Planning: Lighting and colour

Lighting helps to convey the character representation and mood of the music video as it is usually manipulated to create an effect on the audience and convey further meanings. Colour is the contrast that is evident the most in a scene. It also creates mood and makes different representation to get a specific audience response. Often lighting and colour complement one another and are used together to make a double effect on the spectator. These are important as subconsciously the audience always makes assumptions about the genre or character in the music video basing on lighting and colour. Without these the viewer will be confused on who they should support and who they should loathe.

Lighting is divided into two sections which include:

• Angles- the positioning of the lights

• Type -the way the lighting is used e.g.: dark or light

These are the different lighting and colour techniques we plan to use:

Top Lighting: We intend to use top lighting in our music video. This will be evident at the middle of our music video when the artist is in the alley way and stands under a street lamp and looks up to the light. The scene proposes prostitution however the holy connotations of top lighting contrast that thus giving away varied meanings for the audience who can find their own individualistic messages. This was inspired by Lana Del Rey’s music video Blue Jeans. In the video she uses top lighting to convey her innocent nature and purity of her love with another man.

Back Lighting: We also want to use back lighting in our production. This will be evident at the middle of our music video when the artist walks away from the lamp drinking and smoking and a long shot will capture their back as they walk towards the end of the alley way. We hope to create a silhouette of the artist in order to create suspense for the audience and keep them entertained. It also stands as a symbolic representation of hope for the character. This was inspired by Ed Sheeran’s video One where the artist stands in an empty auditorium and sings to help emphasize on his isolation and possible emotional issues. 

Black & White filter: The following music videos by Amy Winehouse - Back to Black, Lana Del Rey - Blue Jeans and Adele – Someone Like You, the use of black and white filter is effective in order to represent the sorrowful and miserable emotions of the artist and their feelings. It also enhances the narrative of the music video. This creates a mature feel for the audience which they can relate to and understand. These colours will also be used to portray our main artist in our music video as a disheartened person.  This will create a feeling of pity from the audience as the character looks lost and vulnerable. These neutral colours will be used throughout our music video, in order to represent the theme of addiction, consumerism and self-disruption of the character. The music videos have influenced our ideas as all of them connote are successful and appropriate to the genre.

Low key lighting/Natural: In our music video we will use natural lighting due to the time we are going to film the video in, therefore the natural/low key lighting will be beneficial as it will make our music video more generic and professional for the audience to watch. Not only it is conventional for the genre of our video, but also will help to portray our dark themes of self-disruption and alcohol addiction. This was influenced by the music videos stated above.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, the lighting and colour used in each of these music videos are effective in the way they are used and portrayed. As a result, we have also decided to use similar colours and lighting in order to ensure our video gives off a similar effect, having the same impact on the audience. It is important that we follow these videos as they are successful as a result of them using appropriate lighting and colour.