Location scout (planning)

As we have decided that the video will be in two parts there are two different main locations and one is the school environment and the other is outside. We have done a scout on the area of the school that we want to use and have matched each bit with a part from our video in the storyboard:

This is the first location that we need and is the entrance area that we will use for when that main person enters and goes into and out of the toilet, this is quite a large area and so there is a good space to get a range of shots that would be useful, to get a lot of quick short shots. It could be useful also to have at the end of the school section as the character runs out and we could include the same or a similar shot to as he came in to show that it's the same but the attitude is different.

This is the toilet that we will be using for the person to come in and find the mask, we thought that we could make use of the mirrors to get some good shots of the charactor to see themself in the mirror with the mask on and to get the image of them twice when he walks past because we like this idea and it will allow us to get a shot of both the front and back of the person at the same time.





This is the corridor that the main character will walk down, we decided that we would have him walking towards the camera on his own and have and thought of trying to edit it so that there would be flashes of people also walking down the corridor which emphasises the fact that it doesn't make a difference whether they are there or not.





This is the stair area that we planned to use for the character to go up to get to the test room that he is going to and we could use the same flashing that we had in the corridor, we also thought of using it for the person to go back down the stairs to leave the building which would be more energetic and the camera may move to show the unsturdiness of the mood. and although we liked the lighting of it and the general look we did think that we may not include this part as we didn't want to over explain things to the viewer or make the video too boring or long and clunky which might lose their attention.

As we thought that we might not use the stair part we came up with the back up idea of using the lift or the idea that he could leave using the lift as there is another mirror in there which fits with the theme.

Storyboard rough (planning)

Me and Adam are made a draft of storyboard for the first part of our music video. We have decided to split the filming into two different days, and will film the parts at school first, followed by the parts outside on a different day.


We have decided that we will film the first part of the video this week on friday and have got the actors that we will need and have briefed them on the outfits that they need to be wearing and the times that we intend to film. This is our storyboard for the first part:

Main pitches (planning)

Our main pitch is an idea that involves a person that wears a mask and breaks out from their daily routine and descends to anarchy. The idea comes from the fact that the song is called fraud which is why we are using masks that show a sense of hidden identity or fraud so it interlinks with the lyrics, but then the actions will depict the idea that the normal society are frauds and the main person goes against it, we will try to achieve this by making the school part of the film feel a bit cold and institutional and then create an image of energy for the main person.

One of our other ideas was that we would use a flip book and the whole music video would be animated this way, but we thought that this may be difficult to do and to edit smoothly we also had trouble finding someone with the capability to draw the images well enough for the end product to look good.

And the final idea that we had was that we would use toys and animate them to dance and act the whole video out this way, but then problems included getting haold of toys to do this and we also thought that the idea might be a bit boring for the viewer for the whole 4 minutes of the song, there were also problems with the fact that the editing would be difficult to keep smooth and we couldn't decide whether to have the persons hands in the video or to try and animate the whole thing without hands, but we were told that this would take a very long time as we'd need to have about 30 shots a second to make it smooth which could take too long for the deadline.

Target audience (research)

To find out about my target audience I gave a questionnaire out to males and females around peterborough, aged between 15 and 25. The aim was to find out about what they wanted to have in a music video, and what made current music videos successful. The questionnaire is included below:


The first question concluded that most people thought a music video should last around 3 minutes. When interviewed they said that five minutes and over was too long to hold their attention as the video would get boring unless it was very good. Question two was not as clear cut with the target audience answering the band, song, actors, and overall message were equally important with no clear favourite. Again question three found no clear winner for what genre the most effective music video is; comedy, horror, just the band playing, etc all ranked as equally important as long as the video is flimed well, and captures the audiences attention and holds it. However, question four found that the linking of lyrics with the visuals in the music video are very important, which suggests that reinforcing the songs lyrics by showing it visully on a screen ehances the audiences capability to remember the song. Question five found that my target audience would consider watyching a music video of an unsigned band if it was the same genre as other music they liked, and interestingly question six found that a music video does not need to have the band in it to be successfull according to my questionnaire. Question seven found that faster songs with faster edits and cuts are more successful than slow ones, and when interviewed it was established because it kept the viewer alert and captured their attention. Question eight asked if the link between music and visuals was important in my target audiences opinion, and it was found that they were, again as they cause a link between audio and visual and make the audince remember the song more.Question nine asked which genre of music has the best music videos in my target audiences opinion. This had varying results with some saying grime as the beats are normally linked with the visuals in the video, pop because of the lead singer or band featuring predominantly in the video, indie as these were very creative and different, and R and B because of the actors/actress's used in them. Question ten found this vary in results was due to peoples favourite music videos being influenced by their favourite genre of music, therefore as long as I made a video that fit in with common trends of that genre my target audience would probably appreciate it

The rough idea (planning)

The rough idea of our video is that the main character at the focus of the video will walk inot a school environment and into a toilet where he will find a mask and put it on, from here he willl then walk down a corridor and up some stairs to an exam room the viewer will know this because of signs that he passes on the way and the layout of the new place, all the way along the corridor there will be glimpses or flashes of people walking by. After having been in the exam room for a short while he then decides to break out and burst out of the room and then other people follow and put on similar masks, they then leave the school and run around the town rebeliously. This is the basic idea of the video and is open to change at this point.

The music (planning)

For our music promo video we are going to use a song called Frauds by Scarlet Harlots, who are an unsigned indie band who were recently featured on the T4 Unsigned Acts, a competition where unsigned bands compete to get on a record label. This band are a typical young indie band and the song is quite a fast and up beat tune and so we are going to make sure that the onscreen actions depict this in order to appeal to the audience that is there already for this genre.

Music promo video (research)

The music promo video is seen as the same thing as a music video in general but the promo videos main objective is to draw in customers and create fans and a fanbase this means that the music promo video will often come as part of a promotionary pack that will share the same underlying concept. As the purpose of the promo video is to advertise the use of a range of media in order to tempt an audience into viewing and purchasing the finished product. A promo music video should therefore intereset the audience and encourage them to like the music that comes along with it and get people to talk about and spread the music around

The Andrew Goodwin Theory (research)

We went through the Andrew Goodwin theory about what is important in a music video; this will help us to create a music video with all of the typical conventions required. The conventions in the theory are:
1. There is a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the lyrics
2. There is a relationship between the music and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the music
3. Genres are complex and diverse in terms of music videos style and iconography
4. Record companies will demand a lot of close ups of the main artist or vocalist
5. Voyeurism is present in many music videos, especially the treatment of females, but also in terms of systems of looking e.g. a screen within a screen, mirrors or cameras
6. There are likely to be intersexual references, either to other music videos or to films and TV texts, these provide further gratification and pleasure for the viewers/fans

What we're doing (planning)

As we have decided on the music video as our project we will also be creating a CD cover for the album of the song that we have used in our project which will include the artist and their title on the front. We will also be creating a webpage for the artist as well which will advertise and promote them. These tasks will require careful planning based on research for the type of audience involved in the genre that we choose so that the content is relevant and the presentation appeals to the type of people that are associated with the selected genre. This also applies to the actual music video itself as it should relate the people that it is supposed this will include carefully matching lyrics and music with the visuals and making sure that it fits in with the regular conventions that appeal to the intended audience.

Introduction

In this year my group, Adam Pickup, Tony Myers and me are going to be doing a music video as our project for A2 media we will also be making a CD cover for the music that we use and a webpage for the track. In this blog I will document the project and include the research and planning involved in the making of the projects.

We have already decided that we are going to do the music video over the other ideas available because we feel like we can do the most with this, it was also the most immediately interesting choice for us to do and we are looking forward to creating it using some of the ideas that we have already started thinking about.

Brief: A promotion packagefor the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with two of the following options:
A website homepage for the band;
a cover for it's release as part of a digipack (CD/DVD package);
a magazine advertisement for the digipack (CD/DVD package).