One example from this in our video, may be the ending, where instead of the video coming to a definitive end, the video merely fades out, leaving the ensuing conflict unresolved, this in itself is a reflection on modern society wherein most conflicts of a similar nature are left unresolved, such as knife crime and the progression of gang warfare in London. In order to gain the ability to use these conventions well, we had to understand the main conventions of pop videos, and learn them in order to insert them effectively into the narrative. As Negus explains, the main conventions of a pop video are; the explicit and unashamed promotion of the artist’s “image” as a specific product with a brand identity, ready for mass consumption; the featuring of the artist; a wide and extensive use of shot types, camera angles and movement; repetition of reoccurring thematic elements and generically specific iconography; a possible narrative structure; a possible performance element; the flexibility to disregard realism; shots cut tightly to the beat of the track; use of special effects; a carefully constructed Mise en Scene appropriate to the content and tone of the track; high impact instantly. 
We had initially chosen a quite difficult song to invent a video for, as the song we had chosen had no lyrics, so the message of the song, is personal and individual to every viewer. For us, we saw a liberationist agenda, and to a certain extent a post apocalyptic era. In many ways the video is hugely stereotypical, as all the gang members look dangerous, and it seems their sole motif in society is to cause disruption and disregard the rules. Our personal agenda probably was a little temperamental, and we know that not all members of gangs are this way inclined, and we know that if we had not followed this stereotype, we would not have gained the same vivacity we achieved in the final product.
The lack of lyrics in the piece made things seem distorted, which inadvertently worked in our favour, as this was exactly what we were trying to achieve. We had no intention of showing a band or main leader, because this was not how we wanted to portray our artist, we in fact actively tried to obscure his identity, we wanted to subvert the convention of "shameless" promotion of a star, and we wanted it to coincide with the recurring theme of the enigmatic in our piece. A large part of our mentality was to let audiences make up their own mind about the artist as they watch the video, we didn't try to make him a hero, more a kind of ethereal middle ground between two extremes.
The narrative in which we see the DJ, imitates a number of Negus’ conventions; the featuring of the artist, repetition of reoccurring thematic elements and generically specific iconography and shows that it is cut tightly to the beat of the track. The scene subverts the rule of thirds, as the DJ was intentionally positioned in the middle, subverting the conventions of composition, to create a rebellious attitude, not just in his performance, but also in the filming. 
One of our final scenes, was the scene detailing a rusted old burning car, that clearly integral to one of the bands daily activities. In this instance we challenged the normal conventions of pop videos, by leaving the audience on a cliff hanger, and instead or telling them what happens, we leave it to individual interpretation. However we do conform to Negus' convention of "high impact instantly". Everything in the gang scenes that we shot was decided on location. Filming as quickly and with as much improvisation as we did, it is hard to remember the sheer number of shots individually, but we were definitely trying to reflect the pace of the song through the pace of our work and ultimately the pace of our finished product. We did however have to carefully plan out two scenes, as we only had one chance at these, the scene wherein the fridge was smashed, and the final scene depicting the flares, so for these two shots we imitate the main conventions of constructing a pop video.
With regards to camera movement, we in essence were wholly spontaneous, naturally the DJ shots took a lot of planning and preproduction, but everything, other than the two previously mentioned shots, that we shot on location was improvisational, as we chose to use ideas that we conceived on the day. To obtain the handheld, documentary style that we highly sought after, we had to forget about the conventions and do some very avant-garde filming. In terms of Negus, we did imitate his convention of "the flexibility to disregard realism", because had we been realistic in shooting the gang scenes, the final product would have looked more like a news-piece than a music video.
Handheld documentary filming meant that we could take the audience into the middle of the action, giving them a very intimate feel for what was going on and the characters involved. We were also not afraid to let the shots run very short or very long, nor to be out of focus at times or to have odd angles. This all gave the piece a feeling of fly on the wall observational documentary, as explained by Michael Rabiger in his book 'Directing the Documentary'.
In terms of Distribution and Evaluation, we distributed the video through YouTube and Vimeo, and I have also posted the video on Facebook to try and draw attention from the social network. All the sites have had nothing but positive feedback. If we were marketing the song as a whole, we might go about purchasing adspace on popular websites such as Google, Facebook, YouTube and Amazon. The Internet is the key to our distribution.
After months of deliberation and about twenty hours spent in front of a computer screen, I have finally finished editing my pop video. The editing package we were entitled to was Final Cut Pro with Adobe After Effects, although in the end I didn’t need to use Adobe After Effects because of the calibre of the footage we shot on our shoot day. As I edited my pop video, I found more and more that I was taking the pop video in a better direction than our storyboards depicted, thus I built on my own ideas as opposed to the ones I had previously laid out. This isn’t to say that we changed the idea; some of the elements we had pre-planned were included. For example the introduction wherein the DJ is clapping or the scene with the man walking away from the car.
As far as a rough cut is concerned, my pop video was already at its final stages; I never actually had a designated rough cut. I went straight to my fine cut. I had various alterations to make to the structure after the film in itself was ‘finished’ and I still needed to make sure the film stuck to its continuity style of editing. An example of one error I made in terms of continuity is where the gang scene breaking the fridge are doing their ritual of blood brothers, I cut in a shot that portrayed someone different performing the act, this didn’t work as the focus was taken away from the grim nature of the act, and left the audience confused. I changed this by putting in an establishing shot of the gang. 
I chose to use continuity editing because discontinuity editing would have, in my opinion, taken away from the main narrative. Continuity Editing is when you edit a video to make sense visually, for example a man wearing a red hat continues to wear the same red hat throughout the video. Discontinuity is where you edit a video to create a sense of unrest in the viewer, usually building to some kind of climax. 
This is another example where I have used the rule of thirds, the eye is drawn to the obscured face of the DJ, wherein the point of this shot is to subvery stereotypical star promotion, most pop videos would have a the lead star spangled and front and foremost in their pop video, here we have chosen to obscure the DJ's face because it is not about who he is or where he was come from, but about his music and the narrative.
On the day itself we shot in the studio from 9:00 to about 13:00. We ran through the song a large number of times, we did run the song over a couple of times so the DJ could practice his performance and get a feel for the song. We shot the DJ performing from a number of different angles and incorporating a large number of movements. In this element of the music video Leo Faulks and I manned the camera and Tamara Middleton and Millie Freeman were in charge of playback and making sure that everything on set was perfect, this included the lighting, and making sure the performer was doing what he was meant to be doing and that he was on set when we needed him.
On the camera, myself and Leo had to make sure the levels were all okay and that we got all the shots we needed, this consisted various movement shots, including panning and tracking shots. We tried to shoot the DJ from a slightly lower angle, a hero shot, to promote his status and to give him a heroic lift from the rest of the video, which depicts gang initiations and violence.
The only real problems we had were in pre-production, where we were denied to access to our first and second locations unless we could have the “necessary” health precautions, which in the council’s eyes was an ambulance and a fire truck, which would have cost money that we didn’t have. A slight problem that we really had on the day was from the weather, we were due to shoot exterior shots after 13:00, but we waited for a short while for the rain to slow a bit. Luckily it slowed down at about 13:30, and we were able to manage until it completely stopped with only a few umbrellas.
We did make a few mistakes on the day when we failed to white balance correctly and choose an appropriate shutter speed on location. This rendered about twenty of the two hundred shots redundant. But we corrected this problem once we had realised that this was occurring and the remainder of the shots we had were artistic and well thought out. In the studio we did have a minor issue with playback as the CD with our track on it didn’t work in the CD player, but this problem was quickly solved when I fetched my laptop, which we connected to the sound system through the auxiliary/phono input.
One of the shots the really worked was of the DJ, it was during the middle of the song, and the DJ was on the hot point (using the rule of thirds) in the top right hand corner, the DJ decks occupied the bottom two hot points and the upper left hot point led the eye away fro the DJ, because the flashing lights caused an effect of the white background which synced perfectly with the melody of the song. We used this shot in our final cut at the exact point in which we shot it because it works just so perfectly.
Another shot that really worked was shot on location, it was shot from a slightly canted angle, with the camera being handheld, giving the shot an edgy realistic feel. The shot depicted the ultimate climactic battle between the two gangs, with one gang threatening with the use of flares. The shot worked so well because the camera’s movement is similar to that of a heartbeat. The main focus of the shot is a lit handheld flare, which occupies the uppermost right hand hot point. The best part of the shot in my opinion is the debris and smoke, which partially obscures the other characters, and adds a mysterious element to the shot. Other than the botched white balance shots mentioned earlier, there weren’t many bad shots. There was one however that didn’t work, were a gang member was meant to appear prolific and intimidating, but instead they had a grin that really fit with the mise-en-scene.
Overall the day went really well, we stuck to out plans very well, and although the final product didn’t follow our storyboards closely. I felt that the final product was of an excellent quality. We did follow the basic structure but we also filmed many shots that weren’t originally scripted, and I felt the inherent spur of the moment shots we incorporated worked very well indeed. It was these shots that made our pop video what it was in the end, and it was these shots that made our pop an exceptional final product.
.As a collective, we must understand that the pop video is only one strand of an often multimedia campaign. Multimedia campaigns often include Television, Radio, Newspapers, Magazines, Internet and Shopping Malls. The pop video naturally fits into the Television aspect of this campaign, and along with this there is often a “Making the Video” special aired to go with pop videos. In radio, the DJ’s are sometimes bribed to play an excess of a certain record. In newspapers there are often square advertisements that depict an artist’s new record or a tour supporting the record, this would be the same in magazines, also there might be a featurette with a “Meet the Band” style article, attempting to bring the band down to earth. The Internet is a limitless resource, and through this there are websites such as MySpace (
Music Videos serve more than one purpose; they serve as a method of promotion for an artist, promoting an artist and usually their album; they create, adapt, and feed star images; it entertains as a product in its own right; and last but not least it reinforces, adapts or undermines the meanings of a song. Music videos often include four basic elements; performance; narrative; thematic; and symbolic. My video should serve to do all of these things, the content of the video focuses more so on the performance and narrative than the thematic and the symbolic. It many respects the music video is becoming defunct and irrelevant. This is largely down to peer2peer sharing on the Internet through websites like Limewire (http://www.limewire.com) and BearShare (http://www.bearshare.com), and how music television (MTV, VH1, VIVA etc.) (
