6th Febuary - Director Research

Before making our own music videos, it is so important we understand the different content that is already out in the industry to get an idea of the route we want to go down with our own. Today we looked at three specific directors and researched their style through first watching and then analysing each video..

We began by analysing a well known music video my Michael Jackson 'Thriller' directed by John Landis.

This music video is so highly praised even still today and is referred to as the turning point in the music video industry. It was one of the very first music videos with a story line. The theme was inspired by ****

Analysis

Props / Costume

• Zombie

• Werewolf

• 80's Outfits

Action

• Dancing in time with the music

• Cutting to the beat

• Fast pace

• Short film style

Lighting / Effects

• Dark shots to match the theme

• Gloomy

• Mist used to stylise the set

Angles

• Close ups

• Panning shots

• Establishing shots

• Long shots

• Wide shots

Representation

• The star : Michael Jackson

• His girlfriend - Played by Ola Ray

• The characters to make the story line

Narrative

• Single strand story line

• Story

• Hybrid Genre

Michael Gendry

Action

• Dance matching the beat of the background track

• Her everyday routine

Costume / Prop

• Fancy dress

• Outgoing / bright outfits enhanced in effects

• Colour

Lighting / Effects

• Bright

• Sharp lighting

• Several lighting techniques used e.g. Broad, short, fill, loop

• Mirrored effect

Representation

• A women's life

• Different effects being incorporated into her routine to represent repetition

• Artistic and visually pleasing effects

• layering and duplicating effect on one character to give the illusion there is a whole group. (possible example for how many times she has completed her routines)

Shots

• Overhead shorts

• Long shots

• Panning shots

• Hand held camera shots

• Over the shoulder shots

Narrative

• One character used creating a clone type effect

• Single stranded story line

• Lots of layering used to create a story

Chris Cunningham

Action

• lip sinc

• lip syncvement is very much in time with the track

Props / Costume

• No real costume visible - 'Naked' robot

• Robotic features

Lighting / effects

• Flashing lights

• Bright and dark mixture for contrast

• Dim lighting used in certain scenes

• Blue spotlights

• Pink spotlights

Angles and shots

• Panning

• Long shots especially

• Over head shots

• Side panning shots

• Close ups particularly for capturing small action or movement

Representation

• Love

• Relationships

• Technology

• Robots lip-syncing to the track

• Water

Narrative

• Begins with the making of the female robot

• Shown falling in love with a male robot

• Water is used on the robots and in scenes alone

• Representing love is stronger than the water attempting to break the robots as they are technologically created

Spike Jonze