USE

The typical features that we have incorporated into our music video include the
theme of our video, the editing techniques we chose to use, the narrative and style
of filming.
MISE EN SCENE – In terms of the theme, the EDM genre is associated with themes
such as drug use, raves and festivals and settings such as an urban/city
environment. Our music video shows a similar setting inside a house in the city. In
many EDM music videos, there is usually a prevalant character that is followed
through the video (for example, in the video ‘Jax Jones ft RAYE – You don’t know
me’, a little girl is followed around a house). Matt plays the character we follow
throughout and is always framed in the centre of the shot, showing our use of this
typical technique.
EDITING – Our typical use of drug theme was clearly demonstrated through
techniques we used such as editing the speed of the footage (decreasing and
increasing to create impression of deception of time), including effects available on
‘Adobe Premiere Pro’ such as the ‘glitch effect’.
The hand held effect we make use of is the best way of filming we felt would
demonstrate the physical effects of the ‘trip’ we are aiming to represent. This
enabled us to follow Matt move for move as he ‘stumbles’ around the house.
CAMERA – In terms of Camera Angles & Shots, mid-shots, low angle and close ups
are the ones we make frequent use of. We felt that these best capture the
character and his experiences and because we filmed handheld, it gives the
audience the impression they are following Matt closely behind.
SOUND – EDM covers a broad range of styles of electronic sound with some tracks
including lyrics and others not.
As a group, we chose a track that doesn’t include any lyrics over the non-diegetic
sound as we felt that our narrative was clear enough and as effective, without
these.
DEVELOP
EDITING - When editing using ‘Adobe Premiere Pro’, we decided on
using editing techniques that are used in EDM music videos but not to
the same extent to which we used them. We developed generic EDM
editing techniques by altering the colour of scenes in our video to
block colours as well as editing individual parts to different colours. This
was achieved by editing the hue, saturation and brightness to create
colours that represented a distorted environment. For example, the
electric pink (our ‘trademark’ colour) is used to alter the colour of the
sky to a complete opposite of what it would be in reality,
demonstrating the effects of the ‘trip’.
In editing one of the scenes of the video, we used a ‘mirror’ distortion
effect in ‘Adobe Premiere Pro’ to also emphasise this idea of a ‘trip’
but here, the audience sees double of Matt, almost as though they
are tripping too.
Alternating colours in EDM videos has been apparent , for example, in
the EDM video ‘Wankelmut & Emma Louise, My head is a jungle’,
flashing strobe/disco lights are used to change the colour of the room.
We could have also done this in our video, but, another way in which
we developed EDM genre conventions, was how we decided (in
some scenes) editing to a block colour could produce this same
effect of an alternate reality – Matt is fully consumed in this other
world.
CAMERA – In terms of development in camera techniques, I feel as
though our music video experimented with camera movements. This
can be seen in the scene where character Matt looks up to the sky
and turns around. Instead of using a camera movement that placed
the audience AS the character, the handheld quick 360 pan
movement faces the back of Matt, looks around the sky and then
focuses back on Matt. This, instead, positions the audience as though
they are WITH Matt, following him, experiencing what he is
experiencing.
CHALLENGE
In terms of how we challenged certain EDM conventions in our
music video, it was mainly editing styles that did this.
We opted for editing techniques that altered the speed of certain
aspects of the video. For example, at 1:25 in the video, Matt makes
a movement turning forward and then this is sped up and reversed
to make it appear as though he’s moving back. Again, at 1:39, we
reverse his hand movement from forwards to backwards as his face
distorts in the mirror.
This technique is not one often seen in EDM music videos but we felt
was an interesting way of showing the effects of this drug and how it
is altering movements.
We also chose to include editing styles that not only had an effect
on what was happening in the video but also on the frame of the
footage itself. At 1:28, this can be seen as the whole shot is chopped
up into vertical block, which at that point in the video, goes well
with the instrumental and adds to the exaggerated effects we
wanted to portray to the audience.
In relation to Mise en Scene and the character, often the EDM
genre is associated with elaborate, ‘exercise-like’ dance routines
due to the upbeat tempo of its’ sound. However, this is something
we did not choose to include in our video as this wouldn’t be
cohesive with our narrative but also with the slowed tempo of our
particular EDM style song.