Location Ideas

These are a few pictures we took as locations for some of our shots. We chose the general location of our local village in particular as it's easily accessible to us and fits in well with our production idea. When taking these pictures we had trouble with lighting and the overall mise-en-scene as it was raining and the ground was wet, but we plan to film on a brighter, more cheerful day to reflect our idea for the music video. The link directs you to a photostream on flickr with comments i made of the location selections.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/57920293@N02/?saved=1

First Draft of Storyboards

Draft of Storyboard Ideas

We have written a plan for every shot of our music video and what we plan to use in each shot.

Shot 1: Close up shot of guy playing guitar during very first notes of intro with artist name, title of the song, record label and directors and producers.
Shot 2: Close up shot of drums as they enter the track.
Shot 3:Shot of main character's face as he changes reaction, cut using stop motion in time to the beat.
Shot 4: Idea of point of view shot of from the girl as she walks to location.
Shot 5: over the shoulder shot from behind guy as he walks behind her "something good can work" written on the floor in the gap between them.
Shot 6: Medium shot of girl with friends at a park location.
Shot 7: Idea of two guys driving up to her
Shot 8: Her view of the guy, possible over the shoulder shot?
Shot 9: He thinks she's looking at him - reaction shot
Shot 10: She gets in the other guy's car
Shot 11: Close-up of his sad reaction
Shot 12: Medium shot of couple in car, see guy reversing away from the rear window.
Roughly 40 second intro goes into verse
Shot 13: Medium shot from behind couple in car showing them talking and happy
Shot 14: Medium shot from behind main character in bathroom, lip syncing the lyrics, checking armpits.
Shot 15: extreme close up of flowers. zooms out to see his face as he's holding them.
Shot 16: Girl comes up receives flowers and smiles
Shot 17: Side angle medium shot of guy walking looking happy, then sees flowers in bin
Shot 18: Close up shot of him looking sad, sad clown comes up next to him through a panning shot, gives guy a balloon with a heart on it as panning shot continues to follow balloon as he lets it go.
Shot 19: Webcam view of guy singing lyrics ( voyeurism)
Shot 20; Split screen of her rejecting him on the computer and him reacting
More performance shots?
Shot 21; Stop motion of him in 4 different shots in 4 outfits, then fast cut montage of all 4.
Shot 22: medium close-up, she sees his outfit and likes it.
Shot 23: he has a cake in his hand with lyrics on it, camera follows cake as he walks
Shot 24; Shot of her accepting cake and then pushing in his face, stop motion as cake gets closer to his face and his reaction changes.
Shot 25: close up of guy sad with cake on his face, pan out and clown comforts him
Shot 26: medium shot of guy walking then noticing space hopper sign in shop window
Shot 27: wide shot, he brings her space hopper and she's happy
Shot 28: close up of his face as he winks
Shot 29: shot of girl in trolley as guy spins her and camera follows.
General sense of movie happiness - using intertextuality of black and white shots
Shot 30: establishing shot of couple in the tree and nice objects in tree
More general shots of girl and guy happy together
Shot 31: Overhead shot of them hugging as stop motion heart gets drawn around them.
Shot 32: Medium shot of them looking at each other - zoom out to see them on space hoppers.
Shot 33: Shot from behind as they bounce off into sunset and fades to black.

Target Audience Research

To create a successful music video for my artist i need to know who im aiming the music video at, so they will enjoy what they see thus wanting to watch it more. Two Door Cinema Club falls under the indie genre for music, meaning the target audience for this genre will be mainly teenagers and young adults, both male and female. This would also mean most people of the target audience would be in education of some sort or just entering employment, and falling under this audience myself i feel i have a good idea as to what others in the target audience would want from a music video.
Being a young target audience, i feel they would look for something fun and exciting in a music video, with an element of humour so not to take things too seriously within the content. I also believe, as this target audience is on the brink of adulthood, they would enjoy watching a music video with things like wild parties and crazy romances, things that intertwine adulthood with teenage life.

Why We Chose Our Artist

Two Door cinema Club performing at Reading Festival 2010

For our music video production task we chose Two Door Cinema Club as our artist. After scouring the "unsigned artists" pages on websites like Myspace, we didn't find anything that appealed to us. We then thought back to our times at music festivals we'd attended previously in the year and admired the vibe the artists created and the excitement it generated within the audience. One of our favourite bands from Reading Festival 2010 were Two Door Cinema Club; the eclectic atmosphere they created really got the crowd going and we thought we could mimick their enthusiasm into a music video of our own creation.

Song Use Confirmation

Ive print screened the e-mail we sent the management of Two Door Cinema club asking permission for the use of the song "something good can work" for our music video and the reply they sent us back.
(click on the images to enlarge)

The Online Revolution

Here i will be comparing the ways in which two different artists have promoted their material. Lily Allen has used the interent to promote her music and image and here's how:

Lily Allen

Lily's myspace page is what got her recognised and propelled into stardom. She made this page on the popular social networking site near the end of 2005, and by 2006 she was signed to Regal Recordings. The style and design of the page was a reflection of Lily's personality and music which attracted the likes of teens and members of record companies looking for the next "big thing". Lily set the standard for many other artists on myspace, all vying for attention from an audience and record labels, pulling out all the stops to set themselves apart. Allen benefited a great deal from the online revolution, generating a loyal fanbase who witnessed her rise to fame and stayed with her through critical judgement. Lily capitalized on the growing concept of internet popularity and because of it has become am award winning musician, talk show host and actress.

Snow Patrol

Snow Patrol are a band with a very different success story. Their fame was achieved through tireless gigs and self promotion, in other words traditional methods of promotion, opposed to the online revolution as used by Lily Allen. Snow Patrol formed in 1994 and weren't successfully signed to a record label until 2002 with Polydor Records. Before they were signed, the band spent years doing gigs at unis, shoddy clubs and even nominated themselves for a mercury prize (unsuccessfully). After many failed attempts, Snow Patrol finally rose to fame in 2003 with their major label debut "final straw", making all their hard work worth while.

The introduction of the online revolution gives audiences and artists a wider range of opportunities. It's made the way audiences consume music more interactive, therefore engaging a wider audience within todays youth. This broader audience spectrum means a larger revenue for the artists to gain resulting in more moeny to spend on promotion. It's also a much more quicker solution to promotion than self-promotion, and allows artists to be more creative with their image and how they're portrayed.

Goodwin's Theory

Applying Goodwin's theory to my music video production means including the following:

1. Demonstrating genre characteristics, e.g. a dance performance for girl/boy band.
2. A relationship between lyrics and visuals e.g. illustrating a relationship or contradicting it.
3. A relationship between music and visuals e.g. illustrating a relationship or contradicting it.
4. A visual style, e.g. close ups of the artist ans star image motifs which occur throughout the artists work.
5. A frequent reference to the notion of looking e.g. the voyeuristic treatment of a woman in an R'n'B video.
6. An intertextual reference (to films, TV programmes, other music videos etc).

Current CD Cover Design Analysis

This is a CD cover design by the band "Goldfrapp". As you can see they've based the concept for the design solely on the artists image. The lead singer features heavily on the cover and shows that she is an important selling point for the band. The house colours are simple and natural, with white featuring throughout, which connotes purity and innocence. The two different fonts keep the cover interesting without confusion, inkeeping with the overall image theyre trying to convey. The costume gives the impression of quirkiness and individuality, making it that bit more interesting to look at for the audience - something we aim to do with our CD cover. The out of focus background pulls our attention to the artist more and highlights her importance again within the band.

This cover design is from the artist "Coldplay" for their album "viva la vida" which translates to "live the life". The image shown in the background is a painting of the fench revolution, the image connotes viloence and anger but also victory, probably the idea the band wants to convey for some of their songs. When i first saw the image, i thought the font used for the title was supposed to look like paint, but relating to the image it resembles a splattering of blood. Using white against the background makes the font more modern, standing out against the archaic image. This stands out to me against other more generic CD covers, through the use of the image and and the way the text is displayed and also how subtle bright colours, like red and blue, stand out against the duller colours of brown and green.

Branding

These are a few pictures of the solo artist Katy Perry's merchandise. They include posters, badges, stickers and t-shirts; just a few of the wide variety of merchandise available to her fans. This merchandise is available on Perry's website; www.katyperry.com and the purpose of them is to promote her as an artist and also her new singles and albums. For example the stickers on the bottom left corner promote Katy's song "Hot'n'Cold" and also her album named "One of the Boys". The design of the merchandise also reflects Katy's image of a quirky, unconventional, colourful girl, a girl that others look up to and idolise. I believe they are successful merchandise as they fit in with the image of Katy that's being portrayed to the audience and make the audience want to be a part of her crazy fantasy world.