Previous Student Examples (2)

< This is an example of a music video I found on youtube. The song is Pieces by Chase and Status Feat. Plan B The camerawork is dominated by mid/long shots (mostly long shots) showing the main character most of the time. There are some examples of close ups, especially from the point of view of the girl in the bed. Rap songs often show the artist throughout most of the video, so this video follows those conventions well. At the very beginning, we see an establishing shot used, although it really only shows the city for a little while, and pans away, whereas traditionally, it does the opposite. It doesn't look too bad though and gives the opportunity for the tiles to be displayed clearly - It could easily be argued that the director has intentionally tried to break this paticular convention, to follow the sterotype of rappers behaviour - Bad! Tracking is used quite a lot through this music video, as it follows the evening of this artist. It allows us to see how he lives, and at the end, it shows him rushing upstairs to find what we assume to be his girlfriend with another guy. They do use a shot out of the rear windscreen of a car going around a road. Despite this being a really generic shot, I quite like it, and I think it is used well in this example. All of the aspects of mise-en-scene are very natural within this video. No one is 'dolled up' too much, which is odd for a rap film, because often the rappers girlfriend/wife is made to either look full of swagger, or to be full of make up and looking really good. This girl looks natural, with minimal make up on. The setting is predominantly on the streets - probably where the artist lives. They are fairly rough parts which follows the conventions of a rap video. This piece of work is full of different editing techniques. The use of split screen is used a couple of times. The one that stood out most to me was the one with the beer bottles. This would have been a really good shot, however, it's a bit jumpy, which ruins the shot for me, as it's not clean at all. Split screen is also used to seperate the screen into four, showing him bascially doing the same thing. This shot was good, however, I feel it would have been better if the content within the split screens would have been completely different, giving off the same impression. The director/s have also made full use of the speed editor. They have sped up several scenes. It would appear that there is no real reason as to why they have done it, but it does look quite cool. This has been done to make the scene look good - It's okay, but would have been better if the director would have implemented a reason as to why they have sped it up! There is also a small use of colour manipulation, with the screen fully flicking between three different colours. I don't like this because I feel that the people have done this, just so they have used it, and haven't really put it in with a valid reason! They could have adjusted the colour so particular things on the screen coloured more, as opposed to filtering the whole screen. The lighting is very basic in this video. They have made full use of the street lighting around, meaning they didn't have to do any of their own. This is okay, but it doesn't seem to have stretched the students much at all, and looks a bit tacky - because it knocks the cameras focus out. Overall, I didn't really like this video. I thought it was okay, but it comes across as though the students have rushed their technology use, and haven't really used it with any meaning - it just looks like they have been thrown in. I think the fact that I hate the song makes my opinion a little bit bias, but trying to put that aside, I would still say I don't like it.