Music Video: Storyboarding & Planning Our Shots

In today's lesson we printed off the lyrics to our chosen song and brought all the ideas we thought about together to link with each line within the song itself. We decided on the different locations we wanted to use and where they'd be appropriate in the particular parts of the song, as not all the actors will appear in all the shots we've highlighted elements of the lyrics where the people will be in certain parts of the video. Below is a scan of our plan and what will be in the video itself.
We also managed to get our storyboards done so we know exactly what shots needed to be filmed, we arranged some of the duration of the shots but the others we didn't plan were the ones we wanted to sort out when it came to editing our video depending on how much footage we would get.


LYRICS PLAN





STORYBOARDS

Permission From Artist

We've tried contacting The Maccabees on numerous occasions in order to gain permission to use their song as we needed to make sure we weren't breaching any copyright legislation when creating our own music video. We felt that it was essential to contact the band via a popular social networking site but the most efficient way of contact was Twitter and Jessica created an account in order for us to get in touch with them. Unfortunately, they haven't replied back to us yet but you can view what we messaged them in the images above.

Music Video: Actors, Costumes & Location Choices

ACTORS
We started looking at the possibilities of many people who could be in our music video, although our sixth form is full of people we felt we needed people we could rely on turning up to every filming session. We took into account the actors we'd need to match the indie genre of our video and decided we wanted 5 boys to be the band alongside a girl who would be apart of the story within the song. Two of the people we've decided on is Zak and myself as we didn't want to rely on too many people out of the group to co-operate and we felt that it would be easier to organise the meeting of four people as opposed to organising times that would be good for six different people.

The other actors we have chosen are:
- Louie Austen
- Jake Robinson
- Joe Mortimer
- Ryan Wilson

Although Zak and I appear in the video there will be opportunity for us to film as I'm not constantly appearing in the video and Zak is in a majority of the video but will help plan shots as well as helping edit on imovieHD as that is essentially his strongest asset.

COSTUMES
Whilst researching our chosen band, The Maccabees, we found that most of their videos incorporate bright colour and it gave us the idea of having the actors wear bright colours within the video itself. As we wanted our video to seem more interesting we've decided on a set of three outfits for our actors.
1. Coloured hoodies, white t-shirts, blue or black skinny jeans and black converse/trainers.
2. Black shirts with coloured ties, blue or black skinny jeans and black converse/trainers.
3. Coloured checked shirts, polo's or t-shirts, blue or black skinny jeans and black converse/trainers.
As a group we chose a set of primary colours for each actor to allocate themselves to having the choice of Red, Blue, Purple, Green, Orange and Yellow.



The colours each of them chose were:

Louie - Purple

Zak - Blue

Joe - Red

Ryan - Green

Jake - Yellow/Orange

LOCATIONS
To make it easier for our actors we decided to make our locations local due to transport and lack of time for not only our actors but also us as a group.

The choices of locations included:

-Church Langley area in Harlow as we'd be using the big hill situated in a field, the woods, a bridge and other streets within the area.

- Louie's studio for the use of instruments within the video.

- The drama studio for shots of the main singer.

- Jess' house for the final shots for the last verse.

Music Video: Creative Research

As we have finally decided on our song for our music video we began to research videos by the same artist being The Maccabees to decide on what the content of our video will be like. Also to gain knowledge into the style of this particular group and seeing if we were able to conform to their particular style.

The Maccabees - First Love
This song consists of both slow and fast paced music throughout, both the music and visuals have no connections apart from parts where the members of the band sing some of the words. As the actors within this video appear to be older it may not attract the particular audience we want to attract. Therefore we are going to use people from our sixth form as the audience can relate to them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6A1xu0BSs2s

The Maccabees - Young Lions (Down The Front Session)
This video is based from the band's acoustic sessuib and we felt it was an interesting video as it has close ups of the band members as well as seeing them create the music themselves. It shows them playing the instruments and lots of cuts have been added which is typical of an indie genre and this is something we'd like to incorporate into our own video. We liked the effects used in the video and would take the style of the video into consideration when creating our own but we're thinking of pushing boundaries a little by adding our own elements within the product.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8w15RJ87UE

The Maccabees - Toothpaste Kisses
As opposed to the other songs the pacing of this particular song is quite slow and mellow, but didn't seem to have much of a purpose to it which is the same with a majority of the other videos we've analysed. The video itself doesn't seem to have many cuts and the location is kept constant throughout which is a pub full of people and the only thing that really links to the lyrics is the fact that everyone in the pub is filmed kissing one another. I felt the types of shots used in this video were very basic and the story to it seemed very tedious as it was based on two characters taking it in turns to kiss other people. When watching this video it made me began to think of using different locations as opposed to one and a variety of shots and camera angles to entice my audience.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SJmWSWQgdM

The Maccabees - Latchmere
When analysing this song we found that it had quite a fast pace and the visuals were mainly random objects with a series of frozen shots giving a broken effect to the video itself. We found that the words were very repetitive but both the lyrics and visuals have no relationship what so ever, this is something we'd like to apply to our video but we also want to add a slight story which isn't seen in the Latchmere video. Although we want to use a range of frozen shots in our video we wouldn't want to apply it to the whole product as it will be extremely time consuming and as our production time is limited it will be very difficult for us. Also in the video we found that there was a great deal of bright colours used, this is something we're interested in doing to our video by making our actors wear bright coloured clothing and with the song we're focusing on being very lively we feel that the use of colours will accentuate this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faMEnZQT2f8

CONCLUSION
- We don't really want to conform to typical indie style video's so we're going to try and keep to the original style The Maccabees use.

- The people in our video will be of the same age range as the target audience.

- Overall, their videos consist of random effects and shots which will be considered for our video.

-The primary style of The Maccabees is to use one element from the lyrics and emphasise it in our music video.

Planning Our Music Video

In yesterday and today's media lesson we started planning our final production, I've decided to work in a group with Zak and Jess. Together we contemplated on either doing a music video or a film trailer, with a great deal of research we came to the conclusion of creating a music video for our final production.

For our music video we have decided on the song X-ray by The Maccabees, for the video we are using five male actors and possibly one female. We want to use a variety of locations to differentiate our video but also make it quite consistent. We've decided to start the video using a variety of pictures changing in correspondence to the music which will initially be the first 32 seconds. Then we'll film in a studio, a field and someone's house but make sure we get extra footage enabling us to have enough to edit our video.

Music Video: Track Research

As we've currently decided on the particular genre we are focusing on the next step was to choose a song we'd like to produce a music video for. We looked at several different songs and briefly analysed them as a group.

The songs we looked at were:

Two Door Cinema Club - I Can Talk


(Fast, lively & upbeat song as well as a fast paced video)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJDCMth8poM

You Me At Six - Jealous Minds Think Alike


(Fast, upbeat song with the artists performing using their instruments with reasonably quick cuts throughout)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuiY6jsOPEY

General Fiasco - Ever So Shy

(Moderately paced song but video contains lots of fast cuts corresponding with the instruments)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=As-Rulo-E4g

Paramore - Misery Business

(Fast song but video is more of a performance as opposed to a story within the video and doesn't seem as fast)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCyGvGEtOwc

The Maccabees - X-ray

(Fast & upbeat song but artists haven't made a video)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cylaos-yhyM

When choosing our song for our music video we felt it was essential that we chose one that we all enjoy listening to; after looking at a variety of indie bands and tracks we came to the conclusion that we didn't want to make our whole video based upon a live performance but instead use a variety of locations producing a story out of the lyrics we would have. Also we decided that we'd use an upbeat and fast paced song so we'd be able to use different edits and camera angles to make our video look more professional and interesting to our audience.

CONCLUSION
We decided to use the track X-ray by The Maccabees, the main reason for this was because we couldn't find an official video for the track and we could therefore make it our own without getting any ideas from the artists themselves and it wouldn't be replicated from the official video.

Music Video: Initial Research

In today's lesson we decided to research into our target audience before choosing our song for our music video as in the past I've learnt that this can affect on what you are able to produce. As a group we decided to focus on our target audience of people that were a similar age to us which is primarily people aged 16-25, the reason is because we can immerge our various interests of music in order to create a video suitable for a wide audience that we'd all be best able to relate to.

Once we decided on our target audience we were then able to research songs based on a variety of genres that we felt our particular age group would enjoy. Upon doing some market research we found that there were three main genres of music that we felt would interest a large audience which were:

-Indie
-Dance/Pop
-Rock

We then looked at different music videos relating to the popular genres and analysed them whilst considering numerous techniques that we would apply to our own production work.

ROCK: MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE- HELENA
The video links to Andrew Goodwin's theory as the images relate to the lyrics for example at the beginning of the video you see people walking into a funeral parlour with the lyrics "Long ago, just like the hearse you die to get in again, We are so far from you." is sung over the shots.
There is a relationship between the visual and music elements as the first verse of the song is very slow and so is the movement applied and as soon as the tempo rises so does the action within the video itself.

I personally feel using a song based upon a rock genre would be difficult as the lyrics to the song are very fast which will be hard to get the lip syncing right. The costumes used in this video conform to the stereotypical identity of a rock genre and would be quite easy to portray the characteristics of the genre through make up and costume but I feel choosing the perfect locations would be difficult. As the rock video we have analysed uses a variety of instruments amplified, it would be difficult to get the actors to play together if they didn't have the experience of actually playing before, making the shots look false and unrealistic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUjdiDeJ0xg

DANCE/POP: TAIO CRUZ-DYNAMITE
This video shows elements of the key features from Andrew Goodwin's theory.
There is a particular relationship between the visuals and the audio and the video changes pace depending on the tempo of the music. When the bass of the music is relatively heavy there are a lot of images of different people dancing.

Overall we felt that producing a dance/pop video would usually consist of either one or two main artists and if we did produce a video like this then we'd find people willing to participate. However, these types of videos require a great deal of extras, but we don't think we'll have enough resources as well as time to make our video seem professional. Also we feel that if we found a large group of actors it will be very hard to manage and find the time for everyone to attend filming. We feel that this genre of music may not be appropriate for an A2 level course but all things considered, the pace of music would mean we'd be able to get different shots making it easier to edit and the pacing of the lyrics will make it simpler to manipulate by using our editing skills to their maximum potentials.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUjdiDeJ0xg

INDIE: GENERAL FIASCO-SOMETHING SOMETIME
We analysed that Goodwin's theories are displayed within this particular music video as there is reference to both the visual and audio element as the video is like a live performance.
The camera isn't stationary but there are a variety of shot distances and angles which can be considered when filming our video. There are different shots of the instruments and this video conforms to the style and iconography of the genre: wearing casual clothes and playing upbeat music.

Out of all the genres we've analysed we personally felt that indie music would be easier to do, as the costumes would be easy to achieve and the video uses a maximum of 5 people and we feel we'd be able to find this amount of people without too much difficulty. There are shots of instruments, and between the three of us, we are able to access them. Overall, another factor helping us to make our final decision is that we've previously completed productions using this particular genre of music so we can put all our ideas across in order to make our music video successful.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeffdtPW07k

CONCLUSION

-We have decided on the target audience of 16-25.

-We are going to produce a video based upon an indie genre.

Advanced A2 Portfolio Brief

In today's lesson we were focusing on our Advanced A2 Portfolio and we needed to decide whether we wanted to create a promotional music video or a film trailer with two auxillary tasks. I'm working in a group of three and we came to the conclusion of producing a music video due to our experience with both researching and creating music videos and we feel our previous skills will help aid us into making it as professional as possible.

The brief is:
To produce a promotional pack for the release of an album which is to include:
-A non-original promo video along with two auxillary tasks.
-A magazine advertisement for the digipak.
-A cover for its release as part of a digipak.

For all of the tasks given, all images and videos must be original from the candidate and as students we need to make sure we seek permission from the artist/label if we intend to use one of their tracks, so as not to breach copyright. For the main tasks we are allowed to work in groups of four maximum but all the auxillary tasks must be completed individually.