Music Video Stan by Eminem

Music Video Analysis - Stan by Eminem

The video I analysed was Stan by Eminem. I picked this song for two reasons, one being that I like this song. The other being that it has a strong story line and I will be able to analyse it well thanks to this video having a strong story line. This video is all about an unhealthy obsession that this individual called Stan has on his idol Slim Shady (Eminem). The message in this story is clear and it is to try not to have any obsessions as they can become dangerous as is the case in this song, the main character Stan ends up killing both his pregnant wife and himself all because his idol did not write back to him.

Production Schedule & Assets List

Above are two documents that will help me when filming my music video, they are the production schedule and the Assets List. The Assets List is an itinerary of everything I need to use in order to make my music video a success. I feel this is an important document as it can help me on the day of filming to remember everything I need to have in order to film. The Production Schedule is a guide to when i want to film, I have chosen 4 days in the first week of my half term as everybody who have agreed to be involved in my video are free. The reason I have chosen four days is that I need to compensate for the weather, I'm hoping that at least 2 of these 4 days will have weather where I 'am able to film my music video.

Music Video Analysis - Flobots Handlebars

Above is an image of my music video analysis. The music video I analysed was Handlebars by Flobots. This songs music video is below for you to have a look at.

Animatronic Story Board

Below is the video to my animatronics, it allows you to see what kind of shape my video will take, however cannot show the special effects, or camera movement I want to use.

However you could show what you wanted to happen by labeling each post it note, it just cannot show the actual effect or movement happening.

When filming the animatronics I had to use a small video camera and a tripod, once I had inserted my tape I assembled the video camera onto the tripod and began to film each post it note cutting in between each note. Once I had finished filming I had to import the film onto Adobe Premier Pro, I then put the clips together and made the film above as you can see.

Still Images of My Track

Below are my still images. These still images are a first impression of what I want to happen in my music video. The track that the images are based around is called Sweet Caroline, by Neil Diamond. The idea of making these storyboards was so that I could gain a visual idea of how my track would look. It was also very helpful in the way that you could begin to get a feel of where you needed to go and perhaps how long the filming process would take overall. Another advantage of making the storyboards was that you can see if you needed to add anything, for example if the track needed an extra scene to make the flow better.

Initial Ideas For Music Video

Below are my 3 initial ideas for my A2 music video.


1- Neil Diamond Sweet Caroline (1969)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_Caroline
Two parts to the video one of the singer and a girl (Caroline) -- (This part would be the story to the video)
The other part to my video would have a band with the singer performing (Most Likely Outside)
The band would be performing about the girl and the video would switch between these two locations.For this video
I would need at least 2 people and no more than 5. I feel this is the video I' am most confident with, but I would also
prefer to describe the video to you as it is easier than tying it as it is quite complex.


2- REM - Losing my Religion (1991)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Losing_My_Religion
Video about a person who feels that they are not good enough for the world and feel that he (singer) is at the
end of the ropes and has just had enough of life. At the end i would like to have some sort of upbeat occasion for the
singer perhaps a promotion at work or meeting somebody new that he likes perhaps a girl friend that lifts his spirit.
In this video I' am not yet sure of how many people I would want to include, however I feel it would be around 3-4 people.



3- Fighting For Five - Superman (2000)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_for_Fighting
This song is about trying to fit in and it is written from supermans point of view. In my video i would like the
person to have a lot of things going wrong in his life, i feel this would would suit the song because the song is
about trying to get by and fit in and having a sort of had time, what i mean is like things are not working out for
him, but towards the end i want something to go well for him.
I would need 1-3 People
Fade in and out editing
A Range of shots, close,medium,large.
My location would be at a feild near my house, and some of the foot paths near my house as well as inside my house aswell.

Music Video Proposal

Below are my three music tracks that I had to choose my final song from.

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAY_LwYLIh0&ob=av2e
This was one of my final choices this song is called 'Superman' by Fighting For Five.

2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=if-UzXIQ5vw&ob=av2n
Here is the link to the second choice of my final three tracks. This one is called 'Losing My Religion' by REM.

3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLPiYZrwAzU
This is the link to my chosen song, this song is called 'Sweet Caroline' by Neil Diamond.
This song is 3:24 in length.
It was Created in 1969.
Due to the age of the song it does not have an official music video.

My Proposed Idea For My Video
I have watched different music videos to try and get some ideas. However I have come up with a special effect, this effect is a fade in and out effect where a person or object appears when in use, then disappears when the lyrics no longer associate with the image shown. I plan to have the main person (singer) on screen the whole time and people and objects appearing around him, I plan to use this effect throughout the video and I hope it will be able to tell the story.

My idea is to have a strong link between the image you can see and the lyric you can hear. I will have two different scenarios between the narrative and the actual singing, I hope to link these two together with the fade in and fade out effect, so when there is no narrative and he is just singing I will have just the singer. When there is narrative I will have the others fade in to suit the lyrics.

At this moment in time I think i'll need around 4-5 people and a few instruments as props. I plan to use my local area to do all of the filming as I feel it has enough different places to ensure that the video does not look boring.

At the start of my video I plan to have an establishing shot, in this shot you will be able to see the singer walking for afar towards the camera, as the song has no vocal in the intro I plan to use lots of cuts that gradually get closer to the singer. I plan to use the same idea at the end of the video but in a reverse order.

Bad Touch Remake Evaluation

Above is my edited version of the Blood Hound Gang Bad Touch music video. The two main tasks with this task were to film and edit.

When filming there were a few different aspects of filming that we had to maintain focus on as they were essential to making the video looking professional and not mediocre. The aspects we had to think of were simple ones however if they were not carried out then the video would not of looked as good as it came out. Holding the camera steady was an important task to do throughout all of the filming was very important, with this was to ensure that the framing was correct i.e. that the people featuring in the video were all in shot and that they were not cut of at the top for example. 

Acting was another part of the filming, in acting had to ensure that we all helped each other in giving each other advice on what to do in an effort to make our version as a like to the original as possible. With this we had to make sure that we took each scene seriously as some of the parts of the song were humorous however we had to be professional and make sure that we were not smiling during the filming. We had to have patience when filming as some parts took a long time to film. What we did very well was our reliability when filming, everybody turned up to every filming session.

After we had finished filming as a class we had a quick tutorial on the editing program which is named Adobe Premier Pro. The editing was the hardest part of the entire project as it took precise cutting, if you didn't look at the times properly then the lip sync would be out. The editing was time consuming, due to the precise timing and actually finding the correct clips for the correct part as well as referring to the original video.

Below is the original 'Bad Touch' video, you can watch both videos and compare how they both look and actually see how close we came to duplicating the video.