Friday, 25 October 2013

Planning Lighting and Colour

The purpose of colour and lighting within a music video is to help the audience have a greater understanding of the vibe the artist wishes to portray, which will correlate with the genre. Lighting will contribute to the video's mood and determine which genre it falls under, unless the artist rebels against typical codes and conventions. Colours help imitate the type of artist they are, their style and can portray their current emotions, as well as present hidden meanings.

A lot of consideration was gone into the choice of light sources, to clearly present to our audience a relationship building through a period of time, therefore days passing from morning to night. Typically naturalistic light throughout the video would be most conventional to our indie genre, however we planned to break these conventions. As a group we felt that in order to portray certain elements, one example being that not all relationships are perfect, low key lighting would help to do so indirectly, presenting 'shady' periods. However, there are many areas where myself and the
group focus on naturalistic light, such as in the performance, highlighting how musically talented and pure our 'indie' artist is. The majority of the music video is filmed outside, meaning working with what ever light that was available, although mainly being during mid day with high key lighting, however we also completed filming indoors in a section of the music video. As a group we have filmed Georgia and Drew inside his house in bed, as we felt it's a very central location for any relationship. Obviously with it being dark outside at the time
we needed unnatural lighting. In order for us to follow conventions, we felt it was a good idea to have dim, low key lighting, with fairy lights hanging from the wall to connote a calm and comfy atmosphere, highlighting the characters emotions. Another unconventional element was the unnatural lighting from Drew's cigarette and lighter. This goes against typical indie codes and conventions, however making the characters have an edge, which can often be appealing to a wider audience.

Within our music video, we aim to use a variety of colours, connoting mixed emotions. Obviously all colours have their significance and a lot of them reflect on our characters. Within Georgia's
performance she is seen to be wearing red, black and denim blue. The red lipstick, bandanna and tartan scarf dominate her image and suggest passion; passion for music and passion for love. This ordeal is backed up as soon as she begins to play the guitar, her passion for music shines as her raw talent is highlighted, with the lyrics speaking about their relationship. The colour black creates mystery, an element where we  chose to rebel against conventions, and the denim blue ties in with her 'indie' style, which is in fact a colour that speaks the true through verbal expression; relating directly to Georgia and the song itself. The red lipstick worn ties together with the scarf, in the way red holds relevant meaning of the emotions felt internally in terms of her relationship; presenting their relationship as a battle, which in fact give an
audience something to think about. Within the Brick Lane shots, Georgia's black clothing is broken down by a denim jacket and a checkered top tied around her waist. These items of clothing and the colours used bring out more of the typical indie style, therefore following the indie genre codes and conventions. The fact that the colour tone down the black suggests that Georgia as a character also has softer sides to her personality. The fact that her makeup is more pale toned draws more attention to the couples relationship, making it the central focus instead of just Georgia the artist, which I feel is vital to make a successful video.

Lighting and colour will assist myself and the group to create a music video wearing the colours that connote meaning and possible even their emotions. It helps to consider them in order to also be conventional to the indie codes and conventions, because rebelling against them too much will make an unsuccessful video for a small time artist starting out in the music industry. Lighting is also relevant and will always need to be considered. As a group we have used it to our advantage, in terms of portraying time passing, looking back into the past with the memories that have been made as well as the present, and the emotions that are now upon our artist, Georgia.

1 comment:

  1. This post demonstrates some planning techniques. You have considered a variety of styles that you wish to include within your music video. But you need to remember that this is a planning post and not an evaluation of your video.

    Also you need to ensure that you have considered the codes and conventions of an indie music video throughout, to demonstrate further planning.

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