Muhjah’s A2 Blog

 Music Videos contain many different kinds of camera angles and camera shots which contribute to the different themes explored in a music video. They also contribute to conveying the mood and story of the music video. Camera Shots in Music Videos :  Extreme Close-Up (ECU): Focuses on small details (e.g., eyes, lips, hands). Enhances emotional intensity or highlights key visual elements. Close-Up (CU): Frames the subject's face or an object. Captures emotions or emphasizes lyrics/melody. Medium Shot (MS): Shows the subject from the waist up. Balances focus on expressions and body language. Long Shot (LS): Captures the full subject from head to toe. Highlights the subject within the environment. Extreme Long Shot (ELS): Shows the subject at a great distance. Used for dramatic openings or to establish scale. Over-the-Shoulder Shot: Frames the scene from behind a subject's shoulder. Often used for interactions or point-of-view storytelling. Tracking/Dolly Shot: Camera moves...

The music video aims to explore themes of isolation, mental health, and self-identity, shedding light on the struggles of loneliness and feeling misunderstood. It highlights hallucinations as a coping mechanism for these challenges, illustrating how the protagonist relies on them to escape the impact of isolation—an experience often overlooked by others. This is particularly evident in a scene where the mother is shown yelling at the protagonist, who remains detached, singing the lyrics instead. This moment underscores the disconnect between them and serves as the root of misunderstandings, pushing the protagonist further into her hallucinations to escape the harsh realities of her life. The music video emphasises the inner battles people face, often concealed behind the image they present to the world. The strained interaction with the mother highlights a lack of connection, deepening the feelings of loneliness. Ultimately, the music video seeks to raise awareness about mental healt...

  Our music video was on the song “Ikisvi Sadi” by ‘Biryani Brothers’, a Pakistani band formed by Natasha Noorani and Zahra Paracha in 2014. We chose this song as it’s a representation of Pakistani culture and language.  PLOT : The music video starts of with the actor, Muhjah (me) singing along to the lyrics, explaining how she feels like nobody understands her. There’s shots of me completely alone in a room, laying down on a sofa, looking out the window and sitting on a chair. Then we introduced the other character, Dua, who is basically my hallucination. Raaniya plays the roll of my mother. We show her scolding me and trying to explain something to me. The basic idea of this music video is my character has a mental illness, therefore, feels like nobody understands her, except for her hallucination.  CAMERA :  - high angle shot : The music video starts off with a high angle pan shot. The camera pans from the right side of the room, horizontally, to the left. It the...

  I was in charge of editing for this task. I compiled and edited the music video using iMovie. I made some major adjustments which included discarding some of the shots because they were too shaky and weren’t filmed properly. Other than that, I did some slight color grading and edited the tones of the shots to be more vivid. Some of the edits I made were quiet minor, but they contributed to the smaller details of the music video ; I adjusted the speed of some of the shots to match the speed of the others, as some were too slow. I also inserted the music track over the music video and synced it to the speed of the actor’s singing. 

 My group and I decided to film at a location in school, as it was convenient for everyone. We chose to film in the principle’s office as it fit the criteria for the location we needed. We decided on a time of day that worked for all 3 of us, as all of us have very busy schedules with overlapping classes. We decided to film during one of our free periods and we only had the margin of 50 minutes to film. My group members and I all acted in the music video, but i played to role of the protagonist, which meant i wasn’t really filming anything. I brought my digital video camera to school to film with. I explained the main settings of the camera to Raaniya and Dua and gave them general camera directions when needed. My camera unfortunately died mid shoot (I really should’ve charged it the night before) and because of that, we had to film on my iPhone.  We had a lot of fun with the entire filming process, even though we kept messing up. The weather was quiet hot and so we tried to g...

 Auditions weren't really required for this task as my group members and I decided to act ourselves. I played the role of the protagonist, and my role was to just lip-sync the lyrics and reenact the lyrics expressively. Raaniya played the role of the side-character ; my character's mother, and Dua played the role of my character's hallucination. 

 

 For my preliminary task, i wanted to keep the tones quiet light and soft, with nothing too vibrant. The aesthetic I was going for was traditional Pakistani.  I added an image of distorted faces to symbolise the portrayal of a mental illness in the music video. I also added some pictures of flowers and greenery, as my group and I's initial idea was to film outdoors, however we weren't able to.  I also mostly included photos with natural light, which is also reflected in the final music video as we used natural light.

This is the storyboard my team and I created for our preliminary music video project.  Raaniya was in charge of creating it, while Dua and I assisted her verbally. We agreed on what to add and what to exclude and formatted our ideas accordingly. 

For our preliminary task , my group and I were torn between two songs I suggested. “Ikisvi Sadi” by Biryani Brothers, and “Koi Anay Wala Hai” by Strings. “Ikisvi Sadi” follows themes of isolation and solace, whereas “Koi Anay Wala Hai” follows themes of hope and love. Each track was different in it’s own ways, but we ended up resonating with ikisvi sadi more. As I mentioned earlier, this song explores themes of isolation and disconnection which we found easy to depict in our music video ; moreover, it’s sung by a female which was also made it easier for us to depict.  Genre : The genre of our music video is ‘psychological drama’. Our music video elaborates on the already established themes of isolation and loneliness, following the story of a young girl (the protagonist, played by me) who feels isolated and misunderstood. The only person who truly understands her is a young woman dressed in white clothes, who is actually just the protagonist’s hallucination. She finds true solace a...

  i ntroducing the group :  Hello! My name is Muhjah Kashif, and my teammates names are Dua-e-zainab and Raaniya Junaid. I’m looking forward to working with them, as this is the first time we’ll be working in a group together. The three of us are all in our last year of A’levels, and we were so excited to hear we’d be focusing on music videos this year. I’m especially looking forward to using our individual strengths and combining them to produce an exceptional final project. I’ve known Dua and Raaniya both for a year now, and aside from being good team members, they’re also good friends of mine.  Despite having never worked with them before, the planning process seems to be going quiet well. We have no issues diving our work and planning our assignments. Everyone agrees on the strategies discussed and we have no trouble getting work done together. There is one small issue we face, which is time management, other than that, we don't have any problems.  Here are Raani...