Wednesday 29 September 2010

Redundant & Entropic Music Video Analysis

Redundancy:
- "..is that which is predicable or conventional in a message"
- "Redundancy is the result of high predictability"
Entropy:- "Unpredictability"
The video below, Lady Gaga's 'Bad Romance' shows how a music video can contain elements of both redudancy and entropy.

There are obvious entopic elements, such as the coffin scene, whereby the dancers and GaGa creep out of their boxes and start dancing in strange futeristic outfits. However one could argue that it's Lady GaGa's signature to dress in unusual outfits and we now expect her to wear them, making the idea redundant. Another element of redundancy is that, like many pop videos, it contains women dressed in and dancing in a sexual way, showing a very typical representation of women. The narrative of the video seems to have no link to the song, however many of the actions are done to the beat.

Bright Eyes - "Easy/Lucky/Free":



This video starts off being quite entropic, it's a quirky and interesting idea at first to have someone writing on the screen, but once you realise that the scene doesn't change and is going to stay the same throughout the video, it becomes quite redundant and boring. Especially seeing as what the actor is writing on the screen is what's being said in the song.

Friday 10 September 2010

Video Skills Audit

To ensure my success in the video coursework, I will need to develop several key skills.

1. Research.
I need to research into more depth genre and audience, from a range of sources, as well as recording the information I have found. This recorded information will help me to easily access conventions for the genre as well as to organise myself. I think I also need to address my audience more directly, with interviews and questionnaires, to make sure my coursework is suitable.

2. Organisation & Logs.
The information I have found from research then needs to be transferred to my blog, I think I need to work to keep my blog constantly up to date to save time later on as well as to be better organised. It would also be useful for me to keep notes about shots and takes I do, this is something I have never done before, and I think will help me with my blogging.

3. Editing Accuracy/ Continuity.
Although I can use editing software to a degree, such as Adobe Premiere, I would like to improve my ability on these programmes in order to increase the quality of my video coursework. This will involve learning more about the audio, video & transition effects as well as fine tuning my skills in continuity editing.

4. Storyboarding.
In previous tasks I have spent little time on my storyboards, including vague information which causes on the spot decisions to be made in production. This year I hope to have a fully developed storyboard ready, including details of mise en scene, camera angles, timing etc, before production has taken place. I also plan to thoroughly run through the storyboard with the rest of my team, making sure everyone agrees with it and make any changes if necessary. This will greatly improve the organisation of the production, and hopefully lead to my making a more successful music video.
5. Lighting.
In the short production task last year, lighting wasn't really considered, and so most of the video came out very dark and didn't look at all professional. For my next production task I hope to borrow some of the college's lighting equipment, or seek out good sources of light if I am filming outdoors.