Genre Analysis

Grime is a urban style of music that originates from UK Garage and British Hip Hop. Because of this you can expect to hear and see urban styles in the music and the music videos along with an urban setting for the video. Chances are you will be the artist wearing jeans and hoody jackets.

Rock is a mainstream genre of music that originates from Rock N' Roll and Country Music. Most rock songs are based around different emotions (creating a sub-genre which is often labled as "Emo Music"). Others include different themes such as religion or events.

In the music videos you will often see the artist singing and using their instruments.

Hold On Lyrics and Analysis

Lyrics

I sing now, for all of you
With no one to hold on to
For all the broken hearts out there,
Waiting for someone to be near.
Hold on, (this is so du-umb), hold on

To my people listen up
When I miss somebody
When she need somebody
When she had somebody
Somebody to somebody
That made you feel like somebody

That somebody is calling
You need somebody
Heartbroken I've been indeed
…??

Whenever I miss that someone
I try not to think hard 'cuz then the tears come
And the tears run down your cheek
You can't speak bubububut sudden' sudden' the pain increase.
'Cuz youre messed up, fed up, stressed up,
'cuz they're up and you're down and messed up

Yeah what, don't cry my dear
I swear I'm near, I care.
I'm here, right here.
…??
Your love is here, right here

I sing now, for all of you
With no one to hold on to
For all the broken hearts out there (for all you broken hearts out there)
Waiting for someone to be near

To my people listen up
When I miss somebody
When she need somebody
When she had somebody
Somebody to somebody
That made you feel like somebody
That somebody is calling
You need somebody

Sixteen and my knees hasn't gone wild
My good friend homie Big Phil had to die
I had to fill a room that was full before
First time someone close to me was gone
I need a lover and I feel like I need it and yes I....?
I need it straight to put me thru.

So I had to (hold on) to my emotions
and remember my dues
Now twenty-two, got a romance, so I made some I have some I lost some friends
At the end I got to (hold on) to the ones that you know...?? back to the e-e-end

I sing now, for all of you (just listen up out there)
With no one to hold on to (don't feel like you are alone out there)
For all the broken hearts out there, (I'm Here)
Waiting for someone to be near.

To my people listen up, when I miss somebody (hold on) so du-umb
To my people listen up, when I miss somebody (hold on) so uh-uh
To my people listen up, when I miss somebody (hold on) so uh-uh
Miss somebody (hold on) So uh-yeah

Sometimes I gotta, sometimes you gotta, sometimes she gotta (hold on)
Sometimes they gotta, sometimes we gotta, sometimes I gotta (hold on)
Sometimes you gotta, sometimes she gotta, sometimes they gotta (hold on)

I sing now, for all of you
With no one to hold on to (sounds of the beautiful)
For all the broken hearts out there (Neverstore.. the one and only)
Waiting for someone to be near

I sing now, for all of you
With no one to hold on to
For all the broken hearts out there,
Waiting for someone to be near (sh-sh-yeah)
Hold on (this is so dumb)

Analysis

The lyrics are very easy to understand and have a deep and emotional message about not giving up when things get hard and to "Hold On" through the pain. This is good because it allows us to give our music video a kind of story relating to the lyrics, not present in the actual video.

Me and My Group: Our first discussion

The first discussion me and my group had were what song we were going to do. But to decide that we needed to know what genre we were going to do. As I have said in earlier posts I was interested in doing a Rock Music Video. The others didn't share this idea because they wanted to do grime. Because this is a team effort we decided we were going to see if we could find a Grime/Rock song, similar to Jay Z and his "Encore" version of Linkin Park's "Numb".

So we started looking at other songs, finding that rock/grime songs were harder to come by than we thought.

We decided to do "Hold On" by Lazee and Neverstore. The reason for this is the kind of urban style of music with a few hints of rock in there, making us all happy.

Hold On Music Video:

Bordwell and Thompson's film editing

Temporal Editing: Temporal Editing relates to time flow. This is only effective if the music video is trying to tell us a story.

Rhythmic Editing: How long each shot last for. Does it last for 5 seconds? Does it last for 2 seconds? Does it even last for 7 seconds?

Graphic Editing: This is a type of Editing that uses Mise-en-scene and Cinematography. An example of the use of cinematography would be the use of an Graphic Match (Linking the shots together through use of graphic similarities)

Spatial Editing: This type of editing concerns the "space" in the film by use of setting and location.

Montage Editing

Montage Editing is different from Continuity because its aim is not to deliver us a story. Therefore it does not need to follow a restricted timeline or time flow. Also not everything has to be related or even be in order. Because of this the director has more freedom of what to do.

An example would be the training scenes in the Rocky films. Although it normally goes from the start of his training to the end you'll find that it goes back and forth to bits. One moment you could have Rocky running to him doing weights, to him doing jump rope to him running to him doing push ups.

Although this is similar to music videos the chances are music videos will be more random then a Rocky Training Montage because they are meant to be in time with the song, can have multiple meanings and are not meant to make any sense.

ROCKY TRAINING MONTAGE:

Continuity Editing

Continuity Editing should consist of certain shot types and movement. With Continuity Editing there must be a story and the editing must flow together to tell this story. An example would be if a character is going to sit in a chair in one shot and is sitting in it in the next.

If he were to begin sitting down but then was running outside for no reason it wouldn't make sense and would not give us a story. Instead it confuses us.

Continuity Editing is to continue a story using shot types like close up (for facial expressions), tracking shots to show movement, Over the shoulder shots (which then goes into the 90 Degree rule where if you look over someone's right shoulder you look over the other's left).

You might even have a long or establishing shot to give us a clear view of their surroundings. This can be used in music videos in a similar way it does for TV Dramas. If the music video has a story to it we will need to make sure everything fits and that it is clear what is going on.

Sugar Water by Cibomatto analysis

"Sugar Water" is an interesting video because it gives us two connected stories of two women. What makes it interesting is that there is a split screen in the middle and one is in reverse while the other is normal time and at one point they swap positions.

Throughout the video it uses one long tracking shot on each side which goes through the video even when the two swap sides of the screen. The shot type is mostly a mid shot or close up, rarely going into a long shot and the two sides of the screen mirror each other in a way (they two wash at the same time in one bit despite the fact one is in reverse and the words "Sugar Water" and "You Killed Me" being spelled out by both sides of the screen becoming closer show this).

Editing: Montage and Continuity

There are two ways of editing a music video. You can do montage, which is a series of clips put to music or continuity, used when telling a story. This means you could do two types of music videos: Narrative (A story) or Abstract (no story).
A good example of a montage is the training scenes in the Rocky films. The clips are not strught after each other and do not try to establish a link with every clip. It simply cuts back and forth to different clips while keeping to the music.

Music Videos that I have analysed

This table shows the different Music Videos that I looked at. I looked at What's This Life For? by Creed, New Divide by Linkin Park and Second Chance by Shinedown. I found that with all the rock videos that they show the artist singing the song. What's This Life For didn't really have a whole story but instead had mlitiple ones. New Divide did not have a story although it showed us clips from the movie it was promoting. Second Chance had a story to it, telling usthe story of a girl who wanted to be a ballet dancer rather than work at a fish shop.

The clothing for all the people in the music videos were similar, all wearing dark clothing. The props were mostly the instruments and the locations were different in each video, going from an open desert, to a cave and finally to a small town.

What's This Life For:
New Divide:
Second Chance:

Music Video Song Choices

I have come up with a few song choices that I would like to use for the Music Video. The genre I have chosen is mainly Christian Rock.

Pieces by Red: This song is slow and can be more story based. Because of the tone of the song it will be easy for us to do, however the song is a long one so we would have to find the shorter version.

Red- Pieces:

Rebithing by Skillet: Faster and louder than Pieces. This would be a more typical rock video with the instruments being shown and the singers most probably head banging to the music. Chances are my group will not go for this.

Skillet- Rebirthing:

What's this Life For by Creed: An older song that is more story based this would be an interesting song to use.

Creed- What's This Life For?:

First Blog

This is my Music Video Blog where I will be posting my research, my findings, plans and my activities during the process of making my music video.