Self-Shot Music Video Example

Another example of a self-shot music video is 'Beauty And A Beat' by Justin Bieber and Nicki Minaj.
The video is set in a water park, and Justin is nearly always holding the camera.

The build-up to the music video made headlines throughout the media; what started out as just a prank between his team and the fans, turned into a viral marketing campaign for the music video and the single itself.
His management posted a tweet from Justin's account saying that his laptop had been stolen which had 3 hours of personal footage which documented the past few years of his life.
When the video was finally released, the following title screen appeared at the start:

Then, carrying on with the 'stolen laptop prank', several clips of Justin are shown; some are of him holding the camera and talking, some are of him when he was younger playing the piano, and some are on the set of the music video.

The footage of behind the scenes of the music video continues to play as the song starts; the whole thing was filmed in one continuos shot, and he just edited out the parts he didn't want.
The video was written, directed, shot, and the song sung and wrote by Justin himself, so the video is made a lot more personal to him and his fans.
Getting to write, direct, and shoot your own music video means you have a lot more artistic freedom with what you do and how you do it, and this is shown in this video.

When Justin is dancing and not holding the camera, he attaches it to a crane which is previously set up in the right position to film the next part of the video.

He then takes the camera off the crane and continues around the water park to film the rest of the video.

The camera he uses is also a underwater camera:

Justin uses a lot of different camera shots and angles throughout the video, which almost makes it more interesting to watch. 

I love this video for many reasons, one being that it is all filmed by Justin and this makes the video more personal, but also because it is all filmed on a small camera...

This makes the video seem a lot more low-profile and special, and it also makes this type of music video a lot more accessible to me as I won't have access to expensive cameras and equipment.

Planning My Trial Music Video

As my previous idea for my trial music video would be too difficult to film, I have chosen a different idea.

I have always loved music videos which appear to be filmed by the artist or the main character in the video, as it makes the video more personal and it often relates more to the song and the lyrics than other styles of music videos.

I will write another post with a more detailed plan of what I am going to do for my trial music video, and how it will fit with the song I have chosen, Sweater Weather by The Neighbourhood.

Trial Music Video

Over the next few weeks, I am going to be planning a trial music video in preparation for my actual music video, which I'll film mainly over the summer.

I would like to film on the beach as this will be the main location for my final music video.

All beaches are around 40/45 minutes from me as we don't live near the coast. However, Newcastle quayside has a mock-up beach which I would be able to film on, and it is closer to me than any of the actual beaches, so it is more practical for me.

The mock beach would fit perfectly in any weather, and I haven't decided whether I want to film during the day or at night, but I think I might film in black and white as that is iconographic of The Neighbourhood's videos.



If I were to film on this 'beach', I would stand with my back to the bridge, and film towards the wall, as this would create the illusion that I was filming on an actual beach.

The Quayside is beautifully luminescent at night, and this would be a great setting for my music video. The only problem with this, however, is that I can only film in Newcastle at night on a Friday or Saturday, and this is the time that the quayside is full of people drinking, especially in the bar 'Pitcher and Piano', which I was hoping to film in.

 

On the other hand, the Quayside would be a great place to film during the day, as it would be a great setting for the music video if the main character got lost in the crowd.

The website for Newcastle Quayside Market said: 'The exciting Newcastle Quayside Market takes place every Sunday from 9.30am - 4pm.'
So I would be able to film the market during the day, and then film at night, also.


One idea I have for a narrative for this video is filming the main actor walking through a crowd of people, but then having them slowly fade away. This would be extremely hard to do but looks very effective when done correctly.

As this is just a plan for the video, my ideas and plans may change, but I will update my blog as my ideas develop.

Getting Back Into The Swing Of Things

To get us used to using the cameras again after a 6 month break from filming, Sir told us to film a short video - nothing too serious or professional.

I decided to use a song by 'The Neighbourhood', as they are the band I am using for my main project. I used the song 'Afraid' because, not only was it stuck in my head when we got assigned to do the filming, but I thought the chorus would be quite easy to put images to.

I used my younger brother as my main (and only) actor as I thought it would be more effective and powerful to do a simple video for this song, rather than using a lot of people, especially because it is our first project of this year.
I stuck with the black and white theme of 'The Neighbourhood''s videos, and even got my brother to dress in dark clothing as the mise-en-scene of a music video is just as, if not more, important than the mise-en-scene of a film.

I filmed all of the shots free-hand as I didn't have access to a tripod, but I am extremely pleased with how smooth the pans are and how steady a lot of the shots have turned out.

In the second-from-last scene of the video, I used an editing technique which is used frequently in music videos of The Neighbourhood songs - cutting one long clip of the actor walking and using fade-to-black transitions to show the passing of time, rather than showing the whole clip in full.

As I edited this clip at home, I used iMovie as opposed to Adobe Premiere software which we have on the school computers, so my editing isn't as smooth as I'd like, but I now know how to use iMovie more than I did an hour ago - its true what they say, you do learn something new everyday!

Anyway, here's my video...