Craig Davis Analysis

The following is a checklist created by Craig Davis, which regards the making of a ‘good’ music video. We will use the checklist and apply it to our own video.

1. Illustration:

Many music videos, specifically the ones of our contemporary society follow both a narrative and performance. By following a narrative the video itself illustrates the meaning of the song and visualises the music in a way that the audience can comprehend with. The performance aspect is simply the star image giving a performance and delivering their song to the audience.

Our video follows both a narrative and performance base. We have shots of Jacob, the star image, performing the song although the foundation of our video is relating what can be seen to the song itself.

As mentioned previously we used both a narrative and performance. This is understood as “hybrid form” since it repeatedly switches from performance to narrative throughout. We approached both with creative interpretation, unusual ideas and surrealistic approaches. When performing, Jacob had to master the art of lip syncing in time of the song itself, in order to give a realistic and professional performance. Throughout the performance he is addressing the audience through a number of different shots and camera angles; and so lip syncing was a major part and had to be prominent and perfected.

The performance aspect gives a direct link to the song although the other footage we used is also precisely linked to the lyrics. This can be seen throughout, one example being the footage of the Jonas brothers when they are mentioned. Another feature is that we filmed in a kitchen when the lyrics were regarding a kitchen. The biggest link in my opinion is the constant referral to “stop” in which we present a stop sign to the audience. We have taken our time out to link so thoroughly that even the beat itself is associated and in time with the lyrics, which is shown when the drummer is drumming and the selection of buildings are shown.

2. Audio-Visual Technical Codes:

Camera Shots: Craig Davis suggests that a close up of the singers face is “the main convention for a music video.”We can confirm we did this in our video as well as a range of other shots, primarily using medium shots and long shots most.

Camera Movement: In order to capture our performer walking in the shots around the city, we used a crane and tracking shot to insure steady and professional footage. The crane also allowed us to explore different heights in order to obtain either high or low shots.

Editing: Our narrative included many different locations and in the video the locations are constantly changing, at a quite rapid speed. It also changes to person, to buildings, to random footage expressing something in particular. This type of editing is called “montage editing” or formally known as “MTV style” editing.

Post-production digital effects: The effects we used in our video consisted of fading Jacob into the background and making him disappear, in which his performance continued in a change of location.

Lighting: When filming in the studio we used expressive lighting to capture the expression on Jacobs face and objectify him as the most important feature. We used colour contrast and desaturators to dim certain scenes, switching from black and white to colour which indicated a shift to the chorus and in our case reflecting our performer’s old life and new life.

Mis-en-scene: Our aim was to indicate success and fortune; and so we presented two contrasting costumes. One being a casual everyday wear which connotes working class and a potential struggle, the opposing costume was a suit which suggests wealth, money and status. Throughout the video we try to convey our intertextual approach to things, thus the use of particular elctronic gadgets, specifically the IPHONE, which ignites the video, and also the feature of Jacob wearing BEATS BY DRE whilst he peers through the rolex window.