Planning: Final animatic + storyboards

This is our final animatic we put together to help us with the filming process.



Storyboards:

Planning: Shooting prep

Location
As a group we decided to film the majority of our music video in Milton Keynes Central, a large town in Buckinghamshire. We chose Milton Keynes as we all knew the area quite well and through researching other music videos from our chosen genre we knew we wanted the city feel within our music video.
It takes roughly 50mins to get to Milton Keynes, this is the route we took.


Before setting off for Milton Keynes we already had places in mind of where we wanted to film some shots. The train station with its large open area surrounded by offices and shops would be ideal for our panning shots and some of the main filming.

Here are some pictures from Milton Keynes area.






Equipment
Through using the video cameras from school previously in our filming task, we decided we wanted a better quality camera for filming our final music video, so much so one of our group members especially brought their own camera of a better quality so we could film our final piece with a better quality camera. We will also need a tripod to help steady our still shots that we will borrow from school along with some dolly wheels to steady our travelling shots. For some of the filming we are wanting a guitar to either be played or held.



Weather
Before going to film our music video in Milton Keynes we checked the weather using the BBC weather website and another weather application on the iphone as we didnt think one websites predictions would be reliable enough.



Actor
Our chosen actor is Thomas Blakey who is a member of our group. We chose to use Tom as he is very familiar with this music genre and he also does alot sing in his free time. It was also easier as he was involved in our planning so he had a greater knowledge of what we expected from him when filming our video. Another positive of using a Tom meant that he was very reliable for filming where and when we want to do it. Tom will also help with some of the scenery shots as the actor doesnt need to be present.

Planning: shooting schedule

Thursday 6th January 2011-
We are aiming to get the majority, if not all the filming done on this day. We will all be travelling together to Milton Keynes along with all the equipment needed throughout the day.
We are wanting to leave around mid morning to hopefully catch the weather at its best in the middle of the day.

First attempt - Failed shooting

The original idea of going to the beach came from the many acoustic pop music videos that we had watched when trying to find ideas for our own filming. The vast majority of them were filmed on the beach or in an idyllic location with a girlfriend or love interest.




^Above is the route which we took to Hunstanton that took use about 3hours each way. This was the closest beach to us which i had visited many times before so would know my way around when finding good places to film.



Originally we went to the beach at Hunstanton on the 26th of October as we initially thought the sooner we did the filming the better the weather would be as winter was approaching. Unfortunately this was not the case as the weather wasn't on our side with all the rain and wind while filming in the freezing cold.

Here are some pictures of our unsuccessful day at the beach:

Planning: Directors pitch

Director Pitch/ Treatment For Music Video.

Name Of Artist: J.R.A

Title of Track: ‘Closure’

Genre: Acoustic

Target Audiences: Age of 15-30

Outline of Ideas: What will happen?

There will be a variety of different shots of a young male that is clearly up set about recently losing his female partner and wanting her back in his life. We will film the male character in a built up area to give more emphasis that he is lost and alone. We are having a mixture of performance and narrative based footage. This will involves shots of the male singer with a guitar, without a guitar, with some singing and also much footage of scenery.

Intertextual References? What is it like? What should it remind us of?

The music video is a typical pop video with a male character portraying his feeling through song about a female partner which he has lost. The male character is just a stereotype of a young male which plays guitar being really emotional, also singing about a girl. The aim of the song is to get the audience connected and feel the emotion he is expressing through his song and video. It is trying to put the audience in his ‘shoes’ and make them feel what he is feeling.

Locations

There was much discussion between our group of where we would film this footage and we analysed many areas and looking at their pro’s and cons.

We have decided on the locations of Milton Keynes town centre and Abbington park in Northampton Town. The reasons for our overall decisions consist of many aspects such as the opposite scenery, it diverts from a built up area to what looks like a rural park. This gives us more variety of shots and scenery and doesn’t mean our whole video will be based in the same location.

What Resources are needed?

For the filming itself, we just need a camera, tripod and a form of transport. We also need a car for the filming as we are trying to do steady smooth tracking shots. The car ables us to do this as whilst one slowly drives, another can steadily film out of the window giving us a smooth tracking shot. We are doing this as we need to improvise to get a larger variety of shots.

Key Shots and Special Features

-Low angle long shot of the busy traffic on the motorway from a bridge.

-Shots of male artist in open space out the front of Milton Keynes Central station.

-Need to ensure that the artist has a guitar, however not in every shot.

Justifications of Ideas in Relation to Genre and Artist

Through our extensive research, we managed to discover that many music videos in this genre base their videos mainly on the artist, who also happens to be the actor in the video. This is the main reason we have chosen to do this in ours. Many of our ideas that we as a group have come up with have been through watching many music videos of a similar genre.

Planning: Target audience feedback

Adverts and Digipak

Once we had created our first hand drawn drafts of the Advert and Digipak we showed them to a group of our peers to see if they thought our products fitted the genre well. We showed them to a group of 5 people consisting of 3 girls and 2 boys as we believed girls would be more into this type of music. As a group, we came to a joint decision over the presentation of our target audience feedback as we believed that it would be more interesting for the viewer to watch this feedback rather than read large chunks of text.

Planning: Advert + Digipack

Advert 1:

As you can see this is our first draft as it is only basic and hand drawn, however we designed it specifically i hope to portray the emotion of the genre of music we were advertising for. It also contains the artists name in large font as well as a web link, itunes logo and out now text.

Advert 2:

Again this advert is hand drawn and contains all the same as the above in a very similar arrangement however the artist is a more focus point on the advert, even though neither posters show his face by having the artists name as the main selling point on both.


Digipak front cover:


Its clear by the colour schemes of both the advert and digipak that they are related. Especially as the front cover is simply a close up version of the second advert.

Digipak back:

The back of the digipak consists of the same background as the front cover, in keeping with the genre of the music as it is quite calm and some what romantic. The main focus point on the back is the guitar, which again backs up the genre.

Digipak inside:
Again with the insides the colour scheme was kept the same along with the font. The main difference with the inside is that it is the first time we actually see a picture of the artists face.
When designing the advert and digipak we tried to advertise the album and not just the song we are making a video for.

Planning: Animatic + storyboards

Above is our animatic which we put together on imovie to give a general feel of the set up of our music video. The animatic is only a fraction of the song as it is only to get a basic idea and feel to what we will be doing in our actual video.


We showed our animatic to 3 people of different genders and interests however all were in our target audience for the genre of our music choice.

Above: target audience watching our animatic

Below is our target audience response to the animatic, we felt that as it was only a short clip and it was hard for some to imagine how it would actually look once made there was only so much they could comment on, therefore we felt there was no need to have more people to gain our feedback from.

Storyboards:

Research: Song lyrics

JRA- closure

Where did you go?
Where have you been?
I need to know. You are my friend.
Did I do something wrong to hurt you?
Left in the dark now I am blind.
Suffering from burn out and brokenness.
Ill go back and retrace my footsteps.
Ill do anything to hear your voice
And see your face again.

I wish we could talk now
Now that it’s over.
I see that you moved on
But I need some closure
It’s weighing heavy on my chest
It’s all that I have left
I know that it’s over,
But I need some closure.

It’s been a year
Not one call from you
I heard you moved on but what should I do?
See all my friends tell me to let go
But I can’t to get you out of my mind
Pacin’ back and forth just wondering
Why this chapter in my life had a sudden end
But now it’s too late to hear your voice and see your face again.

I wish we could talk now
Now that it’s over.
I see that you moved on
But I need some closure
It’s weighing heavy on my chest
It’s all that I have left
I know that it’s over, but I need some closure.

I’ve tried and I’ve tried to understand why
Why did she leave like that?
Me not knowing, it makes me feel less of a man
Time and time again, I fought with myself
Thinking that she could be with somebody else
The truth is that she’s gone.

I wish we could talk now
Now that it’s over.
I see that you moved on
But I need some closure
It’s weighing heavy on my chest
It’s all that I have left
I know that it’s over,
But I need some closure.

I wish we could talk now
Now that it’s over.
I see that you moved on
But I need some closure
It’s weighing heavy on my chest
It’s all that I have left
I know that it’s over,
But I need some closure.

i have annotated the 'closure' lyrics to give a brief idea of the main aspects to the filming like whether or not we would use the guitar in a shot. Also editing such as making some shots into black and white.

Research: Moodboard

This is a moodboard i put together by using artists within the same genre as my chosen song. The moodboard easily shows the differences and similarities that are present within that one genre of music.



The moodboard shows pictures used to amplify the overall sound of the music and aspired brand of the band or artist. However most of them consist of an image of the solo artist himself.

I have also put together a mood board consisting of images of our chosen artist. I have done this to gain a visual approach to show what look we are trying to achieve within our music video.

Research: Digipak + Advert deconstruction

DIGIPAK'S
When looking into digipak's to deconstruct i tried to choose albums along the same genre as our chosen song. Both digipak's i'm deconstructing are by male singers with the same sort of rustic, acoustic feel to their music.

Jack Johnson - Curious George



Front and Back covers:
I chose this digipak in particular as i thought it was very bold and eye catching due to the use of a solid bold colour on the front and back covers. Overall the covers consist of only 3 primary colours, the main ones being red and yellow with some blue on there also. These colours are bold, vibrant and eye catching, this can help in the sale of the CD as the cover is more appealing than a dark dull cover. The title for the album and the artists name are both done in a larger, bolder font, this is also done on the back cover but is opposite colours to the front. The image on the front cover is of Jack Johnson sitting naturally playing his guitar, this could imply how free and natural his songs are. However the image on the back is of Curious George relating to the album title.


Inside:
The inside of the digipak uses just 2 of the colours it used on the front and back, these are bold and striking solid colours which are pleasing on they eye. The images used are all pencil drawn images and portray a fun side to the songs on the album.






Michael Buble - Crazy love


Front and back covers:
The main feature on both the front and back is Michael Buble himself, on the front cover we have an extreme close up of him. The very little we can see of the background is all plain white to not distract your attention away from Michael's picture. The album title isn't too bold and noticeable so the CD is mainly being sold on the recognition of Michael Buble which is bannered by his name and album title. The image of Michael on the back gives us an idea of what kind of person he is and what kind of music he produces: through his dress code we see that he is a classy person with a bubbly personality through his smile. This is comforting and could make the buyer feel better about themselves when listening to his songs. The only real colour used on both sides is yellow, this is a more natural colour and is used well to brighten up the cover.



Inside:
The inside of this digipak is quite plain and continues with the white backgrounds. There is more colour on the inside however it is only bannered across the inside stating the title and artist again. This gives us no ideas about the song or artist, making the main feature in the inside of the digipak the CD.


ADVERTS
When looking into adverts to deconstruct i tried to choose ones along the same genre as our chosen song type, however i found the adverts themselves very hard to come across and was amazed at how many music magazine didn't contain any adverts for albums at all. Here are the 2 that are closest to our genre that i managed to find.

Florence and The Machine - LUNGS



Noah and The Whale - The First Days of Spring

Research: Music video remake

Example - kickstart bar9 remix



^ Above is the original video which we have tried to copy. We chose to do this music video because firstly we like the song and how not many people had heard this remix before, and secondly we liked the story it told through out the video, i feel the main factor of influence for my other group members was the fighting as they seemed to really enjoy that part of the filming.




^ Above is our remake of the music video. It is a narrative music video because it has no performance linking into the video. The song is quite upbeat so tested our different ways of filming to incorporate different techniques into it, however it wasn't too challenging as there was no lip sinking in it which would have pushed our skills from AS media more as we have never done it before.
When comparing the 2 videos we thought we had done a reasonably good job with what we had available to us, we also tried to get in a range of shots and angles as well as following the story. When simply watching our remake some people might not understand the narrative within the music video so watching the real video first is a good comparison.

Here are some screen shots from our video:

Research: Song choice

As a group we all come up with a variety of songs on our own, i displayed mine as a mind map so they were easily located when comparing them with my other group members choices. Before we started creating our song ideas we agreed as a group that we would do a slow beat song, to hopefully make the music video creating easier. At first we toyed with the idea of a John Mayer song but then later decided that it would be quite difficult as its melody and lyrics were all random and all over the place.
After looking at a few other songs we came to a final choice of J.R.A - closure J.R.A himself is not a signed artist so his songs are mainly on youtube or itunes. Our chosen song of his isn't widely knows and does not have a music video for it at all. Because J.R.A is not signed to a record label we had to contact him directly through his YouTube channel.
Here is a copy below of the message which we sent him asking him for permission to use his song for our music video.

Research: Group decisions

Group members:
Oliver Brookes, Thomas Blakey and me

The reason why i have choosen to work with these 2 in a group has more than one reasoning, firstly i feel we are all able to contribute different skills into the production and development of our music video. Personally I'm better with the planning, keeping time in mind and with the ideas towards to filming and location. Oliver brings to the group his great eye for camera work and the technical factor involved in the construction of ideas and clips. Thomas is also more technical but in the way of editing and finalising the end product as he has a keen interest in the Imovie on apple's.

Research: Music video analysis

Weezer - islands in the sun




The camera work used throughout the video is very pleasing on the eye as the vast majority of the shots are long shots displaying the landscape, however there are some very good close up shots portraying the happiness and friendliness between the animals and humans which relates to the bubblyness of the song.

The focus through out the video is generally evenly spread between all 3 members of the band implying that they all sing equally through out the song, with no established lead singer.

There is no obvious make-up used in this video on any of the band members, and there clothes are basic and simple colours so that they don't distract away from the scenery.

This music video isn't performance based or narrative as there seems to be no story on the surface and none of the singers are shown singing the song, generally the video is mainly a feel good video as its very idyllic.

The relationship between the visuals and the lyrics is quite prominent in some places, especially at the very start where we immediately see a image of the sun which links in to the song title, we then have another dominant image of the sun at the very end of the video. Also through out the video there is continual reference to 'playing and having fun' and this is emphasised by the singers playing with the animals and having fun and laughing. We also get the impression that the video is set on a island as the only people present are the singers and the animals.

John Mayer - Say




The camera work within this video is generally similar as the shots are mostly close up or extreme close up, this is due to the setting as it doesn't allow long shots. There the occasional mid shots involving the surrounding room of some significance.

The focus of the video is solely on the singer as he doesn't disappear from a singly shot as he (from one angle or another) is constant through out the whole video.

There is a lot of transition editing between different shots to differentiate as the video is pretty plain due to the fact the whole video is solely the singer with very little scenery and a lot of close ups.

Its very performance based as he is singing and playing the guitar through out the video.

The relationship between the visuals and the lyrics is generally clear. 'Walking like a one man army' this is clearly a prominent line within the song as he is the only male figure in the video.

Research: Genre

As a group we have chosen a song with more of an acoustic feel as we all liked that type of music and thought we would be able to make a good video as we are all quite passionate about it. We did this because it covers a very vast target audience as the songs could be quite hip but done in a slow beat acoustic way. Through asking peers and searching the internet we realised how vast the age group for this kind of music was starting at about 15years old and with people in their mid to late 20 still listening to and enjoying acoustic slow beat songs. Overall i think our song choice would be attractive to that vast majority of the age range stated.

Research: Goodwins theory

1. Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics eg. stage performance in metal video, dance routine for boy/girl band.

2. There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals, either illustrative, amplifying or contradicting.

3. There is a relationship between the music and visuals, either illustrative, amplifying or contradicting.

4. The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close-ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work.

5. There is a frequently reference to the notion of looking (screens within screens, telescopes etc) and partivularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body.

6. There is often intertextual reference to films, TV programmes , other music videos etc.