Clothing and Character Props (Guitars)

We have photos of the clothing our protagonist and lead singer will wear. The style of clothing represents the indie music subculture; chequer shirts commonly being worn by indie artists and their fans. It additionally fits the reminiscent tone and atmosphere of the music video and will make the protagonist look like an ordinary, every day person.

We also took photos of the guitars we'll be using for acoustic and base in the video, both of which owned by one of my partners in the project. The acoustic guitar will be the more traditional, wooden looking guitar and the base guitar will be the more modern, electric style guitar.

 

Weather Forecasts

We plan on filming on Sunday, so we need to find out the weather forecast to see if it's suitable. So far, Sunday looks like a good day for filming according to BBC Weather, but that could change so I'll update later in the week.

 

Character List/Photographic Documentation of Actors

Oliver Cooke, who will play the video's protagonist and the vocalist/electric guitar, and will serve as an editor.

Alex Hodgkinson, who will serve as director, cameraman and editor.

Jay Kaye, who will serve as cameraman and editor.

Sian Woodland, who will play the secondary character, the protagonist's wife.

George Mugglestone, who will play a guitarist in the band.

Ellie Spindler, who will play the drummer of the band.

Narrative and Performance Ideas

Our idea so far is to have a music video with a narrative section and performance section entwined. Both will follow conventions of the indie genre. The performance section can all be done in one large, empty room such as in a warehouse or on a stage with no crowd to create the effect of emptiness and loneliness. The narrative section will largely be the same, with the protagonist being alone in an empty, urban environment. The narrative section will be split into two, with one half focusing on the relationship the protagonist once had falling apart and in a state of confusion, with the other half being the aftermath of such, being darker and lonelier in tone and appearance, which we will achieve through mise en scene and editing.

Story and Narrative

The narrative section of our music video is focused on a man looking back at his life with the woman he loves, with half of the section focusing on flashbacks of his life and the other half focusing on him wandering across abandoned places such as fields and down roads to emphasise loneliness and confusion. At the end of the video, we see what could be the woman walking towards the camera at the end.

Logistics Planning

We plan on using secluded areas so as to not have things in the shots that we don't want. Certain areas, such as hills, grasslands and warehouses around our local area can be used to create a successful atmosphere for our music video. Hardly anybody uses these areas and we have easy access to all of them.

All we need is smart and casual clothing to create the needed atmosphere. As of yet, we only have my overcoat, but finding these clothes shouldn't be difficult. We can create the dark atmosphere through editing, so few props are needed.

Risk Assessment

There are very few risks with our opening. The biggest risk is probably slipping down hills that we're using, especially if it has been raining, but even this risk is small. We just have to be careful where we walk and hope that it hasn't been, or isn't, raining.

Intertextuality

Intertextuality is when a homage or reference is paid to something in a piece of media. Music videos often incorporate types of intertextuality as references such as homages and parodies. Popular examples of intertextuality in music videos are 'Losing My Religion' by REM, 'Telephone' by Lady Gaga and 'Walk' by the Foo Fighters.

For our music video, we're making reference and taking influence from many conventional indie videos, with the indoor band shots being a clear homage to music videos such as 'Wonderwall' (Oasis), 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' (Nirvana) and 'I Bet You Look Good on the Dance Floor' (Arctic Monkeys). We've taken little to no influence from other forms of media.

Focus Group Results

We did a video for our focus group to get feedback on our ideas and sent out a questionnaire to thirty different people to find results. Below is the questionnaire used:

Questionnaire Template - A2 Music Video Coursework

Applicants ticked the boxes that applied to them and answered verbal questions to help us form data for the music video. We also created a sample answer from one of the results:



We presented this slide show to our primary focus group to evoke reactions and hear where we could improve:



Here is our focus group's reaction and response to the slideshow:



Focus Group

Target Audience

Our target audience is between 25 and 40 year olds, primarily, with a larger focus on men with left wing political beliefs. Working class people will probably identify more with the song, and so we'll have to cater to their interests and what they want from a music video.

What is a Digipak?

A digipak is a cardboard form of disc packaging that is often used for special edition albums. Unlike ordinary plastic jewel cases, these are foldable and have three or four sides to them. They usually include a special features DVD and a small booklet with lyrics and/or general information on the band and album.

I've researched indie folk digipaks and found information that could be relevant to my digipak:

I love the structure of the first digipak, with the inside having a different tone with different images to the outside. I plan on doing something similar to this with mine, while maintaining the indie genre.

Genre

Jason Mittell (2001) argues that industries use genre to sell products to audiences.

"The boundaries between genres are shifting and becoming more permeable" (Abercrombie 1996)

"Genres are instances of repetition and difference" (Neale 1980)
"Difference is absolutelyessential to the economy of genre (Neale 1980): mere repetition would not attract an audience.

All genres have subgenres (genres within genres)

"A genre defines a moral and social world" (Tudor 1974)

"A genre is not simply given by the culture; rather, it is in a constant process of negotiation and change " (Buckingham 1993)

Narrative Theory

Tim O'Sullivan (1998) argues that all media texts tell some kind of story. Media texts offer a way of telling stories about ourselves. Narrative theory is how we read a story to understand it and its conventions.

Narrative - The structure of the story.
Diegesis - The fictional space and time implied by the narrative; the world in which the story takes place.
Verisimilitude - Literally; the quality of appearing to be real or true. For a story to feel real it must engage the audience.

Mood Boards

One of my partners created a series of mood boards for the music video. The link below leads to the mood boards:

Mood Boards - Oliver Cooke's A2 Media

Focus Group Planning

To get a general idea of where to go with our music video, we're going to gather a group of 8-10 people between the ages of 30 and 40 to view a part of our music video and look at our general ideas so far. My partners and I will come up with 3-4 ideas and film a short sample of a possible music video that we will show to our focus group and hear what the general impression is and ideas of where we can improve on this. This will help with our overall target audience to focus on in the music video. Along with this, we will be handing out around 30 questionnaires to help with our target audience and see who we're aiming at.

Questionnaire Template

My partners and I worked on a questionnaire template that we posted on one of our blogs, found here:

Questionnaire Template

'Naked as We Came' Analysis (Indie Folk)

Editing:

Saturation used to add colour for a more indie approach. Misty brown and yellow - Evokes sense of nostalgia in viewer and feels more personal. Only possible transition being when dust is falling in front of the camera and the direction of the movement changes.

Camerawork:

Constantly moving in one direction seeing close ups of all of the objects.

Mise en Scene:

Very colourful fruit - healthy - indie. Nature represents health and life, a common convention of the indie genre.

'Little Talks' Analysis (Indie Folk)

Editing:

The video has been edited together artistically as it is not a traditional music video.

Camerawork:

The camera tracks the band in the video, usually with an extreme wide shot or a wide shot. Nearer to the end, there are many close ups of different members including a woman.

Mise en scene:

The video is artistic and surreal, with only a few shots focusing on the band members. The shots are filmed artistically. Thought beats are used with everything in the video. Most of the video is very dark and cold, including climates, appearing dangerous and adventurous. Lots of movement.

Additional comments:

The video is very artistic, and blends black & white and colour to create something that looks different

Target Audience Planning - Music Video

My partners and I have started planning how we're going to gather a target audience for our indie folk music video. We're going to hand a questionnaire out to thirty people and gather information from that, before showing our thoughts so far to a group of our primary target audience and hear their thoughts on it. We're additionally creating a persona based on what we gather from our information that fits our primary target audience. To do this, we'll use a site called YouGov Profiles to find general statistics of different indie folk songs.

'Home' Analysis (Indie folk)

Editing:

Misty brown and yellow - Nostalgic. Evokes a sense of nostalgia in the viewer and feel personal.
Use of film between shots to make it look like an old video. Edited fast to show a groups many adventures for nostalgia and a personal effect.

'Wonderwall' Analysis (Indie)

Our chosen track’s genre reflects the sound of British indie music and the most obvious influence would have to be Oasis’ Wonderwall. The music video for the song particularly opened our eyes to the striking surrealist imagery that was employed throughout, all amongst the stark black and white colouring. We interpreted this as suggesting, despite the wondrous content of the song, there is a thin cover preventing it from being fully presented. As the visuals portray this, the music consistently hits downbeat notes as various points, reducing the impact of what has been played before it, into a more sombre atmosphere. Our chosen track likewise seems to hit this sombre tone after seemingly conventionally positive build-up.

Goodwin's Theory

Andrew Goodwin proposed a theory on music videos based on eight principles:

1.) Links between lyrics and visuals
2.) Links between music and visuals
3.) Genre characteristics
4.) Intertextual Reference
5.) Notions of looking (including voyeurism)
6.) Demands of the record label
7.) Performance, narrative or concept based music videos

All of this must be taken into consideration when analysing other music videos and creating our own music video for our chosen track.

Track 6

We were given a list of tracks to choose an individual track from. My partner and I chose to do a music video on Track 6:



This is the track we shall use in our music video. We are going to be researching relevant genres and their music videos during the summer holidays to help prepare us for our own music video.

Cover Art Photoshop Practice

To practice making cover art, I used a random Wikipedia article for the band's name, the last five words of a random quote for the album title, and a random image from Flickr for the image itself. After doing this, I had to combine the three to practice my photoshop skills for when I have to do the same thing later in the year. I did this twice. Here are the finished products:

Lyp Sync Editing Practice

We filmed myself and my friend singing 'Somebody Told Me' by The Killers and have each created our own edit of a lip sync to prepare for our project later this year. Below is my finished product:

Introduction to A2 - Music Videos

Welcome to my A2 Media blog. To save introductions, the following link is to the introductory post of my previous AS blog:

Welcome to my Media Blog

My A2 coursework will consist of:

- A recreation of a professional music video with all of A2.
- Research and plan for my own music video.
- Create my own music video based on a track chosen from a selection of tracks given by my teacher.
- Ancilliary tasks, including two of the following: CD digipack, website and an advert for a magazine.
- Evaluation of my music video.

I shall do all of this throughout the following year, with the next month focusing on the recreation video with my A2 classmates.