothes, we bought some blue face/body paint, and used some cloth to create wrist/armbands, and loin clothes.

I think the Sueded film project was succesful on the whole, due to the fact that my group allocated jobs fairly, used our time resourcefully and generally enjoyed the project and tried to have fun making it.

Exhibitions

Manchester Art Gallery

Recently I went to Manchester Art Gallery to view an exhibition called "The Recorder Exhibition" by Mexican-Canadian electronic artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer


One of the pieces of work that interested me wasa piece called "Pulse Room", that use visitors’ heartbeats to transmitt their heart beat pattern into a light bulb. The piece uses contains a 100 lightbulbs suspended from the ceiling.




 
The interface, a simple metal handle, transmits a visitor’s pulse to a lightbulb after ten seconds. If another visitor touches the handle, his pulse is transmitted to the first lightbulb and the rhythm of its predecessor is transmitted to the next lightbulb in the series – thus the digital traces left by 100 visitors are permanently present in the exhibition in this poetic installation.

 
This piece appeals to my current project, where i'm using peoples emotions and translating them into light. Due to the fact that this piece uses peoples heartbeats to create a ceiling full of magical lights that flicker on and off to form one whole piece.

The exhibition also showed various other types of recording devices, from microphones that can be used to record a question or people talking, then can be played later to new guest, a screen that records the pattern of your finger prints, and various other pieces that recorder and object or persons image.





33 Questions Per Minute, 2000



A computer program generates 55 billion grammatically-correct questions at a rate of 33 per minute – the threshold of legibility. The software has been programmed to avoid repeating the same question, and will take over 3,000 years to present all the possible word combinations


Please Empty Your Pockets, 2010



Any item up can be placed on the conveyor belt. Once the objects pass under a scanner an image is captured and you will see them reappear on the other side of the belt, beside projected images drawn from the memory of the installation


In Microphone, 2006

 

Microphones features ten 1939-vintage Shure microphones. Each one has been modified, to include a tiny loudspeaker and a circuit board in the head, which are connected to a network of hidden control computers. When you speak into one of these microphones, it records your voice and immediately plays back the voice of a previous participant, so the microphones speak back to you, replaying up to 600,000 memories as an echo from the past.

Liverpool Biennial Trip

In November i went on a trip to liverpool for thei Biennial Art Festival, where we had to make our way from one point to another taking trips visiting various galleries are places with artwork in.

The following pictures below are pictures of artwork from the Liverpool art trip that interest me.

Rosa Barba

Raymond Pettibon

 

Laura Belem

Kaarian Kaikkonen

Franz West

Hector Zamora

Do Ho Su

Fact Gallery

In the fact gallery we saw artwork from an artist that I have been researching Tehching Hsieh.

For this piece of artwork he punched a time clock every hour on the hour. Each time he punched the clock, he took a single picture of himself, which together yield a 6 minute movie. He shaved his head before the piece, so his growing hair reflects the passage of time

Below are pictures of artwork from the Bloomberg New Contemporaries gallery

Crosby Beach

After the trip, we went to Crosby beach to have a look at some Antony Gormley statues.