Minutes before filming there were some unpredictable issues, which resulted in our chosen actress, Holly George, not being able to act for us. This was unforeseen to us all, however to adhere to our deadline of being filmed by Christmas, we had to make some adjustments to our casting arrangements. We looked back at our Casting sheet for inspiration, however at such short notice, getting anyone to learn the words would be impossible. It was eventually decided that I (Charlie Springthorpe) would act.
I was in the top 2 when we were casting for this role, and our target market said that I looked how they'd imagined the artist. The advantage of me stepping in is that, because I am a member of our group, and have heard the song so many times, I already know the words to the song. Because we made this decision so decisively and coherantly, we are still on track with our schedule, and we are confident that this set back wont be evident in the eminence of our music video.
We asked a selection of girls who are in our specific demography to watch our anamatic storyboard and to give us their thoughts and opinions on it. We asked them to be brutally honest to ensure that our music video could progress in the right direction. Their overall opinion of it was negative; one of the reasons for this was they said the shots were 'too long and not varied enough'. This could be due to us using a fixed camera whilst fiming so we will do some experiments to fix this, and the lack of variety we feel is down to having too much time to fill in one scene, so again we will look further into this.
Another aspect that they mentioned was that, for the feel the song had, it had to many performance scenes and not enough narrative sections. We are in accordance with this view and hence when we come to alter our storyboard we will consider how to change it to contain more of a narrative.
A further element that was mentioned was the pace of the video. They felt that it ran at one pace, not picking up or relaxing to engage the audience at all. However they did pick out the changing backgrounds bit as being strong and engaging.
What we found that we had not anticipated as such was that the girls enjoyed the video more in the section where our actress moved to the music and was more free. This portrays to use the girl's need for interaction with the video. Our video is aiming to have a fun feel to it so we need to ensure that they go away enthrived after watching it. From this we also need to ensure that our actress is someone who our demography can relate to and perhaps use as a role model.
Although this negative feedback isnt great to hear we are greatful of it as it has aided us immensly in tuning our video to our demography.
Neutral Audience Feedback
As our music video is aimed at both genders (although predominently females), we asked a few males for their opinion. As a whole they were impressed with the technical aspects of the video for example the editing on the beat, and also they agreed with others that its strongest feature is the changing backgrounds sections. These 'compliments' about the video suggest to us that this female orientated video could reach out and appeal to more of the male market if we keep and enhance the inventive side to our shots and angles; thus capturing a greater demography.
Some negative feedback that we recieved from them was the overall 'tone' was boring and some shots were visibly repeated too many times. We will take these thoughts into consideration when we make our adjustments to our storyboard.
Positive Audience Feedback
The positive feedback that we recieved from showing our target audience our animatic story board was very useful as it allowed us to see what aspects they thought worked really well. Thus we know that we either dont need to change it, or perhaps just need to enhance it to get its full potential out of the idea or concept.
One of the aspect that we were fed back, both in the video above and by other independants was that the fast paced changing background shots worked really well in keeping the pace, adding tension and keeping the attention on the video. As a group we were really pleased at this feed back as it is the section of the storyboard that we feel is the strongest too. When we looked at this section in finer detail we recognised an issue with the lip syncing, however we hope to conduct a lip syncing experiment nearer the time to ensure that in the final piece it looks as realistic as possible.
A comment that was made after seeing our anamatic was that the narration sections work really well with the genre of the song. They likened it to Avril Lavigne, who frequently uses narration in her videos. We will re watch a few music videos with a similar genre to see if we have enough of a narration element, and as a result we may wish to adapt our storyboard to house more.
When they'd view our mock up, we asked them a brief question on costume to aid the next part of our process. They didnt want to see too many changes of outfits, especially with in one scene because that wasnt a common trait of the mainstream music videos that they watch.
These positive critisisms have been very useful for our group as it has helped us to recognise the strongest aspect of our piece, which will enable us to enhance them more. For instance i believe that we will have to reconsider and possibly raise the amount of narration in our storyboard.
Whilst we were showing our anamatic storyboard to numerous groups of our target audience we were forced to watch it in more detail ourselves. This was extremely useful as it allowed us to look at it fresh. Therefor we have decided that to improve our video and to make it more attractive to our demography, we are going to have to reconsider some of our basic concepts. From all of our reseach feedback we have learnt that the changing background scenes are the strength and only need to be enhace, if any changes are required. However we are also aware that our balance of narrative to performance is out and that we will have to sit down as a group and discuss how to improve this.
Before we start doing the filming for our music video we need to ensure that both ourselves and our actress will be safe during this process. The video clip above is of our group pin-pointing any potential hazard which may occur during our shooting, and how to concur avoid them.
One of the most prominent health and safety issues that we must be weary of are the lights. The lights that we have chosen to use are 2 lots of 3 bulbed, glass lights, so we will have to be careful when we handle them, also each light has a wire connection so we will also need to be aware of the wires.
One of our locations is outside so when we come to filming we need to ensure that we dont put ourselves in any hazardous situations. Also we need to take into consideration the safety of our actress as she will likely be wearing 'dressy' clothes. These issues can be resolved by our group members ensuring areas are safe and by keeping alert whilst setting up and filming.
We are currently at the stage where we have done our anamatic storyboard and conducted research on it..
From the research we have found out that they did like changing background section, however generally they felt that the shots were too long, and when we looked as a group we decided that the anamatic is not a good representation of our ideas as it didnt come out as we'd invisaged.
After having relected on it we decided no to start again, but we have back tracked a lot. We needed to change the legnth, and pace of most shots to make them more engaging to watch, this will inturn to suit target audience more.
We have decided to back track as far as our storyboard. As a group, we have had discussion about making it more creative, taking into consideration what our demography have said. It's not totally different as fas as location and costume are concerned; however we have taken out the white background bit as it didnt add anything and that was the factor we felt let down the piece the most.
In regards to our narrative we've changed the concept slightly so we have more (as opposed to performance from different angles which is basically what we have). We did initially decide that we wanted more of a performance however after our research feed back and having spoken to our teachers we have decided that this song inparticular need a narrative theme to hold it up. If the song had a stronger beat and more repetition, a performance would suit it. We will keep some performance scenes but to make it more effective we will add lights and stronger lighting.
We were doing our lighting experiments afterwards to see how we would use light as it was only going to be an extra, but having looked at some music videos like kelly clarkson we've decided that the lighting is the element that we need to make the performance right.
Our new story board: we are keeping the changing backgrounds and mise en scene(location, costume). We will cut out the white scene all together. We will add new and varied shots and angles. Also we will be adding narrative; it will be her walking to a location- end will resolve where it is (enigma). Goodwin says that the structure shouldn't be linear because of cyclical nature so we've found ways to structurally chage and play with it.
Although this is posponing our schedule, by redoing this we believe that it will make our end product better. We are still learning from this process, so its advantageous because it forces us to look in more detail at it and its suitability with our demography. We are good at sticking to our schedules so we have no qualms about the filming being done by Christmas so that we can move on to the post production stages.
One crucial aspect of a music video is the outfits of the artist and also of the other people featured in the video. In our music video the main person featured is our artist (performed by Holly George). Due to the fact that we are having 3 locations we will need multiple outfits for our actress. The word outfit includes everthing from style, clothes, jewellery, shoes, makeup and accessories. Each one of the mood boards feature below features a different theme of outfit- all of these 'themes' comply with what our demography said would work well with the song.
Before we start filming our music video we need to ensure that we can do all of the shots that we have used in our story board. To make the real filming happen more swiflty and professionally we tested these shots.
Due to the fact that this storyboard only consists of pictures, we are not able to portray some of the shots that we are going to use in our music video. To indicate where this is the case, we have put text on the storyboard explaining what should be happening at this point.
Why you gotta fall apart
Right when I’m standing next to you in a crowd
Why you gotta make a scene
Making me tell other people I don’t know you now
Like the world will end because your friend
Said something ‘bout that nothing,
slacking stalkerish ex-boyfriend
I think you’re secretly wanting
A little drama
*You feel you have to overdo
you’re always thinking ‘bout you
just you, you, you
Why you gotta cut me off
Can’t get a word in because you think it’s so important
Why you gotta buy these things
So you can show everybody you can afford it
Like we care to compare someone
That’s not even there
And still you think that everybody Just looks at you
I think I’ll slip you this one clue
And get a move on
*
Can you ease up on this diva motion?
‘Cause I know you’re not that bad
And if you get a hold of yourself
You will see the friends you still have
But until then you’ll be
The same dramatic queen
To ensure that the data we recieved is an accurate image of our target market's views we broadened our questioning. We asked a larger sample of our audience to listen to the song and tell us who they think would suit the part well. These are the names that came up:
-Alice Dale
-Caris Iliffe
-Holly George
-Mollie Bramley
-Jess Daniels
-Charlie Springthorpe
-Jordon Wing
Finally we narrowed down our options to 2 people who we though would be suitable. To get a better idea of which person would be the best we asked them/(us) to do a mini clip, singing infront of the camera. We would like to stress that the videos were one shot takes and we did not conduct any post-production editing on their tapes, apart from adding the music. Therefore the two girls were unsure of the words at times however we simply wanted to get a feel of their presence in front of the camera and if given the part, we are confident they would have time to rehearse and remember their lines.
The first person on the tape is Charlie Springthorpe (me). Whilst we were doing some research many people said that I would be a good option for the role. This was mainly due down to my appearance being how they imagined the song/artist to be. During our target audience research regarding casting we asked people to suggest what current singer would suit the part. Avril Lavigne was mentioned frequently and thus we feel that she is a good person to match my self against as we have many similar features. These similarities for instance hair length and colour, skin tone, make up styles and facial structure would be helpful in our video as the audience will be able to draw associations, and thus making our video more related too our genre. Furthermore my look is comparable to the artist's (Jessica Drake) which is ideal as the voice would suit the visuals more. Overall this would make the performance more authentic and realistic. One of the main downsides to me, is that i was less confident and less enerjetic in the audition tape. This could affect the upbeat nature of the video. Also with being a member of the group myself, it could influence how i perform: i could depict what the group want better as i have been present and contributing to all of the ideas, however i could also be slightly biased as my personal ideas may be over powering.
Our second audition on the tape was Holly George. She is not a member of our group , however she is a theatre studies student- making her more confident to perform. Holly is all of our friends, and she is particularily friendly with Alice Dale- a member of our group which we feel will make her more comfortable to act infront of us. During our audience research, when we asked them to suggest a name of a current artist Ashely Simpson was mentioned. Holly has a similar look to her. The strongest aspect that Holly portrayed in her audition was her performance. We felt that she moved well to the music and had a good upbeat style. The main issue that we had with Holly is that her appearance did not suit the song- as she looks nothing like Jessica Drake. Ashely Simpson generally portrays a very rock chick/ pop feel so we feel that Holly would be able to represent an American singer. The fact that Holly is not a member of our group could present an issue as she has not had such a close connection with the video, however it could also make her more likely to portray all of our ideas equally as we will be able to direct her.
When we initially carried out our song choice feedback we asked each person to tell us of a celebrity and a person who they know who they could imagine singing the song. This is a list of our initial responces as they came up:
As a group we decided that the casting is a crucial part as we need the right person to suit the song, but aslo we need them to feel confortable around us, and for them to have the confidence to do it. The clip below shows our target audience casting interviews:
'You you you' is a conventional rock/pop song sung by Jessica Drake. Like in most rock/pop videos we are having the main focus on the Actress playing the singer as opposed to another character in the narative.
Because we are using an American Artist it is unrealistic to ask her to come over and perform for us- hence we have decided to use an actress to play the part. In a group discussion we named a few aspects that we feel our actress should have to ensure that the video looks as authentic as possible:
This discussion and consequent mind map has given us a basis for our search. Keeping in mind our target audience; we need a female actress around the age of 18 as this is our specific demographic and the artist will be a typical teenager. This will ensure that our video is aspireable for our audience.
Although the aesthetics of our actress will be important, we also feel that the performance will be more crucial. Therefor we need to find someone who will feel comfortable acting in front of us.
To ensure that we select the correct actress for the part we will carry out some audience research. This will include asking our demography (who arn't biased) to think of a celebrity and a local person who they feel would depict the part well.
This video is solely a performance piece. The song is quiet upbeat and it has a good tempo, which makes editing on the beat easy, but essencial throughout. Bjornberg's multiple centripetal process theory can not apply to this video in such a strong context, as the isnt the freedom to swap between performance and narrative for each of the sections.
The first shot we see starts on the first beat of the music. It is an extreme close up of Pixie's face which made up for a natural look, with stronger definition around her eyes. The natural look could suggest innocence, but also confidence as she doesnt feel she has to go plastic to look pretty; and the emphasised eyes draw teh audience's attention in. The background for this shot, and following section is clinical white. This ensures that the emphasis is solely on Pixie. On the second beat of the music she starts to move her arms up, and her head back (still in a close up shot of her face) and on the third beat we cut out to see the full action. These 2 shots are alligned perfectly to keep the continuity of the dance move. Due to this cut out shot we also see 2 backing dances. They are dressed in black scoop cut neck line top, and a black tutu, with black suspeneder. Pixie is dressed in the same, however her top is a lower, V neck line- this follows Goodwins theory of voyagerism, and the attention is drawn to her clevage. The black out fits stereotypically would suggest trouble and mischief, however in this instance i believe that they are worn to connote their confidence in standing out from the crowd. The combination of black and white could suggest the song's motives, that things are either right or wrong (black or white).
The first 7 seconds of music dont contain any solid vocals, and the visuals switch between Pixie lying on the floor singing, and her and the other 2 dancing. When the master shot of the 3 dancing is on Bjornbergs theory of motion matching the visuals motions is heavily applied. The cut in and aways are edited on the beat, however the dance moves are also performed on the beat, very structuredly and joltly. The shot of an artist lying on the floor singing is often used in pop and R&B videos now a days however they generally feature the artist in little clothing, moving in a provocative manner. Pixie however is fully dressed in a black blazer, and just tilts her head to the camera to sing. The fact that she is descently clothed and on the floor portrays her power as she doesnt have to follow the trend and also the colour palette focuses our attention on her anyway. It also shows a theme of elegance and sophistication. The floor that she is lying on is slightly reflective, this makes the close up shots of her face softer, and also it is another simplistic touch portraying elegance. The reflection could also connote 2 sides to her.
A common 'concept' among ammature and tacky music videos is taking every lyric literally and putting it into the narrative, for intance if the lyrics 'so i followed him round' are heard, the visuals on the video show the girl following a lad. This is often seen as contrasending by the audience as it is suggested that they dont know what someone being followed looks like. This music video takes elements of this and puts it into her performance, but eleganlty and subliminly. The dance routine has twist turns, ups and downs naturally however at a few point in the song they resemble the lyrics for instance at 22 seconds into the video the lyrics are 'let me down' and the dance routine takes them down, the key difference that makes this not tacky is that it is done suggestitively not obviously and literally. The dancers dont sit on the floor and sulk beacuse someone let them down.
At 0.43 seconds there is a slowed down shot of pixie jumping up. This shot is a close up from behind, varying the contence of the shot from just her front. This slow motion shot also allows us to see her hair, and its length, colour and style. This focus on her hair portrays her feminity and playfulness.
During the chorus there are many more slowed downed shots, for instance at 1.10 we see her feet landing from a jump. She is wear flat black pumps which indicates her desire to fit in yet also her confidence to be different. In most music videos which containing a female singer, they are often heavily made up, wearing little clothing and extremely high heels. The fact that Pixie is not wearing 8" heels suggest an inocence about her.
At 1.16 there is a change of scene, and outfit. This change comes at the end of a line, confirming Bjornberg's theory about movement-lyric connection, however it comes half way through a verse or phrase. This makes the change less visable to the audience, hence creating a smooth transistion. In this scene the background has a big red dot on. The colour could suggest her feeling of love coming back for the man from singing the song, however perhaps they portray anger and pride, that she has done so well without him. A circle is used over any cornered shapes like a square or triangle and it detracts less attention from the artist, as the are no specific corners or points for the eye to focus on.
It is common in music videos, where there is a change of scene for there to be a change of out too. This extends the continuity so our brains arnt left puzzled hhow and why she got somewhere else. Pixie generally has blonde hair, depicting innocence and steroetypical prettiness, however in this scene change she changes it to short dark hair in a bob. This dark short hair along with the red in the background suggests evil and possibly mischieviousness. Another factor that adds to this theory is the change in makep, she went from neutral plain makeup to heavier glittery makeup. This could suggest her trying to shield her identity.
During any of the shots in which this scene occurs, we never see what she is wearing as it is not covering her shoulders. This creates and element of promisquity, and also hints at Goodwin's theory of voyagerism.
The next scene that we are shown (very briefly) has a plain black background, and features a girl in a red liatard hanging and dancing from red ribbons. This continuing theme of red could be an underlying message of her perhaps wanting to break free. From the first few shots of when this scene appears we can not tell who the girl is.
As Bjornberg's theory suggest, the motions of videos follow the phrasing and tension of the music. As the music climaxes toward the chorus we are shown the elements that were previously with held. For instance we see the oufit from the previous scene, and also we see the face of the ribbon dancer clearly. The outfit that she is wearing in the scene with the red dot in the background is black and
feathery. In symbolism it would be seen to depict a raven. Which is notoriously an evil animal which sides with evil. In the shot where we can see her fully in this outfit she looks stronger than ever and powerful. Possibly suggesting that she has turned to the dark side. In contrast to this, the shots featuring the red ribbon dancer portray her as elegant and peacefull. These to scenes juxtaposed connotes that she, herself is unsure of which way to go, as the lyrics at that point are "pulling in the wrong direction".
This music video has both a performance and a narrative running throughout it. The begining of the video is set on a stage, but it is set as a country themed outdoors area. Taylor and her band/group have country-style instruments and costume all adding to the mise en scene of the performance. It start on a close up of her face singing, then jumps out to a longshot, enabling us to see the set, her band and her outfit. As it cuts back in to a close up of her face the lighting chages, perviously it was dark greys and sepia, but it fades into pink tinted clouds and slightly brighter setting.
The next 'section' is when the next verse comes (which complies with Alf Bjornberg's theory of centripetal process). This 'section' is narrative as we see a boy being picked on in a locker room- whilst Taylor sings "picking on the weaker man". This shot only lasts for a few seconds which portrays how the lad being picked on doesnt want to be there and just wants to move on.
The following 'section' cuts back to the country performance. Goodwin states that the visuals in a music video are influenced by more than just the lyrics of the songs. This shot depicts this theory well. The music gets louder and gains a quicker tempo, the visuals mirror this, Taylor starts to move more whilst singing, and her band are swaying around to the beat.
The next section is the chorus, and stays with the performance. However because the chorus is bolder and more upbeat the lighting brightens and we get close up shots of the band/group members playing their instruments happily. The lighting is used in such a way to illuminate their faces suggesting confidence. Goodwin explains how its not only the editing that needs to be on the beat. This video is a good depiction on how the visual movements (of the band members swaying and dancing) are also specifically put on the beat. During this chorus sections, there is an almost sub-section cutting back to the boy in the locker room, however the mood in the song has changed to positive, and thus the locker room brightens and the boy joins in singing the song. Then immediately cutting back to Taylor's performance where she continues the chorus. We see a number of extreme close ups and close ups of the instrument that she playing. The continuity of this is solid as each chord and note fits the beat of the song. This is good example of how Bjornbreg describe a song and its visuals to be in close corralation. At the end of this section(1.05) there is a musical bar in which a note glisandos up and down again. This is portrayed in the visual by the artist and the band swaying heavily forwards and back. In most cases the music and instruments are there to flaunt the lyrics, but for these few seconds its the visual that flaunts the mini instrumental.
The following section changes scene again, and is performance based. The transition between the last section and this one was a circle- out transition, where the screen is black except for a small circle of visual that gets bigger, eventually showing the whole frame. This transition was used as opposed to a cut because it signifies the scene change, keeping the realism and continuity of the piece. This scene depicts her sitting on a train line with a steam train stationary behind her. There is also another character in it, he is dressed in a top hat and black suit, and Taylor is dressed in a 1920's themed outfit (but modernised). The lighting is again very dark and eerie, however she is wearing a white dress so the small amount of lighting used makes her the key focus of the frame. A narrative line tends to act directly to the lyrics as they are sung: as Taylor sings "you, with your switching side" the man behind her switches side of the train track. The pace in this scene is quite fast, but not upbeat, this is shown in the visual by a continuously moving camera. It zooms in, cuts in or out of the master shot or pans across. This movment could depict her adjitction and fusrtation. When watching this section you dont obviously notice the zooms or pans because they keep the continuity throughout.
After this it returns to another verse and consequently another narrative section. The transiton between them is a cut as it is a short sharp beat that it cuts on. It cuts to a young ginger girl in a sandwich board, who is getting bullied by the surrounding teens. The next camera movement is sort of contraversial as she sings "i walk with my head down tryna block you out" however the camera pans to the right to give us a full shot of the teens throwing things and laughing. However this works well as we are able to see what it is she is trying to block out.
We fluctuate between Taylor on the train track and this girl a few times, perhaps trying to protray their simularities.
Through a simple cut shot this leads back to the chorus section which is set the same as the previous chorus (again proving Bjornberg's multiple centripetal process). Like in the previous chorus we then cut to a shot of the young girl, but this time she is happy and hopeful singing along to the song. When Taylor sings the words "ever gonna be [is mean]" she rocks her head from left to right. This is exactly on the beat, thus strengthening Bjornberg's realisation of how strongly linked the 2 (rhythm and visual) must be.
We then cut to a shot of a little girl with her lunch tray who wants to sit with some other girls, but because her ribbon is blue and theirs is pink, they laugh at her and dont want her to sit down. During this section it cuts back to the country performance, again perhaps to show simularities.
The next section is arrived at by a the cirlce out transition. This type of transition is only used between 2 scenes perhaps trying to let us forsee what part will come next. This section is performance based with her on the train track again. In this section also are the previous man, and his friend; when we cut to a close up of her singing, the man is drinking in the background, however there is only a shallow depth of field, thus portraying her as the more important one. It then cuts to the little girl with her lunch tray on a toilet seat, however (as in previous sections) she is more hopeful singing along to the song. We cut back to the master shot of the country performance after this, however tha song has picked up more, with a stronger beat, withTaylor looking more confident. It is most likely for this reason that the background behind her changed through a scroll down transition. We can vaguely make out the words on the new background to say 'broadway' however after a circle out transiton it become clear, and there has been a costume change. Her hair also changed styles. This change in mise en scene makes her look older, suggesting a time jump in the narrative. We have numerous cut in and out shots of the theatre stage, which allow us to focus on both her and the set and band.
The last section of shots switch between seeing the characters that we saw being bullied earlier in a sucessfull in life, her braking free from the train track, and the performance in the broadway setting. These quick changes depict the positive mood change but also allow us to see the similarities in her positive outcome in life, suggesting that her, herself was mistreated by other when she was younger. The last shot shows the little girl in the theatre watching Taylors performance, with a huge smile, suggesting that she has changed her mood and possibly her outlook on life dramatically.
This music video contained both narrative and performance however the 2 were not isolated sections. They referenced each other and in some cases (for instance the penultimate shot) they became one.
Even though the artist we like, Jessica Drake, is unsigned it is still curtious and professional to gain her permission to use her song. We emailed her asking for permission and she was happy fo us to use the song 'You you you'. Below is the email link between our group and Jessica Drake. (The commencing email is at the bottom, then it follows upwards.)
From our target audience research we know that we want a solo artist, and that many of our target market would prefer a female singer. The criteria for the song was : 'upbeat', 'strong pulse', 'strong' and 'confident'. We also decided to choose an uncopyrighted song.
To find an artist who meet our criteria we started of thinking and asking around the people we know. Many of our friends or family members are singers however some were in bands, some were slow paced singers thus making them not appropriate for our project.
We then spread our net further afield looking on social networking sights for instance Facebook, and Myspace. We each found a few on these websites however when we discussed them as a group we decided that they either didn't fit our research criteria, or they weren't right for this project.
After the social networking sites we started going onto websites for unsigned artists. An unsigned artist website that we have used in the past is Jamendo. The main issue we had with this website is that the songs were not upbeat enough, or didn't have the right feel to them. Unsigned is another website that we browsed during our search. We found this to be a much better website with a wider oray of up-to-date music. We used the search criteria to narrow down our search and finally we found our artist. Jessica Drake. Following this we googled her name to find her personal website of which we chose the song off.
We have created a Prezi presentation in order to explain how we got to our choice of artist and song. If you double click the screen shot below it will take you directly to our presentation.
Now we have chosen our song, we thought it would be a good idea to get audience feedback from our target audience. We chose a selection of two girls and a boy as we felt this best represented our target audience. This is the feedback we got;
Naomi
Initial song feedback "reminds me of Avril Lavgine" "Very catchy" "i like the ending bit where her voice is more exposed" "really good song"
Questions Q: What kind of colour scheme can you imagine it being set in? A: Bold colours, possibly red as it symbolises love etc
Q: Where can you imagine it being set? A: Possibly parts in a bed, similar to the Talor Swift 'teardrops on my guitar'
Q: What weather do you think would best fit in the video? A: Mainly sunny because its quiet up beat, bt possibly rainy in the reminissing parts
Q: What type of clothes could you imagine the artist wearing? A: Maybe a flowery, floaty dress? not anything indescent
Q: Is there anyone inparticular you can imagine actinng as the artist? A: Me (charlie)
Q: Could you imagine instruments being played in the video? A: No, just her singing as it shows her strength
Q: Do you think we need to use bright lights or more dimmed? A: I think dim lighting would be better because it reflects the song more.
Q: We had an idea for the video: the artist would be walking forwards (filmed from a distance) continuously however the backdrops would be changing from and to famous cities for instance Paris, London, Singapore. Do you think this would fit with this song? A: Yes, i think that would work really well because the beat is strong enough and also it kind of helps with the strength of the song- exaggerating her isolation.
Q: Another idea we had is having the artist in a white dress, and getting sprayed/ splattered in bright coloured paints. Do you think would work? A: Possibly, however only for the chorus part as it's the most upbeat and relating
Louis
Initial song feedback "Upbeat drum beat" "vocals attacking" "wants to sound like a typical american singer" "Bass line follows guitar" "chorus is catchy" "generic" "long and winey notes"
Questions
Q: What kind of colour scheme can you imagine it being set in?
A: Natural sunny pastel scene
Q: Where can you imagine it being set?
A: field with flowers, under a tree etc
Q: What weather do you think would best fit in the video?
A: Sunny
Q: What type of clothes could you imagine the artist wearing?
A: Nice dress, with a necker chief
Q: Is there anyone inparticular you can imagine actinng as the artist?
A: Me (charlie)
Q: Could you imagine instruments being played in the video?
A: Yes, possibly a guy playing an acoustic guitar beside her
Q: Do you think we need to use bright lights or more dimmed?
A: Just natural lighting
Q: We had an idea for the video: the artist would be walking forwards (filmed from a distance) continuously however the backdrops would be changing from and to famous cities for instance Paris, London, Singapore. Do you think this would fit with this song?
A: Yeh, i think it would fit really well because it fits with the beats
Q: Another idea we had is having the artist in a white dress, and getting sprayed/ splattered in bright coloured paints. Do you think would work?
A: No because it's not generic enough
Mollie
Initial song feedback
"like the song"
"catchy"
"good beat"
Q: What kind of colour scheme can you imagine it being set in?
A: I would imagine it to have bold bright colours
Q: Where can you imagine it being set?
A: A field or bedroom, park, perhaps multiple settings would be good.
Q: What weather do you think would best fit in the video?
A: Sunny
Q: What type of clothes could you imagine the artist wearing?
A: Rock Chic
Q: Is there anyone inparticular you can imagine actinng as the artist?
A: Carris
Q: Could you imagine instruments being played in the video?
A: Yes I would like to see both instruments and the person
Q: Do you think we need to use bright lights or more dimmed?
A: Bright lights
Q: We had an idea for the video: the artist would be walking forwards (filmed from a distance) continuously however the backdrops would be changing from and to famous cities for instance Paris, London, Singapore. Do you think this would fit with this song?
A: Yeah it goes really well with the idea
Q: Another idea we had is having the artist in a white dress, and getting sprayed/ splattered in bright coloured paints. Do you think would work?
A: It is a very good idea that would go well with the popyness of the song.
Before we decide on any music for our project we decided to do some audience research. We needed to know are tatget market's preferences on singers, genres, moods and sounds. We handed this brief questionnaire out to 27 people fromthe age catagory: 12-20 year olds. Out of this 13 were male and 14 were female as we saw this as a fair representation of our audience.
From our research we can decifer that solo artists are more popular among our audience. One person we asked reasoned this because of the "more pure and simplistic sounds". Another reason they gave for this is because "the personality of the soloist comes out more". Acknowledging our results, we will choose a solo artist for our music.
We subsequently asked what genre of music they like the most. As we anticipated the majority of the people we asked replied with the kind of music which is in the charts. This mainly catagorises down to Pop and R&B, for instance; Katy Perry and Rhianna. Quite a lot chose 'Alternative' which can be a sub genre of most genres. For instance Mika generally catagorises into Pop, but he sub-catagorises into alternative pop as he brakes quite a few pop music conventions.
Our target audience, on the whole, like to listen to more upbeat and happy music. This fits well with their genre choice of Pop, as Pop is primarily upbeat.
The last question we asked is whether prefer their music to contain more vocals or more instrumental solos. The people who chose just instrumental were generally the people who had answered 'Band' previously, which suggests to us that for a solo artist, having vocals is more important than instrumentals.
To ensure that we keep on track of what we need to do we have formulated a list inwhich we need to complete. We have listed the tasks in order, and we will do connecting bits inbetween each point; the list is just a rough guideline to make sure that we dont miss a whole section out. We have also written what medium we might use in brackets next to it to ensure that we present our ideas in a creative, yet evenly spread way.
Research
- Initial ideas of what kind of artist(s) and song to use. (mind map)
- Audience Research (questionnaire, graphs, analysis, spoken interviews)
- Choose an artist and a song, and show why we came to the descision (Prezi)
- More exsisting video research, more specific (written)
- Analyse song feed back (short clip on the mac of our discussion)
- Requesting email permission to use the song (print out of the email chain)
Planning
- Casting (asking target audience, positives and negaives, audition)
- Decide if we want a narrative or a performance
- Decide on a setting/ settings
- Find the locations and check feasability of them (positives and negatives with pictures)
- Discuss ideas (group mic)
- Story board ideas (hand drawn storyboard) - Audience feedback on storyboard, change if necessary (filmed interview)
- Photo storyboard and analyse (imovie with pauses)
- Anamatic storyboard (video clip)
- Outfit, makeup and hair ideas and experiments (pictures and videos)
- Camera Experiments and Shots (paused iMovie)
- Health and Safety (Prezi and videos/ group discussions)
