Bonjour, This is my Ringwood media studies advanced portfolio. In this portfolio I will describe the tasks and processes we used to complete the tasks we are given.
Reggae music video's tend to be mainly performance based, the editing is normally slow to fit with the beat of the song and narrative/concept videos are rare. The performers in the video's are normally of African/ Carribean descent, most of the time representing their rastafari relgion either by use of the Jamaican flag of lion of Jamaica.
There is no specific outfit for reggae performers but it tends to be loose baggy clothing, as seen in the picture below it differs wildy from person to person.
Beenie man
Robbie Shakespeare
To fit with the record labels needs there will usually be lots of close up's of the artists body and face to show the audience the mood and feeling of the song so they can identify with it.
Newer reggae video's tend to include a more militant and political feel to them to fit in with the new wave of militant reggae artists like the video below by Damian Marley
In class we presented our storyboards for our music videos to get some outside perspectives and bring some fresh ideas in. This has helped me greatly and I now have a definite vision in my head of what I want to do with my song. I'll post my actual storyboard later but for now I'll list some of the ideas I got from my class, mainly to do with shot types.
When I spoke about my storyboard I was told about a Lily Allen video which very much represents the main idea I have for my video, that the main character would see a different reality to what the viewer see's, although my idea is going for a more comedic feel than this video. I also really like the long shots used in this video from a side angle as she walks from place to place as it shows what is happening around the character and as she is walking it helps keep a sense of pace which I will need to achieve in my video, it's also a great way to variate from the POV shots I intend to use.
Another video I was told about was one directed by Spike Jonze for the artist MC 900ft Jesus, this video helped me see the sort of pace I want to achieve with my video although the editing will not be so fast as mine has to fit in with the genre characteristics of Reggae. The video fits with my idea of a main character entering these different scenes whilst stuff happens in the background for comedic effect although I want my protagonist to have more interaction with the world than the main character does in this video.
I'll update this post as I get more audience feedback
Update 1!:
So i've changed my storyboard ideas around a bit, It still hold the same narrative structure as before but will disgard the use of pov shots and will now have two main characters, The artist and the protaganist.
This is Alice, Alice wasn't too impressed with my storyboard ideas as you can clearly see
"I think you're idea's a bit too abstract and might be difficult to shoot, you should probably just do a performance video"
Bah Humbug! I decided not to listen to Alice's negativity and talked to some more people
This is Dan, he was impressed with my ideas. "That's a great idea, it's gonna take some time to do but if you get it done it'll be awesome!" That's more like it!
Josh liked my idea as well, "Cool man, I like that you're not conforming to just a normal stage video as most reggae videos are, I look forward to seeing it". I like the way this is going.
This is George, as you can see he wasn't too fussed about my storyboard one way or the other. "Yeah dude, I like you're idea but it's not as good as mine" We'll see about that!
Leah loved my idea as well, she was well enthusiastic. "That's so cool! I can't wait to see what it turns out like!"
That's 3 outta 5 positive reviews, not bad at all...
We've been given the task of creating a music video of a song we picked from a list of 23 songs. I picked track number 16, a reggae song with a fast pace for a song of that genre.
I've formed a basic idea for the music video, I hope to make it mainly a narrative and concept based video with little to no performance in it. I want to use effects like a fisheye lens on the camera to distort everything on the peripheries of the camera and to bring more focus on the center of the screen and also try messing with some tones on the video like using a sepia tone used in the video below
I thought the idea of using a fisheye lens would be good after seeing it used in a couple of movies such as the use of it for the robot HAL 9000 in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, I think it greatly highlights the uses of a fisheye lens as it centralises the character and forces the audience to focus on them. The use of the lens mentioned above can be seen at around 9:20 into the video below
I chose song 16 because of it's genre, reggae, which I knew was not neccesarily limited to 1 type of the three music video types; performance, concept and narrative. for inspiration I looked at the video for Buffalo soldier by reggae legend Bob marley as it used a small amount of performance and was mainly comprised of concept and narrative which encapsulated the rough idea I have in my head for the music video i'm going to make.
For the story of my music video I took some inspiration for Pretty fly for a white guy by Offspring although obviously as mine is a reggae song there will be some obvious changes.
Here's a couple of the inspirations i've used for my storyboard of my music video, I'll post more over time
