Week 3

When researching about neo-soul music videos I decided to narrow down common elements, and things which haven’t been done, so I can be clear on what conventions I plan to keep in my video and which conventions I am going to break.

Similar conventions.

Narrative 

• There wasn’t a clear or obvious drama plot, which related to the song. 
• A lot of objective treatment with the viewer, the audience is observing what is going on. 
• Narrative is short and kept short between clips of the artist.

Mise en Scene

• Realistic locations, e.g. house/apartment or just on the street.
• Representing the artist’s nationality, e.g. subway, and clear images which represent the country.
• Location didn't emphasis the artist’s status or financial state. They didn't single out their audience.
• Artists are often dressed casual; they don’t show of their flashy clothes etc. Showing them as humble.
• Instruments are often shown, either a band or a person just playing the guitar or piano as they sing.
• They had only a few main characters between 2-3 but had a lot of extras especially with external video shoots. (This varied between UK and American music videos.)

Lighting

• A lot of natural lighting, as a lot of the videos was shot outside. 
• If the videos were shot internally they often used artificial lighting.
• A lot of soft lighting.

Editing

• They used match cut, to keep the video going, with all the other conventions it seemed as if the videos were meant to be realistic, and so a match cut was a good editing technique to keep the continuity of the video going.
• Split screen was used a lot, to show various locations.
• There was very little videos which used a green screen, if so they would use it to put in a background to fit to the beat e.g. below the video "its my time" has a kaleidoscope background, which moves to the beat.
• A lot of the videos editing fits with the beat, the scene changes as the beat drops.
• They have a lot of cuts, but it is hardly noticeable as it fits well, and there is a lot of changes within the video. 
• I did find one continuous shot which lasted for about 30 seconds.

Camera Angles

• They used a lot of close up of the artist’s face, to see how they are feeling, to emphasis the feeling of the songs. Or a shot of a prop e.g. a ring or something which connotes to the song.
• There were a lot of two shots, especially when it came to showing the love interest. 
• A lot of tracking was used, to make the audience feel like they were there with the artist, in the video. 
• Process shots were used, e.g. the green screen example. And the use of smoke screens and black backgrounds these were often used for internal filming, with a band etc.
• A lot of videos used a surveying pan, to set the scene for the audience.

After this I researched what exactly a neo-soul audience would want from a music video.

(RESEARCH!!!!!!)